My life had a routine. I’d get up at 4:30 a.m. and drive to Lorimar Studios in Culver City to work on Dallas. Then I’d go home, help the kids with their homework, study my lines for the next day, and then go off to bed I’d go. The kids loved to tell me to go to bed! They thought it was hysterical to turn the tables on me. Ed went to work, came home, and then disappeared into the guesthouse by the pool he’d converted into an art studio. This was our marriage.
I still cooked and cleaned, etc. On the Dallas set, I complained about the demands of being a working parent. Larry said, “What’s so hard about it?” Easy for him to say—he had a traditional marriage. While he worked, his wife ran the house and raised the kids. Maj Hagman was supportive and thrilled for her husband’s success. The breadwinner spouse had a reliable source of income. He enjoyed his work and came home in a good mood.
I came home exhausted. I had a hired housekeeper, but I was responsible for a million other parenting and household duties, along with working twelve-hour days on the show. My marriage was exhausting, too. It had been over for years already. But neither one of us made a move to physically leave.
That song, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” by the Clash came out in 1982, during the height of my marital Cold War. The kids, fifteen and seventeen, played it nonstop on the boombox. It seemed to be everywhere: in the supermarket, in elevators, on the car radio. I couldn’t escape that song and its burning question.
It’s not so easy to end a twenty-two-year marriage. We shared property, children, friends, and a history. Our lives were interwoven and would require fine tweezers to tease apart, painfully.
The kids were at the age when the focus should be on them and their future. Jeff was about to apply to colleges and Kehly was a hormonal mess. They didn’t need a major disruption in their home life.
Celebrity divorces weren’t treated with kid gloves by the media. How would the news of my divorce play out on the front page of tabloids? I didn’t want to find out.
Divorce was a big deal in any case. Nowadays, marriages are swapped out like winter and summer wardrobes. Back then, divorce was seen as a personal failure and the wife, nine times out of ten, was to blame. Audiences were shocked by the 1978 movie An Unmarried Woman with Jill Clayburgh, which showed a jilted wife getting on with her life, having sex and being happy as a single woman. It was considered revolutionary.
No one in my family had been divorced, going back as far as anyone could remember. Previous generations suffered in silence through their bad marriages rather than face failure and disgrace.
I’d adapted to how things were. It wasn’t horrible. I didn’t have a reason to end it, like if he beat me, did drugs, or cheated. There was no event that I could point to and say, “That’s why I left.”
Only one item in this category: I was miserable.
I thought, If I don’t get out of this marriage, I will die.
I went back and forth for months. Betty was my confidante and we talked about everything. Her marriage had been rocked by Leslie’s death, and we spent many hours discussing our problems. Betty also understood how private a person I was. I was afraid to stay in a marriage that was suffocating and not supportive, but I was terrified to leave and go through a divorce in the public eye. Betty counseled me wisely. “Life is short,” she said. “When you can’t stand it for one more day, you’ll be able to go.”
And that’s what happened. It was as if a tidal wave had been rising up above me for years. When finally it came crashing down over me, I knew I couldn’t stay even for one more day. It was undeniable. I had to go. Now.
Once I made the decision to leave, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. On the sly, I quietly started looking at houses in Malibu with a realtor. I rented a furnished place on the beach—only a mile from Larry and Maj’s. I didn’t tell anyone. The rental contract signed, I went home, packed a duffle bag of clothes and a toothbrush.
When Ed came home, I told him, “I can’t be married anymore.” My voice broke. I was weary, beaten down, overwhelmed, just raw, raw, raw.
He barely reacted. “Okay,” he said. “Do what you have to do.” I think he was in denial. His words had the usual tinge of condescension, like he was indulging his wacky wife in her little escapade. He assumed I’d come home with my tail between my legs.
We brought the kids into our bedroom. They sat on the bed. Ed and I stood in front of them. I said, “Kids, I’m so sorry. Your father and I are going to separate. It’s got nothing to do with you. It’s between Dad and me. We love you. I’ll always be your mom, but right now I can’t be married and I’m moving out.”
Like their father, the kids didn’t react much. Their deeper emotions didn’t surface until later.
I hugged and kissed them good-bye and said I’d call later, and then I drove straight to the beach. It was a dark and stormy night (really). I sank into the couch, watched the rain on the water, and thought, What have I done?
My private decision didn’t stay that way for long. The realtor ratted me out. He gave an interview to the National Enquirer, saying that I’d rented a house in Malibu and had abandoned my loving and supportive husband and my kids. I hadn’t breathed a word to the realtor about my personal life.
After the news broke, our mutual friends wanted nothing to do with me. Just like in An Unmarried Woman, our couple friends took Ed’s side. He’d had all those third-wheel dinners. He didn’t pose a threat to their marriages. But I was suddenly a single woman, a celebrity with her own money. The neighborhood wives treated me like Ebola. Not one called to see how I was holding up or asked to meet for a drink. They were too busy cooking casseroles and visiting Ed, like he’d been stricken with a fatal disease and needed round-the-clock care. I didn’t see or talk to any of those women again. I did hear from many of their husbands, who kindly offered to come to my house in Malibu to give me a shoulder to cry on. I was horrified at the thought.
I was in Malibu for several days before Ed showed up. He was getting nervous now, like I might actually be serious. We sat on the couch that faced the ocean. I said, “I was suffocating. I got no support from you when I needed it most.”
“I have supported you,” he said.
In his mind, he had been supportive because he tolerated my shooting schedule. But the truth was, he hated my success. At first I was the awestruck cheerleader for him, the model bride who was so impressed with him and did whatever he asked. But when the tables turned and I stopped being his cheerleader, started rooting for myself and asked him to be supportive of me, he was hostile and resentful.
“Where is this coming from? We never fight.”
True. We didn’t yell. But we weren’t caring, sharing partners either. It was more like living with a roommate who gave me no emotional support, but was critical and judgmental.
In the end, I just didn’t like myself with Ed. When we’re in relationships with others, we get a chance to view ourselves through their eyes. I didn’t like what I saw of myself in Ed’s eyes. He was my husband for a reason and he was one of my greatest teachers. If not for our marriage, our two beautiful children wouldn’t have been born. Our marriage allowed me to observe the compromises necessary for a marriage to function. If I hadn’t felt crushed by those compromises, I wouldn’t have excavated deeply into the Rabbit Hole to learn about the universe, the soul, and myself. Ed was to be honored for following his path, his dreams, for being a great father and the best husband he knew how to be. He did his best, as we all do.
But his best wasn’t enough for me.
The conversation went round and round. I’m not sure he understood why I did what I did, but I tried to explain myself. When he left, I remember feeling waves of relief. On the crest of that, though, the guilt. The kids, like Ed, understood by now that I was serious. Jeff reacted with his usual mysterious silence, but I knew there was chaos underneath. Kehly acted happy about the separation. Now she had a house in the country and a house on the beach. It was her honeymoon period with our divorce. I knew it wasn’t real. This was a major upheaval during a fragile time of her life. The reality was sure to come crashing down soon enough.
The first week, I holed up in the rental, afraid of being spotted and besieged by photographers. I was furious at the realtor and guilt ridden about the kids. I would have hidden in the house forever if I could have. Betty called to check in, but I didn’t even want to see her. Several days into my self-imposed exile, there was a knock at the door. I figured I’d been found by paparazzi. I peeked out from behind a curtain.
There stood my new neighbor, friend, and “husband,” Larry Hagman.
I opened the door, sobbing. He looked so sweet, holding a bottle of champagne, standing next to a Vespa scooter, wearing a tweed jacket, ascot, corduroy trousers, and an English cap. He gave me the bubbly. Then he reached in his pocket and took out a plastic bear full of soap you squeeze to make bubbles. His care package had a theme. I stood there, watching in awe, as he stood in my doorway, in his fancy pants blowing bubbles to cheer me up.
Naturally, I sobbed even harder.
We put the champagne in the fridge and then Larry said, “I’m going to introduce you to everyone in Malibu.” I got on the scooter and we putted around the neighborhood for hours. Larry gave me the grand tour. I met the dry cleaner, the wine guy, the owner of the pizza place, and the green grocer. He got me laughing and eating and having fun. I was so grateful to Larry. He didn’t try to get me to talk about what was happening. Larry knew he couldn’t fix my marriage or mend my heart, but he could make sure I went to the right mechanic.
Larry had a tradition. Every night at sundown, he and Maj would go out on their deck and open a bottle of champagne. As the sun touched the horizon, Larry would say, “Gong! Bong!” I don’t know why he did this, but it was his thing. He celebrated the passing of each and every day, and shared the moment with his wife, his kids, and whomever else was around.
That night, after our scooter tour of Malibu, Maj grilled steaks for us. When the time came, we toasted the sunset, and chanted, “Gong! Bong!” I started crying again. I was an open faucet during that horrible week. Larry and Maj wrapped me up in their arms. It was so nourishing, so loving. These people cared about me. I had friends. Someone was on my side.
When I first showed up at Charles Conrad’s acting class, I couldn’t have imagined that in less than five years, I’d become famous, would leave my husband, that my best friend would be Major Nelson from I Dream of Jeannie, that we’d drink champagne on his deck, and that I’d cry until I laughed so hard, champagne came out of my nose.
• • •
When I think of how my life unfurled after my divorce I am reminded of an Anaïs Nin quote, “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” For years I focused on what I should do instead of following through. I leaned toward the divorce without being brave enough, secure enough, sure enough to go through with it. But when I actually took the risk, my life became my own and I was happier than I’d ever been. In the years since, I can’t tell you how many women have come up to me and told me how Sue Ellen inspired them to leave unhappy marriages and how their lives bloomed open afterwards. Women need to stop obsessing about what they should do, and move forward. I’ve been thinking about the word “should” and how it goes against being at peace with yourself and your life. So, as is my wont, I made some lists:
It causes inertia. “Should I?” is tacit permission to blow something off. If you give yourself the option of being lazy, you’ll take it.
It fostered guilt. “I should really lose weight” or “I should get some exercise” is a constant reminder that you’re not doing it.
It erodes self-esteem. “I should stop smoking,” or “I should make new friends” only calls attention to the fact that you feel helpless to combat an addiction or improve your social life.
It reinforces the thing you “shouldn’t” do. If you say, “I shouldn’t nag my kids,” your subconscious only hears “nag my kids.”
It’s annoying. How do you react when someone says to you, “You really should go to this restaurant?” It’s like they know more than you do and are rubbing it in your face (or maybe that’s how it feels on a bad day). No one likes being told what to do.
It’s sabotage. As soon as I say “should,” I can feel my resolve weaken. But when I use positive language, like “I choose happiness and health,” there’s no issue about whether or not to take my gratitude walk or make my smoothie. There’s no “should” about taking care of myself. I don’t say, “I should really go to bed early tonight.” I just go to bed early! By removing “should,” you can get so much more done. That’s good. We’ve got so much more to do.
I’ve got nothing.