New York, NY – Cathi Hanauer, the 63-year-old best-selling author and editor of the anthologies The Bitch in the House and The Bitch Is Back, has publicly revealed that she and her husband of 30 years, New York Times editor Daniel Jones, have separated — not because of infidelity or ongoing conflict, but because she wanted greater personal freedom in the second half of life.
In a personal essay published in The New York Times on November 29, 2025, Hanauer described the end of their marriage as a natural and healthy conclusion rather than a failure. The couple, who married in 1992 and share two adult children (a daughter, 28, and a son, 25), began growing apart after their children left home for college. The distance increased further when their long and successful professional collaboration — co-creating and co-editing the hugely popular Modern Love column starting in 2004 — also ended. Despite attending couples counseling, they ultimately decided to part ways.
“We hugged, apologized for our shortcomings and freed each other,” Hanauer wrote in the essay titled “We Had a Long, Mostly Good Marriage. It’s OK That It Ended.”
She openly admitted that even before their wedding three decades ago, she had felt uneasy about committing to lifelong monogamy, but Jones had persuaded her that traditional vows were the right choice. Thirty years later, she realized she no longer wished to remain “tethered” in the same way.
Since separating, Hanauer reports enjoying single life and has dated several men, including a retired police officer, an engineer, a doctor, and a television producer. Daniel Jones, still the editor of the Modern Love column, is now in a new relationship with a woman Hanauer describes as wonderful; the two women reportedly get along well.
Notably, the couple has not formally divorced and has no plans to do so at present. Instead, they reached a private separation agreement without involving lawyers, an arrangement both describe as fair. Under its terms, Jones continues to cover Hanauer’s health insurance and provides her with a monthly financial stipend.
Hanauer explained the ongoing support by pointing out that their joint work on Modern Love for nearly twenty years significantly elevated Jones’s profile and earning power at The New York Times, while her income as a novelist and essayist remains less steady.
“There was no affair, no constant fighting, no bitterness,” she stressed. Their children were initially upset by the news but have since come to terms with their parents’ decision.
The essay has generated widespread discussion, with some readers applauding the couple’s maturity and mutual respect, while others have questioned the fairness of Hanauer retaining financial benefits after choosing to end the romantic partnership.
Hanauer is best known for the best-selling essay collection The Bitch in the House (2002), which sold over 300,000 copies and spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and its 2016 sequel The Bitch Is Back. She has also published three novels: Gone (2012), My Sister’s Bones (1996), and Sweet Ruin (1997).
Daniel Jones remains the sole editor of Modern Love, which has grown into one of the newspaper’s most beloved features and spawned bestselling books, a popular podcast, and an Amazon Prime anthology series.
As of December 1, 2025, Cathi Hanauer and Daniel Jones remain legally married but live separately and consider their romantic relationship permanently concluded.
