I was surprised to read my last one there at the end. Means a lot to me to be seen- even with all my stream of consciousness mistakes. Thanks for opening up spaces for so many to find community and camaraderie through their journeys.
In retrospect, I realize that I suffered from a lack of imagination in thinking about the way that our partnership evolved as our sex life devolved. I could only see it as a big lie we were living because we continued the pretense of a good marriage, and yet there was much that was not at all good about it. For me, a marriage was a truth telling, monogamous, trust worthy union and I could not wrap my mind around other alternatives, and yet we were living an alternative model so I was vexed. I had not explicitly agreed to this model, but I implicitly went along with it.
While we started off this relationship with plenty of lust and physical attraction, perhaps life got in the way, along with the common dilemmas of mis-matched desires, ebbs and flows of erotic energies, and then finally menopause, the attraction waned then disappeared. For a very long time I was stuck in the idea that we could fix things, if only … and the if only in my mind was that he would feel the way I wanted him to feel. Ridiculous, I know. But I was stuck in my righteous pain of being rejected. Really stuck.
While C. sought to find other outlets for his sexual needs in semi-secrecy, I felt abandoned, hurt and angry. I was stuck there for way too long, while at the same time we carried on with our life together in a mostly congenial, cooperative way. I was very hung up on the idea that it would be dishonest, or more importantly, destructive for me to seek my own outlets for my sexual needs. I could only imagine a dichotomy and never a third more imaginative way. This was perhaps my fear of abandonment in full force. The uncomfortable acceptance was my way of not blowing up our good life together. It felt like a tenuous hold that I didn’t want to test so my desires were put away. But of course they were always there and the hurt (resentment) was always there.
I simply could not imagine being with someone else, even if it was just for sex. I had no desire for that, and yet I also had no desire for my partner while he was sharing himself with I don’t know how many other women. To see the dating apps on his phone made me a bit crazy, and yet on we went.
It’s only many years later, now that I’m an invisible, old lady, that I can see that we might have been able to both have our physical needs met AND keep our relationship intact. But of course that would have required us to have difficult and explicit conversations. Never something we were good at. What I understand now, at least for myself, is that my restricted ideas about the commitments of marriage were me being so completely indoctrinated by the patriarchal traditions and that’s what kept me from exploring my own needs and desires. Instead I shut down those needs and desires. I gaslit myself.
I’ve railed against the patriarchy internally and out loud my whole life, and yet I keep finding myself entrenched and completely indoctrinated. It’s so interesting to learn many of these life lessons at the trailing end of my life. It would have been great to be more liberated and empowered many years ago, but I’m happy to be getting there at all. Even if it is too late for me to indulge in a more adventurous sex life, there’s always solo sex where there are no worries about performance, appearance and expectations.
(Just an aside here abut the perceptions of old people - the western idea that an old woman is used up and worthless. I feel like I have opened up, loosened up, smartened up and finally found my voice now that I appear to be just a white haired old lady that is invisible and not at all “sexy”. Inside I’m more me than I’ve ever been.)
We have kept our relationship and a very good life together intact for 36 years, and for that I am so very grateful. Maybe I did make the right choices, but I didn’t need to suffer as much as I did. I’ve forgiven myself and my husband for all the strife we have caused each other and our partnership is perhaps stronger than ever and that’s a good thing.
i simply love this space. i'm beyond grateful. there are days when it feels like it saves my life, over and over. thank you everyone for sharing and creating and coming to this table, and of course: thank you miranda
Have been so enjoying these. Currently in the middle of a lot of internal changes, and reading other stories is really helpful. Being a caterpillar shoved in a chrysalis and waiting for the changes that are supposedly coming is uncomfortable.
It doesn’t seem like there’s much perspective from the “true other”, or the 3rd person to a non-normative marriage…
Much to my dismay I have found myself as the true other to a happily married, devoted, parenting and still sexually compatible couple.
The seemingly “perfect” couple.
They opened it up because he always valued polyamory but it was never a deal breaker. Recently, his wife had a bit of a queer awakening (during their extended wfh-parenting in a rural area-co-owning a business always together moment) so they agreed to have sexy simple, ENM dates. “No more no less”.
Things have been anything but simple.
My last decade+ was spent battling endometriosis and being misdiagnosed with late stage gynaecological cancer last Winter.
On a whim I met up with him the night before my 40th birthday, riding high in my self proclaimed Phoenix Era. As I walked him out that night the Aurora Borealis was lighting up the sky in a rare solar storm and we saw a shooting star. 40 days in, he told me he was in love with me.
4 months in and we are deeply, magically, obsessively and adolescently in love; like neither he nor I have ever been. I haven’t even had a man in my life in 7 years due to my illness and the intrinsic psycho-spiritual duress that accompanies chronic pain.
I now find myself in an internal (and external) battle of grief and grasping.
I’m laying to rest my own desire to have a family, a home, a “real life” with the man I love.
I have to reject my own very clear wants and needs in an act of preservation. I feel like I’m constantly and pre-emptively mending a bridge to a woman I don’t know, for a reason I don’t want. I have to fight the urge to fight for him every damn day for fear I’ll lose access all together for the sake of the family.
Meanwhile, I’ve inherited the cultural legacy of being the “other woman”, the seductress, the home wrecker. When I was just looking for someone that would be nice to me after years of hemorrhaging out of my genitals.
In all the talk of “progress” and breaking down the old and oppressive constructs, it seems we are still centring the experiences of the trad cis-het(ish) couple. It leaves much to be desired for an old maid like myself…
I hope all the folks blowing up their lives can remember the humanity of those standing in range of their shrapnel. I hope we hear more from societies rejects who never got much of a shot at partnership in the first place.
Even though I'm on the other side of the equation, I feel deeply for you and your experience and heartbreak is so valid.
I want to share my story maybe that helps you see that some of us care.
I've been with my partner for almost 5 years. We've been ENM from the very beginning (he was actually a sort of lover/friend of mine from when I was still openly married to my ex) even though we really only opened it up a year and a half ago due to pandemic safety, moving in together, moving towns, building careers, and new relationship energy between us.
When we felt ready to open it up for real things moved pretty quickly. I've been dating a wonderful woman for the past year and she has family and kids and I seem to fit very easily into their life and everything has been so easy with her. Kitchen table poly style and going to the Pride parade with her kids, kissing in the crowd in front of them and her husband, things like that.
On the other hand, my partner, who's a deep thinker and more of an introvert and private person, in the past year has reconnected to the woman who was his very first love when they were teenagers. They were each other's first kiss and best friends and "romantic love" since they were 14 until 19. They hadn't spoken to each other in 20 years, and when they reconnected on FB last year and finally met after a few chats, all the love and care and romantic feelings between them were 100% still there.
Despite feelings of jealousy and insecurities (of course there are some, she was there before me!!) I'm rooting for them. It is clear like water to me how much they love and respect and adore each other and she understands him in a way I probably never will. I want them to be together and enjoy each other and he's a better man since he's reconnected with her.
But she's a single mom of a neurodivergent kid, she has an autoimmune condition, struggles financially despite working her ass off to provide for her kid, and has suffered a lot of abuse in her life. She's a hard working person who wants (and deserves) a stable, local and dedicated partner who makes her a priority, and my partner cannot be that for her and the kid. We live 3 hours away and he can only go to see her every other month or so, and that's not enough.
I feel for her so much. I'd love for them to see each other more often, like I can see my girlfriend for long luscious romantic sleepovers every other week.... But for my partner and this woman, distance and full-time work and her chronic illness don't make it possible.
My partner doesn't want to leave me (we talked about it) just to be with her, he genuinely loves me and is happy with me. She doesn't want to wreck our relationship. I'd love to meet her but she doesn't seem interested in that and has no capacity for it and I respect that.
It must be so hard for her. I just wish they were happy together as I can be happy and in love with my girlfriend.
The latest situation is that she's asked him to only be "platonic friends" because she suffers too much when he comes back home to me after he goes to visit her. It breaks my heart but I need to let their situation evolve the way it's supposed to. But I think about her and I wish we were closer and I'd honestly be happy to babysit for the kid so they could have time together, but it just sounds like polyamory doesn't work for her. She wants one monogamous dedicated man and my partner cannot be that for her.
I just wanted to tell you I relate to much of this. I’ve fallen in love with a married man who loves me but very much loves his wife, too. They don’t have sex anymore but are still affectionate and of course.. married. It’s very, very hard given my past and I grapple with what to do, daily. Too painful to stay, too painful to go. Sending you love and grace for all your feelings, too ❤️
Miranda, I wonder what space there is for Rainbow families in these conversations. My last relationship of 22 years didn’t fit into any traditional model. We didn’t live under one roof. She was married, stayed married, had three kids. And yet, I was part of the household—I cooked, spent time with the kids, shared life with them. It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t something most people understood either.
Non-traditional relationships don’t just exist between partners—they extend into the way families are formed, how love and care are distributed, and who gets recognized as belonging. Sometimes the structures we live within aren’t set up to reflect the reality of how we actually live. I see that tension running through so many of these stories—finding ways to exist inside frameworks that were never built to hold us.
I'm still processing that I'm not the only one with this stuck feeling. Its so good to read. It makes me happy, and makes me cry. I'm not married but have been with the same partner for 17 years & we are proud parents to a five year old living close to the middle of a small, crowded city in an apartment we are growing out of. They're gone for the week & I feel bit lost in terms of all the things I wanted to get done & how delicious it is not to feel pressed or actually do anything. So its nearly noon on Friday & I'm still in my pajamas. I have the rest & mental space for all the experiences shared here to really land. Thank you for sharing them! Given my partners' issues with anger management, narcissistic tendencies & his deep love for our child, I feel blocked by the concern if & how my partner would parent on his own if we were not living together. I really want to break generational chains of emotional immaturity/abuse & I'm not sure my partner can do that on his own. I grew up without my dad & want so deeply to offer my child a two parent household. The most painful thing is probably that I'm actually scared to talk about any of this with my partner given how much fallout for myself & our child even just the talking about it could create in our small apartment & daily lives. He says I'm too sensitive & I think he can be emotionally abusive. For many years he had me thinking my push back on his anger was some kind of cultural imperialism. Couples therapy ended when the therapist named his anger management issues. After that our household felt like there were land mines everywhere that could explode any time. Now we have a kind of distant, functional cease-fire. With a lot things unsaid & occasional flare ups. This whole world of other possibilities described here is like another planet for him & when I think of having to translate & drive the spaceship there for him, it just makes me so tired. While he is a bit pedantic, intellectually & politically we will always have a lot to talk about. Sex, don't remember when was the last time. If he sleeps in our bed I have to wear earplugs. If he sleeps on the couch at some point his back goes out. I really don't know what to do & have been in that state of not knowing, pulling the cart forward without much traction or help, or just watching the time roll by for most of my son's life. It just feels like now is not the time to be complacent in anything. I'm urgently & constantly bewildered. But I thank you. ...and of course they both just video called me as I was writing this, I miss my little one so much, the idea of making his life harder in any way just breaks me.
I fell in love with two men this past year. One while I was still living with my husband. The second after our separation.
I’m exhausted after all the heartbreak and heartache (three in a year!). But - I realized I’ve been falling in love not with these men, but with myself. And I’ve seen glimpses of who I am. They were mirrors. Showing me my wonderful and my ugly self.
And I also know that although I fell in love with myself - it doesn’t mean I truly love myself, because that will take a lot. And this cannot be rushed or be shallow. I have to accept everything, including my ugly self.
I’m gonna take some time off now - from relationships with other people - and focus on me. Or rather not focus. Just stop processing and let my body and mind go where it wants to go. And get to know who I am. Both the kind person I am, but also the jerk. Let her out, and try to love her.
I might end up back with my husband (I know, he gets to decide too). Because I somehow miss him. I miss my family. I think I just needed to find myself. And I need some more time for that, to keep finding her (she is hiding in there).
i have loved this series so much. i wonder if we can get little updates in a few years... i feel like i'll be thinking of all of these women from now until then... <3
I love this space, Miranda. It is a constant reminder that we are never alone in any thought/feeling we have entertained, embraced or sheid away from and we should never feel 'wrong'. This feels a bit disappointing in a weird way--to be reminded that every one is commonplace to some one else, but mostly it's comforting and freeing to feel reflected in others. Thanks for giving space for that.
You aren’t a terrible person. I share a lot of your story and I get trapped in that kind of thinking as well. I think some of us are just triers, in that we try more things that life presents to us or see it in the first place. It just makes it so hard to fit in to what’s considered normal or good.
I was surprised to read my last one there at the end. Means a lot to me to be seen- even with all my stream of consciousness mistakes. Thanks for opening up spaces for so many to find community and camaraderie through their journeys.
In retrospect, I realize that I suffered from a lack of imagination in thinking about the way that our partnership evolved as our sex life devolved. I could only see it as a big lie we were living because we continued the pretense of a good marriage, and yet there was much that was not at all good about it. For me, a marriage was a truth telling, monogamous, trust worthy union and I could not wrap my mind around other alternatives, and yet we were living an alternative model so I was vexed. I had not explicitly agreed to this model, but I implicitly went along with it.
While we started off this relationship with plenty of lust and physical attraction, perhaps life got in the way, along with the common dilemmas of mis-matched desires, ebbs and flows of erotic energies, and then finally menopause, the attraction waned then disappeared. For a very long time I was stuck in the idea that we could fix things, if only … and the if only in my mind was that he would feel the way I wanted him to feel. Ridiculous, I know. But I was stuck in my righteous pain of being rejected. Really stuck.
While C. sought to find other outlets for his sexual needs in semi-secrecy, I felt abandoned, hurt and angry. I was stuck there for way too long, while at the same time we carried on with our life together in a mostly congenial, cooperative way. I was very hung up on the idea that it would be dishonest, or more importantly, destructive for me to seek my own outlets for my sexual needs. I could only imagine a dichotomy and never a third more imaginative way. This was perhaps my fear of abandonment in full force. The uncomfortable acceptance was my way of not blowing up our good life together. It felt like a tenuous hold that I didn’t want to test so my desires were put away. But of course they were always there and the hurt (resentment) was always there.
I simply could not imagine being with someone else, even if it was just for sex. I had no desire for that, and yet I also had no desire for my partner while he was sharing himself with I don’t know how many other women. To see the dating apps on his phone made me a bit crazy, and yet on we went.
It’s only many years later, now that I’m an invisible, old lady, that I can see that we might have been able to both have our physical needs met AND keep our relationship intact. But of course that would have required us to have difficult and explicit conversations. Never something we were good at. What I understand now, at least for myself, is that my restricted ideas about the commitments of marriage were me being so completely indoctrinated by the patriarchal traditions and that’s what kept me from exploring my own needs and desires. Instead I shut down those needs and desires. I gaslit myself.
I’ve railed against the patriarchy internally and out loud my whole life, and yet I keep finding myself entrenched and completely indoctrinated. It’s so interesting to learn many of these life lessons at the trailing end of my life. It would have been great to be more liberated and empowered many years ago, but I’m happy to be getting there at all. Even if it is too late for me to indulge in a more adventurous sex life, there’s always solo sex where there are no worries about performance, appearance and expectations.
(Just an aside here abut the perceptions of old people - the western idea that an old woman is used up and worthless. I feel like I have opened up, loosened up, smartened up and finally found my voice now that I appear to be just a white haired old lady that is invisible and not at all “sexy”. Inside I’m more me than I’ve ever been.)
We have kept our relationship and a very good life together intact for 36 years, and for that I am so very grateful. Maybe I did make the right choices, but I didn’t need to suffer as much as I did. I’ve forgiven myself and my husband for all the strife we have caused each other and our partnership is perhaps stronger than ever and that’s a good thing.
i simply love this space. i'm beyond grateful. there are days when it feels like it saves my life, over and over. thank you everyone for sharing and creating and coming to this table, and of course: thank you miranda
Have been so enjoying these. Currently in the middle of a lot of internal changes, and reading other stories is really helpful. Being a caterpillar shoved in a chrysalis and waiting for the changes that are supposedly coming is uncomfortable.
It doesn’t seem like there’s much perspective from the “true other”, or the 3rd person to a non-normative marriage…
Much to my dismay I have found myself as the true other to a happily married, devoted, parenting and still sexually compatible couple.
The seemingly “perfect” couple.
They opened it up because he always valued polyamory but it was never a deal breaker. Recently, his wife had a bit of a queer awakening (during their extended wfh-parenting in a rural area-co-owning a business always together moment) so they agreed to have sexy simple, ENM dates. “No more no less”.
Things have been anything but simple.
My last decade+ was spent battling endometriosis and being misdiagnosed with late stage gynaecological cancer last Winter.
On a whim I met up with him the night before my 40th birthday, riding high in my self proclaimed Phoenix Era. As I walked him out that night the Aurora Borealis was lighting up the sky in a rare solar storm and we saw a shooting star. 40 days in, he told me he was in love with me.
4 months in and we are deeply, magically, obsessively and adolescently in love; like neither he nor I have ever been. I haven’t even had a man in my life in 7 years due to my illness and the intrinsic psycho-spiritual duress that accompanies chronic pain.
I now find myself in an internal (and external) battle of grief and grasping.
I’m laying to rest my own desire to have a family, a home, a “real life” with the man I love.
I have to reject my own very clear wants and needs in an act of preservation. I feel like I’m constantly and pre-emptively mending a bridge to a woman I don’t know, for a reason I don’t want. I have to fight the urge to fight for him every damn day for fear I’ll lose access all together for the sake of the family.
Meanwhile, I’ve inherited the cultural legacy of being the “other woman”, the seductress, the home wrecker. When I was just looking for someone that would be nice to me after years of hemorrhaging out of my genitals.
In all the talk of “progress” and breaking down the old and oppressive constructs, it seems we are still centring the experiences of the trad cis-het(ish) couple. It leaves much to be desired for an old maid like myself…
I hope all the folks blowing up their lives can remember the humanity of those standing in range of their shrapnel. I hope we hear more from societies rejects who never got much of a shot at partnership in the first place.
Hi Andrea,
Even though I'm on the other side of the equation, I feel deeply for you and your experience and heartbreak is so valid.
I want to share my story maybe that helps you see that some of us care.
I've been with my partner for almost 5 years. We've been ENM from the very beginning (he was actually a sort of lover/friend of mine from when I was still openly married to my ex) even though we really only opened it up a year and a half ago due to pandemic safety, moving in together, moving towns, building careers, and new relationship energy between us.
When we felt ready to open it up for real things moved pretty quickly. I've been dating a wonderful woman for the past year and she has family and kids and I seem to fit very easily into their life and everything has been so easy with her. Kitchen table poly style and going to the Pride parade with her kids, kissing in the crowd in front of them and her husband, things like that.
On the other hand, my partner, who's a deep thinker and more of an introvert and private person, in the past year has reconnected to the woman who was his very first love when they were teenagers. They were each other's first kiss and best friends and "romantic love" since they were 14 until 19. They hadn't spoken to each other in 20 years, and when they reconnected on FB last year and finally met after a few chats, all the love and care and romantic feelings between them were 100% still there.
Despite feelings of jealousy and insecurities (of course there are some, she was there before me!!) I'm rooting for them. It is clear like water to me how much they love and respect and adore each other and she understands him in a way I probably never will. I want them to be together and enjoy each other and he's a better man since he's reconnected with her.
But she's a single mom of a neurodivergent kid, she has an autoimmune condition, struggles financially despite working her ass off to provide for her kid, and has suffered a lot of abuse in her life. She's a hard working person who wants (and deserves) a stable, local and dedicated partner who makes her a priority, and my partner cannot be that for her and the kid. We live 3 hours away and he can only go to see her every other month or so, and that's not enough.
I feel for her so much. I'd love for them to see each other more often, like I can see my girlfriend for long luscious romantic sleepovers every other week.... But for my partner and this woman, distance and full-time work and her chronic illness don't make it possible.
My partner doesn't want to leave me (we talked about it) just to be with her, he genuinely loves me and is happy with me. She doesn't want to wreck our relationship. I'd love to meet her but she doesn't seem interested in that and has no capacity for it and I respect that.
It must be so hard for her. I just wish they were happy together as I can be happy and in love with my girlfriend.
The latest situation is that she's asked him to only be "platonic friends" because she suffers too much when he comes back home to me after he goes to visit her. It breaks my heart but I need to let their situation evolve the way it's supposed to. But I think about her and I wish we were closer and I'd honestly be happy to babysit for the kid so they could have time together, but it just sounds like polyamory doesn't work for her. She wants one monogamous dedicated man and my partner cannot be that for her.
I just wanted to tell you I relate to much of this. I’ve fallen in love with a married man who loves me but very much loves his wife, too. They don’t have sex anymore but are still affectionate and of course.. married. It’s very, very hard given my past and I grapple with what to do, daily. Too painful to stay, too painful to go. Sending you love and grace for all your feelings, too ❤️
Miranda, I wonder what space there is for Rainbow families in these conversations. My last relationship of 22 years didn’t fit into any traditional model. We didn’t live under one roof. She was married, stayed married, had three kids. And yet, I was part of the household—I cooked, spent time with the kids, shared life with them. It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t something most people understood either.
Non-traditional relationships don’t just exist between partners—they extend into the way families are formed, how love and care are distributed, and who gets recognized as belonging. Sometimes the structures we live within aren’t set up to reflect the reality of how we actually live. I see that tension running through so many of these stories—finding ways to exist inside frameworks that were never built to hold us.
I'm still processing that I'm not the only one with this stuck feeling. Its so good to read. It makes me happy, and makes me cry. I'm not married but have been with the same partner for 17 years & we are proud parents to a five year old living close to the middle of a small, crowded city in an apartment we are growing out of. They're gone for the week & I feel bit lost in terms of all the things I wanted to get done & how delicious it is not to feel pressed or actually do anything. So its nearly noon on Friday & I'm still in my pajamas. I have the rest & mental space for all the experiences shared here to really land. Thank you for sharing them! Given my partners' issues with anger management, narcissistic tendencies & his deep love for our child, I feel blocked by the concern if & how my partner would parent on his own if we were not living together. I really want to break generational chains of emotional immaturity/abuse & I'm not sure my partner can do that on his own. I grew up without my dad & want so deeply to offer my child a two parent household. The most painful thing is probably that I'm actually scared to talk about any of this with my partner given how much fallout for myself & our child even just the talking about it could create in our small apartment & daily lives. He says I'm too sensitive & I think he can be emotionally abusive. For many years he had me thinking my push back on his anger was some kind of cultural imperialism. Couples therapy ended when the therapist named his anger management issues. After that our household felt like there were land mines everywhere that could explode any time. Now we have a kind of distant, functional cease-fire. With a lot things unsaid & occasional flare ups. This whole world of other possibilities described here is like another planet for him & when I think of having to translate & drive the spaceship there for him, it just makes me so tired. While he is a bit pedantic, intellectually & politically we will always have a lot to talk about. Sex, don't remember when was the last time. If he sleeps in our bed I have to wear earplugs. If he sleeps on the couch at some point his back goes out. I really don't know what to do & have been in that state of not knowing, pulling the cart forward without much traction or help, or just watching the time roll by for most of my son's life. It just feels like now is not the time to be complacent in anything. I'm urgently & constantly bewildered. But I thank you. ...and of course they both just video called me as I was writing this, I miss my little one so much, the idea of making his life harder in any way just breaks me.
Just wanted to throw out a book / memoir for those going through something similar: Molly Wizenberg’s ‘The Fixed Stars’ is a good read!
https://www.mollywizenberg.com/
Side note: I am also curious to hear more about children who grew up with open/ ENM/ Poly parents and how they feel/felt about it.
‘forever stuck in the tomb that was our marriage’ - incredibly powerful & gives words to me for something I couldn’t. 🙏🏻
I fell in love with two men this past year. One while I was still living with my husband. The second after our separation.
I’m exhausted after all the heartbreak and heartache (three in a year!). But - I realized I’ve been falling in love not with these men, but with myself. And I’ve seen glimpses of who I am. They were mirrors. Showing me my wonderful and my ugly self.
And I also know that although I fell in love with myself - it doesn’t mean I truly love myself, because that will take a lot. And this cannot be rushed or be shallow. I have to accept everything, including my ugly self.
I’m gonna take some time off now - from relationships with other people - and focus on me. Or rather not focus. Just stop processing and let my body and mind go where it wants to go. And get to know who I am. Both the kind person I am, but also the jerk. Let her out, and try to love her.
I might end up back with my husband (I know, he gets to decide too). Because I somehow miss him. I miss my family. I think I just needed to find myself. And I need some more time for that, to keep finding her (she is hiding in there).
i have loved this series so much. i wonder if we can get little updates in a few years... i feel like i'll be thinking of all of these women from now until then... <3
I love this space, Miranda. It is a constant reminder that we are never alone in any thought/feeling we have entertained, embraced or sheid away from and we should never feel 'wrong'. This feels a bit disappointing in a weird way--to be reminded that every one is commonplace to some one else, but mostly it's comforting and freeing to feel reflected in others. Thanks for giving space for that.
It was incredible to read all this! It truly was. Thanks for elevating our stories and to make us feel part of something bigger
https://letterboxd.com/9413/list/two-dads-two-fathers
♥️
You aren’t a terrible person. I share a lot of your story and I get trapped in that kind of thinking as well. I think some of us are just triers, in that we try more things that life presents to us or see it in the first place. It just makes it so hard to fit in to what’s considered normal or good.
You aren’t a terrible person. Just human 🌹