When Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore announced they were separating, the response was a collective “Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!” It was hard to believe the First Couple Of Indie Rock had split after 27 years of marriage and a shared career that gave us what could perhaps be the best discography in the history of rock music. It was, for some, a harsh awakening — the indie rock version of when Al and Tipper Gore divorced; the death of rock ‘n’ roll love (at least we still have Georgia and Ira and Mimi and Alan, for those searching for models of domestic stability in this unforgiving world) — but mostly, it made no sense: Thurston and Kim were perfect together, weren’t they? What could fuck that up?

In a story posted today on Elle.com, Gordon tells Lizzy Goodman more or less exactly what killed her marriage. Says Gordon:

“[I]t ended in a kind of normal way — midlife crisis, starstruck woman.”

Damn. Damn! But wait, there’s more. As Goodman tells it:

Some years ago, a woman Gordon declines to name became a part of the Sonic Youth world, first as the girlfriend of an erstwhile band member and later as a partner on a literary project with Moore. Eventually, Gordon discovered a text message and confronted him about having an affair. They went to counseling, but he kept seeing the other woman. “We never got to the point where we could just get rid of her so I could decide what I wanted to do,” Gordon says. “Thurston was carrying on this whole double life with her. He was really like a lost soul.”

Gordon’s really fucking candid throughout the piece — she talks about how the division of assets has slowed the divorce process, how she’s navigating the dating world at the age of 59 —- and you should really just read it in full. The only thing missing, naturally, is Thurston’s side. No matter. Still hurts. Somehow. Somehow it still hurts me, a person who never met either Thurston or Kim. I’m just a sap, man. This stuff kills me. “We seemed to have a normal relationship inside of a crazy world,” Gordon tells Goodman. She’s right. Still sad to think it ended.