3. Resilience through Romance

On leaving marriage - choosing life over martyrdom, loving more through polyamory, sovereignty and self-realization

My marriage ended formally a few years ago, but I still love my ex. The idea of being with someone forever has never sat well with me. I may be the only person I know between the ages of 20 and 60 without a tattoo. How could I possibly know who I will be in 20 years or what I’ll want on my arm? We congratulate couples who make it through forty years together as if they’ve survived a war—praising endurance as virtue. But is it laudable or perhaps (maniacally) laughable?

Despite the standard narrative, marriage has often struck me as a social construct that primarily serves men. Married men generally experience improved mental health relative to single men, but married women often experience higher levels of stress, anxiety, or depressive symptoms compared to single women. While marriage lengthens men’s lifespan, it does not consistently extend women’s — and in some studies, it reduces longevity for women in poor marriages. Naturally social creatures, it isolates women to our detriment, especially where children are involved—placing a burden on the nuclear family where the collective once caught so much of the chaos. I think of 1950’s wives trapped at home on Xanax. And I remember when I was stuck at home alone with a child bored out of my mind and considering daytime inebriation as a hobby for the first and only time. Personally, I would rather live in a community of women.

I stayed for years in an unhappy marriage, climbing on and off the fence of separation. I had married a handsome, kind, funny and successful man who did not deserve to be abandoned. “And what of the children!” I would hear the banshees cry. I agonized at the thought of breaking up the family and wondered how I could ever justify such a selfish choice. But the truth became impossible to ignore, cliché as it may be, he is a good man, just not good for me.

There were a number of poignant moments that helped me to get off the fence. One was Glennon Doyle’s articulation of becoming a model instead of a martyr:

“Mothers have martyred themselves in their children’s names since the beginning of time. We have lived as if she who disappears the most, loves the most… When we call martyrdom love, we teach our children that when love begins, life ends.”
— Glennon Doyle, Untamed

Rejecting that doctrine, Glennon chose to become “a responsible mother—one who shows her children how to be fully alive.” I woke up one morning to the realization that my kids primarily knew me as stressed and angry because that was the main range of my emotions for too many years. They were barely acquainted with my humor, my goofiness, my light. Now that they are, the ripple effect on their own well being is unmistakable. I am more resourced and better able to listen to and laugh with them, hold a consistent and high bar of integrity and demonstrate how to own mistakes and learn from lessons. Our mutual respect is distinctly on the rise.

I reached another turning point when I traveled deep in the Amazon, with the Pachamama Alliance, an environmental organization I have long admired, working to protect the indigenous communities as guardians of the great rainforest. Hundreds of miles from concrete and steel, I laid down next to a river, taking in the diversity and force of life forms surrounding me and discovered I could feel the flow of water in my body from my tear ducts to my labia. I had all but forgotten what it was to feel so alive, to feel so much vitality.

But I returned home to my rationalizations and delayed action. It was not until an Ayahuasca ceremony months later that I could no longer deny my truth. It was my husband’s first time in ceremony. I was the only really experienced practitioner in the room. Before long, I found myself on all fours making a lot of noise. “Well this is embarrassing,” I thought to myself, self-consciously, until being simply took over from thinking.

I was. I was pacing back and forth. I was growling. I was frustrated. I was a jaguar, wild and powerful, and I was trapped behind bars. There was no judgement about the bars. Just a very clear understanding that I did not belong there. It was visceral. I had to get out.

I am sheepish to admit how liberated and happy I have been since leaving my perfectly acceptable marriage. No woman should be happy living alone, right?! But since becoming single, I have opened myself to love like never before. So much has changed since I was on the market 20 years ago. I am my own woman. I am not looking for a baby daddy or a provider. I have a huge libido really for the first time. And I am free to explore new kinds of connection and seek out hot crazy love. I have been exploring polyamory, play parties, kink and tantra and I am learning so much about myself and men.

In reviewing the merits of various relationship models, I cannot say I have seen a lot of inspiring and successful examples of long-term coupling. No more than the perfect model of government I suppose. There is only, as far as I can tell, the trial and error, evolution and discovery of one’s own truth at any given moment. In my explorations outside of traditionally accepted norms and my own comfort zone, I check in with my body. Quite often, I am pleasantly surprised to find I have no problem at all and that, in fact, I am thrilled. I get off on novelty and expansion.

The ride continues to be wild and unpredictable. I have massively expanded my pleasure palette. I am getting better at opening myself to fall in love, then falling on my ass and getting up to let myself fall again. I am gaining clarity on my shadows and building my resilience. I feel honored for the opportunity to be intimate with more diverse beings and gain a deeper sense of connection to humanity through them. I have simultaneously gained respect for our complexity and am left struck by all the ways we are stuck and by how many are grateful for the least bit of intimacy. The breadth gives me more capacity to understand and give to more people.

“Polyamory is wrong,” someone once quipped. “It’s either multiamory or polyphilia. Mixing Latin and Greek is just wrong.”

I am currently polyamorous - though I can not quite commit. I have gained enormous respect for the practice: the impressively high level of autonomy, authenticity and personal accountability, the regular check-ins, truth-telling, insistence on enthusiastic consent, and the judgment-free acceptance of others’ articulated desires and boundaries. No more bending to meet external ideals or unrealistic committed relationship contortions. It’s not for the faint of heart—but it teaches resilience and shows that love, like any ecosystem, thrives on diversity and interdependence. No one person is meant to meet every need; it’s the network that sustains us.

After I left my marriage, I tried my hand at manifestation magic, listing the qualities of my perfect partner and sending it out to the cosmos in prayer. It was a tall order. “All the things,” said my friend—who truly has all the things—“I want all the things.” Then I realized suddenly, when licking my wounds about a potential romance gone wrong, that the universe has indeed provided all the things. Of course, this has occurred in unforeseen ways. Without the pressure to make every connection the one, I’ve found myself drawn to wildly different souls -including people I would not have played with before. All of them are heroes in their own magnificent ways. Between them, I have a charming, entrepreneurial, galaxy brained, well endowed, fixer-fabricator-warrior-artist-author-father and adonis who talks to me for hours like a childhood friend, makes me snort with laughter, adores me, dominates me and holds me like his life depends on it - adding to my vitality and purpose.

Maybe I’m a good judge of character, or maybe my impressions have just been a little too cynical—but I am pleased to share that every man I’ve been with has treated me with respect and tenderness. They may lack communication skills and sometimes fail to meet bids for attention, but it’s clear they want the best for me. Each, in his own way, shows appreciation, affection, and care. I love and respect them all. I love to love. Some men might resent a woman who loves many, but more men get to experience my adoration and joy. Several of them have been without any attention from a woman for years. So far, they are all themselves polyamorous or happy to play.

So have my prayers been met? Yes and no. I may make this all sound glorious -and it is. But it is also riddled with holes. I am not easily scared, but that does not mean I don’t suffer. I suffer quite a lot actually. I have had my heart broken again and again, once big and many times small. The instances seem to be coming in more quickly and manage-ably. Perhaps there is some karmic path for me here, to learn not to take things so personally.

So many men retreat in silence as a solution - to most everything it seems. They cannot commit to plans or adequately correspond. I feel abandoned again and again. Left out in the cold when there were such warm feelings just moments ago. It is as confusing as upsetting. I am often disappointed. But not because the men are for want of anything. Rather because they are not wanting enough – to rise to the occasion and proceed with consciousness and grace. We are all at where we are at – flailing in our own ways. But I would be lying to deny that I yearn for someone who can be counted on to stand up and meet me in discourse with an open heart.

My bounty is obscene, my gratitude boundless AND I long to fall madly deeply and mutually in love. Does the breadth of many necessary come at the expense of depth with any? Certainly I have met commitment-phobic people taking refuge in the poly community. I talk to men who confess to being lonely but who choose solitude over the constraints and expectations of emotional entanglement. I do not understand this. I choose the chaos of a passionate and vital life over the boredom of an overly safe one. I want to let go of my guard with abandon and be taken by the current. I want to find someone stupid and crazy enough to jump into the whitewater with me. Someone who will adore me and allow me to adore them. A raw, vulnerable, honest, silly and sexy hero who will seek to play with me night and day. Because I feel the profound desire to tumble tangled together, bellowing with lust and laughter - at least once in my life. This is not necessarily at the exclusion of multiple partners. Perhaps this is a primary. Or perhaps this is possible with multiple people. I do not pretend to know - until I discover it.

Perhaps I need to get this experience out of my system, fraught as it is likely to be, before I can pursue a strategy for greater equanimity and self-mastery. So far, the universe has not brought this alignment, offering only that one or the other of us is truly leaning in for the big love. I take that as a challenge to center myself and an opportunity to distribute my affection. I realize that centering someone else inevitably leads to stretching outward and eventually toppling over. Sometimes, I feel like Queen Elizabeth, as portrayed by Cate Blanchett, when she cuts her hair: discarding her heart’s longing and stepping into the full power of her reign. When I heed this call, I practice directing my energy into personal growth, self-realization and creative expression, like this Substack. The practice fortifies me, better equipping me to help more people, as I feel called to do.

If I can better meet my own needs, I am more able to accept and meet these often broken heroic souls where they are at, without hope or expectation that they can reliably meet mine and without taking that quite so to heart. Each little heartbreak strengthens my emotional dexterity and personal sovereignty. The more beings I love, the more I understand what I can influence and what I cannot, the more capacity I have to surrender to these realities and the more humanity I can hold.

I am sovereign AND I surrender.

Can one go both deep and wide? All I can say for sure is that “Til death do us part,” monogamy seems awfully backwards. I am not motivated by the fear of being alone. Nor do I seek to commit to something past when it has run its course. Having this attitude is a safeguard against being lazy in a relationship. The only commitment I will make is to everyone’s self-realization – together or apart – as is best for our personal evolution. Friendship is easy to come back to - eventually. Everything has its season.

A friend pointed out that it takes enormous vulnerability to open myself to all of these feelings again and again. You could say I have become a vulnerability warrior. I’m getting better at both letting go of love and feeling how much love surrounds me. And I have to hope that this helps to prepare me for greater hardships to come.

There is no right model for romance. The core of relationships, it seems to me, is people wanting to feel seen, heard and appreciated more. When they don’t, they get resentful. I only have to look at how ChatGPT is winning hearts with very simple communication strategies, to see how unskilled we humans are at the basics. When people feel seen, heard and valued, the rest is gravy and distance, disparities and other difficulties becomes much more tolerable. In subsequent posts, I will focus on the kind of skills I am discovering and aspiring to develop in relationships: from effective interrelating, to living in integrity with defined boundaries, to the noble tenets of sex-positive culture.