Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater: A Complete Timeline of Their Relationship

In her essay, she reveals she moved to London with her newborn after surviving preeclampsia. “Mine is a story of worrying in the wrong direction. As a perinatal psychologist, I knew all the statistics—how vulnerable a marriage is in the postpartum period, how vital community connection is in preventing depression and anxiety, how new parenthood impacts a whole family,” she writes. “But I confidently moved to another country with my 2-month-old baby and my husband to support his career. Consumed by the magic and mundanity of new motherhood, I didn’t understand the growing distance between us.”

From there, she discusses the “downfall” of her marriage to Slater directly. “In the countless hours I spend rocking my son to sleep, pushing his stroller, marveling at his sweaty little hands grasping a crayon, I work diligently on my private project of accepting the sudden public downfall of my marriage,” she writes. “This, I tell myself, is nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide. Slowly but surely, I have come to believe that in the absence of the life I planned with my high-school sweetheart, a lifetime of sweetness is waiting for me and my child. While our partnership has changed, our parenthood has not. Both of us fiercely love our son 100 percent of the time, regardless of how our parenting time is divided.”

And yes, she referenced the Wicked press tour, though she did not mention Grande or the film by name. “As for me, days with my son are sunny,” she wrote. “Days when I can’t escape the promotion of a movie associated with the saddest days of my life are darker.”

Ultimately, Jay says she has worked towards accepting her new normal, writing, “While I still firmly believe in following my patients’ leads and not presuming to know what parts of my personhood resonate with them, the publicity I did not consent to increasingly feels like both a challenge and an opportunity. If I’m discovered—as what, being vulnerable?—perhaps it could be a point of connection rather than a clinical liability.”

She continues, “My entire adult life, I feared that loss of control and postpartum depression would destroy me. One day in London, I looked up and found that they had both arrived. And I am okay. If I can’t be invisible anymore, I may as well introduce myself. You know how a sponge is most effective at absorbing liquid when it’s already a bit wet? Maybe we can think about my messy not-so-personal life in that way: a dose of my own loss, rage, powerlessness, sadness that helps me hold yours.”