Normally, she is the one asking the tough questions. But on this special edition of the Q&A Cafe at the Ritz-Carlton on Thursday afternoon, author Carol Joynt took to the hot seat to share details about her new memoir, “Innocent Spouse.”
ABC News “Nightline” correspondent John Donvan pried Joynt on her marriage, memories and personal hell after the death of her husband and former Nathans owner, Howard.
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She was a successful news producer who married a charming saloon owner. “I love being married,” Joynt said. But it wasn’t long before the curtain on the fairy tale marriage was revealed. “He was very jealous of everyone in my life before him,” Joynt explained. And his jealousy and mood swings were just the beginning of their marriage problems.
“I came home in tears a lot,” said the former writer for “CBS Evening News.”
After one of her husband’s meltdowns, in which he hit her, Joynt said she realized that she wasn’t going to take it anymore. “You can have loads of talent but still have very low self-esteem. Finally, one day I said this is just so not me and I’m just not going to put up with this.”
Joynt shared her situation with her doctor, who suggested she see a psychiatrist. “That was a hard process to begin,” she said. “You can get very busy and feel like a success on the outside but not feel it on the inside. What therapy did is it filled me in. It really made me strong.”
Her new strength made her husband jealous. He decided he wanted to feel the same empowerment. But at his doctor’s appointment it wasn’t strength that he found, but rather a diagnosis of leukemia.
As if losing a husband wasn’t heartache enough, Joynt learned that he had been lying about their financial situation and had committed tax fraud, leaving her to fight the Internal Revenue Service to be granted “innocent spouse” status.
“I was an idiot, I was ignorant. I should have asked for ‘ignorant spouse,’ not ‘innocent spouse,’ ” Joynt joked. “It’s not an easy thing to get.” But she got it and she lived to write about it.