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After Divorce, An Unexpected Love Story

For Jonathan Weiler and Anne Menkens, their divorce started their love story.
Anne Menkens
For Jonathan Weiler and Anne Menkens, their divorce started their love story.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. And while the holiday inspires some to roll their eyes at cheesy Hallmark cards and endless consumerism, others embrace the nudge to celebrate their loved ones.

Two UNC-Chapel Hill staff recently decided to document their own nontraditional love story in a new book. Jonathan Weiler and Anne Menkens met in the early 90s when they were both graduate students at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Within two years they were engaged, and six months later they got married. But the evolution of their love story strays far from most Hollywood rom-coms. In fact, the two are now divorced, and in Jonathan’s words, "our love story begins with our divorce, rather than ending with it.”

Host Frank Stasio talks with Weiler, the director of the undergraduate global studies curriculum at UNC-Chapel Hill, and Menkens, the assistant director of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, about their book “Divorce: A Love Story,” that traces the end of their marriage and explores how their bond as friends and parents is now stronger than ever.

Anita Rao is an award-winning journalist, host, creator, and executive editor of "Embodied," a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships & health.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.