Ep 38: Rethinking Monogamy, Accountability, And Agency In Modern Relationships

Headlines love a simple story, but real relationships rarely fit clean plots. When Christy filed for divorce and Desmond responded publicly, the internet crowned a villain overnight. We slow down the scroll and ask harder questions: why does a stranger’s breakup cut so deep, what myths about beauty and “being enough” do we keep swallowing, and how do religious rules shape the way people stay, confess, and finally leave?

We talk candidly about parasocial grief—how attachment to public couples becomes a mirror for our own hopes—and the dangerous idea that fidelity can be earned through perfection. From there, we examine high-control faith cultures where divorce is framed as failure, endurance is praised over safety, and agency gets outsourced to pastors and communities. Grace shares her personal story of trying to exit under pressure, the costs of “confession” without accountability, and the quiet ways institutions protect themselves while individuals lose themselves.

Then we go further. What if monogamy isn’t a moral default but one valid option among many? We explore how ethical non-monogamy, temporary separation with boundaries, and consent-forward renegotiations could reduce harm by normalizing honest conversations about desire and change. The goal isn’t to prescribe a model—it’s to champion clarity, boundaries, and the courage to tell the truth before the internet tells it for you.

If the Christy–Desmond news or the Philip Yancey revelation stirred something in you, consider this your invitation to reflect without shame and reclaim your agency. Listen, share with a friend who needs nuance today, and if the conversation resonates, subscribe and leave a review so more people can find their way here. Your stories and questions help shape what we explore next.

Transcript

Viral Divorce And Public Reaction

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Unless you're living under a big giant rock, you by now know that Christy is divorcing Desmond. Y'all, when I saw it, I was like, no, no, no. Oh my god, no. Like real sadness. Cause you know, we have parasocial relationships with these people, and I definitely had a parasocial relationship with them, and I definitely decided that they were super happy and that they would never get divorced. For whatever reason, it feels like our hopes are being threatened, our dreams are being crushed. And man, this news has spread like wild freaking fire. It was like as soon as TMZ put it out there, I have seen it every app, everywhere I go, every main page, every first post. And don't forget, this dropped right after the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis by ICE. And it was the number one trending story like the next day on threads. I'm not sure about Twitter because I don't for Twitter no more. But I decided I wanted to talk about it because it also coincides with another popular author named Philip Yancey, who also just came forward that he had an eight-year affair. And I want to talk about it not for tea, not for entertainment, but because I think it's holding up a mirror to some other deep things. Well, number one is parasocial grief and projection, like I already mentioned. Number two, how religion and community can be used to trap people, which I know is potentially stepping on some toes, but I'm gonna go there. And number three, I kind of want to talk about monogamy and how it is the assumed relationship model that's really not working. But first, let me introduce myself. My name is Grace Sandra, the host of Out Here Trying to Survive podcast, which is a hope-oriented storytelling space and a warm hug of solidarity from me to you. It's for all of those out here trying to survive but still find softness and healing. Welcome to episode 38. Before we get into it, I'm really not in the habit of talking badly about people, so I'm not here to bash them or bash Desmond or even bash Philip Yancey. But we are gonna be talking about divorce and infidelity, religious pressure, and rupture of marriages. And if any of this hits close to home, like I always say, please don't allow yourself to be triggered. There's no need to do that. Come back later. Or don't come back at all if it's too much for you. Take care of yourself first, sis. Secondly, I'm only gonna talk about what's already been reported and reported publicly. I don't want to speculate about anyone's personal life in a way that's not helpful for them. I'm definitely not diagnosing anyone, and I'm not adding insider narratives because I don't know these people. This is not about me deciding who's good and who's evil in this scenario. To be clear, accountability matters, harm matters, but I don't think that cruelty and piling on are helpful in any scenario, nor is it pursuing justice, which I'm firmly all about. And I've never wanted to make anyone's personal life entertainment in part because this happened to me not at any sort of scale like this, but my divorce was dissected and talked about by a large group of people, and I heard things for a really long time, and it was deeply painful. All that said, let's get started. So, first, just in case you don't know, I'm just gonna give the 30-second rundown. Chrissy filed for a divorce in Texas. The filing points led to alleged infidelity and describes a very clear decision to separate. Desmond then posted a public response acknowledging his harm, apologizing, and describing his version of events, which he framed like he had raised the idea of separation, but then for whatever reason they didn't. And during that time, he made choices that he regrets. That's the public frame. And in case you don't know who these people are, they are a wildly popular internet giant, arguably the it couple of TikTok, and have amassed millions of followers across all their platforms for their silly shenanigans, Desmond's gourmet cooking, and Christy just being literally crazy and funny and super pretty, and their wonderful family, and the fact that they've been together since they were 14 years old, and then now they've been married for 11 years. They had this big, beautiful, elaborate 10-year anniversary party. Pictures were gorgeous, they have two beautiful sons, and they do family content. And now they bought this bought and built this big, beautiful custom home that she's been documenting that they moved into in September, so they haven't even been in it long. I think the reason why so many of us were so sad, because I have seen so many. People are just like, damn, if it won't work for her, if it won't work for them, who can it work for? They gave a very best friend vibe, they gave a we are together forever vibe, they gave a we are so in love vibe. I don't know, it just seemed so genuine. And here's the thing I believe in complexity. I think a lot of that can be true. I think they could have been very well best friends. I think they could have very well been so super sexually attracted to one another. You know, they've built this life and they built this brand, and I think it just feels so crushing for so many people because it gives you hope, you know, like in some weird way when you see, I think, especially too like black love. When I see black love really thriving, I'm like, oh, I just I love to see it. I love to see it. Especially when it's not just black love, but it's thriving black love and a thriving black brand and thriving black content and thriving black money. It just it feels good. So yeah, I think the way that people have been going so hard on Desmond, it really reflects how much we really do too much with parasocial relationships. We don't know these people, we don't know anything that went on at all. Chrissy could have been a whole demon. I mean, I don't think she is. I'm not saying that by the way, I'm just saying we don't know anything. Desmond could be a whole demon. We don't know anything about these people at all. I mean, I'm not so sad that it's broken up my whole day or even an hour. I didn't even think about it for an entire hour. It just it kind of made me a little bit sad. But I can see why this could be a trigger, especially for younger people who are hoping for something very similar. But the big thing I really want to talk about was this idea of how could he cheat on her? That is the question I've heard over and over again. She is so gorgeous, she is so beautiful, her body is tea. Body is tea, it really is. I mean, she really does have a beautiful body. And I've seen this reaction so many times. Like, she's so beautiful, she's the whole package, she built the brand, she brought in so much money for them. She's so stunning. Like, if she can get cheated on, if Beyonce can get cheated on, if Nia Long can get cheated on, if all of these beautiful women, successful beautiful women can get cheated on, is there anything that can prevent us from being betrayed, us just normal, regular schmegular women out here in the world? But I wanted to counter that narrative trap because it implies that women who are beautiful enough and sexual enough and smart enough and talented enough and supportive enough that they don't deserve betrayal, or worse, that they can prevent betrayal, which we all know really isn't true. And it really turns fidelity into something that women earn by performing excellence as a wife or performing motherhood in a way that's pleasing to a man or whatever else. And it kind of makes it seem like if a wife adds things on the scoreboard, looks, yes, success, yes, builds a brand, yes, lifts him up, yes, gives him enough whatever, yes, then oh, her scoreboard is full, so she shouldn't get cheated on. But we all know, like on a realistic level, like we all can think about it for a minute and be like, well, okay, when someone has an affair, there's lots of reasons that go into it. And I'm gonna talk about it myself because I went through something similar on both sides, y'all. We'll get into that in a minute. But usually when someone has an affair, it has to do with their coping mechanisms, their own character and integrity, their relationship skills, their ability to communicate and hold boundaries for themselves and others, their willingness to be very honest when things get hard, and their emotional intelligence. And it usually isn't about whether the other person is enough or not. And I don't think that what Desmond did is about whether Christy was enough or not. We absolutely have to stop saying and arguing that if a woman is beautiful enough, that should keep her safe from being cheated on. Being pretty, being sexy, being successful, having money, being able to build stuff, that does not protect you from betrayal, y'all. Like what? And then on the other hand, we kind of live in this villain economy where we want to villainize the other person, and it's very easy in today's day and age, especially the way things are discussed, to pick a villain, and Desmond has now become the villain because of the wanting the simple story hero, villain, lesson, punishment, etc. etc. But relationships are really messy and really complex. And again, we don't know these people, and two things can be true at once. People can cause harm and be accountable for that harm. Like Desmond can cause harm and be accountable for that harm, which looks like he's trying to do. He's trying. But then people are also human beings and have a whole big complex range, and that does not leave room for anyone's humanity unless they were to do a sit-down and explain everything to us, which we don't deserve. And I hope they never do that. Because we don't really need to know. Another aspect of the story is about religion, agency, and the pressure to stay under that because we know that Christy and Desmond were very devout Jehovah's Witnesses. They talked about it here and there. I didn't know until Christy posted something about what did she do with her kids on Halloween, because she said something like, We're not allowed to celebrate Halloween. And I was like, Oh, why? And so then I started doing digging and realized that they were Jehovah's Witnesses. So let me talk about this and the collision and kind of what I thought about when I realized this. A lot of us were raised in these oppressive religious environments where divorce is not just a decision to make because you're not getting along or someone has committed infidelity or whatever. It's a sin is what is taught. That it's a failure is what people say. That people have wasted their time, all of their time, that it's public humiliation and can be publicly humiliating, as we're seeing right now, I think for Desmond. And maybe to some extent Christy too. I mean, God only knows what she's feeling like with this news blowing up the way it is. Some people see it as proof that you did not pray hard enough. And so leaving a person is just so when you're inside that world, and I was inside that world, not as a Jehovah's Witness, but as an evangelical Christian, it doesn't just feel like you're losing your marriage. It feels like you're losing in some way your identity and in some cases your whole community. So I just looked up something about Jehovah's Witnesses. Yes, Jehovah's Witnesses can get a legal divorce, and the organization recognizes divorce as permissible under specific circumstances, primarily adultery, unchaste, or if one partner persistently hinders the other's faith. But remarriage is restricted to the innocent party, and divorce is generally discouraged unless necessary. Ugh, I hate that. This is why I am coming to hate religion more and more. But this is literally exactly what happened when I was married the first time. Me and my ex were in not a Jehovah's Witness, again, in an evangelical Christian environment doing Christian ministry together. And basically the way people treated me once I started saying that I really wanted to get separated, that I knew that I really didn't want to stay married anymore, that I just couldn't do it anymore, that I was feeling trapped emotionally in all sorts of other things. People started acting like something was very, very seriously wrong with me, as opposed to me just being like, this is just not working. I it's just literally not working, and we are trying to make it work, and yet I feel like I am going insane. And for us, it was kind of our livelihood too, because it was, I mean, it's not similar to Christy and Desmond, but in some ways it was because their livelihood is built on their brand, and I'm sure they'll both be fine separately. But like for me and my ex, it was we were working together in ministry, combined paycheck, combined bank account. We had a combined checking and savings and a combined home. We didn't have anything separate. The only thing that was separate was the stocks and bonds and investment accounts that were not in my name, which in hindsight, yeah, I got screwed on. But this is what gives me personally compassion for their situation and even a little bit of might, a mite of compassion for Desmond because I know what it's like navigating divorce under extreme religious scrutiny and not to the extent that they even are navigating it because they have the also added layer of being widely popular social media people. And again, I have compassion for them, not in a way that ignores harm or harm done, but compassion for them that is able to hold the complexity of it all and understand pressure like that. I really can't describe how much pressure I felt. And I would say there was maybe 10, 15 people that were very ardently and vocally leading and pressuring my ex and I to stay together. And that was like 15 people, and it felt enormous, partly because one of those people was like my therapist and our supervisor and our regional director who was like over both of the people who supervised us and our entire team. And because we had been in ministry together for so many years, pretty much everybody in ministry was just like you guys should work it out. There was just very few people, there's only one person in my life who I met separately from him who was like, Yeah, I think maybe you guys should get divorced. One person. One. Even though I was listing out here is all the ways that this is bad, bad. This has gotten bad, y'all. And again, let me make this clear. I don't know these people. I don't know what was happening. All I know is that little bit that Desmond said in his statement that he wanted to get separated earlier. It didn't happen for some reason, and then he made the choice he made. He seemed like he really wanted to point that out, and maybe my feelers went up because that is literally exactly what happened to me. So I want to discuss part of this whole idea of God hates divorce and basically the theft of agency when you are very closely aligned with your religious belief set. Religion can teach you that you don't have agency over your life, especially as a woman, another topic for another day. But it does teach you that your desires don't matter. The only thing that matters is what God wants for you and what the leaders and the pastors who've been appointed over you want for you. It also teaches you that your unhappiness is really your problem and probably a result of some sin. And instead of asking, is this relationship healthy? Do these people feel at peace? Does this woman, or I'll just say, does any one of the partners feel at peace or unsafe? Do any one of the partners feel like they are being subject to constant harm? Do any one of the partners feel like they want to leave but can't? Those questions are very rarely asked in a religious context. Very rarely asked. In fact, I don't know anyone who is asked that question in a religious context if they say, I'm thinking about getting a divorce. Typically, the question that's being asked is, How can you endure this? That's the question I was being asked over and over again the more I stated, I'm really unhappy here. I'm really not cool with how this is going down, essentially. And basically, to sum up the overall message, it was like, How can you endure this? How can you deal with your sin? How can you deal with your desires? How can you deal with the things you're thinking? How can you deal with the fact that you want to be separated? How can you deal with it so that you don't want those things anymore so that y'all can stay together? And once you're in a prison long enough like that, your brain really starts to look for exits. And mine definitely did. Not healthy exits, not clean exits. Like I said, for me, I tried to leave the right way. I brought up the fact that I wanted to go at least two years. I was really scared to even say that I wanted to be separated. I was so afraid. It wasn't that I was in a marriage where my ex was yelling at me or screaming at me or going to hurt me physically or unalive me. I was not afraid in any way that way, just to be clear. I was so afraid because I was already been put in a position where it was like, you're the bad one, you're the misfit, you're the terrible one. And if you would just get your shit together, then y'all will work. And I was married to someone who the perception was was just doing everything he could to help me. Now I will say I've always had my issues, always been really honest, and was always very upfront with him with my issues in terms of the trauma I was dealing with, which I won't go into, but just had been a survivor of sexual assault by my dad for many years, and then had a lot of issues with a mother who was mentally ill, and those issues followed me. Both of my parents led to me being very traumatized as a child, including some of my siblings as well. In addition to some other trauma I had as a kid, my A score was pretty high, like a 10. Now I went into marriage young, 21 or 22 when we got married, and then not even understanding how, well, first of all, that I had an A-score of 10 or how that trauma had impacted me. If you get into marriage young, you don't understand how traumatized you are, and all of that stuff starts coming up. But I was always very honest with my ex, like these are the issues I'm dealing with, and I was in therapy, on and off, different therapists trying to deal with various issues. So I was never in denial of my own issues, but I think I became a very easy target for our entire marriage is encapsulated by the fact that Grace has trauma that she's dealing with, as opposed to that's true, but it also could just not be working. And also, my ex had issues too, but in some ways they were buried or maybe hidden in some ways, because in an evangelical Christian religious environment, there is nothing, literally nothing, more important of a sin than any sort of what is considered devious sexual desire or any sort of desire that is anything other than your vanilla married sex. And so the focus was so on me and my ish, and I hadn't even done anything yet. But in that environment, I did not feel like it was safe to have an honest conversation for a really long time. And then when I did say I wanted to be separated, people pushed back so hard, so hard that I felt like I cannot leave until he agrees with me. I can't leave until I get his approval. I literally thought I did not have the agency to go just in and of myself. And also, you know how sometimes if you're trying to leave someone, they might say, like, if you need to go, like I won't fight you. I'm sorry this didn't work, you can go. There was none of that. It was like, I'm going to pray the devil out of you. I'm going to slay the demons within you. I am going to fight hard tooth and nail. I'm going to recruit every hundredth person I know so that you will get fixed and so that we can stay together. And it was just like, I don't know. I don't even know how to describe the way that was. It felt like crumbling me into a ball, like someone put me in a dog crate that was too small for me. And was just like, you stay here until you're fixed. It just made me feel like there is no way I can stay in this marriage. There is no possible way, but I agreed to it. And I agreed to go to what turned out to be a disaster of a couple's marriage counseling situation with an older white couple who did not have training in the kind of things they were doing, leading us through very complex traumas in our childhood to help us, I guess, stay married. I don't know what the hell they thought they were doing, but it was tremendously triggering for me. It triggered something in me, and they did not have the expertise to deal with it. You cannot take someone with an A-score of 10 and then just start willy-nilly leading them through exercises to dig up all of the hurt and pain and trauma that they went through and not have the expertise to guide them through it. And without sharing details, I'll just say this. And if I could do anything different, I would have immediately just said, no, I'm sorry, I don't care that you don't want to separate. I don't give a fk. I'm getting the hell up out of here. And I would have left and I would have never agreed to that couple's therapy counseling pain. You know, when I look back on that, it took me a long time to really realize that in some ways my ignorance and my stupidity kept me in something that I shouldn't have been in in the first motherfucking place, let alone for that long. But I realized looking back, people were protecting the institution. No one was trying to protect me. No one was trying to protect him. And they should have been. They should have been like, yeah, Grace seems like she's she's not here anymore. They should have been like, she don't want you. She does not want you. Protect yourself, homie. You get out. Nobody was trying to protect him or me. They were trying to protect the institution. And if any of those people actually really cared about me, they'd say, let's focus on what's hurting you and what's harming you and deal with that as opposed to like basic behavior management. This is really what I hate about religious environments and oppressive environments. And again, I'm talking right now about me and my situation and not about Desmond and Christie because I don't know what's happening with them. I just know that Jehovah's Witnesses has really hard lines about divorce and infidelity. But I will say this religious pressure makes people feel like they can't leave or that they need permission to leave or that they need a really good reason to leave. Again, Jehovah's Witnesses recognize divorce as permissible only under specific circumstances, primarily adultery. And what did Desmond say in his statement? He asked for separation, they didn't get a separation, and during that time he made choices he wasn't proud of. I don't know them, but part of me feels like if you want to leave somebody and you can't leave, I want to talk about that uncomfortable truth of, well, he should have just left. He should have just left. I've heard that a lot, though. He should have just left. He should have just left. Why didn't he just leave? Obviously, yes, integrity says just leave cleanly, communicate honestly, and leave cleanly. But I can't overlook what happened to me and the kind of coercion that happens in those kind of religious environments. Again, we don't know about them, but I'll just say for me, I was in a very highly coercive environment. And I was trying to leave, y'all. I was trying to leave before I did stupid ish. I just honestly really hate that people feel like and that I felt like I had to have a biblical reason to leave. I also felt like in the situation I was in, there was no boundaries. There was no boundaries. But it was so bad that I felt like I can't even leave unless I leave with someone. I literally felt like I am being so forced to stay here that I cannot leave this man. He will not allow me to leave him in any sort of reasonable way unless I leave with someone else. Unless I say, I am with someone else now. You cannot keep me here. You cannot force me to say I do not want to be here. I felt like I had to get there in order to go. The shit's crazy. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm just telling you, that's where I was at. Also, don't forget, I was kind of initiated and ingratiated into this kind of oppressive religion religious environment because I grew up going to Christian schools. I was raised in a church, and then I went right from that into a ministry environment when I was in college, and I went straight from that. Actually, didn't even graduate from college before I met my ex-husband who was a minister. He was already in that ministry. Then I joined him in that ministry. I was only 21 or 22, I forgot. I think 22 when we got married, and then we were together for almost 15 years. So we're talking about 18, 19 years of my adult life at that point in this ministry, viewing things the way that they say things should be, believing truly, unless I have an affair or somebody have an affair, I ain't getting out of this. It ain't no way out. It does not make it right. And let me tell you, I have apologized to that man 12.8 times, probably more. I've tried to say, I'm so sorry. I was not trying to hurt you like that, my brother. I was really not trying to hurt him like that. We've had many conversations where I have profusely apologized, and we have a somewhat, I guess, normal working co-parenting relationship, because we're still co-parenting our two boys. And I have let him know none of that was right. But I hope you can understand it. It wasn't about you. It wasn't about him per se. It was about feeling caged. Like a caged rat in a too small dog crate. Knowing for years I wanted and needed something different. If nothing else, I just needed to be separated to explore sexually, be separated, and then probably lead to divorce from there. Things would have been handled so much better if we had just got separated a couple years earlier when I first requested it before shit blew up. Anyway, if you've never been in a high-controlled religious environment like that, I don't know, I guess just try to have some grace. It's not, it's really just it's not an easy thing to deal with. It's also not an abusive situation where someone's putting their hands around your neck every day. So it's actually kind of hard to identify. Sometimes the more subtly inappropriate something is, the harder it is to identify. So you feel like, no, it is me. It is something is really wrong with me. I am really just a terrible, horrible person. If someone is just choking you out every day, it's easy to see. Like, yeah, I I need to get out of this situation. It's oppressive, it's abusive. Someone's choking me out every day. But when it's just horrible boundaries, it's really hard to see. You know what I'm saying? Now, on the flip side of this, here's the other thing. Confession is not always accountability, and they're not the same thing. And that's a big nuance. Sometimes I confessed is framed like heroism, and it's really not. You know, Desmond said that he came forward, he told the truth, he said in his statement, I wanted her to know. Yeah, and I I don't know where I stand on his statement. Um, a lot of people were like, Yeah, that was shitty. That was a shitty statement. Because, you know, confessing can be, it can be for the sake of accountability, but it can also be for the sake of just trying to control the narrative and rein it in. And it can also be for the sake of just like assuaging guilt without actually trying to create repair. But having learned from my own mistake and just moving forward in real life in general, confession should be: did someone take care to not just take responsibility, but take it without deflecting? And in doing so, did they protect their partner's dignity? And the third part of this is something that again is another slightly controversial view of this whole thing, but I am so sick of monogamy as default. Because what are we actually normalizing, y'all? And yeah, I do think this is gonna ruffle some feathers, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it anyway. A lot of people treat monogamy like it's not just a relationship choice. Almost it's like if you're monogamous, then that means that you are safe and you are good and you are normal and you are pure or whatever. And listen, the thing is, I know couples who are monogamous who are happy. Okay, we know them. We all know them. They are genuinely thriving in their monogamy. But we also need to be very honest that monogamy is not for everyone, and also it's not exactly working just based on divorce stats alone. It doesn't mean that you should betray someone or that you can't be honest or have boundaries or whatever. It just means that I think maybe we should stop being so shocked and shaken that human desire exists, and that maybe if we've extended our viewpoint out to other worldviews other than monogamy is the safe, good, pure, healthy one, maybe we just wouldn't be so shocked and shaken that people make choices that lead to betrayal. It just doesn't seem surprising when I don't even know if I believe anymore that we are meant to be with the same and only person for 30, 50, 60 years. We as a human race, because obviously some people have made it work and good for them. But what I don't like is that in relig religious frameworks, there's often these two options. One is stay faithful and endure, no matter how unhappy you are, or even if you're getting beat up or you know that your partner is doing something really nefarious and evil in the world, you just still gotta stay. And then the other option is betray and destroy everything that you've loved and worked for. And what I don't like is that at least in religious environments, just because that was one I was a part of for so long, I'll just speak to that. I don't like that there is really not a space to say, hey, I'm feeling really dissatisfied here sexually or otherwise. I'd really like to renegotiate how we do intimacy or maybe involve someone else in it. Or how can we do therapy that focuses on our each autonomy or our sexual autonomy or our emotional autonomy or whatever? What would a temporary separation look like that had boundaries? Or what would a temporary separation look like that is not considered wrong or scandalous or just this is what we need right now? We need to leave separate, live separate because we're driving each other crazy, or can we decide to divorce even though we have children or young children or whatever so that we can minimize harm? Like, do you know how crazy it would sound to say any of those things? Do you know how crazy it would sound to a lot of people to say the things I just said? It would sound crazy, but if I had had the words, the language, the courage, and the agency to say any of those things, well, first of all, they would have been shot down. But at least I would have known or had words or language to describe like these are the things I'm feeling. Not satisfied, wanting something more, wanting something different, wanting to figure out how to be a more autonomous human being. Once I wanted to figure out how to have way better boundaries about a lot of shit. And ultimately, I wish I could have just said, can we please separate without it being like I just threw a bomb in the house and ran out. Needless to say, I have come to become a big believer in ethical non-monogamy and polyamorous relationships. And I see that as a real normalized and vibrant healthy choice for some couples. It's not something I've ever done, by the way. It's not something I'm declaring is my identity or who I am, or even that I I don't know if I'll even even participate in one. It is something I have come to see as a valid worldview that makes a lot of sense. I don't think it's a band-aid for dishonesty, and I don't think it means you get to cheat and then be like, well, I'm Polydo. No, because it's still like any other relationship requires consent and honesty and communication and boundaries and having emotional responsibility for yourself and someone else, and someone else too, and honesty without coercion or coerciveness, etc. But I am bringing it up as a way of saying some things I have seen on the internet, people being like, well, they were together since they were 14. So if we just assume they had never, neither of them had ever probably slept with anyone else, that they both got one body, maybe there was some, let's just say curiosity. And all I'm asking is potentially looking at this a different way, not them necessarily. I mean the issue would be can we normalize structures that allow people to have these conversations and perhaps a maybe different lived experience that minimizes harm? That's all I'm saying. And it's just been sitting heavy with me because I don't know if y'all heard of Philip Yancey. He was the author of a really popular book called What's So Amazing About Grace that came out so many years ago. So if you aren't in evangelical circles, the book was widely celebrated, widely popular. It came out in 1997, it quickly rose to the top of the charts, New York Times bestselling author, etc. And it was about that God's scandalous grace. And I remember reading it and being like, wow, this is an amazing book because that was like in the height of my religious fervor. And recently, I think just last week, Philippians he came out and said that he was officially stepping back from all ministry, all speaking engagements, all writing, because he acknowledged and admitted to his wife that he had had an affair of eight years with another married partner. And it hit a lot of us really hard. I mean, like that hit me kind of hard just because I was in college when that book came out, and I just remember being like super gung ho evangelical at that time, and that book was like, yeah. You know, he was kind of a spiritual hero in some ways. Even our spiritual heroes are not immune to this, and it's sobering too because I think that is the way that what I did hit some people too. Because I was a spiritual hero to some people, and it sucks. It sucks when it's like, damn, this shit hurts people, and you're not trying to hurt nobody. I don't know about Philippians. I'll just be for me. Fummy. I was not trying to hurt nobody. I was just trying to get out. But I did notice a pattern, and I think that it kind of underscored for me like when our culture, society, religious circles and contexts and churches, etc., just don't have room or space at all for at least some honest conversations about desire and disappointment and sexuality, identity changes, sexual curiosity, loneliness, sexual loneliness. People don't stop having those feelings just because we're not allowed to talk about it in these religious contexts. And I don't, again, I don't know what was going on with with with with Philip Yancy because he said they was him and this other woman who was also married, they was in an affair for eight years. That's some crazy ish though. That really is a little crazy. I'm like, my brother. Now within eight years, y'all surely, surely could have left. Because when I did what I did, it was two months, three months to hops. And I was like, oh, I can't live like this. We disclosed and I left. I was up and out from the moment that thing started until I left the house. It was less than three months. So when I look at him doing that for eight years, I'm like, y'all was just really committed to being real trifling. Y'all was committed to that harm growing, like, damn, Jesus Christ. Going back to Desmond and Christy, when I think about the whole thing, and and honestly, Philip Yancy and his wife too, I would like to see us not get drowned in fear and cynicism about healthy relationships and get drowned in the fear and the belief that love is completely pointless. Even though there's some part of me that really is starting to feel that way, not about Philippians and his wife or Desmond and Christy, just in general, that I think love exists for me personally in all sorts of relationships, but probably primarily with the women in my life who are my best friends and with my children. I think that is going to ultimately probably end up being the loves of my life, and I'm really okay with that. I don't even know if I will ever be in another exclusive relationship again. I'm not sure. I don't know if I'll ever be in another truly monogamous relationship again. I might go down the polyamorous road, I'm not sure. But all I know is I'm never going to allow myself to be in a place ever again where I'm too afraid to talk about what I want and don't want, or where I feel like I don't have agency at all, or where I let any sort of religious environment dictate anything anymore. I'm really fully done with that. I think we should use this as a impetus to have more clarity on what we really want, have clarity about what we want in our relationships and what we want from our marriages, boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancés, etc., to have self-trust, self-trust, and ultimately just better and stronger boundaries. And this might go without saying, but y'all, if you think that your fiance, girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, or husband is staying with you because you are better than whoever they could cheat on you with, like that is really just not true. Of all the safe relationships I've ever had, and that's any safe relationship, not just romantic ones, it's based on integrity, honesty, communication, mutual respect, accountability, emotional maturity, emotional intelligence, etc. We all know that good, safe, healthy relationships are built on those things. And yeah, there are perks, but if someone is with you just because you're super pretty or have money or your success, then they're with you because of that, not because the relationship is built on health. And if you don't have those things, like don't outsource your agency. And that's the thing that I learned from what I went through. I had outsourced my agency to my husband at the time, to my supervisor, even to my therapist. Y'all, let me tell you real quick. This is a giant ass tangent, but my therapist made me believe that I was a sex addict when at that point in my life I had only had two partners, one in high school, and the man I had been married to for all of those years. Because before I left, and before I left and did what I did, I had not been with anyone else, and my therapist had me believing that I was a sex addict. This was a Christian evangelical therapist who took it upon himself to say that, which destroyed my life because he made me believe that, even though I wasn't with anyone or hadn't done anything, told that to my ex-husband, which ended up in court papers, which determined custody, which determined me having to go to rehab and all this other shit that was really not a helpful self-belief at all. That whole thing got super messy super quickly. And then because I left in an affair, it was like, oh, well, see, see, she is, she is a sex addict. It's like, no, I was just trying to get out. What what? No, this is not about sex. Anyway, you see how me giving away my agency and my power really destroyed me? Yeah, it really did. So, anyway, just a friendly reminder, please don't give away your agency to the internet, especially people and strangers who don't know you. But your partner, even if you're married to that person, your pastor, please not your pastor. Your family, we can choose ourselves, we can choose ourselves. And I I'm have spent a lifetime trying to figure this shit out. Like, how do I actually choose myself and keep myself safe? Because I don't think anyone out here is really trying to do that. And I'm sad that I wasn't trying to keep myself safe. But it's understandable as someone who was violated the way that I was why that took me so long to get that lesson and why I kept choosing a man to try to give that to me, and why I ended up ultimately getting married again and being abused so severely because I still kept giving away my power. Needless to say, I hope that if you're in a relationship that does not make you happy, that you do not wait for a catastrophe to start trying to leave, that you don't let a religious environment keep you in a marriage you don't want to be in. If you're not happy, if you're unaligned, if you're being abused in any way, if you've tried your hardest, if your nervous difference system is dying, if you just don't want to be there anymore, like those are all good enough reasons for you to leave, sis. Like it really is. Anyway, needless to say, any relationship that I have exited since then, I have tried to leave humanizing the person as much as I possibly can. I try to do that with both of my ex-husbands as much as I possibly can, considering my second ex-husband abused the hell out of me. But I have realized that two things can be true. You know, someone can cause harm, and then we also don't have to turn them into a public punching bag. I've tried to toe that line, I really have, as best I can while being honest and defending myself in situations when I needed to do, and also holding myself accountable when I needed to do that as well. And now as I'm moving forward, especially as I'm considering uh being part of ethically non-monogamous relationships, I will do that ethically or not at all. And that goes for dating in general, too. I'm going to date ethically or not at all, or be in relationships or friends of benefit situations ethically or not at all. So obviously keeping myself educated, being honest with myself and others, practicing consent-based sexuality at all times. I mean, that's a given. But anyway, that's part of it. Maybe just needs to be said. And at some point, I might actually do more conversation with a therapist or like a coach or something to kind of learn how to navigate a lifestyle that I've never lived before because what I'm not interested in ever doing is just randomly hurting people and calling it freedom. Just don't do it. I feel like that's what women hate about men. It's like, oh, I just needed freedom or I wanted freedom. Like, freedom does not equal chaos. Freedom with responsibility is where that complex middle can live. Anyway, y'all, if the breakup of Christian Desmond or even Philip Yancey and his wife, I don't even know her name. I'm sorry to whoever. I'm sorry to that woman. If it's really bothering you, I would encourage you to reflect on what's triggering you. I think the whole thing with Philip Yancey bothered me more than the Christian Desmond thing. And I think part of it is just the feelings of betrayal. But I think this kind of stuff can bring up like a fear of betrayal, you know, grief over our own divorces, etc. Obviously, the shame from religious conditioning is such a huge part of what some people can feel. I mean, maybe some of you out there are Jehovah's Witnesses and it's making you feel some kind of way. I also think that sometimes when these things happen, we feel like this whole like sadness over like what we thought love should be, because it just seemed like Chrissy and Desmond had love. It did feel so real, y'all. It felt so real to me. I don't usually do this, but I think if someone said they had a gun to my head and I had to name one couple who would never get divorced, I would have thought it was them. I would have said them. And it doesn't necessarily make me feel like, damn, love is so unsafe. Again, because I'm able to hold in complexity all these other things that could be at play with them. If hearing about things like this makes you feel some kind of way, I do want you to be gentle with yourself and realize, you know, you're not broken for feeling that way. We're all just humans at the end of the day. I'd love to know how it made you, how it hit you, or what this episode made you think about. Please no dogpiling, please no judgment, please no dehumanizing, no toxicity. I'm trying to really build a community that honors nuance and the ability to still hold truth while honoring nuance is really, really important to me. I think that human beings are the most beautiful, complex creatures, and I really try to have an understanding for why people do what they do before going absolutely nuts about it. Unless it's just real obvious, like insidious pedophilia or something like that. I'm really not trying to understand that. I'm not trying to understand it. I'm just like, bro, if you're still here, I know you could be anywhere on these internet streets, so thank you for spending your time with me. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to my Substack where I'm gonna be trying to do some sort of monthly newsletter. And if you aren't yet, will you please subscribe? Subscribe, please leave me a like and share this episode if you liked it. And if you're an Apple, would you do me a favor and leave me a review? Same thing with Spotify. I hope you all have a wonderful week, and I'll see you in the next episode.