I announced my divorce on Instagram and then AI impersonated me
December 20, 2025
After maintaining a total stance of public silence for months, I recently publicly announced my unexpected divorce on Instagram. I shared a picture of the divorce cake that my friends got for me, and shared a brief essay I had drafted the day before about the news. I had to edit it down slightly from my original draft to fit Instagram’s character limits. You can see the Instagram post here. And for the record, here is the photo of the cake and what I wrote:
Two weeks before our ninth anniversary in April my husband told me he wanted a divorce. I was completely blindsided. Going through an unexpected divorce has been the most brutal, humiliating, and traumatizing process I’ve ever experienced. In an instant my life trajectory changed. The markers of security that I had clung to following the previous year’s burst appendix hospitalization and my Dad dying in the same hospital where I was being treated suddenly vanished. Being forced to sell our house, the address I lived in longer than any other place in my life because of my complicated childhood, was one of the most devastating parts of this hellish timeline.
I don’t know if I would have survived the last several months were it not for my friends, those from home or around the world, those I’ve known for decades and those I’ve only recently met in the process of beginning to rebuild my life. Having friends from all ages, backgrounds, and circumstances has been a lifesaver because it turns out a lot of people have also gone through similar traumas that turned their lives upside down, who have a lot of counsel and camaraderie to offer.
Enough people have received the memo about divorce etiquette to ask whether a person’s divorce is a “congratulations” or “sorry” situation. Until recently the latter has been more applicable, but now that the state has decreed that my divorce is official I mostly feel a sense of overwhelming relief tempering my deep grief, and trying to stay focused on what’s next.
A divorce you don’t see coming really does a number on your sense of worth and identity. I did not choose to end my marriage, but I am humbled and struck by how many choices I get to make about my future. I am spending a lot of time thinking about the people and places, principles and pleasures that I want to prioritize in this next phase of my life.
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