Thank you for coming

First post!

All Fours Group Chat

I've received hundreds of DMs over the last 6 months and so often I wanted to screenshot and share them so you could see you weren't alone. My hope is that this is a place you can write and read such messages, enjoying the energy of a warm and curious group.  Because while many of you are able to radically question your life and future with your friends, just as many don't have anyone they feel safe being totally honest with. I get it, we are trying to be so good and kind and not hurt anyone and sometimes that means holding a lot inside. Or not even knowing, yourself (keeping a secret from yourself.) Some women said they were actually nervous that someone would see them reading All Fours, it felt too exposing.

But others of you asked your partners to read it and this was the start of a new conversation between you. This is what I probably would have done, if this book had come out when I was still married (and I hadn't written it lol). Whenever I heard of a new kind of domestic arrangement or a rumor of an especially angry or lovelorn or risky woman I would mention it to my partner in an offhand way, ready to throw her under the bus if need be, but ears cocked, listening. Waiting to hear how much trouble I would be in if I was just myself. In many ways that’s not my situation anymore, but in other ways it will always be my situation, it's ancient feeling I carry with me, B.C. (or actually maybe not B.C. – it was probably not a feeling I had when I was living in pre-Christian times. Not to point fingers.)( I guess this Substack will need to be loose or I won't want to do it.)

Ok, here's the request for this week: tell us what those post-book conversations with your partner were like. What happened next? We all want to know. (And feel free to suggest future topics, everyone will get their turn to tell their tale!) Thanks for following me here.

x

mj

Note to paid subscribers: The MJ posts will be an open-ended, exploratory journey over time, in various mediums, physical, emotional. Some company in this life.

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