I Loved Him. I Lost Myself.

If you’d asked me whether I believe in love at first sight, I’d tell you about Adam.

I saw him smile at me from across the room, and something in me lit up.

It wasn’t just butterflies. It wasn’t just a crush. It was unicorns and glitter bombs.

Not a flirtation. Just… knowing.

We had one of those slow-burn beginnings.

A handful of chance encounters. Glances exchanged across party rooms and dance floors. The kind of “almosts” that make you believe the universe is trying to get your attention. And eventually, it did.

When we finally went on our first date, it was everything you hope falling in love will be.

Dizzying. Magical. Stardust-level chemistry.

The kind of love that makes you believe in fate and forever and skipping down the aisle barefoot to some indie folk song.

But life had other plans.

He was moving to Atlanta for a major job opportunity. I was a single mom of a toddler, still untangling the mess of my divorce. We both knew the timing was wrong—even if the connection was right. We parted as friends, promising to keep in touch.

Over time, he moved away and I moved on. I began a relationship with Edward, my divorce lawyer. Eventually, Edward and I moved in together and blended our families—his kids and mine. It wasn’t perfect, but it felt like stability.

But something in me still longed for Adam.

We stayed connected the way people did in the early 2000s—cheesy email forwards, occasional phone calls, playful but innocent exchanges. It felt sweet. Safe. Like a little spark I could carry in my pocket.

And for a while, that was enough.

But eventually, during one of our calls, I said it. I told him I loved him.

Not in a dramatic “leave everything behind” kind of way—just a truth. A quiet, honest truth.

He paused. And then he told me he loved me too.

And then he ended our friendship.

He said it had become an emotional affair. That it was inappropriate. That we had to stop.

Just like that, the most soul-nourishing connection I had was gone—not because we didn’t care for each other, but because the rules of love no longer allowed it to exist.

I didn’t fight him on it. Those were his values. His boundaries. I respected that.

But with his absence came a gaping hole I could no longer ignore.

Without Adam in my life, I started to see the cracks in my relationship with Edward.

To be fair, it wasn’t Adam’s fault. My relationship had its own problems.

But losing Adam made those problems impossible to ignore.

The emotional neglect. The lack of real connection.

And eventually, the undeniable proof that he was having an affair with one of his employees.

I gave him chances. We had long talks. I said, “If you have a crush on her, fine—but you still need to show up for us.”

He couldn’t.

So I left.

And then I did something wildly romantic and, let’s be honest, slightly unhinged.

I drove to Atlanta.

I didn’t call. I didn’t warn him. I just… showed up on his doorstep.

I told him that the relationship with Edward was over. That if he really didn’t want to be my friend, he needed to look me in the eye and say it.

I know. It sounds like something out of a romcom—or a Lifetime movie.

Even I was surprised by my willingness to do something so cinematically dramatic.

But it didn’t feel crazy. It felt right.

And when he opened the door, he didn’t send me away.

He said he couldn’t look me in the eye and pretend he didn’t love me.

He said he wanted me in his life—but he refused to be a rebound.

He asked me to be single for three months before reaching out again.

And I agreed.

We didn’t speak for months. Until…

On New Year’s Eve, we ran into each other by pure chance. On the street.

It was snow globe magic. A storybook kiss at midnight.

A movie moment. A moment of yes.

We admitted what we already knew: we were in love.

And since we had already been friends for years… and we loved each other…the next logical step, of course, was marriage.

We got engaged within two months.

We spent the year planning our wedding and our life together.

And this… this is where the rules began.

This is where I started to learn what love was supposed to look like.

What it was allowed to feel like.

What I was now expected to let go of, in order to be a good wife.

It wasn’t that our marriage limited my actions. It limited my emotions.

It told me which feelings were “appropriate,” and which ones were betrayals.

That’s what broke me.

It wasn’t monogamy itself.

It was mononormativity—the unspoken assumption that romantic love must be exclusive, all-consuming, and hierarchical.

That emotional intimacy outside your marriage is dangerous.

That if you really loved someone, they should be the only one.

And I complied.

I tried to be the good wife.

I let friendships fade.

I silenced my heart.

I stopped sharing crushes, stopped talking to exes, stopped loving the way I love—openly, with tenderness and awe for more than one person at a time.

Even when I remained technically faithful, I felt like a traitor for feeling anything at all.

Eventually, I shut down.I became numb. Frigid.

My family thought it was grief from my father’s death.

But the truth is, it wasn’t losing my father that made me cold.

It was losing myself.

It was losing my ability to love without fear.

Looking back, I can see how many things could have gone differently.

Maybe if Adam and I had made our own agreements—if we had defined fidelity for ourselves—I could’ve stayed happily, functionally monogamous, as long as I was emotionally free.

Maybe we never should’ve gotten married.

Maybe we should’ve just stayed friends who loved each other.

Maybe that would’ve been the most beautiful version of our love.

But we didn’t know how to do that.

We only knew the script we were handed.

And so the love didn’t fail.

The structure did.

Monogamy became a house of cards built on little white lies.

Lies like:“You’re not allowed to feel that.”

“If you love me, I’ll be the only one.”

“Love has to be contained to be real.”

And once I felt like I couldn’t speak honestly to my partner, the relationship stopped being a safe space.

It stopped being a real space.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand in the years since:

Polyamory isn’t just a lifestyle for me.

It’s my orientation.

Once I’m no longer allowed to love freely and fully, I lose my sense of self.

I lose my purpose.

So no—I don’t regret the divorce.

What I grieve is the love that had to die… because the rules didn’t leave it room to live.

And I will never again contort myself into a shape that love was never meant to be.

I am going to love whomever the hell I damn well please.

Try to stop me.