He Wrote the Book on Gay Divorce (with Karl Dunn)

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Intro – 0:00

 

BLAIR HODGES: I'm journalist Blair Hodges and this is Relationscapes.

We're mapping the stories and ideas that shape who we are and how we connect with each other, in order to build a more just world.

Our guide in this episode is author Karl Dunn.

KARL DUNN: When you have a ring on your finger, you are now in the married club. it is like the highest level of the video game you can reach in society. The kudos you get for being married is incredible. I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

BLAIR HODGES: When gay couples in Americas finally won the right to marry, Karl thought he'd beat the game at last. A husband, a beautiful home in LA, and a top job in the global advertising industry.

Then everything fell apart—not just his marriage, but also his carefully crafted sense of self. He quickly learned how modern divorce law was not built with gay couples in mind. It looked like game over.

Until something unexpected rose from the ashes. [But instead of giving up,] He embarked on a raw and fearless journey across continents and through his own inner landscapes--from Los Angeles to Berlin, from breakdowns to breakthroughs.

In his memoir How To Burn a Rainbow, Karl Dunn beckons us toward the fire. To question the roles we’ve been handed. To think about how to make marriage and divorce more equal. To imagine what liberation might look like when we stop chasing perfection. He joins us to talk about all of this and more, right now.

 

The Honeymoon – 1:59

 

BLAIR HODGES: Karl Dunn. Welcome to Relationscapes.

KARL DUNN: Thank you so much for having me on, mate.

BLAIR HODGES: I'm excited to talk about this memoir because it takes readers on a personal journey, but you also pay attention to the legal, practical, and emotional components of gay divorce. And you're asking big questions about the institution of marriage itself.

It was actually kind of tricky to find a book about gay divorce. So congratulations on being one of the few—Maybe not “congratulations” on the whole divorce thing. Or maybe congratulations on the whole divorce thing? But, yeah, this is a book you were searching for and couldn't really find. So that’s one of the reasons you wrote it.

KARL DUNN: Exactly. When my divorce first kicked off, I went looking for a book on gay divorce, and I couldn't find one. And I was doing these, you know, 2am deep dive web searches. I could barely find an article on it. And, you know, I started keeping a video diary of, sort of, revelations and realizations that I was having.

And I showed a few to a friend of mine who's in the book, actually, Brian. And Brian was the one who said, okay, y'all need to put this in a book, queen. And then here we are six years later.

BLAIR HODGES: Six years later.

Your book opens on your honeymoon, the scene where we first meet you. It's a beautiful European vacation. You're with your partner, Gunnar. But it's also a troubled scene because at this moment, you're already thinking about divorce.

KARL DUNN: Well, the day before, my husband and I had an incredible fight on the street in Vienna. And I think everybody has seen this, like, you're on holiday and you see some couple just ripping each other to pieces, and you're like, ooh, take it home, guys, you know?

But there I was, you know, on the street, just losing my mind, and we'd had a huge disagreement about—for me, it was about respect. It was absolutely about respect.

And also something I had not resolved before we got married. My ex-husband and I had an open relationship, and I felt somehow that was meant to be different after we were married. Don't ask me how it was meant to be different.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: Um, well, actually, what I would say is I couldn't have answered that at the time, but now I realize. You realize, after the passage of time it was my own jealousy about the fact that he had basically unexpectedly gone and hooked up with someone else without telling me and just left me sitting in a cafe for an hour.

BLAIR HODGES: You’d think the honeymoon would be like maybe a time to not explore that aspect of the relationship?

KARL DUNN: Yeah, you'd think so. But, you know, what I also talk about in the book is that the dynamic that played out between us was something I was fifty percent responsible for. You know, whatever dynamics are happening in any relationship, the two people in it are equally responsible for it. But I was not as sentient as that at the time.

So instead, once I realized it wasn't in a hospital and we had a screaming match on the street, I went back to the hotel, got another Room and I basically had stayed there for a couple of days. I hadn't left the Room and I'm thinking very seriously about leaving him. That's where the book opens.

 

Crisis of Identity – 5:02

 

BLAIR HODGES: I'm going to have you read a section here on the crisis of identity you began to go through as a result of thinking about divorce and then going through a divorce. This is page 46.

KARL DUNN: Sure thing, yeah. And this is a year later, after the opening incident. We've had a pretty good six months and then a not good six months and the divorce has already kicked into gear. And I've met up for coffee with a friend of mine. So this section is called “The Crisis of Identity.”

On the weekend, I had coffee with an Australian friend called Rooney. Roo for short. I know what you're thinking, an Aussie called Roo, but let's move on. Roo and I had met during my screenwriting days at Australians in Film in LA. It had been a while since we'd seen each other and there was a lot of news to catch up on.

We sat in a quiet cafe in Venice Beach we used to meet at, surrounded by screenwriter hopefuls tapping away on keyboards in the shade of palm trees painted on the cafe walls. I gave Roo what was becoming a very well-rehearsed speech about Gunnar and the divorce. He made all the right noises in all the right places, giving me my fix.

Roo himself had also been going through quite a few life changes with the birth of his first child. “What was it like when you found out the news?” I asked. “Mate, the whole universe changed,” said Roo, smiling.

“I bet, yeah. What was the biggest thing?”

I was expecting him to say he'd been wondering whether to marry his girlfriend or figure out whether to stay in the States or head home to Australia or maybe whether to sell his car and get a family wagon.

“I had to figure out who I was,” Roo told me. At my perplexed look, he explained, “The day she told me the news, I realized that I basically lived my entire life as an overgrown boy. In nine months I was going to be a role model to a little human. I had to figure out what I stood for, what values I wanted to pass onto her, in a nutshell, what kind of man I was. And I found out that I didn't have a clue.”

“I think you're selling yourself a bit short, mate,” I countered. “You've always had a pretty good handle on what you're doing in life.”

“The filmmaking bicoastal life? That's just all surface nonsense. Everything that I thought was important wasn't and everything I thought wasn't important was.”

“How do you mean?” I asked. Roo smiled.

“I've spent my whole life comparing my insides to everyone else's outsides. How I felt was based on how everyone else seemed. And that is a crappy way to figure yourself out. So I just got quiet, went internal. Deep down you know, because no one else can tell me who I am. I have to.”

“How's it going?” I asked. Roo.

“Takes time. Longer than nine months,” he laughed, “but I'm on my way.”

Roo was renewed, clear eyed. For a guy who'd devoted a big part of his life to the study of martial arts and the spiritual side of it, he was centered in a way I'd never seen before.

As I left, I thought about all my straight male friends who'd gone through what Rooney had. I was also an overgrown boy and a validation junkie who had spent his life chasing the next job, the next title, the next city, the bigger income, industry, fame, clothes and new men, all with the promise of a contentment that I never felt.

It was infantile. Peter Pan-ish. I ended up driving all the way down to Venice Beach and parking near the sand. I took off my shoes and walked to where the water lapped the beach. Staring off into the horizon and listening to the waves, I made a decision. I may not have been having a kid, but I thought to myself, why couldn't my divorce be my crisis of identity?

I could use it to dig down and figure out who I was. Tired of running from myself and looking for anything or anyone else to make me feel good, I made a promise I would do the work. I didn't care how much it hurt. If I was going to go through this, I wanted to come out the other side a far, far better man.

I just had no idea how I was going to do it. But I had to start somewhere. Holding up my left hand, I looked at my ring. I remembered the day that I proposed to Gunnar under the dappled forest light of Muir Woods, thinking it would be the greatest thing I'd ever do in my life. We were so happy that day.

I kissed the ring once, slid it off my finger and tucked it into my pocket. I thought of that old Buddhist quote that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Then I turned toward the shore and started to walk.

 

Dividing Up the Friends – 9:38

 

BLAIR HODGES: That's Karl Dunn reading from his book How to Burn a Rainbow: My Gay Marriage Didn’t Make Me Whole. My Divorce Did.

Karl, you started to walk, and at the end of this scene you were alone. But through much of the book, you weren't alone. I'm thinking about all the friends, the people you were surrounded with, the people you encountered throughout the journey that you introduce us to.

And you say that at the beginning of the divorce process, your friends who you already had kind of started getting sorted into these different camps in response to the divorce.

KARL DUNN: It was quite a revelation, actually, about friendship and what friendship really means. There were people who were definitely Team Karl in this divorce.

BLAIR HODGES: Ride or Die

KARL DUNN: Ride or Die. And, you know, these are the Brian Mylers, the Uli Lutzenkirchens, you know, the other characters I talk about in the book.

And then there were people who were Team Gunnar, and, you know, I had to respect that they had chosen a side, and a lot of it was not a surprise. Although what I will say is there was one person who I thought had gone Team Gunnar and actually had not at all.

I had basically just kind of disappeared from our life, our friendship. And he was hurt by that. And I was reading between the lines and not getting it. And it isn't until the end of the book that I actually figured out he was just heartbroken that our friendship just disappeared out of nowhere. So you also have to be a little careful, you know, if you find yourself in that situation yourself. Not everything you think is real.

And then there were friends like Ludo in the book, who I thought it was an excellent model of friendship when someone has been a friend of a couple, where he said, “I will give you exactly the same advice that I'm going to give Gunnar, and I will not tell him anything that you tell me, and vice versa, so don't even think about asking.”

I was like, wow, that struck me as a very good model of friendship. And then there's the binge-watchers, category four. And you gotta watch out for them because they're the ones who are living for the drama of your divorce and stoking the flames of it. And you have to be very careful.

Because what I found out is there were a few people who were not just talking to me, but also talking to Gunnar. And I thought they were just talking to me. And then when you discover, hang on a minute. What did I tell this person? And what did they tell him? Yeah, those ones I had to cut out pretty quickly, but they make themselves known pretty fast. They're a little too hungry for all the details.

BLAIR HODGES: You also describe the people who maybe wanted to care but didn't really have the bandwidth to do it. That's a tricky category, too. I mean, my heart goes out to folks like that. Maybe they're dealing with their own stuff or whatever.

KARL DUNN: Yeah. Marriages and divorces bring up a lot of emotions for people. And some people just—I mean, there were people who did not turn up to our wedding.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: For various reasons. And there were people who couldn't be around for our divorce. And I get it. Like, at the time, it hurt.

BLAIR HODGES: Sure.

KARL DUNN: But later on I realized, no, I get it. Because everyone's going through it in some way in their life, like whatever it may be in. Not necessarily a divorce, but any life event. And, you know, you can't be mad at people who just can't be there at that point, you know?

 

Meeting John Hare – 13:02

 

BLAIR HODGES: And then there's kind of a new group of friends arising. These are the new people you met after you and Gunnar had gotten married and things started to fall apart. John Hare is one of these folks. This is a crucial person in the book, and this is someone that you met totally by chance in Berlin.

And it actually happened on that honeymoon. You took a break from the honeymoon and met this guy who became sort of a guru, later a romantic flame in some ways that you held out for. Also a mentor of sorts and a friend, but a complicated friendship. What was it like writing so much about John Hare? He plays such an important part in your story.

KARL DUNN: Yeah, look, John changed my life. There's no doubt about it. And he is an absolutely fascinating human being. And it was really wild writing about him, because when I started the book, we were very much friends, very tight. It was difficult to understand what our relationship actually was. But like you mentioned, the biggest and most lasting effect for me was the mentorship. What I describe in the book as being almost like a Yoda and Luke Relationship.

And yeah, I mean, I don't think I've met another person in my life who is so wise, so willing to help. But what became apparent is that John functions by having people as projects. And the moment it's interesting, it's a pattern I think that repeats in his life is that and, you know, you'll see it happen in the book with me and with other people, that the moment you start getting right and the relationship levels out, that's when he feels out of his depth because the status part of it is very important for him to maintain.

BLAIR HODGES: It's important because you show how heroes can self-sabotage. There are no perfect heroes. And I think as soon as we start pedestalizing someone in our life, it gets tricky because that pedestal can crack and things can fall apart.

KARL DUNN: Yes. And I was incredibly damaged when I met him. I was a mess, a hot mess, and was only too willing to accept the help of someone who seemed to have a boundless amount of it to offer. But I put an incredible amount of pressure on him as well.

And you know, we had breaks, like very huge fights and breaks in our friendship during the book because I leaned on him pretty hard and I think in many ways was almost trying to cannibalize his life experience to make up for all the time I felt I had lost, or all the journey I hadn't walked yet and was kind of hoping maybe there's a magic pill.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: Like consuming him in some way would get me that. And I think also, you know, I'm a little bit competitive and you know, wanted to feel better fast.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: So, you know, I was throwing a lot of this at him. And also, there's the savior complex. He definitely appeared like a savior.

BLAIR HODGES: Sure.

KARL DUNN: There was definitely that element to it as well.

BLAIR HODGES: You mentioned his wisdom—and this was really important, the way he would have these conversations with you. And at first it was through text message, you would exchange messages and then you ended up going out to Berlin and living in the place he was at. One of these conversations really stands out.

 

Why Get Married – 16:15

 

BLAIR HODGES: He asked you point blank why you got married. And you discovered in that moment that you kind of had surface-level reasons. But John wasn't looking for that. He was looking for something deeper. So mention what the surface level reasons you would have given were, and then dig into those deeper reasons.

KARL DUNN: Well, the surface level ones were very easy. It was like I had met this man, I was in love with him, I thought we were going to be together for the end of time. We had campaigned hard for marriage equality, and then when it became legal, it felt almost like we had to do it.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: And to be honest, I didn't really ask myself many questions about why I was doing it. I just kind of fell into it, I think, in a way that heterosexual couples, if they’re together long enough, people just start asking, like, when are you getting married? When are you getting married?

Like, there's a real societal expectation to just do that. Now that we had the right to, I think we sort of fell into that—that pattern as well. I won't say that trap, but that pattern.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: So those were the surface reasons, you know, definitely because I loved him, wanted to do it for the cause, all that.

But then the darker reasons, which I, when I got really honest about why I'd done it, oof! Yeah, they were not good. And I would say, I had already said, like, I married him because I was in love with him, but you don't need to marry someone to be in love with him.

BLAIR HODGES: Sure.

KARL DUNN: And love is not a byproduct of marriage.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. You already had a domestic partnership.

KARL DUNN: Even so, like, we had a domestic partnership already. Yeah. And honestly, our legal status didn't really change that much.

However, what I did love about being married was that when you have a ring on your finger that is absolute. And you realize, like, you are now in the married club. And this is, I mean, it is like the highest level of the video game you can reach in society.

Because the kudos you get for being married, it’s incredible. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. But, and this is the bit that I'm not proud of is that, when I would say “my husband” to people, which I loved saying, it was definitely on one side, it was an act of love.

BLAIR HODGES: Sure.

KARL DUNN: But it was absolutely an act of protest, and also revenge. Because every time I would say it, there was definitely a pinch or two of, “Hey, all of you who’ve taken away our rights since forever? Well, we got one of yours. How's that feel? What's that like? You know, and that was definitely part of it, if I'm truly honest.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: But worse than that, and the absolute worst reason why I got married, was because I wanted my husband to wave some magic wand and make all of my dark feelings about myself go away.

BLAIR HODGES: Insecurity.

KARL DUNN: Oh, the insecurity, the lack of self-esteem, the need for an external validation of going out with him and going, that's right, that's what I've got at home, you know, instead of actually getting right with myself, I put all that pressure on my husband to do it for me. It's terrible.

BLAIR HODGES: You also talk about the fact that society had been oppressive to gay relationships for so long, also cultivated in some parts of the gay community a culture of disposable relationships. Like you couldn’t really establish these visible and long-lasting relationships. You had to be careful and private about it. So you also said it's sort of an almost an anti-gay, that sort of gay culture thing, saying “I want to reject that culture of disposability.”

So it involved like gay culture. It involved your personal insecurities and the need for validation. There was some additional tax breaks you mentioned. Yeah, well. And yeah, so the deeper. There's all these levels of reasons and I don't think you can really separate them out, right?

I mean you can look at them, but they all weave in together to one tapestry of reasons why this relationship exists. And that's why the marriage itself can be complicated and that's also why the divorce can be complicated. To say nothing of the legal aspects, which we'll get to.

KARL DUNN: Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean all those reasons were all intermingled. And you know, there is definitely a culture in the gay world I can speak of where there is a real, almost an expectation that your relationships won't last.

That said, I have gay friends who are couples who have been together for decades and that is also common. But the normal experience for many gay men is that you just, you know, tried this one out, it didn't work. Tried this one out, didn't work. And so, you know, getting married for me was a way of saying I’m anti-disposable relationships. I'm into committing to one person.

And something I will say about marriage was that when I was in with my husband I realized that, oh, when we've got a problem we actually have to fix it. Made me realize that there's definitely points in every one of my last relationships where I stopped trying because I'm already planning the end. I've given up. Like it'll just go on this descent until I reach this point and I'm like, and I'm out. Whereas you know, when you're married you're like, oh, actually no, we have to fix this.

So it actually taught me some great things about being in a relationship with someone and being committed to someone that I learned by being married. Maybe I would have learned those another way, I don't know. But that's how I learned them. Yeah.

 

Miriam’s Law – 21:49

 

BLAIR HODGES: And we get to see that kind of epiphany in this book and more over and over. I think, you know, I did the math. There's about 1.5 epiphanies per page.

 

KARL DUNN: Oh my G-d! [laughs]

 

BLAIR HODGES: No, just kidding. But there's a lot.

The thing I like about your epiphanies, though, is some of them are half-cooked. Some of them come back and grow. You keep talking about the head and the heart, like your head might arrive at it, but the heart is slow to catch up.

So I wanted to go through some of these. And this is an important one because earlier you mentioned this 50/50 thing. You wanted to kind of take responsibility for your own part. And I want to caveat that, because you're not saying, like, people in an abusive relationship share a kind of blame or culpability for being abused. In a certain sense, you're encouraging people to take agency and see, maybe like a person who's being abused might want to take stock of why they're staying in that relationship.

And it might be practical. It might be because they can't leave. There might be financial things, et cetera. Or it might be because they themselves are just caught up in that cycle and maybe they can take a courageous step and break free from it.

So there's this thing called Miriam's Law that you bring up, and I think it speaks to this idea of kind of taking your own responsibility in a relationship. So maybe just take a second to describe what Miriam's law is.

KARL DUNN: Well, Miriam is a woman who owned an advertising agency in Berlin that I used to go to work at for five winters in a row during the 2000s. And that was actually what started my entire relationship with the city of Berlin. So when I leave mid-book to go to Berlin, it's because I have friends there. I have a work history there.

So Miriam owned the agency. And just I've had that, you know, bust-up mid-honeymoon with my husband. And I could think of nothing else to do but go to Berlin because Berlin was the city that always fixed me. So I went to Berlin, I meet up with Miriam, and we have breakfast.

And she's got a new agency and a new baby. And I'm like, oh, okay, so what's with the new agency? And then she told me this story about how when she went away on maternity leave and then she came back to her company, her two partners had basically made her redundant while she was away.

BLAIR HODGES: So gross.

KARL DUNN: I know, I know. It's the worst. Like, it's the worst man-thing like that any man can do. Like, she's making life, yeah? She's over there making life, bro. And you're trying to figure out—

BLAIR HODGES: Helped make the life of the company too!

KARL DUNN: I know. So I was outraged on her behalf when she was telling me that they wanted to just basically buy her out, which she did. Yeah, she said, yeah, sure, you can buy me out. They bought her out and she started a new company. And I was outraged on her behalf. I was like, what were they thinking?

And she's like, no, no, no, anger's not required, Karl. And then she said to me, “I know those boys better than they know themselves. And I knew if I was ever away for any period, they would do something exactly like this. So when I found out I was pregnant, I chose to have my baby over my business.”

And I was like, wow. I mean, she was so matter of fact about it. Like just non-emotional at all. And then she said this amazing line. She said, “How can I get angry at them for doing exactly what I expected them to do?”

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: I mean, mic drop. Radical responsibility. She had not a drop of victim in her. And she would have had every right to.

BLAIR HODGES: Sure.

KARL DUNN: And anyone listening would have been, what? You know, but she's just like, no, they did exactly what I thought they were going to do. Not even angry about it. And I just was so blown away. And then I started thinking about that massive fight we'd had in Vienna. And then I realized I'd not only been expecting that. I'd been rehearsing it.

Half the things I yelled at him on the street were from a script I'd been rehearsing for years, which means I had created a dynamic with him for him to behave in the way that he had, which meant I was at least 50% responsible for why Vienna happened. And maybe even more. Maybe I had laid the trap.

And that was like, okay, I see this. And then the revelations just came. Kept going and going. Like, hang on, I'd done this with every guy I've ever dated.

BLAIR HODGES: Now you're seeing the pattern and it's like, yes. So you call it “Miriam's Law.” Don't get angry when they do what you expect them to do all along.

But that doesn't solve your divorce problems. You've got a lot more lessons to come. But I think this one gave you space to kind of have those other epiphanies. That's what I see. Like, one epiphany is kind of like a percentage of an overall epiphany. You just need these little things to kind of take you to the next step.

 

Sex After Divorce – 26:22

 

BLAIR HODGES: So another component you were wrestling with that you're very candid about in the book, which is helpful, and I think vulnerable, is learning how to renegotiate your own sexual self.

So you talk about intimacy problems you experienced through the divorce, about losing confidence, about sexual performance being different, about trying new things, and meeting John Hare and thinking about other relationships. It was interesting to see kind of you exploring just practical sexual issues as you're going through divorce.

KARL DUNN: Yeah. I mean, look, you know, your libido and your sexual confidence will definitely take a beating during a divorce. And I would say also it was a factor in my relationship with my ex-husband, us having an open. I've had open relationships and monogamous ones, and they've both worked and both not worked for different reasons.

But in that particular dynamic I had with my ex husband, I felt like I was in competition with all the other people he was attracted to. So it was not a healthy open relationship in that sense because I had very little respect for myself in it.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: So, yeah, it really did a number on me. And also meeting John Hare. John is a—I don't even know exactly what the right word would be. He's such a broad spectrum generalist on sex. He has done and tried pretty much everything there is to do. He does not censor himself. He did not ever deny himself something he was curious about. And he would just walk into everything with, “This seems interesting. I'll step into this and here's what I can offer here,” and would just do it with absolute confidence. So his sexual explorer extraordinaire lifestyle was, for me coming broken and busted out of this open relationship, in some ways the worst person to be trying to catch up to in my sort of pre-enlightened, competitive self.

BLAIR HODGES: And it also could have been exploitative. Like, this could have been an opportunity for John Hare to like, “Oh, here's this vulnerable, broken person. Let's have some fun here. Like, there can be some really scary stuff that happens when you're vulnerable after a divorce.

KARL DUNN: Oh, definitely there can be. And I will say that he never took advantage of that. We had an interesting relationship that was not really ever particularly sexual. So John definitely was not taking advantage at all of that, you know, broken part of myself.

If anything, he was trying to help me grow it, to help me regain confidence, to sort of show me what sex can be by conversation, by, you know, introducing me to people that he had certain relationships with. So he was very much trying to open a door for me.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: Again, it was a process of me foisting that responsibility onto him and not yet at that stage, having got right with myself and with my sexual self.

BLAIR HODGES: I appreciated that because it didn't seem voyeuristic to me to learn about your experiences in that regard. That's often a more private thing, at least for me in my background. Maybe in gay communities and circles that you've been with, maybe people just talk about it more openly in general or that's more common.

But for me, like, I don't usually make a point of, like, talking about sex, even with some of my close friends, you know. It can be tough to talk about.

KARL DUNN: We definitely, in our culture, I think we talk about sex a lot more than the average heterosexual would. I'm sure we do. I base this on no data or statistics, but I think, you know, it's because it's men with men, and every guy, gay or straight, knows how they think about sex that I think it's much easier for sex between men to be quite transactional and almost like sport in some ways. And we talk a lot about it, but I think that's also because our differences to the rest of society are defined by the sex we have.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: So I think there's also a kind of unhealthy obsession that the rest of the world has with us. And, like, I think “promiscuous” is a word people like to use for anyone having more sex than them. And, you know, we do have the opportunity to indulge our appetites. So, yeah, I think we talk about it a lot.

But also I would say we talk about it very much in terms of conquest, of the hunt, of, you know, our prowess. Talking about how it's not going well or difficulties that you're having I think is less common. Although I would say amongst millennials who are seeing incredible spikes in anxiety and therefore performance anxiety, I'm actually surprised how free they are talking about the fact that they are on, say, Viagra or about the erectile dysfunction problems they're having. They talk about it. Gay, straight, they talk about it very openly in a way that shocks me. So I think the way I speak about it in the book has become very common now in broader society.

 

The Emotions Diary – 31:19

 

BLAIR HODGES: It's an important part of your journey. There's another big component of the book, lessons you were learning about emotions, psychological learning. You started digging into how psychology worked, especially thinking about primary and secondary emotions. You started an emotions diary so you could kind of track things and you could talk back to yourself through it.

Describe this. It’s a great practical tool, I think, for people who might be thinking about divorce or having problems in their relationships or in their marriage to start something like this emotions diary. What was it? What did it do?

KARL DUNN: Well, I want to caveat my description of the emotions diary with, it's going to sound like hocus pocus. It's going to sound like some guy trying to start a religion. But there is a track record of this phenomena in literature already. There's a very famous book called Conversations with God where a man starts writing questions to God and God answers, and he writes the answers down. Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this as well in her work.

But basically what I did with the Emotions diary was out of desperation, hitting rock bottom, and, and, you know, realizing that my behavior. It's one thing for me to wreck myself with my own destructive divorce behavior, but it was now starting to splash up on other people who hadn't signed up for that.

So I thought, okay, mate, you've really got to start figuring out what you're doing and why you're doing it. Because it was a mystery to me. So I got a notebook, I cracked it open, and I just started writing down what was going on. And I was writing it down, not really sure where I was going, and then it evolved into a question.

So I wrote this question on the page, and then I waited, and then an answer came. And I do not pretend to know who it was that was speaking, if I like this answer. I don't know if it was the universe, God, my grandmother's ghost, I don't know. But the answer would come, and I would just write the answer out as it was told to me.

And then when I would read it, I'd go, oh, one hundred percent. That's exactly what's going on. And it was incredible. I felt like Harry Potter casting his first spell because it seemed such a—Like it's still a complete mystery how the emotions diary works. But it works. And I think we need more mysteries in this life.

That book became the most important thing in my life. I would leave the house sometimes without my keys or wallet, but I always had that book on me. I always knew where it was. And I was in that book every day, sometimes two or three times a day, when I was going through something and going, what's going on?

And like, I would write, here's what's going on. Write the question, wait. The answer would come, and it was always correct. And that is what helped me figure out how I was wired.

BLAIR HODGES: I love that three-step formula. You write down what the thing is, what's happening, what's going on. Then you ask a question about it. And then you wait and then what comes? I'll read an example for this because the responses that you got are—some of them are so fascinating and so wonderful, Right?

KARL DUNN: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: So here's one. You had gone out to dinner with an old friend. Nico is their name. And you thought it would just be kind of a fun thing to do. But it didn't go well. So you wrote down what happened. You said, “I went out with Nico for dinner. We had a great time, but now I'm avoiding him. But I like him. And I can't figure out why. I'm paralyzed here. Why does the idea of calling Nico again feel wrong?”

So you got it out on the paper. And then the answer here is really—it's got some great—I'll just read it. It's great. It says, “You're looking back to a time you felt safe. You want somewhere to hide, but you can't hide in the past because the past is gone. It doesn't exist anymore. All you have is now. You want yourself and Niko to be the men that you both no longer are. Your shoes are the only time machine you can climb into. And they can walk in only one direction. Niko means you're ready and open for new things. But they have to be what's in front of you, not behind you.”

That's a remarkable thing.

KARL DUNN: Isn't that crazy? And I can't lay claim to knowing that. Before I wrote the question, I didn't know it. It came from somewhere. Again, that's the level of specificity and wisdom that would come from the emotions diary. It was incredible.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: We're talking with Karl Dunn, author of How to Burn a Rainbow. Karl has spent over two decades working in advertising in places like Sydney and Singapore and Tokyo and Cape Town and Berlin and Los Angeles. He's been the global lead on campaigns for Mini Cooper, Levi's and other companies. He says he's usually the only LGBTQ person in the boardroom. And now he lives between LA and Berlin, working in freelance advertising and also as a keynote speaker on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, self-love, and LGBTQ topics. Again, we're talking about the book How to Burn a Rainbow.

 

Divorce Laws Weren’t Made for All – 35:58

 

BLAIR HODGES: So, Karl, you spent a lot of time learning about marriage history after you became married, and you found out there was a lot that you didn't know, like why marriage existed. It began as a contract with the state and then later became more of a sacrament, the church got involved. And then there was the rise of companionate marriage, where people started to get married because they loved a partner more than they needed an economic arrangement or to tie households together or whatever.

All that history helped you come to terms with why divorce really wasn't working out in any kind of healthy way for you as a gay person. Particularly the rise of no-fault divorce and what you call the “battle of the sexes,” which is that marriage for so long had disadvantaged women in some ways. Women would leave the workforce, they would usually be home or caring for children, or they wouldn't have the same kind of career advances. Their economic situation was more precarious when divorce happened.

And so in the state of California, which is where you got married, they came up with a way to say, we're going to split everything 50/50. So assuming a man and assuming a woman, they're going to take half of everything, and alimony would be paid from one side to the other. But instead of saying “men and women” in the law, they broke it down by who the higher income earner was.

This is where you got nailed. You were the higher income earner, and so divorce severely disadvantaged you, and your partner was ready to take you for everything he could.

KARL DUNN: Yeah, it's those laws which were put into place, signed actually into existence by Reagan, who himself was a divorcee in California. Those laws put in place for those reasons, I’m one hundred percent behind. I mean, there is definitely a sense in divorce law of women and children needing to be protected from the kinds of guys who would just, like, up and leave their families.

And, you know, people in the LGBTQ community were well aware of who those kinds of guys are because they're the ones who would beat us up in high school.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: And write the laws that are against us you know, but yeah, unfortunately, like what you find when you're going through it as a same sex couple, either two men or two women, when you're going through a divorce, you find that the law is really written for, like you say, the battle of the sexes, which I have empathy for, but it has nothing to do with us. Our marriages are gendered, but in a very different way.

But what you see is that the law, the only laws that are in existence, are set up with the presumption that there's going to be a man earning more and there's a woman who is also probably at home with children. So the payment structures are all set up for that dynamic, which of course is usually nonexistent in most same sex marriages and divorces.

Of course some of us have children, but most of us do not. But we pay for it like we do.

BLAIR HODGES: That's right. And so your book takes us through the ups and downs of you trying to figure out what to do with your lawyers. And your lawyers were difficult to work with. And the communication between you and your partner had broken down such that you couldn't really come to the table and try to hammer something out.

It seems like his lawyers, or maybe he, was really trying to go for everything they could. So he wanted half of everything. And the problem with that is he hadn't really contributed half of what you both had. So there was already an inequality there and he wants half of that. But you'd already put more into it.

KARL DUNN: Yes, I had. And the thing I say in my book How to Burn a Rainbow is that he didn't do anything illegal at all. His MO was to follow the letter of the law, to do what the law said he was able to do. So what I see then is, the interesting phenomena that comes out of that for same-sex couples is, that your divorces are completely one-sided and based on the pay scale.

And it becomes a moral dilemma, I think, for the one who earns less about, well, what do you want to do to your ex? Because they are essentially powerless. If they earn more than you, they don't really get a say in what goes on. I felt very much like I had no say in my divorce. Absolutely zero. And that's again very unusual for us because we're a community of people who've not had the opportunity to get married.

We're also a community of people who have not ever had the laws written to take us into account. So we have a culture of making up our own rules, making up our own norms. So all of my breakups, me and my exes, have been able to negotiate what that's going to look like for us. But in this situation, I had zero say. And that is something that nobody, I think, anticipated when we were campaigning for marriage equality.

BLAIR HODGES: It was hard to see you learn that lesson in real time, because not only were you financially facing Armageddon, but also all the emotional components too. And we get to see the ups and downs and the unique kind of losses you faced as someone who was married, as a gay person.

 

Reforming Divorce – 40:46

 

BLAIR HODGES: So you mentioned earlier the social standing, the pride in the movement you were part of, and now you were letting all that go. So there were emotional components, there were financial components, and feeling like you were kind of letting down the cause overall.

What would you change? What are some of the biggest changes you'd like to see?

KARL DUNN: Well, look, I would definitely like there to be a type of divorce reform, not just for myself, but I think for everybody. There are a lot of heterosexuals who are also questioning the entire institution of marriage. Like, why do we actually do this? And the ideas behind divorce law are meant to make it fair.

But time has moved on a lot, you know? Society has moved on a lot since these laws were written. So something I propose in the book is not just that people get prenups, like plan for the ending, the very statistical likelihood of your marriage ending. Plan for it at the beginning like you would for any end-of-life scenarios that you would discuss with your partner. I mean, talk about what it might look like if it's going to end and make an agreement between the two of you while you still love each other as opposed to at the end of it, when you hate each other and everyone's gunning for everyone, that is not trying to negotiate, create fair and equitable resolutions.

So I would say do it at the beginning. And honestly, if you have a partner who's not prepared to talk about it, I think that's a warning. Like, that is a really serious issue if somebody's not willing to talk about the potential of it ending.

And I even propose something I call a pre-equitable, where it is more like an operating agreement between two people. And the example I use is like, you know, let's say there's a couple and let's say they even earn the same amount, but one wants to take a year off and go and study something else to change careers. Like, how should that affect the end of the relationship if they were to part ways?

Well, it's nothing to do with us. We don't get a say in that. It's for those two to decide what they think is fair because they're the only two people in that relationship. But unless you prepare in these ways with either a prenup or pre-equitable, which you could, say, revisit at major points in your relationship, you're basically just saying you're letting the government decide it all for you because now you have absolutely no say in it.

So I think everybody should be planning for the end of their marriages and doing it, you know, in an adult and loving way with their partners.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I thought it was wise that you said do it when you are in that loving time, when you are in that phase of –you know, the wonderful phase, when you can't maybe even conceive it could happen. Treat it as a hypothetical and say, this can be a reflection of how we respect each other today. We don't plan on this happening. But let's say that if it did. What would actually be fair given what you're giving up? What I'm giving up? What you're bringing. What I'm bringing. Let's think about what fairness would look like. And to treat it as a hypothetical that has legal bearing.

I think there's a lot of wisdom to that.

KARL DUNN: I think so too.

 

Patience Versus Perfection – 43:48

 

BLAIR HODGES: You know, Karl, looking at the subtitle of the book, “My gay marriage didn't make me whole. My divorce did,” I noticed throughout the book, your idea of what it meant to be whole changed throughout your experience. And I'm thinking back to something your friend shared with you. It's one of these quotes on the bottom of a bottle cap, you know, these like, inspirational quotes. And it talked about Darwin, it talked about evolution. And it said, the idea of survival isn't about strength as much as it is about adapting. Like, a lot of times we think “survival of the fittest” means, like, the strongest and whatever, but it's adaption. When people can adapt, that's how survival happens.

So I wanted to focus on that idea and how it played out throughout your story, because to adapt is an ongoing process which seems to contradict the idea of being whole, right?  But I think your book finds a way to kind of show that that's not necessarily the case. Let's have you read this section called Patience and perfection.

KARL DUNN: When am I going to be perfect? That was the question that I'd been dogged by most of my life. I was in the process of letting it go, but it was really sticky. Trying to feel perfect was a big driver for why I got married and why I'd worked so hard in my career.

Both were wrapped up in the idea that I had to arrive at happiness, that there was an end point. That one day, after all this work, I would put my head up and say, hey, I made it. And from then on, life was meant to be one long stretch of contentment. I would unlock the secret to happiness, stick the car on cruise control, and spark up the grill for the barbecue that was going to be the rest of my life.

Perfection is not a helpful idea. Letting it go was made easier by a few things. First, the bottle cap lid and the Charles Darwin quote. If we were always adapting, then perfection by its very nature is impossible. Everything is evolving and always will.

For years in LA before my divorce, I had been seeing a therapist. Perfection was something that had come up often in our sessions. One day, my doctor asked me a shocking question.

“Karl, have you ever seen a dead body?”

 No.

He nodded. “You know what strikes you when you see one for the first time?”

I shook my head.

“They're perfect. Still calm and at peace. No internal struggle. They're kind of beautiful.”

“So I have to wait till I'm dead to feel peaceful. Useful.”

“That's one way,” my therapist mused. “Or else accept that you are imperfect in an imperfect world, and the two cancel each other out.”

The head was definitely faster than the heart on this one. Years later in Berlin, I read a book by Mark Manson called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Mark's point is, basically, you can't give a f*ck about everything. You only have a limited number of f*cks to give in this life, and you have to give a f*ck about something. So choose the things that are actually really important to you and give the few f*cks that you have to those.

I was still at the stage of working out what was important to me. At the end of his book, though, Mark writes about how he realized the place of perfection he was striving for was a complete illusion. He'd never be perfect. “And why would you want to be?” He wrote.” It takes all the fun out of life.”

Like me, he'd been treating it as a destination. I'd embarked on this journey as an explorer and astronaut, still thinking that I'd reach a promised land and begin life anew. That land, though, does not exist. There is no Planet Happy. I finally grasped that the destination was me, imperfect and always evolving, which meant my old foe, patience, would become kind of irrelevant.

Because if there was no endpoint, I wouldn't be sitting in the backseat of the car, asking, are we there yet? Instead, I'd be sitting in the driver's seat with my hands off the wheel, surrendering to the road as it unfolded, and taking in the view. Being imperfect is perfection itself.

Now, if I could just do that, I thought.

BLAIR HODGES: I love that last line because it still shows that working to embrace that imperfection, there's still a creeping perfectionism to even wanting to do that, right?

KARL DUNN: Yes!

KARL DUNN: And it's like, there’s a line in there that “the head was definitely faster than the heart on this one.” Actually, that same person that sent me the bottle cap lid, Catherine, she had also said that to me that, you know, the head is faster than the heart. And so often in this journey, intellectually, I would get something and I would understand it, but I just—it takes longer for you to feel it. And it's only once you're feeling it that it feels like it's in action in your life.

But, you know, that's, that's the trip, you know, that's what you sign up for. And having to cut yourself a break when you know something but you don't feel it yet. Knowing it's the first step. At least you know it now. And just give it some time, because time is also the one ingredient that you cannot fake. Just give it some time and it will land, but you have to be patient with it.

BLAIR HODGES: It reminds me of something a friend told me, which is not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Like, so often—and this applies in work, too, and in other things, is like, sometimes you can just get completely frozen up with this image of perfection. And you never get around to just doing the thing you need to do because you're letting the perfect become the enemy of something that would be good otherwise.

KARL DUNN: Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I found since then, I used to have this, I mean, a real perfectionist in me that I've indulged my entire life. Like, if I wasn't doing perfectly, then if I wasn't doing it a hundred, I don't want to do it at 99. Like, then it's a failure.

Whereas now I look and think, you know, this is fine. This is great. This is good enough. I'm enjoying it. You know? And I think one of the problems with phone culture and the way everything is rated online, you know, with Google reviews and Yelp and everything, there is a perception out there that there is “the best.”

The absolute, the number one experience. What to eat, do, see, there's the absolute perfect person out there, and it's just not true. Yeah, perfection is all relative, you know, so if you can just accept that, you know what? This is pretty great. And I'm just gonna enjoy it for what it is, or I'm gonna do this job to the point where, yeah, that's good enough. And everyone's gonna be happy with that.

Great. I can let that go now. So liberating.

 

Individuality Versus Connection – 50:42

 

BLAIR HODGES: It is. And there's a beautiful scene in the book, and I won't say too much about it because I want people to read this book and I wanna leave this scene for them to discover. But there's a scene in an airport where you really find yourself.

The reason I bring that up is because it's an epiphany you have alone in an airport, you’re picking up a friend, right, but you're standing there alone. At the same time, that epiphany never would have happened without all the people you connected with in order to get there.

So there's a celebration of individualism here, of finding yourself and being authentic. But your book is also so full of the recognition that those individual epiphanies, the idea of personal authenticity, is never really disconnected and can't really happen without other people. That's the paradox of individualism and being connected to other people. Your book does such a good job of showing how friends make such a difference.

KARL DUNN: Ah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, friends make a huge difference. And really, all the people I met along the way, and I think this is something that often people are scared to set out on a journey or to break with the life that they have, or to change something and go to a place that they desire to go or pursue something they desire because they think, I don't know how to do it. I won't know what to do. That fear of the unknown is so terrifying.

But when you start, as I did, to get to this point that we've been talking about, the right people pop up at the right time with the right wisdom, and the solutions you find aren't handed to you as a readymade boxed up solution.

But you get all the right bits and you're the one that actually figures it out, how it all fits together for you at the end. So, you know, if anyone is out there and thinking about, you know, something they're wanting to do, but they're afraid of the unknown, just go. It will not be unknown while you're in it.

It will feel a little strange, you'll be out of your element. But it feels good because you're like, I feel like I'm alive.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: Because I'm on a path somewhere, to somewhere I want to go. And it'll all make sense when I look backwards. But you can enjoy each of the steps along the way as well. These friends, like you say, and these guides that pop up and the knowledge that you gain.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I loved seeing like, for example, the divorced straight guys.

KARL DUNN: I mean!

BLAIR HODGES: You felt a little disconnected from the gay community. Like you went to a gay bar once with a friend and like someone came up and was like, “Are you the divorced guy?” And it was basically like, what the hell, dude?

It wasn't like a good feeling. But then you had divorced guys that were just coming over to you, straight guys, they were like, hey bro, come here. Like, let me give you a hug, man.

KARL DUNN: I mean, that was incredible. Those guys saved my life, you know. The guy I called James in the book was the first one I met. He was a divorced guy at work and he was famous in my office. He'd gone through a brutal divorce. And you know, there's a point in the book where I went to him desperate, you know, because I was like, I don't know who else to ask because no one in our community had any experience with this. And so I went to him and I just was like, hey man, I heard you went through a terrible divorce and I'm going through one right now.

And when he swung around in his chair and he looked at me and went, “Oh, bro, I'm so sorry.” It was like, thank God someone understands. And he was like, what do you need to know? What do you need to know? And you know, he asked me specifically for the worst thing that was happening to me on that day.

But those guys came with knowledge, wisdom, tactics, support. This is how you find a lawyer. This is how you use a lawyer. All these things that you had no idea about when you started divorce. You don't know! But these guys know because they've all been through it. And that community has had a long history with divorce.

So those guys were incredible. And that was. I wrote about that in How to Burn a Rainbow, that it felt like I joined Fight Club.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: Because having a ring on my finger and the kind of equality I felt in society felt great when I was married, but it paled in comparison to the brotherhood I found with those guys. And as a byproduct of that, which I never expected, I lost my lifelong fear and mistrust of straight men. You know, I'd always hang back a couple of degrees. Every time I meet a new one, I'm like, are you a cool one, or are you one of the ones that wants to kill us? And you're like, you're waiting. You're like, show yourself. You know? And that was gone now.

And also, I would say this, is that the idea of what it is to be a man in society has changed so much in their lifetimes. It's no surprise that you see a lot of, you know, lost heterosexual guys gravitating to these, kind of, extreme misogynist and sexist points of view, because they're like, well, at least that that person's standing for something. And I get it. I could follow that. But it's tapping into the worst parts of us.

BLAIR HODGES: Exactly. That's why we need healthier models of masculinity. I think your book navigated that element of it well. Fostering a healthy masculinity, acknowledging some of the problems that push people to those extremes, but offering different paths away from those extremes, and kind of inviting men in general down those different paths.

KARL DUNN: Thank you.

 

Not Just a “Gay” Book – 55:52

 

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. It's not just for gay audiences. You know, this book's independently published in part because it's so hard to convince publishers that there's an audience and a market for this kind of stuff.

KARL DUNN: Yeah. I actually encountered something quite interesting when I was going through the publishing process. I was fortunate enough to get a meeting with a very big agent in New York. She reps a couple of friends of mine, and she was fantastic because she really laid it out for me. And she explained the way the publishing industry thinks is that, you know, she read and she said, your book's excellent. Like, you've got a great voice on the page. I can tell it's going to be a fantastic story, but I'm not going to represent you. And anyone who says they will is probably not very good at their job. And I'll explain why.

I was like, okay.

She said, the three hardest genres to sell are LGBTQ, divorce, and memoirs by people who aren't famous. And you've combined all three into one book. And to her credit, she said, prove me wrong. I really hope you prove me wrong. But this book looks like, to me, like it's dead in the water, because the wisdom in my industry says only divorcing gay men are going to buy it.

And in response, I said to her, look, but I don't need to be a divorced woman from Connecticut to read Eat, Pray, Love and get an incredible amount out of that book. But what I discovered later—Her Advice was self-publish and get a publicist.

But what I discovered later is there is a perception out there in the world, in greater society, that they do not believe they have anything to learn from us, that LGBTQ people are here for their entertainment and not their education. And that is the single biggest thing I've come up against. Because when the fact that it's a gay divorce is what makes the story fresh for a lot of people.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, exactly.

KARL DUNN: But unfortunately, it also gets classed as a gay divorce book. And I've found it's been incredibly difficult to get people past that.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: Like, what you discover is that if you write a book about, like, a gay perspective on anything, that the genre of the book is now “Gay.” Not relationships, not spiritual, not life advice. It's gay. And therefore goes in that box. That's a book written by one of them for them lot. And interestingly, even if you go on Amazon, you'll see every genre of book, including LGBTQ. And then when you click that, it's every genre of book. But, like the LGBTQ version. Somehow we're in our own special little box.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: Which I think is a mistake. It's a real mistake.

BLAIR HODGES: And I think, like, queer people, nonbinary folks, trans folks, gay folks, have spent a long time in their lives learning from and enjoying media and books and things that represent hetero couples and seeing how that stuff can be applied to their own lives like that sort of thing people have to do out of necessity.

Whereas if you're part of the mainstream, you're not often, especially if you're white. Like, I'm a white guy, so, like, I have to go seek out, you know, media by people of color and things that aren't the default, and then say, actually, this is awesome, because I am learning new things and new perspectives.

But there's also so much in here that resonates with me and that I can connect to. But I think, like, minority folks have kind of been doing that their whole lives because of the mainstreaming of cis-white-hetero culture.

KARL DUNN: A hundred percent. In fact, one of the book’s—it didn't actually make it in the final edit of the book, in the final published version, but for a while, I had a part in there where I referenced a British author called Reni Eddo-Lodge, who wrote a book called Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race. And when I read her book, which is about being a Black woman in Britain and her talking about the racism that she encounters, I'm reading it and going, yep, I get that. Oh, a hundred percent. Totally. And what you begin to realize is we compartmentalize each other all the time, and we have a perceived idea of what these little compartments and the people in them are like. And what we allow them to produce from that, that lands on mainstream culture that will consume only this kind of thing from you lot. We don't want any of the other bits.

But what you discover is really like, when I can read a book by Reni Eddo-Lodge about, you know, being a Black woman in Britain and about racism, I can read that as a gay man and go, I understand that completely. I've also felt that. I've also encountered that. And you realize, we're not, we will never walk in each other's shoes. We'll never know what it's like to be each other. But we are walking down a lot of the same roads.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: And that's what we're missing out on when we just focus so much on our differences and what sets us apart as opposed to actually what connects us as human beings.

BLAIR HODGES: That's right. And sometimes even the differences can put something in starker contrast for me, where I'm like, oh, so he went through that. This is kind of how it's working in my context. That's really interesting. And now I can actually see it as kind of a thing I can work with or do something different about, because I'm like, oh, it didn't necessarily have to be this way. So even the differences, let alone the similarities, I think are worth people's time.

 

Be Mindful of the Toll You Place On Others – 1:01:12

 

BLAIR HODGES: I wanted to make one more observation. You mentioned James, your wo-worker, and there's one more lesson I want to point out. James was at work, and you talk a lot about your work life. We didn't really touch on it here, but you had a career and you were making a lot of money, but you were like, “Oh, no.” Like, are you going to have to give up half of your income? That's what Gunnar was fighting for. And so you're thinking, maybe I should get out of this. And then the lawyers are saying, “Well, if you do that, we're still going to make you pay anyway to sustain the same level of expected living.”

So it's this whole problem, and you were really bringing it at work, sometimes just feeling it. And you learned a lesson, to be mindful of the toll you exact on other people as you are learning. So you realize, like, “I'm actually kind of doing this a little too much. Like, I need to pace myself and also be mindful. Mindful of not just co-workers, but friends, of how much I'm leaning on them, and be responsible about that.”

KARL DUNN: I mean, I was awful when my divorce started. There's a point in the book where I had to go back and apologize to everybody that I worked with for my behavior and how I had been in the first three months of my divorce. Because it comes on you so quick. There's this person you're married to, and then the next, like, literally within a week, you going to war with them. Your entire life is being turned upside down.

Your finances, your housing, your, you know, G-d, like, everything. There's not a facet of your life—

BLAIR HODGES: Your beloved pets, the little kitty that you had to let go. That was so sad.

KARL DUNN: Oh, my little Francine. Yeah. But, like, everything about your life is being completely destroyed in front of your eyes, and you're still having to turn up to work. And I was the boss, you know?

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: And I was going on these tirades at work about what my lawyers were doing and my ex-husband, and no one's going to tell me, “Shut up, man!” Because I'm the boss, right? Well, until my friend Uli came to work with us on a job, and he was the one who turned around to me. He's like, “you need to shut up about your g-ddamn divorce. Like, everyone's sick of hearing about it.”

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. And they can't tell you.

KARL DUNN: I mean, and they can't tell you. And I was, I was terrible. And I think, you know, if you're going through a divorce, it's good to let people know.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: But, my G-d, don't give them the daily diatribes. There are people who you can do that with. Like, you might have a friend you can do that with. You might have a therapist or whatever it is. Do not unload on your coworkers because your divorce then starts affecting them, their moods, their productivity.

Your divorce is not their fault and is not their problem. And if people do ask you, how's it going? Answer in a tweet.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

KARL DUNN: Give them a tweet size response. Don't make them regret that they ask because ten minutes later you're still going on about it.

BLAIR HODGES: Like, and maybe they'll follow up too. Like, maybe they'll want to dig more. But you're giving them the basics.

KARL DUNN: Let them ask. No, I mean, I was wild, you know, absolutely wild. And, but also, it's a sad and unfortunate thing that there are no workplace services or support for people going through divorces, separations, or the end of long-term relationships.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, you have to take personal time. I mean, there's bereavement time, but that's for someone's death and stuff like that.

KARL DUNN: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: Or you say people get excited for a wedding. Like if you're getting married, cool, enjoy the honeymoon. But if you're getting divorced, there's not a thing of like, all right, we need to figure out how to make time work for you and be flexible around this. That was a great point you make about how the workplace is not built to facilitate divorce the way it is for something like a death or marriage or whatever.

KARL DUNN: At all. And I would actually say to anyone who's listening, who's like, high up in a company, that it’s not just dangerous for your employee, for the morale of anyone who has to work with them, but it's dangerous for business. Like, I was a loose cannon. I mean, people can read about the depths that I'd plummeted into, you know—insomnia. Like I was at work and I was thinking, I don't think I've slept in two days. And you know, self-medicating, you know, not eating well, not sleeping, paranoid, anxious.

And I'm running a multimillion-dollar global business. That is not good business sense. But my office, my employees, I'm not angry at them, my employers, because they were just doing what standard procedure was, which is nothing because there is no standard procedure.

Corporate America really needs to have a good look at what they're doing there. Because there are some places that are so advanced they're even offering pet bereavement or paid menstrual leave. Excellent. We should absolutely have those things. But man, this affects 64% of people in their working lives. Help them out, Help them out.

BLAIR HODGES: See again, this book speaks to so many different issues that I think anyone experiencing relationship issues or divorce can relate to, and there are also a lot of new things you invite people to consider as a gay author. How To Burn a Rainbow is a terrific book, Karl.

KARL DUNN: Thank you.

 

Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises – 1:06:09

 

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, let's close with the final segment, “Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises.” You can pick one, two, or all three. Something you’d change about the book, what the most challenging part of writing it was, or what surprised you about the process of creating it.

KARL DUNN: It's a great question. Well, I don't really do regret these days. Yeah, I think regret is kind of based on the idea that if only I'd done this one thing back then, things would be better now, which you don't know. Like, you can't actually know that. That's just a fantasy.

But I would say, the biggest surprise for me is the kinds of people it's connecting to and what they're finding in it. And what's been wonderful is when someone writes to you and they tell you what's going on in their life. And the part of the book that they read that really helped them. With that, you learn more about what your book is as an author.

And I think actually, you know, the biggest surprise was for me—and I didn't know this until after I published it—once you publish it, a book is not yours anymore. It belongs to everybody who reads it. You have your relationship with it, but you don't own it now. It's just something that came through you, that you put in the world, and now it belongs to everybody else.

And that was a nice surprise. A very nice surprise, actually. Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: That's beautiful. Karl, thanks so much for talking to us about the book. This has been a great conversation. I loved reading it. It's a page turner, it was so good.

KARL DUNN: Thank you. Thank you so much. And what a great interview. I've really enjoyed this one, mate. Thank you so much, Blair.

 

Outro – 1:07:37

 

BLAIR HODGES: Thanks for listening to Relationscapes. We’re mapping the stories and ideas that shape who we are and how we connect with each other, in order to build a more just world.

Before I go, I wanted to read this review that came in through Apple Podcasts. It says, "Relationscapes is one of my favorites. I can always count on Blair to conduct thoughtful interviews with his guests. I believe we can all relate to the topics discussed in Relationscapes and have our worldviews expanded to be more inclusive."

That’s exactly the goal. Who wrote that? Let me see, this was “bringitonwiththefire.”

You too can rate and review the show—just go to Apple Podcasts. You can also rate it on Spotify. It means a lot to get feedback. I love hearing from listeners about what they’re enjoying. It makes my day.

Our theme song is provided by Mates of State. Relationscapes is part of the Dialogue Podcast Network. I’m journalist Blair Hodges, and I’ll see you again soon.