Em Rusciano is tired of the narrative that a marriage ending in divorce has failed. “Nobody finishes a great book and says, ‘Well, that was a waste of time”, she reasons.
After all, separating from her husband of 25 years doesn’t take away the three wonderful children they created – or the fact that their relationship shaped the person she is today.
The real failure, she tells me, would have been staying. “Sometimes success is having the courage to leave the story when it stops being true,” she muses.
Opening up about the inner monologue she replayed throughout her marriage, Em’s story is as common as it is heartbreaking. “I spent years believing love meant sacrifice,” she says. “Not in a dramatic way, but in a thousand tiny ways. Making myself smaller. Easier. More accommodating.”
Choosing yourself, according to the comedian, isn’t easy. “It’s a lot less glamorous than people think.”
There’s no aesthetic wellness retreat or sexy shaman involved, and posting an inspirational quote over a sunset doesn’t quite suffice.
“Most of the time it looks like disappointment,” she explains. “It’s leaving situations that you desperately wanted to work and accepting reality instead of potential.”
Sometimes, choosing yourself is simply refusing to abandon your own needs to keep somebody else comfortable. And she did just that.
“I was surprised by how much joy there was in it,” she tells me. “I expected grief. I didn’t expect freedom.”
After 25 years of being someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone who was more comfortable being needed and much less comfortable having needs, and now she’s asking herself: “Who am I when nobody needs anything from me?”
Choosing from a place of desire
Hearing her talk about how dating in her forties feels liberating, terrifying and ridiculous all at once, I couldn’t help but feel excited for her.
“I discovered that no matter how much life experience you have, there’s still a part of you that gets ridiculously excited when someone you like messages,” she giggles. “What a comforting thought that beneath all of the mortgages, careers, divorces and reading glasses, most of us are still just hoping the person we fancy likes us back.”
Dating after you’ve ticked every box society laid out for you- kids, house, marriage- is also beyond freeing. When Em first met her husband at 19, every romantic decision was tied, consciously or unconsciously, to that future. And now? She’s just choosing from a place of desire.
“That’s a very different thing,” she says. “It’s empowering and freeing.”
However, she also says that many men struggle to navigate dating a woman who doesn’t need “saving”. What can they offer someone who no longer needs them to be the provider, the fixer or the solution?
The answer is pretty simple: “presence, emotional availability, consistency, partnership,” she says. “Just showing up as an equal.”
Dead fish and a scratched out ex
It may sound straightforward, but Em jokes that dating in your 40s is “two people trying to have a modern relationship while running software installed by their grandparents.”
Pointing out the hilarious contrast between men’s and women’s dating profiles, she jokes that some men’s Hinge profiles are less a dating profile and more a cry for help.
“They upload one picture holding a dead fish and another standing next to a woman they’ve crudely scratched out of the frame,” she says.
They also love to cryptically include that they “don’t take life too seriously” which Rusciano believes is male code for: “I don’t want to be inconvenienced by your feelings.”
I can see that.
Women, on the other hand, upload “six carefully curated photos and a mission statement,” she laughs. “Including their values, hobbies, attachment style, political leanings and preferred love language.”
We’re nothing if not thorough as a sex.
Another thing she has learned is that despite what we’ve been led to believe, 35 year old men are very much into 47 year old women. YEOW!
Family Hinge sessions… and purges
Motherhood can quietly teach women to put their needs at the bottom of the list, but Rusciano says no more.
“I want my kids to see a woman who is a mother, but also a woman who has a full life of her own.”
Her 19 and 24-year-old daughters have been supportive throughout her journey, even joining her for group Hinge sessions and purges.
“It’s been touching, honestly,” she says. “I’m trying to show them that loving other people and loving yourself aren’t competing priorities.”
Determined to show her children that motherhood doesn’t have to mean losing yourself, Em urges others to do the same.
“There’s an expectation that a good mother should give endlessly,” she says. “But we’re allowed to have ambition, joy, adventure, desire and love.”
Even if the intimacy is more complicated to schedule than a UN peace negotiation, according to Rusciano.
Co-ordinating physio approved sex positions
“Nothing says mystery and seduction quite like comparing supplement regimes and making sure your sex positions are approved by your physio,” she laughs.
And although chemistry would have driven her wild in her younger years, there is something she finds much more attractive nowadays: consistency.
While she quips that it makes her “sound old”, Em explains that what she now looks for in a partner is quite simple.
“Can you have a difficult conversation?,” she says. “Can you apologise? Can you tell the truth when it’s uncomfortable?”
Read more columns in the Between Us series, here.
Tickets for Em’s new national tour, Addicted to Love, are available here.
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