By admin 
Introduction
We often romance the idea of the “starving artist”—the genius who suffers for their craft. But we rarely talk about the people they make suffer along with them. In a moment of startling vulnerability, the legendary Barry Manilow dropped the mask of the showman to autopsy the corpse of his first marriage to Susan Deixler. The verdict? It wasn’t incompatibility. It wasn’t a lack of love. It was his own ruthless immaturity.
At 22 years old, Manilow was standing on the precipice of a life most men dream of. He had a beautiful wife who adored him, a stable home in Brooklyn, and a path laid out before him. But inside, he was screaming.
Manilow has candidly confessed that at that specific age, he was “not ready” for the quiet dignity of domestic life. He described his musical ambition not as a dream, but as a “monster” that demanded to be fed. To remain married to Susan—a woman he freely admits was “perfect” in every way—would have required a piece of his soul that he had already pledged to the music industry. He realized with terrifying clarity that he could be a good husband, or he could be Barry Manilow. He couldn’t be both.
The tragedy of this confession lies in its timing. When you are 22, you think you are making a temporary sacrifice. You think you can pause life. But Manilow walked out the door of that marriage and never went back. He annulled the vows not because the relationship was broken, but because he was incomplete. He was a boy in a man’s suit, desperate for applause, fleeing the “terrifying” responsibility of being someone’s everything.
This isn’t just a celebrity breakup story; it is a warning shot about the blinding nature of early fame. Manilow’s admission proves that sometimes the villain in the story isn’t a cheater or a liar—it’s just a kid who isn’t finished growing up yet. He got the fame, the money, and the legacy. But to get it, he had to become the man who walked away from the only girl who loved him before the world knew his name.