8 profound insights from my queer marriage

a relationship skill-share ❤︎

Dear friend,

When it comes to committed relationships, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say, we are ill-prepared for how difficult they are. We grew up on romance films that ended when the couple gets together. We were fed cultural myths that all we had to do was find “the one” and everything would fall into place.

And even though most of us are aware of how ridiculous that gender-biased, heteronormative narrative is, the idea of “happily ever after” still lingers in our unconscious. To the point where, if we are struggling in our committed partnerships, we think there is something wrong with us, rather than acknowledging committed relationships are really challenging, with terrain that is constantly morphing, the past continually showing up to wreak havoc, and the future entirely unknowable. It makes sense to be struggling. We have not been taught how to do this.

Last week my partner and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary, and I’ve been reflecting on the love that has kept us together and the conflicts that have threatened to tear us apart. Every season brought new challenges—new levels of growth and expansion.

I’ve always thought of this newsletter as a self-empowerment skill-share. In a world that leaves us so ill-equipped to cultivate healthful and joyful partnerships, we need each other’s insights.

So with deep reverence for the healing capacity of skill-share, I have made a list of my most unexpected and important insights from my long term, committed partnership with my spouse, Khara. My hope is that this list will be helpful to you in your committed relationships, whether monogamous, non-monogamous, queer, straight and/or everything in-between.

Difference doesn’t equal indifference.

When I have a big feeling, I have to express it. Speak it. Write it. Talk it out immediately. My partner is the opposite. When they have a big feeling, their instinct is to keep it inside. To marinate. To withhold the information until they are good and ready. This difference in how we process emotions was a major source of conflict in the past. Because I used to assume that not talking about your feelings meant you didn’t have any. I used to mistake Khara’s shutting down as not caring. When the opposite was true. They cared immensely. Both of us did, we just had different ways of expressing it, shaped by how we grew up and our past experiences.

It’s easy to assume that just because someone isn’t acting the way you expect them to, they don’t care as much as you. But difference does not equal indifference. The beauty about difference in a relationship is that it can expand your perception of the human experience. I’ve learned a lot from Khara about taking time to think about my feelings before expressing them. And they have learned a lot from me on how to be more vocal about their feelings. Learning each other’s emotional language has brought us so much closer.

So before you make an assumption about your partner’s choices, get curious: Could this just be an example of our difference? How can we better understand each other?

The hurt child will continually show up.

They say no one can trigger us like the one we love the most. That’s not a big surprise. But what has been a big surprise for me is the moment I think I have moved past a childhood wound, it shows up again in my partnership. This is most likely because as Khara and I have grow in our relationship, we are confronting new challenges. For example, as we take on more financial responsibilities, I’ve noticed my wounds from growing up in an unstable financial home, show up at every new stage. Likewise, as our parents age and we are confronting issues of grief and loss, old memories surface. This is par for the course. The more grace you give yourself and your partner, the easier it is to move through those triggers. The hurt child just wants to be loved and accepted.

Sex changes.

People often say that the longer you are together, the less sex you have. And while I understand this perspective, I think it’s entirely oversimplified. The truth is