Busy Philipps almost divorced husband Marc Silverstein over uneven parenting
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Busy Philipps has been married to screenwriter Marc Silverstein since 2007 and they have two children together, Birdie, 11, and Cricket, six. I’ve often wondered about their relationship, because Busy is so demonstrative on social media and she doesn’t post much with or about Marc. Plus I feel like she’s a friend, since she shares so much of her personal life online and she once retweeted me. (That’s all it takes really. Also there’s something about Twitter and Instagram that makes you feel like you’re friends with everybody.) In a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Busy opened up about her relationship issues with Marc and said that she considered divorcing him because she was doing so much of the work at home. She also gave some insightful comments about how everyone’s marriage is struggling, and how admitting that can separate you from your friend group. Busy was interviewed by author Eve Rodsky, who is promoting her book Fair Play, which focuses on negotiating responsibilities in a partnership/marriage. The article is worth reading as it’s well written and gives more context. Rodsy opens with the fact that Busy has previously admitted to considering divorce, but this is news to me. I need to read her memoir.
On how married women are supposed to act like everything is fine
“You know what they say about divorce, right? In friend groups, divorce is a house of cards. In friend groups, if you’re all married, you have a silent agreement to be miserable together. And a lot of times the person who decides to leave is vilified in the group because you’ve upset the status quo. Like, ‘How dare you? We had a f-king agreement to be miserable.’
“But here was the thing I kept saying to myself, I am not certain that I will ever be happy, but I know for certain I do not have to feel miserable all the time.”
“Many women wait until it’s too late. At that point their resentment is too high and their communication patterns are set.”
Her husband agreed to take over mornings and bedtimes after she threatened divorce
“My thinking was that if I leave, at least then maybe I’d get two days off a week. I understand that I’m in a place of privilege, and even if I left Marc and I’d been super down on my luck, there was a version of life that I could have made work for me and my daughters. This is not the reality for many women.”
“Marc was like, ‘I’ll do anything.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, then do everything. Because I have done it all, all by myself, and I’m done, dude.’”
“I was fully out the door. I wasn’t expecting anything from him, but what we ended up doing was creating our own system.”
“He now loves his mornings with the girls. He’ll make my Bulletproof coffee and bring it into the bedroom while I’m still sleeping, and then leave to take the kids to school. He has conversations with them that I’m jealous of. The closeness he now has with these girls, it’s really special.”
Marc on why he was absent and how he changed
“I like being good at stuff. And I didn’t feel like I was good [in the home], so I stayed away. I realized that deep happiness comes from my family. And once I figured out what I could bring to the table, things changed. I wanted to do more.”
“Once Busy said, ‘I need you to put Birdie to bed every night,’ I owned it. And I was good at that. I started with one thing and it grew from there.”
Among my friends who are still married, it takes more for them to open up about their relationship issues than it does for my single friends (and me) to bitch about the guys we’re dating. So that part of Busy’s interview really resonated with me. I’m a divorced single mom and while my son’s dad is still very present and visits often, he lives overseas. I now do everything on my own and I prefer it that way, although I’m trying to teach and convince my teenager to help pick up the slack. (He really tries.) My ex was quite good about doing laundry and cleaning though, we had a great system worked out and that wasn’t our main issue. Relationships are complicated and there are so many moving parts when you’re raising children with someone. Marc impressed me here.
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