What Is The Ending Of 'The Divorce He Didn'T See Coming'?

This is a very surprising and in a positive way well written end to ‘The Divorce He Didn’t See Coming’. At first I thought the wife was the villain in the story, bringing an unwarrented divorce, but her true reasons for wanting to leave were slowly revealed in the preceding chapters. They were not for spite or to hurt the husband. It would seem she had just wanted to find herself after years of dedicating herself to her husband and his children. The Husband was blinded by his own arrogance in this divorce and it took him until the end for him to finally realize some of his mistakes. The confrontation between the two was heartbreakingly emotional. Instead of a hollywood style make-up in the end, this couple amicably parted ways and acknowledged the growth that they had gone through together as a couple. The last scene found the wife to be finally starting to fulfill her dreams by launching her own business, while the husband had found new ways to fulfill his purposes by volunteering at a local community center. There could possibly be a friendship in the future for this couple, and that would be okay too. It was a bittersweet but really really good end to a very realistic divorce story, different from the other typical ways that divorces are portrayed.

What I most appreciate about this novel is how it has sidestepped melodrama. No grand romantic gesture; no airport reunions; simply two people coming to terms with the realization that love may not be enough to sustain a marriage. And even more, interesting than the primary characters are the others: husband’s snarky sister, wife’s pragmatic best friend. And yet they are never the center of attention, rather setting the edges for our protagonists as they journey through the sadness and growth that is their divorce. The last line of the novel is “Some roots grow deeper when they’re replanted.” I am floored that these words have hung with me this long. The author was intent on a deeply honest exploration of human emotions. If you have grown weary of stories where divorce is one of two genres – tragic or triumphant – then look no further for a fine middle ground.

Oh man! I did not expect that ending! The whole time I was hoping that the husband was going to come up with some big romantic gesture to win his wife back. But instead the story took a sharp left turn and the wife was very strong and stood her ground and they got a divorce. And it wasn’t portrayed in a negative way. The epilogue was a year later and the husband and wife were co-parenting their dog. They were being very respectful to each other and he even helped her move into her new apartment. There was a sweet moment where they laughed together at an old inside joke of theirs. I didn’t expect to like the ending but it was nice. A very realistic portrayal of two people who loved each other but grew apart.

This is unsatisfying for a number of reasons. Alex’s story is left unresoled. He is simply left, sad. Has he learned anything from his time with his wife and subsequent partners? Is he going to treat his next partner any better than he treated his wife? The answer to all of these questions is left with the reader to decide for themselves but it is clear from the rest of the novel that he won’t be changing. The whole novel has gone to great lengths to portray Alex as a slightly complex, multi-layered character, but in the end he is simply the ‘bad husband’ that the protagonist can now leave behind.

All he is to the novel is a cardboard cut-out of a ‘bad husband’ that the protagonist can leave behind. It’s all so easy and lazy for such a complex and real human being. Even the most self-centered of people have moments of insight into their behavior. By denying this to Alex, the novel goes for the simplest form of a moral play rather than as a realistic exploration of human behavior.