Yes, the term “bitter” is loaded. If one even speaks of the lessons one learned at the hands of one’s ex, men (I have never had another woman call me “bitter”) proclaim that I am bitter and “haven’t gotten over it”. Fuck you, assholes. I am not “bitter” because I am so much happier now, but I still haven’t FORGOTTEN what the jerk did. I am just supposed to accept mistreatment and then never speak of it again lest I be called bitter? That is one big piece of gaslighting to try to shut me up. Again, fuck you, assholes.
I don't think of you as bitter at all. I think of you as tonic. Per Merriam-Webster, "one that invigorates, restores, refreshes, or stimulates". In the realm of herbal medicine, bitter herbs are often prescribed as a tonic to balance a system that has become stagnant and to help flush out toxins. Bitter is one of the five essential tastes to balance the palate. We NEED bitter, in other words. So, I say, bring it on. And all those stagnant, toxic, unbalanced trolls can just fuck right off.
If not bitterness, then hysterical, histrionic, cold, ambitious, emotional, hard, unkind, angry, unlovable, jealous, useless, calculating, man-hater, overreactive, unaccepting, inhospitable, overachieving. All language to remind women about our "proper place" as property. Dan Pfeiffer posted in MessageBox about the Christian Nationalist agenda that will be enacted if the Orange Menace is elected, and it all points to this. I'm a little bit bitter, too.
Oh, your excellent list is missing ‘strident’. Remember that one? Apparently stridency was enough to completely dismiss whatever a woman had written or had said.
She grew up among Christian Nationalists before she freed herself so she has some special insight. It is very important to get the message out because I think too many Americans have trouble understanding and believing the link between Trump and Christian Nationalists. It's all very very bad for all of us, but especially for women, who they most definitely do not believe are equal to men.
Great post! I too enjoy the bitter things - lemon peels, dark chocolate, etc.
I also just wanted to tell you that I hesitated to buy your book because I have never been married and didn't think it would be for me, but I decided to buy it (pre-order!) to support you and your inspiring writing, and then when it was magically in my kindle app on Monday night, I started reading and I'm hooked! I'm in a 10-year-long relationship with my person, and we're married-ish. We live together and support each other, but we didn't buy the white dress or get the certificate or change our tax filing status, etc. Your book is so far enlightening me to the ways in which I am really lucky, but also opening my eyes to the ways that I still stifle myself in order to keep the peace. I think I've always had "we'll get married someday" in the back of my head, but now I'm starting to reject that idea because what's the real benefit? Thank you Lyz, for always making me think!
Saaaame! I am listening to the audiobook on Spotify and (despite never having been married) I see a lot of my failed relationships reflected, as well as the relationships around me. NOT JUST FOR EX WIVES!
In old fights with my ex, he would say, “why couldn’t you say it THIS way? I could have heard it if you’d said it like THIS.” And it was just a way to deflect that it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d said it standing on my head while singing the National Anthem in Mandarin, he wouldn’t have tolerated it and couldn’t have truly heard it. You are a gifted writer, and truly, your delivery is outstanding - whether and how people absorb it is on them and reflects WAAAAY more about them than it does you. You are a Sage. A Truth Teller. And sometimes, the truth hurts!
Why shouldn’t we be bitter, when the culture never stops trying to control us? When we are sold marriage as the goal when it is the punishment? I’m 66 and I’ve never even been married but I’m still bitter about all those years I thought I was not good enough to be chosen. I could have done so many things instead of trying to make myself desirable. Now that I’m over wanting attention from men I am SO much happier.
Meeeeeeeee too! Menopause and freedom from the wants of hormones make this the best part of my life. I did the same as you, wasted lots of time trying to attract men, wanting to be chosen but not really willing to play the role. Water under the bridge! I still had and have a wonderful and interesting (to me, anyway) life!
As my ex-father-in-law the veterinarian liked to say: "better out than in!" True for all the things dogs and humans swallow that aren't good for them. Your post-swallowing process and outcome(s) are much more delightful than a dog's, Lyz, and 1000% more presentable.
I went to grad school in North Carolina. May WCU and its community greet you with genuine hospitality and hush puppies, both on the OK-to-swallow list and in whatever order pleases you. Happy book touring! Give 'em hell.
Bitterness and anger are normal emotions. They are healthy if they lead to action and effect change, as you are doing through your writing. Staying stuck in bitterness and anger without taking some kind of action is unhealthy. I have tried throughout my adult life to take my bitterness and anger at things that have happened to me and turn them around so they hopefully didn't happen again. Not always easy to do.
Just read it, and yikes. The reviewer really told on herself with that review, didn't she? Are their book reviews always mini memoirs in disguise? How unfair to the authors. Good thing Lyz has an army of people who appreciate her work --reading it now and thoroughly appreciating it.
I am so happy I even got a review and that my ex was basically called bad in bed in it, that it feels like a win. To have your work considered and taken seriously is all a writer can hope for. Whatever else beyond that is out of my control. But I do so love the people who have read and written to me to tell me that they feel seen and that this book is helping them choose their happiness. I am so lucky to have this community and so many other people who are brilliant readers and thinkers! This book wouldn't exist without you.
I’m looking forward to reading your book, which should arrive any day now. In reading the NYT review I couldn’t help but write this note to say: don’t let it bother you. The reviewer was uniquely unsuited to even hear you and took pains to miss your message. Whatever. Move on. As I think was attributed to PT Barnum: all press is good press.
Hmmm... special for MYaM subscribers only? Book tour promotional event? Premise for Lyz's next book? Whatever gets Brooks a kick in the shins, I'm not too picky.
Love this post - so thought-provoking. I recently submitted a short story about something that happened to me in the 1980s, and I kept asking myself whether I was "just bitter" and the story wasn't valuable, or whether it truly did make for a good piece.
Yes, the term “bitter” is loaded. If one even speaks of the lessons one learned at the hands of one’s ex, men (I have never had another woman call me “bitter”) proclaim that I am bitter and “haven’t gotten over it”. Fuck you, assholes. I am not “bitter” because I am so much happier now, but I still haven’t FORGOTTEN what the jerk did. I am just supposed to accept mistreatment and then never speak of it again lest I be called bitter? That is one big piece of gaslighting to try to shut me up. Again, fuck you, assholes.
Oh my gosh, YES. I've been called bitter, too, because I remembered things the way they happened instead of the way somebody wanted me to.
I don't think of you as bitter at all. I think of you as tonic. Per Merriam-Webster, "one that invigorates, restores, refreshes, or stimulates". In the realm of herbal medicine, bitter herbs are often prescribed as a tonic to balance a system that has become stagnant and to help flush out toxins. Bitter is one of the five essential tastes to balance the palate. We NEED bitter, in other words. So, I say, bring it on. And all those stagnant, toxic, unbalanced trolls can just fuck right off.
amen, asha. right there with you.
So well said.
If not bitterness, then hysterical, histrionic, cold, ambitious, emotional, hard, unkind, angry, unlovable, jealous, useless, calculating, man-hater, overreactive, unaccepting, inhospitable, overachieving. All language to remind women about our "proper place" as property. Dan Pfeiffer posted in MessageBox about the Christian Nationalist agenda that will be enacted if the Orange Menace is elected, and it all points to this. I'm a little bit bitter, too.
Oh, your excellent list is missing ‘strident’. Remember that one? Apparently stridency was enough to completely dismiss whatever a woman had written or had said.
yes, the list goes on.
Just like young people are never spry. The implied gendered or otherwise defining adjectives are endless.
The post you referenced is very good; thank you. Andra Watkins is also writing about this on her substack https://open.substack.com/pub/project2025istheocracy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=l0fb9
She grew up among Christian Nationalists before she freed herself so she has some special insight. It is very important to get the message out because I think too many Americans have trouble understanding and believing the link between Trump and Christian Nationalists. It's all very very bad for all of us, but especially for women, who they most definitely do not believe are equal to men.
Great post! I too enjoy the bitter things - lemon peels, dark chocolate, etc.
I also just wanted to tell you that I hesitated to buy your book because I have never been married and didn't think it would be for me, but I decided to buy it (pre-order!) to support you and your inspiring writing, and then when it was magically in my kindle app on Monday night, I started reading and I'm hooked! I'm in a 10-year-long relationship with my person, and we're married-ish. We live together and support each other, but we didn't buy the white dress or get the certificate or change our tax filing status, etc. Your book is so far enlightening me to the ways in which I am really lucky, but also opening my eyes to the ways that I still stifle myself in order to keep the peace. I think I've always had "we'll get married someday" in the back of my head, but now I'm starting to reject that idea because what's the real benefit? Thank you Lyz, for always making me think!
Saaaame! I am listening to the audiobook on Spotify and (despite never having been married) I see a lot of my failed relationships reflected, as well as the relationships around me. NOT JUST FOR EX WIVES!
There is no palatable way to express female anger in our culture, so let bitter be bitter.
In old fights with my ex, he would say, “why couldn’t you say it THIS way? I could have heard it if you’d said it like THIS.” And it was just a way to deflect that it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d said it standing on my head while singing the National Anthem in Mandarin, he wouldn’t have tolerated it and couldn’t have truly heard it. You are a gifted writer, and truly, your delivery is outstanding - whether and how people absorb it is on them and reflects WAAAAY more about them than it does you. You are a Sage. A Truth Teller. And sometimes, the truth hurts!
Why shouldn’t we be bitter, when the culture never stops trying to control us? When we are sold marriage as the goal when it is the punishment? I’m 66 and I’ve never even been married but I’m still bitter about all those years I thought I was not good enough to be chosen. I could have done so many things instead of trying to make myself desirable. Now that I’m over wanting attention from men I am SO much happier.
Meeeeeeeee too! Menopause and freedom from the wants of hormones make this the best part of my life. I did the same as you, wasted lots of time trying to attract men, wanting to be chosen but not really willing to play the role. Water under the bridge! I still had and have a wonderful and interesting (to me, anyway) life!
This is where I’m working to get to. Thanks for the inspiration ladies.
This is so goddam good
Came here to say this. SO GOOD.
Same!!!
As my ex-father-in-law the veterinarian liked to say: "better out than in!" True for all the things dogs and humans swallow that aren't good for them. Your post-swallowing process and outcome(s) are much more delightful than a dog's, Lyz, and 1000% more presentable.
I went to grad school in North Carolina. May WCU and its community greet you with genuine hospitality and hush puppies, both on the OK-to-swallow list and in whatever order pleases you. Happy book touring! Give 'em hell.
Bitterness and anger are normal emotions. They are healthy if they lead to action and effect change, as you are doing through your writing. Staying stuck in bitterness and anger without taking some kind of action is unhealthy. I have tried throughout my adult life to take my bitterness and anger at things that have happened to me and turn them around so they hopefully didn't happen again. Not always easy to do.
Me too, but so worth the work! Now I look back and remember the things not with heat, but indifference.
The review of your book in the NY Times was unfair. The reviewer clearly had made up her mind before even reading the book.
Just read it, and yikes. The reviewer really told on herself with that review, didn't she? Are their book reviews always mini memoirs in disguise? How unfair to the authors. Good thing Lyz has an army of people who appreciate her work --reading it now and thoroughly appreciating it.
I am so happy I even got a review and that my ex was basically called bad in bed in it, that it feels like a win. To have your work considered and taken seriously is all a writer can hope for. Whatever else beyond that is out of my control. But I do so love the people who have read and written to me to tell me that they feel seen and that this book is helping them choose their happiness. I am so lucky to have this community and so many other people who are brilliant readers and thinkers! This book wouldn't exist without you.
I’m looking forward to reading your book, which should arrive any day now. In reading the NYT review I couldn’t help but write this note to say: don’t let it bother you. The reviewer was uniquely unsuited to even hear you and took pains to miss your message. Whatever. Move on. As I think was attributed to PT Barnum: all press is good press.
Writer friends taught me that sometimes all you need to write in a review is "this wasn't for me "
Agreed.
I just read your Esquire interview and I would pay good money to see you fight David Brooks in the street!
Your verbal takedown of his use of flawed data to promote marriage was great, too.
Hmmm... special for MYaM subscribers only? Book tour promotional event? Premise for Lyz's next book? Whatever gets Brooks a kick in the shins, I'm not too picky.
Very beautifully said. You can't control someone else's willingness or capacity to listen; all one can do is write and speak clearly, and that you do.
Love this post - so thought-provoking. I recently submitted a short story about something that happened to me in the 1980s, and I kept asking myself whether I was "just bitter" and the story wasn't valuable, or whether it truly did make for a good piece.
Ah, so good Lyz. This song encapsulates it well for me: buzzkill by MOTHICA
https://open.spotify.com/track/4xlm4TJeOZAkJR6PkLL4Gx?si=00efb0b0c59947d8
Excellent writing.