Chapter 1
The Sofa of Truth

The Spanish sun lit up the bedroom like a jewel as I lay in bed with my first coffee of the day. It had been three weeks since I'd returned from the hotel on New Year's Day, and one week since I'd made the "Selfish" declaration to my friends. Since then, I'd spent my time hiding in the bedroom, going for long walks through the city, and trying to erase the whole thing from my mind. I felt stupid and ashamed that I had even thought about being selfish. What right do I have to complain? To be sad?

The doors to our small balcony were open, and I could hear the soft staccato of mothers chatting with their children as they walked them to school. A dog barked in the distance and the bells of the church down the street told me it was nine o'clock. I lay back on the pillows and wondered, like I had every morning for the past few months, how I'd gotten myself into this mess.

I slid out of bed and passed the master bath with the gleaming copper tub we'd had shipped from England. Our 10-week-old boxer puppy, Lola, gave a woof from her crate in the corner, eager to be let out.

My bare feet felt warm against the herringbone hardwood as I passed through the living room into the kitchen. The main living area was one large room divided by a massive brick pillar, flanked on the street side by two French doors with their original wood shutters, and on the other side a large window looking into the courtyard of the building.

Leo sipped an espresso on the huge leather sofa we'd bought in Madrid. He didn't look up as I walked past; the silence in the apartment sat in stark contrast to the street noises outside.

"Morning," I said as I rinsed out my cup.

"Morning," he replied.

My stomach tensed, but I tried to ignore it and focused on wiping the counters. In the hallway outside our front door, I could hear workers setting up for the day. They'd been restoring the original tiles on the stairs, and every day as I walked down the three flights to the main floor, it looked more and more like I imagined it would have in the early 1900s, when the building had housed just one wealthy family.

The day loomed ahead of me, and I wondered what to fill it with. I had a few client calls and then a big empty void on the calendar. Normally that would excite me - a day with nothing to do - but these days it filled me with dread.

A familiar tightness gripped my chest and I leaned against the counter, studying the back of my husband's head, wondering for the millionth time how we'd gotten here. Not just in Valencia, as two Canadians who'd put everything in storage and moved, sight unseen, to a rental apartment in a city we'd never visited. Not just in this beautiful apartment that we'd bought on a whim and spent the last six months renovating. I wondered how we'd arrived at this place in our relationship. How did we stray so far from that heady day two years ago when we got married in Rome, feeling the October sun on our heads as we promised to love each other for the rest of our lives?

We'd bought the apartment in the spring of 2019 after a whirlwind romance, an Italian elopement, five months of travel, and countless impulsive decisions. The building had once been a grand manor and, like everything else in Valencia, what you saw on the surface hid centuries of history underneath. First, the Moors built their city, baths, and temples. Then the Romans came and built on top of that, and their first road lay under our bedroom. Across the street, the Roman Circus once hosted the elite of the city, who came to watch races and shows. Afterward, the Christians showed up and built on top of the Roman city, creating the cobblestone streets, grand cathedrals, and churches that stood outside our windows.

The manor had been divided into apartments, and ours was on the third floor, looking onto the street in the front. It had been stripped down to the original brick, concrete floors, and traditional curved ceilings so common in Spain. Over the course of six months, we'd brought the place back to life, restoring the original brick walls wherever we could, placing new glass in the French doors of the three balconies, and bringing our mutual passion for design into every detail. It should have been a dream come true and yet, as we worked together choosing tile samples, lighting fixtures, and furniture, I felt numb and disconnected. I couldn't get excited about the process. Leo questioned me about it.

"You don't seem into this," he'd said one evening as we looked at furniture online.

"I am," I said. Lies.

"You're not excited about the process. In fact, you seem annoyed most of the time."

I fell silent. He was right, and I had no good answer. Here we were, planning a trip to Madrid to pick out a sofa, and I could barely muster up a smile. The only thing I thought I felt was exhaustion - another lie. The truth was that I really felt an ocean of emotions; I just wasn't prepared to acknowledge them.

I couldn't see a way out of the life I'd created, and this made me feel trapped, scared, and ashamed that I even felt that way. As a life coach of seven years, and after over a decade of working on myself, I knew logically that I wasn't stuck. I could reason with myself and think through my options, but every time I tried to do this, my fear shut it down hard. I ended up in confusing loops in my mind that paralyzed me and convinced me that I had no choice but to stay in the mess I'd created.

I had a lot of reasons to stay right where I was. We had only been married for two years; we'd had a dream wedding, just the two of us, in Rome and the photographs were like something out of a magazine. We'd rented a classic car and had a driver take us through the ancient city, the golden sun warming our heads as locals shouted "Auguri!" ("congratulations" in Italian) as we drove past. Cruising past the Colosseum in the gorgeous dress I'd brought over from Canada, next to my best friend, on our way to get married in the original Campidoglio (city hall) felt surreal.

We'd met when I was newly single after divorcing my first husband and father of my three children. I'd met husband number one when I was 18; he'd proposed after three months of dating, and we were married one year later, two weeks before I turned 20. Naive, confused, and swept off my feet by his grand gestures and dynamic personality, I fell into marriage like a skydiver falling out of an airplane: loving the free fall, praying the parachute would open. I saw marriage as an easy escape route from living with my parents. He had ambition and drive; I had a desire to be rescued. He wanted to be an entrepreneur and real estate investor; I wanted to go along for the ride. He was outgoing, fun, the life of the party; I was shy, introverted, and insecure. This guy was everything I wasn't; maybe he could fill the missing pieces inside of me. I went full-on Jerry Maguire. You. Complete. Me.

As a young and naive girl, I quickly figured out the formula to make our marriage work. People-pleasing saved me, just like it always had. Hurt Girl knew what to do. Stuff my feelings, repress my anger, and be selfless. Sacrifice my career for his. Give up my financial power to him. Lose myself in parenting and running the household. Be a good wife and make everyone happy. Keep the peace. Be the buffer. Shape-shift to accommodate.

What I didn't know back then could fill an entire book. I didn't know that he had bipolar disorder, and a growing alcohol addiction. I didn't know why our life descended into chaos over and over. I didn't know that my Hurt Girl, and his Hurt Boy, were running our lives. And I didn't know that we were on a slow train to disaster.

Twenty-four years later, our marriage screeched to a dramatic ending (more on that later), and I realized that not only was I not complete, I'd become a shell of my former self.

A mere three months after the end of my marriage, I downloaded a dating app and threw together a profile. Hurt Girl would not allow me to sit in misery. The pain I felt from witnessing my marriage end felt insurmountable. Add to that the pain of my three kids as they processed their parent's divorce, and I was sinking fast into darkness. Instead of taking time to heal, Hurt Girl came up with a brilliant plan: distract, avoid, deny. I told myself that I would just "see what's out there" and have some fun; didn't I deserve that, after everything I'd been through? I further justified it by reminding myself that husband number one and I had been separated three times, seen four different therapists, and had been trying an in-house separation over the past year. I'd felt alone inside the marriage for a very long time. So I bought into Hurt Girl's logic.

Leo was the first guy I matched with on the app. He was handsome, with kind eyes. Good banter. He asked me out and I said yes, in spite of that little voice inside whispering, "Are you out of your mind?!"

Our first date was a walk with my dog. I felt nervous, worried that someone would see me, and doubting my decision with every step we took on the path along the river. Hurt Girl was calling the shots, but my denial wasn't so deep that I couldn't see that this was probably a very dumb idea. I'd...