What Getting Divorced in My 20s Taught Me About Love

When I was growing up in the 1990s, getting married wasn’t an “if” in the Midwest, but a “when”—and “divorce” was practically a curse word. Despite the statistics even then, I felt wildly entitled to a love story, and blissfully ignorant that it could one day end.

Now, the #DivorceTok hashtag has racked up some 1.4 billion views on TikTok, while the likes of Sarah Manguso and Miranda July have written best-selling novels about the same subject. It’s also become more common to split up sooner: “People are more financially independent and having kids later in life,” divorce attorney Shana Vitek tells me. “Nowadays, it’s just more acceptable to get out of a bad relationship.” As a 45-year-old woman who survived the dirty d-word in my 20s, I’m amazed at the cultural shift; we’ve moved from hushed tones to viral conversation.