Dearest Loved Ones

The divorce rate should be a lot higher than it is.

Most people who are married aren’t actually in like, in love, or in community. They’re in hiding. And they love their covering for giving them a place to hide. I watch people surrender themselves to the institution of marriage every day, and it haunts me.

You’re probably going to think I’m crazy when I say this, and perhaps I am, but I don’t participate. I don’t participate in the performance. I don’t participate in the lies people tell on social media. I don’t participate in the lies people tell themselves.I don’t participate in the expectation that I should sacrifice my individuality for approval.If that earns me a bad grade, so be it. I am perfectly willing to receive low marks from people who are handing out rewards for conformity.

My marriage is its own living thing.

I am a valuable member of my community. My husband is a valuable member of his. We come together not to disappear into one another, but to build something entirely our own. We don’t spend much time participating in the cult of marriage because we’re busy with our own work, our mission, our curiosity, and our growth. Everything we build is rooted in desire, not obligation. Everything we build comes from love, capacity, care, and genuine interest, not duty, performance, fear, or social expectation.

What concerns me is that there are not enough married people doing their work.

Many people use marriage as a hiding place. They stop growing. They stop questioning. They stop becoming. The relationship becomes an excuse for stagnation. This is one reason I champion relationships ending.

I believe that the divorce rate should be much higher than it is.

Endings force confrontation. They demand honesty. They demand adaptation. They demand growth. When I tell women not to get married, I am not condemning marriage. I am questioning readiness. Because if you do not yet have the courage to advocate for yourself, tell the truth, create change, walk away when necessary, or wait for a partner who has the capacity for growth, then marriage may become a cage rather than a home.

Children only raise the stakes.

Two people who are unwilling to grow become responsible for leaving the next generation shapeless. What often gets passed down is not wisdom, but unconsciousness. Children do not learn from what we preach. They learn from what we practice. That’s why that “DO WHAT I SAY. NOT WHAT I DO” foolishness enrages me.

It’s triflin and lazy ass parenting.

How can a new human do something they have never seen before?

If a daughter watches her mother disappear into obligation, she learns self-abandonment. If a son watches everyone orbit his comfort, he learns entitlement. The marriage survives, but the people inside are being lazy and playing small.

Marriage itself is not the problem. The problem is entering marriage without first developing a relationship with yourself.

Most people ask, “How do I keep my marriage?” Very few people ask, “How do I keep myself while I’m married?” Those are entirely different questions. The first can be answered with endurance, accommodation, silence, sacrifice, and self-abandonment.The second demands honesty, boundaries, courage, grief, self-awareness, and continual reinvention.

You cannot build something unique if you have never practiced thinking for yourself.

Copycats are born from unconscious parents. Parents who just do what they see everybody else doing. There’s a lot of vulnerability in making your life your own. So most people enter marriage and repeat what they have seen. But marriage is labor-intensive because it must be invented. FROM SCRATCH.

SHIIIITT, life is labor intensive because it must be invented from scratch.

It must be negotiated. It must be made new by the people inside it. The healthiest people I know are not obsessed with togetherness. They are devoted to growth. They understand that two whole people create stronger compantionships than two people hiding from themselves.

Sometimes the most loving advice is not, “Stay together.” Sometimes the most loving advice is, BREAK UP AND GET YOUR ASS TO WORK!!

Become yourself. Then decide what belongs beside you.

But truthfully, this is not a discussion about marriage.

It is a discussion about THE WOMANHOOD

Marriage just happens to be one of the places where women are most commonly asked to negotiate with themselves. The same principles apply to friendship, motherhood, dreams, careers, and reinvention. Many women have been taught that love looks like abandoning themselves for the greater good. They disappear into caregiving, motherhood, marriage, and being needed. Twenty years later, they wake up and realize they have become indispensable to everyone except themselves.

I find myself exhausted from begging women for three things:

Please remain visible to yourself.

Please remain accountable to yourself.

Please remain in relationship with yourself.

That last one gets bypassed constantly.

And it creates chaos and dishonesty because healthy relationships with others are impossible without a healthy relationship with self. Every relationship built upon self-abandonment eventually sends somebody the bill. Usually the woman AND her children.

Unless, you’d like to stop and discuss lipgloss, let’s discuss stability.

A thing can be stable and deeply unhealthy. A stagnant pond is stable. An oppressive marriage is stable. A family system built on silence is stable. A woman who never challenges anything is stable. But life is not measured by stability alone. Living things GROW. Adapt. Shed. Expand. Contract.

Evolve.

Growth requires the courage to see in the dark. To see your own motives. To see your own limitations, where you’ve abandoned yourself, where you’ve made comfort an idol, and where you’ve mistaken endurance for wisdom. Many people want the rewards of growth without the discomfort of seeing.

I will never stop calling women to see.

To descend into the Rio Abajo Rio—the river beneath the river.

Because if you avoid this work, eventually life will do it for you. And life is rarely as gentle as honesty.

Thank you very much

and Merry Christmas. 💋