“This is me facing a list of issues that I have neglected, issues that have subsequently settled like dust to the bottom of my soul…”
Famed mom blogger Heather Armstrong of Dooce fame has announced that she and her husband, Jon, are separating.
Heather Armstrong wrote a blog post on Tuesday about the separation, hinting at thoughts of suicide (which she thankfully walked away from), and the difficulty of telling her own children.
I’m sad and devastated, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been more stable than I am right now.
No, this is me facing a list of issues that I have neglected, issues that have subsequently settled like dust to the bottom of my soul. And a few weeks of intense running, time spent alone on sidewalks tripping over limitations and physical pain have stirred it all up in a giant, suffocating cloud.
Heather Armstrong began blogging in 2001, about “pop culture, music, and my life as a single woman.” Armstrong also wrote about her then-bosses, an action that subsequently got her fired. After she got married and had her first daughter, Leta (now 7-years-old), her blog posts about her severe post-partum depression sparked a cult following. As Heather Armstrong explains on her ‘About’ page on Dooce:
This website chronicles my life from a time when I was single and making a lot of money as a web designer in Los Angeles, to when I was dating the man who would become my husband, to when I lost my job and lived life as an unemployed drunk, to when I married my husband and moved to my mother’s basement in Utah, to when I became pregnant, to when I threw up and became unbearably swollen during the pregnancy, to the birth, to the aftermath, to the postpartum depression that landed me in a psyche ward.
Heather Armstrong has written several books since she launched her successful blog, including It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita, and Things I Learned About My Dad (In Therapy). A third book, Dear Daughter: The Best of the Dear Leta Letters, is scheduled for release in April.
Heather Armstrong’s husband Jon also blogged about the separation, explaining that they have also decided it would be best if he no longer worked for the company they set up, Armstrong Media.
“I’ve felt that we were headed in the wrong direction, but I have allowed other issues to block me pushing for the changes. I’m not sure that I have the words to explain the devastation, pain, regret and sorrow I’ve felt the past couple of months. I’ve tried. After a very painful holiday season, this is where my life is: away from my kids; away from my wife; away from my dogs.
