My Marriage Ended.... That Doesn’t Mean It Failed, EP. 166
I’m back. And my life looks pretty different than it did a few months ago.
I took most of the summer off from podcasting while I remodeled, moved, and navigated a pretty big life change: my husband and I split up.
I’m sharing a little about where I’ve been, but this episode isn’t really about the details of my separation. It’s about a question I’ve been thinking about a lot:
Does a relationship ending mean it failed?
In this episode:
Where I’ve been and why I took most of the summer off
A little about my separation and the changes happening in my life
Why we equate relationship longevity with relationship success
Why an ending doesn’t automatically mean a relationship failed
What non-monogamy can and cannot protect us from
Letting relationships change shape instead of forcing them to stay the same
The pressure to prove that polyamory “works”
Why I coach the people in a relationship, not the relationship itself
Choosing honesty and alignment over preserving a relationship at all costs
What I’m excited to explore in this next chapter of the podcast
If you’re in the messy middle of figuring out what you want, questioning the shape of a relationship, navigating non-monogamy, or realizing that the life you’ve built might not fit anymore, you don’t have to have the answer before asking for support.
Sometimes the work starts with finally having enough space to hear yourself.
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Music: Composer/Author (CA): Oscar Lindstein
STIM IPI: 572 393 237
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, hello, friends. I'm back, sort of. If you've been listening over the summer, you might have noticed that I've been doing something a little bit different. I've been going back through the archives and re-releasing some of my favorite conversations from the last five or so years, right? And part of that was because there's some really, really freaking amazing episodes buried back there that I wanted to bring back into the light. But also, I needed a break. Right. Some of you can probably relate to that. A lot has been happening in my life behind the scenes. I've been remodeling, I've been moving, I've been sorting through years of stuff and things and figuring out what comes with me into the next version of my life. And my husband and I have split up, which is obviously not a tiny life update. Uh, but I'm not going to share the whole story with you today. There's parts of it that are mine, parts of it that belong to other people, parts that I'm still living through and understanding myself. But it felt weird to just come back, record, and be like, hey, everybody, let's talk about polyamory, without acknowledging that my life looks pretty different than it did the last time that I was regularly sitting down at this microphone. And the funny thing is, taking this like little break, this time away, has made me super excited to come back. I have so many things that I want to talk about. Things that I understand differently now, things that I have taught for years that I have now had the opportunity, whether I asked for it or not, to experience from a completely different perspective. Because like knowing something intellectually, logically, and living it are two very different fucking things, right? And one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot is this idea that we have about what makes a relationship successful. What does it mean for a relationship to succeed? Right. Like we're we're handed this really narrow, uh, incredibly narrow definition of relationship success. You meet someone, you fall in love, you commit, you stay together. And if you stay together until one of you dies, congratulations, successful relationship. Now you get your trophy, right? If you break up, obviously something went wrong, someone failed, someone didn't try hard enough, you chose the wrong person, you wasted all those years. What? Right. And even though those of us practicing uh non-monogamy, ethical non-monogamy, have questioned a whole lot of the traditional relationship scripts, I don't think we're always as good at questioning this part. Because sometimes we just replace one set of expectations with this whole other set of expectations, right? Like maybe we're not trying to ride the relationship escalator in exactly the same way, but we still get really attached to longevity as proof that we did relationships well. And I don't think that I believe that anymore, right? Like actually, I'm not sure that I ever did. Uh, a relationship can last three months and fundamentally change your life. A relationship can last 20 years and reach a point where the healthiest, most loving, most honest thing two people can do is stop being married. That doesn't erase what happened before, right? That doesn't erase the family you built. It doesn't erase the ways that you grew together, it doesn't erase the love, it doesn't mean you should have known better 20 years ago, right? And it doesn't automatically make the relationship a failure. And non-monogamy doesn't mean that no one ever leaves, right? That's another really interesting layer to this. When you're non-monogamous, one of the stories that people sometimes tell themselves, especially if they're opening up a monogamous relationship, is well, if we don't have to make a choice, if we don't have to choose, then nobody has to leave. Right? If you can have multiple relationships, why would one relationship ever need to end? But which that question alone is kind of silly, right? Polyamory does not guarantee against loss, and it isn't a system for keeping every single relationship forever. Like I don't want every relationship forever. Sometimes opening a relationship reveals things. Sometimes people grow in different relationships uh in different directions. Sometimes what worked beautifully for one version of you doesn't work for the person that you've become that you've grown into. Sometimes love is still there, but you're not compatible anymore. Sometimes the relationship you have uh is asking you to become something different, to move in a different way. And sometimes ask uh ending a relationship is actually what allows you to stop trying to like force it into a shape that it doesn't fit it. And that can be really freaking heartbreaking, but it can also be really honest and help you live really, really authentically. Because like relationships are allowed to change shape. Let's pause for just a moment. If something in this episode has landed with you and you're feeling that little nudge inside, I'd encourage you to get curious about it. Everything I share here is necessarily pretty general, right? But our work together is deeply, deeply personal. I don't know your relationships, your history, your patterns, or what your body might be trying to tell you. And so that's why, rather than just listening to the podcast, I also offer free clarity chats. In a clarity chat, I'm not going to tell you what to do. Instead, I'm going to ask you some thoughtful questions and gently guide you to notice what's happening in your body so that you can hear yourself more clearly. Because the truth is we're often too close to our own lives to see the patterns that we're playing out. And we can't always hear what our bodies are trying to tell us because we're busy managing, coping, or just like simply trying to get through the day, right? And sometimes all it takes is having someone ask the right questions, reflect back what I'm noticing, and create a space where you can hear yourself more clearly. If through our conversation it becomes clear that coaching together is the right next step, then I'll share how we combine this deep inner work with practical tools to create lasting change in your life and in your relationships. So if you're ready to move beyond just listening and start listening to yourself, you'll find the link to book your free clarity chat in the description or go to alysapane.com slash chat. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Bye. Right? Like I want to talk about that more because I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to preserve the shape of a relationship. The partner, the spouse, the primary boyfriend, girlfriend, nesting partner, whatever the label is, we can become so focused on maintaining that structure that we don't ask, does this relationship still work for the people who are in actually in the relationship? Or like, what do we want from each other now? Not what did we say we wanted 10 years ago, five years ago, six months ago, but what do we want from each other now? What kind of connection is actually possible here? What would happen if we stop trying to make this relationship look the way it used to and be really present now? And I definitely don't think changing the shape of a relationship automatically diminishes it or makes it less. Uh sometimes it might actually be the most respectful thing that we can do. I've also been thinking about how easy it is when something ends to immediately start doing an autopsy on it, right? Like, what did I do wrong? What did they do wrong? What should I have seen? What was the lesson? And yeah, reflection matters. Definitely reflect. But I don't want every single experience in my life to have to justify itself by becoming a life lesson. Some things were beautiful because they were beautiful. Some things hurt because they freaking hurt. Some things taught me something, some things I'm probably not going to understand for another five years, right? Right now, I'm a lot more interested in asking, who am I becoming? Who do I want to be? What feels alive for me right now? What kind of relationships do I want to create from here? What do I know about myself now that I didn't know before? What am I no longer willing to abandon in myself just to keep a relationship intact? And what do I want to bring with me into whatever comes next? Those questions feel a lot more interesting to me than trying to decide whether something was a success or if it was a failure. I've almost every every time a couple hires me, I tell my clients uh that I don't work in service of the relationship. Because I don't. I work in service of the people in it. And and that's a really, really important difference because a lot of people are concerned about most people want to keep their relationship intact, want it to stay the same. They want to change something, but they want most things to stay the same, right? And when when someone comes to me for coaching, my job isn't to keep you together, right? It's not to convince you to stay married or in a partnership. It's not to convince you to open your relationship or to be non-monogamous. It's not to convince you to close it. It's definitely not to make you better at tolerating something that isn't working for you, just so that the relationship can exist. My job is to help you hear yourself, to ask the questions that help you get underneath all of the fear and the conditioning and the expectations and figure out what's actually true for you. And then we work with that truth. And sometimes that means helping two people find their way back to each other. Sometimes it means creating agreements that actually work for the people in the relationship instead of following rules that you thought you were supposed to have. Sometimes it means learning how to communicate what you want without abandoning yourself or people pleasing or trying to control someone else. Sometimes it means working through jealousy, insecurity, comparison, fear, and all the other shit that gets activated when we love people, right? And sometimes the work leads you to realize that a relationship needs to change. And that doesn't mean the relationships failed, the coaching's failed, it doesn't mean you've failed because the relationship itself was never the client. It was never the thing that we're trying to make survive. You are. You're the thing, you're the important part. And I think that's especially important in non-monogamy because there can be so much pressure to prove that this non-monogamy works works, prove that polyamory works, to prove that opening your marriage wasn't a mistake, to prove that you're evolved enough or secure enough or good enough at communication to make this particular configuration last. But like, I don't want you sacrificing yourself on the altar of proving that non-monogamy works. We know it works. Does it work for you? Right? I want your relationships to be places where you get to become more fully yourself. And if we're working together, that's what I'm interested in. Not how do we save this relationship at all costs? But who are you inside this relationship? What do you actually want? What are you afraid to say out loud? What are you compromising and where are you abandoning yourself? What would it look like to build relationships that have room for actual humans inside of them? Sometimes, like the most successful outcome is staying together differently. Sometimes it's repairing something you thought could not be repaired, or realizing you really do want to choose each other. And sometimes it's changing the structure of the relationship. Sometimes it's leaving. The goal is not for me to decide which one is right for you. The goal is for you to become really clear enough and connected enough to yourself and equipped enough to make that choice for yourself. That's the work that I enjoy doing. So if you're listening to this or you're watching this and you're somewhere in that like messy middle right now, you're trying to figure it out, questioning your relationship, opening up, trying to figure out what kind of non-monogamy works for you or fits you. You're navigating jealousy or comparison or insecurity, or you're realizing that the life that you've been building doesn't quite fit anymore, and changes need to happen. This is exactly the kind of work I love doing. You don't have to come to me knowing what the answer is. That's kind of the point. That's why you're coming to me, right? We figure out what questions you need to be asking. And then we listen really, really closely to what happens when you finally give yourself permission to answer them honestly. And that's really a part of why I'm excited to be back here behind the microphone, making these videos and podcasts for you guys. Cause I think uh this next season of Nope, we're not monogamous gets to go a little bit deeper. I still want to talk about jealousy and conversion and communication and boundaries and sex and all of the wonderful, messy logistics of loving multiple people. But I also want to talk about identity, what happens when relationships change, about choosing yourself without making someone else the villain, about the difference between staying because something is nourishing you and feeding you and is right for you, and staying because you've invested so much that leaving feels impossible. I want to talk about grief and desire and rebuilding and about the weird, beautiful, wonderful shit that happens when the life that you thought you were going to have changes. And you get to ask, okay, what what do I want now? Where am I going now? Because that's where I am, right? There's been a lot of change. There's been grief, there's been a ridiculous amount of remodeling and moving and boxes and dust and sore muscles. But there's also excitement and possibility. And there are the parts of myself that I'm meeting again. And the parts of myself I think I'm meeting for the first time. So yeah. I'm back. My life looks a little different, and I have a feeling we're going to have a lot to talk about. So, you know, subscribe, follow, hit all the good buttons so that you don't miss an episode. Uh, there's a lot coming. Bye.