An Author’s Raw Admissions About Relationships, Cheating, and Turning One’s Life Around
Browsing articles by other writers is one of my favorite diversions. For me, it’s an opportunity to examine themes and writing styles that often contrast with my own.
Recently, I stumbled upon a piece that immediately captured my attention. Entitled “Once You Cheat, Are You Doomed To Do It Again,” it offered one woman’s personal account of an affair she had several years ago and what she learned from it.
In the opening sentence of this article it reads:
“I cheated on my first husband. I could give you all of the excuses: I’d already filed for divorce. He kept screwing up after months and months of multiple chances. The affair was “only” emotional.”
You may be wondering who this person is and what led her to pen such a vulnerable account. Her name is Tara Blair Ball and she is a Memphis-based freelance writer and author of the book “The Beginning of the End: A Memoir About a Broken Relationship, Addiction, and Human Frailty.” Here is a brief description of what the book is about:
“In 2017, Tara Blair Ball thought she had it all: a handsome husband, beautiful infant twins, and a great house in the suburbs. But then came a discovery that worked just like a grenade lofted into the middle of her superficially serene life: her husband had been secretly abusing drugs for years, he had a secret card, and he'd embezzled from his job.
After trying to work things out and having two devastating miscarriages, she'd then commit her own great betrayal: having an affair. Told with suspense, humor, and unflinching honesty, The Beginning of the End captures the agonies and joys of one imperfect woman, trying the best she can in unspeakable circumstances.”
With a reputation for being raw and open regarding her life experiences, Tara is now a top blogger on relationships, love, advice, self-improvement, psychology, and life lessons, currently reaching a whopping 300k+ readers a month via publications like Medium, Mamamia, and the Good Men Project.
Recently, I reached out to Tara via LinkedIn, curious about how someone could be so vulnerable in their writing. She agreed to an interview on the heels of a new business she’s forming along with a new baby she’s expecting with her current husband at the end of October. All of this in the middle of a pandemic that at the time of this writing is hitting Memphis, the city where she currently resides
Says Tara who has twin 4-year olds and a bonus step-daughter:
“Instead of nesting and getting the nursery ready as some moms would do, I’m scrambling to get my business prepared so that I can step back a bit when that time comes. It has felt like a panicked race to the end. This baby can’t come any sooner.”
We then jump into a brief discussion about Tara’s life journey and decision to write the book which she opens up about in her characteristic “no holds barred” style:
“I am a relationship coach and writer, that’s what I do full-time, that’s what my business is. I am also a former teacher who taught for 12 years. I am also a recovering drug addict with over 13 years clean.”
She continues:
“So the premise of the book was actually my life. It’s a memoir. A few years ago I was married to the father of my twins and right before they turned one I discovered drugs in my house. It came to light that my ex-husband had been secretly using drugs for our entire relationship. After that, I discovered one thing after another —he was compulsively spending, hiding money, etc. And then the icing on the cake was in finding out that he had been embezzling from his job. And so I filed for divorce.”
Tara says that the day he was served the divorce papers, she discovered that she was pregnant.
“In the State of Tennessee where we resided, you cannot get divorced if there is a pregnancy because they make you wait until after the baby is born to assess child support. So everything was on hold and he and I were trying to figure something out because I was going to have a baby and didn’t know what was going to happen.”
As though all of this weren’t enough, Tara recounts:
“I then miscarried and then a month later I ended up having an affair with a coworker and leaving my ex-husband. So it was a very crazy, dark time in my life”
Tara says that it didn’t matter whether she had all of the requisite tools as a relationship coach, a psychology background and had been in recovery because her life was flat out messy and running solely on feelings. She admits to at that time having a total lack of understanding as to why all of this was happening to her.
“I made every mistake I could have -- I didn’t handle it gracefully at all but I still came out a lot better. It just took me some time.”
She says that writing book offered kinda a healing elixir amid the painful journey she was experiencing:
“Oh yea, I actually started writing the book while all of this was happening. I was in a writers group where we wrote every month. My cohort would ask me to update them each time we got together on what had happened since the last time we met. And I would always have something new to share that would turn into the next chapter of my book.”
In the end, she says that this process allowed her to look back at things in a very different light than in the very moment she was experiencing it.
“I wasn’t just running on emotion when I was editing it, so that part was really healing to just move through. I see all of this as very much in the past, not something that’s impacting my present. It’s been a gift to me of being able to move through something and let it go.”
Fresh off of a recent exchange she had with a reader who took issue with her use of a swear word in one of her writings, I inquired of Tara about her propensity to be so raw and vulnerable in what she shares publically. She offered this thought:
“This is something that’s always been the case with my writing. I think the difference is in how I’ve responded to other people’s pushback. When I was younger, I would often try to either cater more to these people, apologize or feel guilty, or even stop writing altogether. I had periods when I felt embarrassed or ashamed about what I was putting out because of some sort of criticism like, “you’re too open” or “I don’t like the language you use.”
She says that over the past couple of years, with the huge outside validation of 300,000 and 500,000 people reading her work every month, it doesn’t matter to her when she receives these little criticisms.
“Honestly, whenever I get these criticisms now I just recognize that I’m not the writer for them —that’s really what it comes down to. I’ve just gotten more confident with all that I’ve written and am able to take more of an ownership of my own stuff. I’m fine and comfortable with how I write.”
With 2020 having been a chaotic year due to the covid pandemic and social unrest, I asked Tara how all of this has impacted and informed her own personal reading interests:
“It’s funny in that I have been reading a lot of science fiction of late, something I read as a child. When the pandemic hit it was like I needed some comfort. So I started reading books again that I read as a teenager because it felt more comforting.”
“And I always end up reading self-help because I‘m constantly trying to get better and as a coach who has a desire to help others get better too. So those have been my two main interests.”
I then asked Tara which book has had the greatest influence on her life. After pondering for a moment, she provided this response:
“I’ve always found that to be such a hard question because there’s a few. I think about the book “The Secret” a book I view very differently than I think others do. For me, the book offers some insights on my desires and how to move towards them but not in some sort of fantasy way such as ‘if I just will it hard enough I’ll be able to see it perfectly,’ and that sort of silly thinking. But I really do like the idea of being able to shift my thinking because it helps me to feel more positive and see things in a different light.”
“I also like the book ‘The Time Traveler's Wife,’ a book I re-read probably every year because I’ve always enjoyed the psychology of it. I’ve always really been drawn to that book and have found it to be so relatable in terms of how tough relationships can be and the need for two people to work on it together if they want to remain in the relationship.”
Tara says that she primarily reads from her phone using either her Kindle or Scribd app. She explains:
“I have so many books that are hardcopy and I prefer paperbacks just because I end up bending them. I’m kind of rough with books. So I don’t want super pretty hardback ones.”
And then Tara offered this:
“Things changed for me during the pandemic as I found it harder to pay attention or keep reading with paperback books. Part of this was probably tied to the overwhelming malaise I felt when lockdowns started and everything began to hit me harder. I just wasn’t able to keep my attention there. So the digital books make it easier because I have a tiny amount of words to flip through on the screen versus a whole page.”
Dovetailing to Tara’s own book The Beginning of the End: A Memoir About a Broken Relationship, Addiction, and Human Frailty, I asked her what she hoped readers will walk away with from it:
“In general that shit happens and we are all responsible for what happens afterward. I say to my clients all the time that it really doesn’t matter why certain things happen, and why certain people come into our lives. Rather, all that matters is what we do moving forward.”
Tara admits that the hardest part for her was in recognizing how she had been willfully ignorant of her ex-husband’s secret drug abuse.
“Looking back I had tons of signs that something was wrong but I purposely chose to ignore those. So the message I hope that everyone will get from my writing is that despite facing bad stuff in our lives, we all have the ability to move forward and get through it.”
