The Man I Married Is Still the Smartest Man in the Room, the Best Conversationalist, and Even the Best Writer.

But he’s someone else’s husband now

Wendy Cohan
6 min readFeb 9, 2024

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Photo by Kate Joie on Unsplash

I would love to write about the smart, exciting, evolved man, who I spontaneously met following my divorce in 2016. I have visions of my new partner and I hanging out in our cozy mountain cabin with a fire crackling in the wood stove and our two dogs lying at our feet, while we work on our respective novels. I would enjoy being partnered with another writer, someone who understands this often lonely journey. But it hasn’t happened. And to be honest, this particular vision is a little “specific.” (Although if “specific” happened to be available and interested, I would have a hard time saying no.)

Although I am single, interested, and attractive, I don’t usually “attract” anybody — at least not anybody with the cojones to let me know. So I continue to head out on my short research trips and inspirational outings alone, and I have no plans to stop writing fiction.

What irritates me up the wazoo is this:

The single-most discerning review of my recently published book arrived in my inbox yesterday. It was from my ex-husband, who knows me so incredibly well. He “sees” things in my writing that no one else possibly could. And he

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Wendy Cohan

Author of character-driven women's fiction, short stories, and essays. Her contemporary romance, The Renaissance Sisters, debuted May 23, 2023.