In July, Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert announced that she had split from her husband of nine years, Jose Nunes, whom she called “Felipe” in the book to tell the story of how she met him on her publisher-subsidized journey. Now we know why Gilbert left Nunes because she just posted a gushing Facebook entry describing how she fell in love with her best friend of 15 years, a woman named Rayya, when she was helping Rayya during her cancer treatments. Gilbert describes their love as “the truth” and like it was inevitable:
This spring, I received news that would change my life forever. My best friend Rayya Elias was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer — a disease for which there is no cure.
In the moment I first learned of Rayya’s diagnosis, a trap door opened at the bottom of my heart (a trap door I didn’t even know was there) and my entire existence fell straight through that door. From that moment forward, everything became about HER. I cancelled everything in my life that could be cancelled, and I went straight to her side, where I have been ever since.
Many of you already know who Rayya Elias is to me. She’s my best friend, yes, but it’s always been bigger than that. She’s my role model, my traveling companion, my most reliable source of light, my fortitude, my most trusted confidante. In short, she is my PERSON. I have spoken about her so many times on this page, and many of you have heard me speak about her in my speeches, too (such as my “Hummingbird” speech, where I sang her praises with all the love I could muster.) Some of you have even come to see the two of us speaking together on stage, over the years. Anyone who has ever seen us together knows that I am devoted to Rayya. I’ve never made a secret of it. As Ann Patchett said once of our friendship: “Your love for Rayya has always been writ large.”
But something happened to my heart and mind in the days and weeks following Rayya’s diagnosis. Death — or the prospect of death — has a way of clearing away everything that is not real, and in that space of stark and utter realness, I was faced with this truth: I do not merely love Rayya; I am in love with Rayya. And I have no more time for denying that truth. The thought of someday sitting in a hospital room with her, holding her hand and watching her slide away, without ever having let her (or myself!) know the extent of my true feelings for her…well, that thought was unthinkable.
Here is the thing about truth: Once you see it, you cannot un-see it. So that truth, once it came to my heart’s attention, could not be ignored.But what to do with this potentially life-shattering truth?
Now let me tell you something I’ve learned from Rayya, over the fifteen years of our friendship. She is the most brave and honest person I know, and she has taught me more about courage and honesty than anyone I have ever met. Here is her mantra on truth, which I’ve heard her express so many times over the years, in so many difficult situations:
“The truth has legs; it always stands. When everything else in the room has blown up or dissolved away, the only thing left standing will always be the truth. Since that’s where you’re gonna end up anyway, you might as well just start there.”So I did what Rayya has taught me to do: I just started there. I spoke my truth aloud.
For those of you who are doing the math here, and who are wondering if this situation is why my marriage came to an end this spring, the simple answer is yes. (Please understand that I cannot say anything more about it than that. I trust you are all sensitive enough to understand how difficult this has been. As David Foster Wallace once wrote: “The truth will set you free — but not until it’s had its way with you.” Yes, it has been hard. Yes, the truth has had its way with us. And yes, the truth still stands.)
So. Here is where we stand now: Rayya and I are together. I love her, and she loves me. I’m walking through this cancer journey with her, not only as her friend, but as her partner. I am exactly where I need to be — the only place I can be.
That was somewhat exhausting to read and there’s even more that I didn’t excerpt. While I understand that she believes she is living her truth and it’s admirable that she’s been there for her best friend as she’s dealing with cancer, cheating is cheating. Eat, Pray, Love read as self indulgent to me, and I see more of the same in this announcement. Good for her for realizing her best friend was her person, as she puts it, but she left her husband for Rayya and she’s trying to wrap it in the same kind of higher calling self awareness package. I shouldn’t be so cynical, it must be so difficult to go through cancer treatment and she’s a loyal, caring person who stood by her friend’s side. Surely dealing with that experience bonded them. She explains their love as “the truth” and immutable when it is absolutely a choice to act on an attraction and leave your partner. We don’t know how that happened or if Gilbert was upfront with her husband. I suspect she left him similarly to how she explained leaving her first husband in Eat, Pray, Love and in that case it was all about her.
This is going to be another book as Kaiser asked about, right? This is going to be all about how she realized she loved Rayya and all about their cancer journey (that’s how she wrote it) and we just got a preview of what’s to come. I hope Rayya is doing well and that she’s responding to treatment.
Thank you for the love, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/rkCZVyIDwg
— Elizabeth Gilbert (@GilbertLiz) September 7, 2016
Photos are from Twitter and Facebook. Header photo is from 2014. Other photos are from 2016
Rayya is also an author. She wrote Harley Loco, which is a surprisingly good book. Much better than Eat Pray Love.
most books are much better than Eat Pray Love.
Ha, preach! I loathed that book.
Yes!
Ya ha queenb
@QueenB Taylor Swift, is that you?
I’m so happy to see that Celebitchy felt the same way I did about the book. Everything was about the author, and she seemed so annoying and self-absorbed! I kept thinking OMG she’s learning NOTHING about these cultures she is visiting. How horrific.
I must be the only person on the planet who loved this book and found it inspirational.
Of course she’s going to write a book about this. Of course she will. She’s already making Rayya’s cancer all about her. What an insufferable human being.
She calls it “truth” and I call it a “hot mess”.
If this woman has pancreatic and liver cancer, I expect the book will wrap up with how in their short time together Elizabeth learned so much about herself and life and love. Her death will be all about how much Elizabeth loved her. And then she’ll close that chapter of her life and find some new self-serving “journey” that she can turn into a book.
Exactly. The next book will about how she learned so much about herself on her journey through dealing with a loved one’s cancer, and the third book will be about how she found learned so much about herself and found love again after battling through her grief over the death of her partner… And maybe I’m cynical, but I really think the fourth book will be about how she learned so much about herself during her struggle to conceive and/or adopt a child as a 49 year old.
Insufferable is the exact word I come up with to describe her and her books! I couldn’t get past the first few pages of Eat Pray Love before I threw it out the window. SO inauthentic.
Co-sign all of the above. I’m sure Elizabeth is in love with Rayya, but having read two of her books and listened to her podcast, I truly believe she is a “tourist” of life’s journeys. She seems to like to “try things on,” experience it and then discard it when it gets old or boring. I, too, suspect we’ll be treated to a book about trying to have a child in her 50s. Just feel sorry for the eventual kid when she realizes kids aren’t “fun” all the time and can’t be divorced.
Well, good luck. Love is love, but cheating is also cheating.
Elizabeth Gilbert is insufferable.
Yes. She reminds me of my sister-in-law in terms of the terms they use when speaking. At the end of it all, I think, “What exactly are you trying to say?” Too many words! just say it!
She didn’t cheat on her husband. It clear from her post that she was friends with this woman for years, like many women are with their girlfriends. Not everyone falls in love with each other. She left her husband when she realized that she fell in love with her.
I’m puzzled as to why people jumped to the cheating conclusion, too. It sounds like she realized that the relationship was falling apart, found herself attracted to someone else, and then left her husband before, and not after, starting another relationship. It’s not pretty, even if she found her “one,” but it is not cheating either.
Anyway, I kind of feel sorry for everyone in this situation. I feel sorry for the husband because it has to hurt to be dumped for someone else, even if cheating isn’t involved. I feel empathy for Gilbert for taking so long to come to terms with her sexuality and to have a partner whose life is in danger. Lastly, I feel sorry for Rayya for her illness.
You said everything I was feeling while reading this post, and explained it much better than I would have.
I don’t think she necessarily “came to terms” with her sexuality. Human sexuality isn’t always either/or.
Azurea, I think you’re exactly right. My sister has been in love with a woman as well as with men. For some people, attraction is a lot more fluid than simply male or female. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Gilbert ends up with a man again someday.
@DIV I don’t think she “came to terms with her sexuality.” She said she fell in love with Rayyaa not “finally I’ve realized I’ve always been attracted to women!” I actually think she’s in love with Love as much as with Rayyaa as a person. She strikes me as someone who feels and expresses herself in a very emotional and artistic way.
Can someone please explain this to me?
I’m asking as someone who has been boy crazy since I was very young. It started with the Monkees and Mickey Dolenz, moved to a David Cassidy poster I kissed every night, then Andy Gibb, boys at school, etc. I’ve always loved men.
My cousin is a lesbian. I remember back in high school she graduated a year before me and started at VA Tech. I didn’t not know at the time she was a lesbian, but I can remember her inviting me up for a weekend at the college and my first thought was, “Fraternities! And isn’t Virginia Military Institute close by????” She just smiled and didn’t say anything. It wasn’t until years later I found out she was a lesbian. She said she’d always been a lesbian. She’s been in a relationship with her partner for almost as long as I’ve been married (20 years).
I have had girlfriends I love dearly. Girlfriends I love to spend time with, vacation with, cry with, etc. But there has never been any sexual attraction to another woman, no matter how much I love them as a friend nor how attractive they are.
I am confused by women who have been with men their entire lives (dating, marry, etc.). Women who have never had the slightest urge to dip in the lady pond, then suddenly “fall in love” with a woman later in life and become a lesbian.
I am asking honestly as I do not get it.
@sherry I think sometimes women who are older newer lesbians might be more open to trying something they might have been closed to before. I find that later in life lesbians are probably more bi sexual than full out lesbian, even if they never date a man again and if they identify as lesbian Most of the lesbians I know have known they were lesbians from early on.
Other people just have a nuanced fluidity that maybe they didn’t pay attention to, or perhaps after a few bad relationships with men decide they’d like to date women to try something different, but they probably didn’t think they could or would.
Also, I’ve noticed that women who traditionally identified as straight, and never considered they were bisexual, or gay, until they met a person they found fully and wholly attracted to, they’ve all mentioned it was the person and not the sex, and why would they not pursue a relationship that seems good because of the sex of the person? BUT you have to be open to it in the first place. So many of my straight women friends would just never. Ever. Not even for the best person out there because they aren’t attracted to women AT ALL.
Tig Nataros wife was straight, and now she’s married to Tig, that played out beautifully on film in Tigs documentary “Tig”. Anne Heche was always straight until Ellen, and then she went back to men. Cynthia Nixon married Rojo Caliente (don’t know her real name) and I think all of those women said they didn’t consider it an option until they met that specific person.
@Sherry I’m bisexual, and I knew from a young age I was attracted to women and men, even though I didn’t know the word for it. In fact, for a long time I didn’t even realise I was different. Women are taught from a young age that it’s normal to sexualise other women (through media etc) so they may not realise they are not straight.
I have a friend who considered herself straight – she still does really – but is a women in a relationship with a women. She says she realised one when they were getting ready to meet she would get butterflies just like she normally would before a date, and it went from there. But it’s only her girlfriend she finds attractive, not women in general. She struggles because her job means she can’t be open with her relationship. And her family are a bit odd with it. So in many ways it would be easier for her to be straight, I suspect this is the same for many women.
To flip your question a bit, I have honestly never understood how people can be completely straight or gay..!! 🙂 I’ve asked friends but it’s totally foreign to me, like asking me to imagine a colour I’ve never seen. I guess that’s how you feel? I hope this comment has helped or at least been an interesting read 🙂
@sherry
They don’t become anything at all. Sexuality exists on a spectrum; it’s not absolute. Some people fall more towards one direction or another. Some are absolutely straight. Some are absolutely gay. But most fall somewhere in between and that is how a woman might have heterosexual relationships for the most of her life only to fall in love with a woman. She didn’t “become a lesbian.” She just met someone.
Thank you for your replies. They help me to understand better. I’m 53 and have never found women attractive in that way. I have admired other women’s beauty (I think Eva Mendes and Linda Evangelista are stunning). However, I have never had any sexual attraction for another woman.
I guess sexuality is more of a spectrum thing as opposed to an either/or thing.
It can happen. A friend of mine just came out as bisexual. He’s only ever dated women before, and he has every intention of marrying a woman and having children someday, but at 26 he’s realized he’s also attracted to men, and while he’s single and still has the opportunity, has decided to date men as well.
@Caela
It is so true about how women are taught that it is normal to sexualize women’s bodies and how that impacts on our own understanding of ourselves. I remember reading so many “ask YM” articles as a pre-teen where girls would write in asking if it was normal to check out other girls during gym and the answer was always “of course! you’re just comparing your changing body to theirs! Nothing sexual! That’s impossible!” For many girls, I am sure this was true. But the idea that some of those girls writing in could have been grappling with their sexuality was never acknowledged as a possibility.
I am married to a woman and usually identify as a lesbian for simplicity (although I am probably more of a Kinsey 5). But I didn’t realize I wasn’t straight until I was around 22. It sounds young now, but at the time I felt very old to still be figuring myself out. I never imagined myself with a husband when I was younger. I got nauseated on dates when boys would try to touch me. I always said I could only imagine having children as a single mother. But I had never seen two women together and no one ever made any sort of acknowledgement that that was a possibility so the idea that I could be gay genuinely never occurred to me. All of these feelings were normal of course, as YM and Seventeen magazine assured me. And this was in the late 90s/early 00s. I can only imagine the pressure to view yourself as straight was even stronger for women a generation or two before me.
@sherry Everyone is different, I guess. Why heterosexuals think they are the “normal” kind is strange. I mean, really, you wouldn’t be baffled that not everyone likes ice cream, would you? Pretty much same here.
@Apples – I’m not baffled by not everyone liking ice cream. What baffled me was that someone who loved pie their whole life and couldn’t stand ice cream, suddenly decided, “I don’t like pie anymore. I love ice cream!”
But I get it now. I think too often many of us live in a black/white universe instead of embracing the many rainbow colors that we’re capable of as human beings.
My husband of 10 years had girlfriends before we married. One year ago I discovered he had a secret gay life that he had been leading for at half of our marriage. Explains why the last five years were so lonely since our children were born. He lied about liking pie his whole life while he liked ice cream. He pretended to like pie when he ate it but was actually going out and getting ice cream somewhere else at a lot of different ice cream parlors. divorce pending Jan 2017. I am devastated.
Awww, look. They are already dressing alike.
Mazel tov.
I didn’t finish Eat, Pray, Love, but her book The Signature of All Things is one of the best books I’ve ever read. The heroine, Alma, is just incredible. Something about her just really resonates with me. I highly recommend it.
Yes!I never read EPL, so I can’t pass judgment on it, but I absolutely loved The Signature of All Things. I could never understand the poor reviews.
Ugh. This woman makes everything about her and never seems to take in to account the people she leaves in her path of destruction while finding her truth. You better believe there will be a book!
Oh please girl, wasn’t Cancer Journey the dead giveaway??
This woman and her (first) book are vacuous and insufferable. I HATED E,P,L with a passion. Hope she gets a good book out of her friends cancer. Can’t stand her arrogance. (Plus..cheating.) She’ll always want the next best thing, just out of reach, that someone else has.
Peak DRAMATICALLY IN LOVE WITH LOVE WHITE LADY DISCOVERING HER SPECIALNESS Syndrome with this one, She has always struck me as self absorbed and me first
Couldn’t have said it better myself, QQ!!
^ this
Perfect, QQ! And we’re all supposed to care.
Thank you! So self indulgent and me first. And this man who was the answer to all things gets tossed aside, with no thoughts for his pain and privacy. Because she’s special.
Specialness Syndrome. That’s such an accurate term. Stealing it now kthnks! 🙂
Completely agreed, but — and with all due respect QQ because I genuinely howl with laughter at your comments — why include “white”? I have the feeling that if the roles were reversed and a known “white” poster said “black” that the same question would be asked.
@lurkingweirdo I took it in the same vein someone might post about a known Angry Black Woman trope.
Also, QQ, yes! This is the exact same kind of drivel that came out of the mouth of the self-absorbed nitwit that my husband–also a self-absorbed nitwit–used to describe their affair and subsequent partnering up. Broke up two families with small kids involved. But, you know, “my truth”, and love, etc., etc. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
@QQ So what is wrong with that? If she is a “me first” person? Besides annoying some so much (btw, ever heard that people get most annoyed about the traits in others that mirror their own?) she is just being herself.
I’ll be back later tonight with wine glass in hand to read the comments on this post! Ha. The last one was highly entertaining! I’m blissfully ignorant of the EPL book & movie, but I love all the snark for it!
Anyone else seeing that they resemble each other a bit?
Yes! And does she remind anyone of Lena D? We’re in an age of share everything, share what you previously would’ve kept to yourself or your closest friend. (I can imagine *thinking* what LD said about her table experience with Odell but I then would’ve said to myself, “Buck up, don’t make (self-hating assumptions)! Ask him a question!”) I used to think I was special, now I think just about every emotion we have has been experienced already millions of times over the millennia by others before us. On that note…
I actually like Lena D more than Gilbert and I’m no fan. Lena seems to have at least a modicum of self awareness.
Elizabeth has one book which is one of my favorite books ever called, The Last American Man, that is only really good book. Eat Pray Love is a self-absorbed guide on how to live selfish and go through a middle age crisis as a woman. Not surprised at all she has now left her other husband, another supposed great love of he life, not surprised at all.
“I shouldn’t be so cynical, it must be so difficult to go through cancer treatment and she’s a loyal, caring person who stood by her friend’s side.”
I don’t think it’s possible to be anything but cynical about anything Gilbert does. She’s the worst. I do feel for her partner and admire Gilbert’s devotion but OF COURSE there’s going to be a book. And the main feature sure isn’t going to be her partner.
I liked Eat Pray Love, but this woman has serious Special Snowflake Syndrome.
This woman is so misguided. She artisticly rationalizes that she’s flighty and unreliable in relationships with grave consequences to others.
Rayya will soon be pushed out of the way for an even greater truth -_-
I think she’ll stay with Rayya to the very end. And then she’ll profit off of her illness and death like a leech. That’s what is so gross about this.
She left her husband, went on a trip, remarried, left her second husband and is now is love with her best friend. There is nothing “brave” about this. And this “journey” is basically an episode of Dr. Phil.
Yes this exactly! We’re supposed to celebrate this? She left her first and second husbands and she profits off of other people’s pain. I’ll think I will be passing on the inevitable book that comes from all of this.
Self indulgent is exactly le mot juste. Enough already–Good for her but TMI. I suppose some people will hang on her every word, but I just don’t get why we need to know or care.
She seems so unstable to me. It’s like she views the people in her life as actors on her stage or something. Everyone must dance to her song as she goes on all of these “journeys”.
My father has narcissistic personality disorder. That is exactly what life is to him. The world is a movie, he is the star, everyone else is either an extra or supporting cast. Gilbert reminds me of him. I bet she has NPD, too. It would explain why she has no reservations trampling over people, telling the world that she did it, and how it is beautiful that she did it, because it was for HER.
Reminds me of Kristen Stewart “falling” (cheating) with her best pal Alicia Cargile after she “helped” her after she broke up with Rob Pattinson. Wonder if Rayya set her sights and worked her way in ala Alicia.
Narcissist.
Everything really is ALL about HER. Even her bf/partners cancer. Special snowflake indeed.
Seriously. That takes a special kind of narcissism.
This woman is the most shameless creature who ever lived.
Get yourself to a Sex And Love Addict meeting woman. There’s no truth in repetitious intense relationships, love’s your drug and you’re just getting really high off all the drama of being with someone who’s terminally ill. Getting high and intending to profit from someone’s cancer is vile.
The fact that her first thoughts after finding out someone she loved (in any variation) was How can I make this about me? Tells you everything you need to know about this parasite. I feel sorry for her friend, who will live out her days with someone who wants to be her long-suffering partner in the eyes of others rather than a truly loving person. Harley Loco was Rayya’s story, and she has issues of her own.
Ugh, and the fact that she thinks her “love” is something her friend cannot pass without knowing is just galling and insufferable.
It really sounds like she is fetishizing her cancer.
I think that “trap door” she thought she felt open was more of an “escape hatch.” How convenient! The special snowflake tires of the monotony of marriage, as any narcissist would, and is presented with the perfect out (pardon the pun). She gets to leave her unsatisfying marriage to play a newly-lesbian Florence Nightingale (but sorrynotsorry, because she’s in lurve and Rayya is terminally ill; who could get upset in the face of such a tragic/noble cause?). And, when her new love dies, it will rid her of the unpleasant task of eventually having to break a heart to get out of the relationship – which she would undoubtedly do, because that’s what she does, folks.
You’d better believe she’s going to write about it ad nauseum and that her fawning fans will eat it up. Have you taken a look at her Facebook page’s comments? She’s so very brave, so standing in her truth, such a shining example for “love is love is love.” Spare me. She’s shown us who she is in EPL, and I believed her the first time. I didn’t need a happy ending between Gilbert and her husband to feel good about life. But to package her motives for leaving her husband this way and taking up with a dying woman to soften the blow of public perception towards her? Don’t take up any more of my time, girl.
“perfect out” as a ” newly-lesbian Florence Nightingale”
YES THIS!
I would have so much more respect for her if she didn’t slather everything she does with her Brave Nobility.
I wish I could get back the time I spent watching the movie version of EPL. My partner insisted on seeing it and whew what a stinker it was.
So, my take is this… I know she comes off as a self absorbed flake…. I wonder if this is a different situation entirely. Maybe her love and affection is so strong that hearing the newa of terminal illness stunned her. Maybe Rayyna was the one who put it out there and LG couldn’t deny her in her time of real and final need. Or didn’t know how to refuse without hurting her friend too much.
I know it’s a theory but I keep thinking about that possibility
Wow, I’m really surprised by the hate she gets around here. I didn’t like the Pray book or the film, but I listened to her podcasts and for me she isn’t all about herself.
I wish her well.
I did not like Liz Gilbert’s book and thought what a lot of people here thought: bored middle aged white woman freaks out and then gets paid by her magazine to travel the world for a year on a self indulgent trip to spout “wisdom” and to “heal.”
Not sure how I feel about this. Rayya will not live long since her illness is terminal. And then what? Liz will probably profit off the heartbreak and death of her friend turned lover with a book for her fans to consume. And talk about the breakdown of her marriage to Jose. I don’t think anyone should stay in a relationship if they are unhappy but you don’t need to rub it in everyone’s face with a Tolstoy long FB post. A short “Rayya and I are together please respect our privacy” would have sufficed. Really Liz, the granular details of your love life don’t interest me.
What a noble reason to end her marriage! So brave to admit and announce to the world her love for her same-sex best friend now partner! How compassionate to drop everything and become a devoted care-giver! So sad that their time together might be so short! What a Bodhisattva! What a Martyr for Love!
All this could be true, but I am not a fan of Grand Declarations. It’s just too much. All we need now is Oprah’s couch and paparazzi shots of their PDA on the beach.
Thank you, @Molee. YES.
Everyone expresses their feelings in a different manner. Some make grand gestures and scream from the top of their Twitter feed. Others don’t say a word. Just because Gilbert does it differently doesn’t mean it’s not right.
I don’t update my relationship status on FB but I don’t think those who do are making a “Grand Gesture.”
Yeah, but her happiness doesn’t seem to be enough on its own. She’s serving it to us drenched in nobility and sacrifice and bravery and sisterhood and compassion and loss and purity. She’s like that Kristen Wiig character, Penelope, who compulsively one-upped everyone’s life experience. Elizabeth Gilbert presents her happiness as the most. But it’s not just the most, It is the most most of all the mosts.
Surprised at all the negativity. I read “EPL” (listened to the audiobook actually) and it was a book about woman’s self discovery. Of course it was a “Me!” book.
And the way she chose to share about her live – the woman is an artist, a writer, so she wrote in gasping words and emotional sentences.
Okay, I understand what you’re saying, @Apples. I do. People do express themselves in different ways. I get it. At the risk of sounding too involved in this woman’s business, what puts me off of her effusive post is that, in the midst of all of this “Yay! Love!” is the end of a marriage. Even if it was mutual and there are no hard feelings, does her long-winded, post not seem a bit selfish to you? If your marriage ended in this way, would you want your soon-to-be former spouse announcing the reason for it with such breathless wonder on social media? The spotlight being on her is a given, no getting around that. But for her to seize that spotlight in such an over-the-top way at such a sensitive time seems insensitive to me. I think because everyone is so used to the paper-thin boundaries and oversharing on social media, we forget that this break-up really happened to someone because of someone else. She is practically basking in the gushing responses coming her way. What about Jose? Why are people praising her, and practically forgetting him? Did Jose simply serve his purpose in Gilberts’ fans’ lives until they were done with him too? He’s a real person, not just a character in her book. Hence, my negativity toward Gilbert’s announcement.
Do you know how many people gush about a new relationship a mere 2 months separation from a spouse? I see it all the time on social media.
I think she is getting too much criticism. I loved EPL and it inspired me (and I am not married).
When I was learning English, I read an essay called “the pursuit of happiness”, where it questioned the somehow selfish view that, to be happy you can sacrifice many things or people, families, etc.
I do not mean to
Live a false life, or to be on a relationship that it is not meant to be, many times it is healthier to be somewhat selfish…
But other times I do not like how easy it is for some to just jump from one situation to the next. I do not know this woman’s circumstances, but I don’t feel attracted to her journey.
Very well said.
What a despicable woman. Dumps her first husband, gets a ridiculously-large advance to travel and write a book, book is a load of self-indulgent twaddle, takes up with terminally-ill friend, dumps second husband. No doubt there is another bad book in the works, to be written as soon as her new love dies, and she will make this poor woman’s death all about herself. Appalling.
What a narcissist. She talks about herself 50 times in this passage and about Rayya 15. Even then it’s about what Rayya is to her. All about Elizabeth and her special snowflakeness is right
She has decided to take care of a friend dying of cancer not just physically, but also emotionally.
I don’t see why people are twisting that into “me first”. This is a hard journey she’s signed up for. That should be respected IMO.
I also am not clear there was any cheating involved.
I say this as someone who will never read her books. Dislike for her books may be coloring people’s opinions.
I agree with everything you said. I think what she wrote is beautiful and I wish them well as a couple.
A disease for which there is no known cure. “Miracles”/medical advancements happen or people just defy the odds. What post will we get if Raya is fortunate enough to to survive. “I have come to the …. [insert parapgraphs of flowery words] that I was not in love with her but rather in love with the idea of saving her.” I am over Elizabeth Gilbert.
This woman needs to spend some time in therapy before continuing with any more relationships and leaving a mess in her wake. She seems to learn best through romantic relationships with other people and that is not fair to the other people. I find her insufferable.
Summary: Selfish person spouts bunch of bullcrap and gets a book deal.
Give me a break! F***/Love whoever you want…just don’t set your specialness up on a pedestal. Not impressed.