Divorce Is Not a Crime

Three women live in the same neighborhood. Three marriages, one shared predicament.

They all tried. Li Xuemei tried to get her husband to move back into the bedroom, only to discover that no amount of willingness could rewrite what her body remembered. Wen Jing taught her husband to say no, then realized he had merely mistaken enduring something for accepting it. Wang Cui gave the man a whole year to atone, only to learn that when a wife has to play prison guard, the marriage is already over in all but name.

The “innocent” in Divorce Is No Crime isn’t a legal verdict. It’s a verdict on life.

A wife who refuses intimacy with her husband is innocent: her body belongs to her. A wife who doesn’t want children is innocent: her womb isn’t public property. A wife who chooses to leave after being betrayed is innocent: she doesn’t have to spend the rest of her life mourning a wound. A husband who asks for a divorce is innocent, too: when a relationship has been reduced to silence and avoidance, leaving isn’t betrayal. It’s admitting that both people deserve a fresh start.

In a society that reflexively urges people to reconcile rather than divorce, amid the moral blackmail of “just hang on for the kids” and the outdated prejudice that “a divorced woman is worth less,” this novel asks a real question: Does the end of a marriage have to mean failure?

Or can acknowledging that a relationship has served its purpose and parting with dignity be a kind of success, too?

Divorce Is No Crime is written for everyone who has ever felt suffocated in their marriage. It doesn’t just teach you how to make a marriage work. It also tells you that when making it work has drained every last bit of life from you, leaving can be an act of courage.