If We Break: A Memoir of Marriage, Addiction, and Healing (Unabridged)
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4.3 • 44 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Kathleen Buhle shares her story of resilience and self-discovery after her marriage to Hunter Biden unraveled in the wake of substance abuse and infidelity in this “dignified and revealing” (People) memoir.
“Kathleen Buhle’s brave and honest story transcends politics, division, hearsay, and judgment.”—Connie Britton
This is not a story about good versus evil. Or who was right. Or who was better. For decades, Kathleen Buhle chose to play the role of the good wife, beginning when, as a naïve young woman from a working-class family on the South Side of Chicago, she met the dashing son of a senator at the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Oregon. Within months of falling in love, Kathleen found herself pregnant and engaged, living a life beyond anything she’d ever known.
Determined to build her family on a foundation of love, Kathleen was convinced her and Hunter’s commitment to each other could overcome any obstacle. But when Hunter’s drinking evolved into dependency, she was forced to learn how rapidly and irrevocably a marriage can fall apart under the merciless power of addiction. When the lies became insurmountable, Kathleen was forced to reckon with the compromises she had made to try to save her marriage. She wondered if she could survive on her own.
The result is a memoir that is page-turning and heart-breaking. Here Kathleen asks why she kept so much hidden—from her daughters and herself—for so many years, why she became dependent on one man, and why she was more faithful to a vow of secrecy than to her own truth. This inspiring chronicle of radical honesty and self-actualization speaks to women who have lost part of their identity and want to reclaim it.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In her searingly honest memoir, Kathleen Buhle details what it was really like to be the long-suffering wife of Hunter Biden. Buhle and Biden were married for 24 years, during which she tried to navigate her husband's drug addictions, recurring alcoholism, and rampant infidelity. After everything she endured, Buhle could have blamed Biden for her ruined finances and all the rest of it, but we were impressed by how she accepts responsibility for her own role in their dysfunction, opening up about why she stayed so long. Listening to Buhle narrate the story in her own voice made us feel like her privileged confidante. If We Break is a shocking inside look at what it’s like living in close proximity to addiction.
Customer Reviews
Read it twice, back-to-back!
Just when you think no one else has been through as much as you have…you come across this book. I loved the empowerment she grew into over the insanity. When you are no longer the “secret keeper”, there is still such guilt and shame because you know you’re hurting people with the truth. However, she bravely did it. Sharing her story will help alcohol/narc addict survivors for decades to come. Thank you and God Bless you.
God Bless This Beautiful Soul
What a beautiful soul that held on to a destructive marriage by trying to save a husband’s lost soul. Surely God gave her the strength and she made it through the storm. This book is a story of true grit . Addiction, Alcoholism, infidelity, and perseverance are interwoven in this true story. God bless Kathleen.
If We Break
Very well written and an excellent read for anyone who has dealt with a loved one battling addiction.Kathleen tells her story modestly with the upmost respect given to the Biden family. This speaks volumes to the kind of person she is and I can only hope they show her the same respect in return.