“I’m Worth the Effort”: How Polyamory Reshaped My Self-Worth and Breathed New Life into My Marriage
TikTok video from 2023-03-14
When people talk about polyamory, it’s usually framed around ideas of freedom, novelty, or complexity. Sometimes, it’s misunderstood as a loophole or a phase, especially when it emerges later in life or within a long-standing marriage.
But for me, polyamory has been something else entirely.
It has been a mirror.
A reckoning.
A healing practice.
And most surprisingly—it has been a profound gift to my marriage.
My husband and I have been married for 35 years. We share a rich, layered life together—deep friendship, shared laughter, a home that holds our history, and a rhythm that feels familiar and safe. We love each other deeply.
But over time, like so many long-term couples, we grew comfortable.
And then we grew complacent.
We stopped dating each other.
We stopped surprising each other.
We stopped reaching for more.
We watched shows. We cooked meals. We managed logistics. We loved each other, yes—but we also stopped tending to the intimacy that makes a romantic partnership feel alive.
The love was still there.
But the intentionality wasn’t.
And here’s what I didn’t realize at the time:
That slow fading of effort had started to erode something in me.
I have struggled with low self-worth throughout my life.
Despite an empowering childhood and a mother who told me I could do anything, I still carried a quiet voice that whispered, “You’re not enough.”
And somewhere along the way, I began measuring my value—my desirability, my presence, my aliveness—by the amount of effort my husband put into our relationship.
If he didn’t plan dates, maybe I wasn’t worth dating anymore.
If he stopped initiating affection, maybe I wasn’t someone to reach for.
If we stopped exploring and growing together, maybe I had become someone too predictable, too ordinary to excite.
I didn’t say these things out loud.
I didn’t even fully realize I was thinking them.
But my body felt it.
My spirit felt it.
I began to slowly disappear into the role of “wife”—supportive, reliable, undemanding—and abandoned the woman who once believed she was magnetic, radiant, and worth pursuing.
And then polyamory entered our lives.
Not as a way to escape, but as a way to expand.
Suddenly, I was dating again.
But this time, I was doing it as a grown woman. With history. With presence. With wisdom.
And my new partners didn’t know the past versions of me.
They didn’t know the years when I shrank myself.
They weren’t measuring me against who I used to be.
They were meeting me—as I am now.
They saw me as vibrant.
Sexy.
Intelligent.
A source of joy, insight, depth, and pleasure.
They planned dates.
They followed through.
They brought flowers, booked trips, texted me just because.
They chose me—intentionally, consistently.
And the more they did, the more I realized something stunning:
I hadn’t become more worthy.
I had simply started surrounding myself with people who could see it.
It hit me like a wave.
I had spent years equating the stillness in my marriage with something being wrong with me, when the truth was, we had both simply stopped trying.
That’s when I told my husband the words that changed everything:
“I’m worth the effort. Make one.”
Not out of anger.
Not to punish or push away.
But from a place of deep clarity and self-love.
To his credit, he heard me.
We started slow.
He began showing up again—with curiosity, with attention, with intention.
He began seeing me not just as the wife he’s always known—but as the woman I still am becoming.
And I met him there.
Not to rewind the clock, but to write something new—together.
Polyamory didn’t save my marriage.
It saved my relationship with myself.
It reminded me that I don’t have to accept emotional autopilot.
That I’m not too old, too married, or too complicated to be romanced.
That I don’t have to shrink into someone else’s comfort zone in order to feel loved.
It gave me mirrors—partners, lovers, experiences—that reflected back the parts of me I had forgotten.
And in doing so, it allowed me to walk back into my marriage with a clearer voice, stronger boundaries, and a full-bodied sense of what I need to feel nourished and seen.
Polyamory, at its best, isn’t about replacing or escaping.
It’s about expanding.
And when done with integrity, it can breathe new life into every relationship we touch—including the one we have with ourselves.
Final Reflections
If you’re in a long-term relationship and feeling invisible, please hear this:
It’s not selfish to waeffort.
It’s not unreasonable to ask for presence.
And it’s never too late nt to rediscover the parts of yourself that feel forgotten.
Whether through polyamory or another path of growth, what matters is that you come back to this truth:
You are worth the effort.
From your partners.
From the world.
And most importantly, from yourself.
