No matter what a psychologist knows about others, it doesn’t mean she’ll be able to see what she doesn’t want to know about herself.
Meet The Author
Bonnie Comfort
Bonnie Comfort is a psychologist and the author of the memoir, Staying Married is the Hardest Part (She Writes Press), wherein she examines the complexities of staying married and not throwing it all away.
She is the youngest of three daughters from a Jewish family raised in Winnipeg, Canada. After earning her MSW degree at the University of Manitoba, she moved to Los Angeles, where she began a ten-year career in clinical social work helping patients and families with physical or mental illness. During her 20s, Bonnie enjoyed dating many men, took up tennis and running, attended concerts and comedy clubs, studied photography, and learned how to roast a turkey.
In 1977 Bonnie fell madly in love with Bob Comfort, a successful TV and movie writer/producer who was equally smitten with her. She had already started on the path to obtaining a psychology degree when they married, but after some painfully disappointing years of trying to have a child, she focused all her attention on school and in 1983 earned a PhD in clinical psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology Los Angeles.
Fascinated by the dynamics of intimate relationships and the inner life of adults, Bonnie studied psychoanalytic theory extensively, while lying on the analytic couch herself to figure out her own issues. During that time, she went into private practice, specializing in the treatment of anxiety, depression, and couples. In 1990, after Bob became restless about show business and living in LA, Bonnie reluctantly agreed to move with him to Ashland, Oregon, where she wrote her first novel, Denial, published in hardcover in the US by Simon & Schuster in 1995, in paperback by Avon Books in 1996, and in 6 other countries in 1997 (Japan, Sweden, Germany, England, Canada and Israel).
In 1995, the couple moved to Portland, Oregon, where Bonnie continues to live. She studied writing techniques and worked at two more novels. They celebrated Bob’s movie successes, but as he became physically compromised from Lewy Body Disease, she went back into full-time private practice in 2000.
Despite their differences, Bonnie and Bob remained deeply in love and married for 33 years until Bob’s death from Lewy Body Disease in 2010. Bonnie has continued to do marital therapy as well as treat anxiety and depression in her private practice. In 2012, she met her current partner, Douglas Covey, MD, with whom she lives and has traveled extensively, fulfilling a lifelong dream. They shared Rosie, his little terrier mix, until her death at age 16, and have since bought and raised a miniature poodle who gives new meaning to the phrase “high maintenance.”
Writing has become her full-time passion and now that her memoir is out in the world, she plans to return to creating fiction and essays.
If you could do anything you feel like trying, what would it be?
Moving On
After Bob died, I felt disoriented, free-floating, and uneasy. What was I to do with this yawning space of free time?
I started attending a dance class, and 14 years later I still go. I found new friends there, and learned to move my body in different ways (I mean would I have intentionally walked backward three times a week if not for that?)
I also took a drawing class, and then a painting class, and I loved it. Here are a few of my drawings and paintings. My focus has always been on words in psychotherapy and writing, so visual art felt refreshing, an expression from a different part of me.
What might you try this year that’s new? This doesn’t have to be triggered by a life-altering event. It just requires you letting your mind roam in answer to this question:
If I could do anything I feel like trying, what would it be?
Novelty keeps you vital. It creates a life that expands rather than contracts. And it begins by deciding you’re going to try something new.
A few years after Bob’s death I met Doug, a talented surgeon who not only could fix the human body but could fix anything—a broken turntable, a dishwasher door, an oil leak in a car. Brilliant and well-read, Doug was interesting, practical, reliable, and very talented at the BBQ. He was willing to travel, which I desperately wanted. Now we’ve been together for over 10 years, and have gone to Alaska, Mexico, Vietnam, Portugal, Spain, England, Scotland and the Isle of Man.
I miss Bob’s humor, his silliness and ability to charm, but I love Doug now and I’ve made a new life with him, dogs and all. A partner brings out different aspects of you as you connect and invest in what you have in common. Doug and I swim together, walk the dog every day, cook for each other and he has patiently stood by and made space for my long hours at the computer.
He is a treasure in his unique way, as Bob was in his, and I don’t have to choose. I can love Bob in memory and I can love and share my life with Doug today.