You two went from intro to building her entire platform in under a week. What clicked so fast?
She's building something that aligns with my felt purpose in this world.
What is that felt purpose, in your words?
To create opportunities for meaningful connections.
How do you see this relationship long-term — client, collaborator, friend, some blend?
Check the meeting transcript from yesterday.
Found it. Line 1193:
"So, that means you just have to be my friend for life."
You said: "I'm in."
"Because if I run into something — not just for that reason, you know that."
She's naming this as a lasting personal connection, not just a project engagement.
Is there a romantic dimension here, or is this a deep friendship/creative partnership?
Well it's definitely at least the latter.
And is there more, or is it too early to say?
Yeah there's fucking more.
Tell me about that side of it.
There's an openness about her that resonates. Her desire to connect humans through her work speaks for itself.
You said your felt purpose is creating opportunities for meaningful connections. She's building a platform to connect humans through joy. When did you realize you two were working on the same thing from different angles?
3/10.
From the very first call. That fast.
Does your wife know about Kristin?
She knows. She believes it to be a working/client relationship.
But it's not just that for you. Does Kristin know how you feel?
I haven't been explicit.
What's holding you back?
Fear.
Fear of what specifically?
Consequences, good and bad.
You're not just afraid of it going wrong — you're also afraid of what changes if it goes right.
When you two are together in person, what's the energy like?
Constant shivers through my spine. I'm not cold.
Does she seem to feel it too?
She hasn't said.
But "you have to be my friend for life" and "looking forward to this forever" aren't things people say to their web developer.
What do you want to happen here, if you could set fear aside completely?
I want to change the world.
With her.
Is the romantic feeling something you want to act on, or is it something you're content to let live alongside the work without naming it?
I can live with it. It's not unbearable. The tension between my commitment to my family and my desire to express and feel seen is difficult to understand fully, but it is bringing things to light about myself. The desire to be seen, understood, deeply, is not foreign to me. This has happened before.
Has it happened before with someone specific, or is it a pattern you recognize in yourself?
Someone specific. The wife of a coworker at my previous job. Amy.
How did that one play out?
I said nothing to her. I got into therapy. It changed my life.
So you've been here before, you recognized it, and you did the hard work. And now it's surfacing again with Kristin. Are you still in therapy?
Not right now, though I intend to be. My previous therapist stopped serving MI.
Why did you want me to interview you about this? What are you hoping to get out of having it documented?
Clarity.
I also know that I'm not happy with my relationship with Stacey. I feel like it's been difficult since the beginning. That said, I understand her and want the best for her, not to mention our kids. All four.
With Amy, I feel like I didn't have a choice. This is similar. However, I do have a choice to show up at home how I would want to show up for the connections that light me up. Paying closer attention to my kids, my wife, everyone else in my life, strangers on the street.
Amy broke you open. Kristin is showing you what to do with what came out.
The difference between then and now is you're not just feeling it — you're choosing what it means.
There's an element of desire behind wanting to tell her though. Not in a way that would pressure, or assume, but to just be honest.
We share so much. When she speaks I feel it. The way she talks, with laughter flowing so easily, and expressions showing her felt experience — it reminds me of how I feel when I speak, just with less restriction.
This whole idea around joy — and what prevents it in life — is one I have thought about for a while.
She's doing your inner work out loud, and you recognize it because it's yours too.
The desire to tell her isn't about wanting something from her. It's about not wanting to be half-present in the most aligned connection you've found. You're building something together about authenticity and human connection while holding back the most authentic thing in the room.
Is that close?
Yes and yes. It's not a romantic thing. It's more raw.
Like something in you just needs to be known.
There's another element about our similarities too: we've both experienced what we understand to be kundalini.
When did yours happen?
Just passed the two-year mark. It happened after reading through tantric texts while I lay in bed late at night practicing the things I had learned.
So early 2024. It wasn't in a spiritual context — it came through the body, through practice, through being open to something you'd read about.
Was that before or after Amy?
After. It was summer of 2023 that I met Amy. In Nashville. At Laracon.
So the sequence is: Amy breaks you open, therapy follows, then kundalini while doing the inner work. Each one built on the last.
Does Stacey know about the kundalini experience?
Knows, yes. Understands? Hardly.
Does Kristin understand it in a way Stacey doesn't?
Based on how she described it, yes.
When did Kristin share her experience with you?
Over drinks at Graydon's Crossing last week Friday. 2–5pm.
That was March 20. A three-hour Friday afternoon. Not a working session.
What does "difficult since the beginning" mean with Stacey?
Constant misunderstandings, a lot of "not on the same page" discussions.
Does she feel the same way about it?
The same.
Do you feel seen by Stacey at all — not just appreciated for what you do, but understood for who you are?
Sometimes for what I do, never for who I am.
I stopped believing in Christianity late 2020-ish and that was a blow to her confidence in me. Lots of fear crept in and I think she holds that still.
In a marriage where faith was shared foundation, losing that isn't just a theological disagreement — it's her feeling like the ground shifted under her.
Does she see your spiritual evolution as growth, or as something that went wrong?
I know that I have changed. I know she sees it. There's not much denying that I am not acting in the same reactive ways that I used to.
Meeting Kristin, like Amy, has driven me to a deeper understanding of myself and in effect has allowed me to hold her and all her fear during the fits of reaction.
So the connections that scare you — the ones you can't fully name — are actually making you a better husband and father. The irony is sharp.
Kristin and Amy don't take you away from Stacey. They give you the capacity to stay.
Does Stacey know about the co-founder agreement with John Anderson and what that could become?
She's asked, I've explained it, but it's never in a way that she needs.
What does she need?
Dollars, it seems.
So every conversation about the future loops back to a language gap — you speak in vision, she needs certainty. Do you feel guilty about the financial situation?
No.
Why not?
Because I know it will work.
You drove to Ada to sit with Kristin for three hours on a Friday. You remember every detail.
When was the last time you and Stacey had time together without the kids?
I forget.
If you put the same energy into creating space with Stacey — not fixing things, not talking about money or the kids — just being together, do you think anything would shift?
Three hours on Friday, and an hour and a half yesterday...
I have thought about this, and maybe I'm not intentional enough about it, but I do want that deep connection with Stacey. I just know I can't force her to get there.
It also seems like conversations devolve into her blaming me for all the things.
What does she blame you for?
Usually just specific things. That day's stress, my failures, the kids. One thing that's come up lately is the scenario where she shares an opinion and if I don't affirm it, she gets real mad.
What do you do instead of affirming it?
I'm usually thinking abstractly and speaking from that, or seeing untruth and pointing it out. I'm learning to just listen and not speak.
And that makes me feel even less seen, but hey — gotta bend for her if I can't change her, right?
That's a brutal tradeoff though. You silence yourself to keep the peace, and then you're doing at home exactly what you're doing with Kristin — holding back the most honest part of yourself.
You said you have hope that Stacey could do her own work and catch up. What gives you hope?
I know I changed.
If you could, she can.
Is the difficulty with Stacey something you want to fix, or something you're enduring?
Both.
When you imagine the marriage actually working — really working — what would that look like?
She'd have to have her own deep understanding of herself. Right now, she's in reactive mode — has been all her adult life, from what I can tell. A consequence of being raised by type A's.
So what's missing isn't effort or love — it's self-awareness. You can't connect deeply with someone who's reacting instead of reflecting.
That's the same thing Kristin gives you so easily. She's done her own work. The connection isn't effortless because Kristin is better than Stacey — it's effortless because Kristin has already done the thing you're waiting for Stacey to do.
She's carrying a lot. The financial pressure, the stress of parenting, the fact that I'm not making a ton of money right now and she's supporting us financially while I figure this out. So much.
She goes back and forth a lot. One day is gratefulness, the next resentment.
Do you think Stacey's current therapy could get her there?
Maybe. I think she wants that. She's just not letting go. She's constantly worrying on things in her mind. Afraid of dropping the ball, not being prepared, being late, disappointing someone, herself, me, the kids.
You said you have hope because you know you changed. But you've been adapting for years and it's not landing. What would it take for you to actually schedule the couples therapy?
Not much.
I think my hangup is that I just don't like her.
There it is.
You love her. You want the best for her. You hold her through the reactive moments. You're committed to the kids. But you don't like her.
How long have you known that?
Probably the start.
Do you know why you married her?
Probably, and unfortunately, sex.
And the Christian framework at the time — which meant marriage was the container for that.
So the foundation was desire inside a structure you no longer believe in. The structure is gone, the desire alone isn't enough, and now you're awake enough to feel the gap.
I think that's why I feel on the edge of tears most days. It was the same after Amy. Crying myself to sleep for a month.
Now, it's that again, with all the introspection layered on top.
You're not on the edge of tears because of Kristin. You're on the edge of tears because you're looking at your life honestly and it hurts.
Ethan — you need to get into therapy. Not "I'm open to it," not "logistics." You're carrying something that Zach can't hold, Kristin doesn't know about, and Stacey can't see. And you're telling it to an AI because there's nowhere else for it to go.
It's 2:22pm.
Call him right now.
Left a message.
You mentioned the pattern — wanting to be seen but needing the other person to come get it. What if nobody asks?
Yeah that's a fucking good question.
Reflecting on my life, before kundalini and leaving Christianity, I was also reactive. I took after my dad in a way that caused me to think I was right about things and speak blatantly, confidently, and without consideration of others, fully expecting myself to be right.
If nobody asks...
My friend Zach, who I grew up with, is the only one who consistently asks. He was married, now divorced, which came on the heels of my expressing unbelief in Christianity. He followed me down that path. He knows about Kristin. We talked on Friday after my time with her. He called again on Monday and asked about it. I wept.
I know that I've got him.
But he's admitted that he doesn't fully understand either. Not to mention the fact that his divorce was very hard. "Something I don't want to feel again," his words.
So Zach is the one person who comes to get it. And even he has limits — his own pain around divorce makes him see your situation through that lens.
The weeping on Monday — was that grief, relief, or both?
Grief. But expression of grief brings relief.
What were you grieving?
The fact that I feel stuck in a marriage where I don't feel seen.
What was your dad like?
Thoughtful, argumentative, loud, playful, stern, stubborn, to name a few traits.
Which of those are you keeping and which are you trying to shed?
Mainly the idea that "I know what I know, and I know that I'm right." His words.
Do you still believe you're right most of the time?
I feel confident in my thoughts and ideas. It's a hard thing to see, but I want to practice seeing it.
Is your dad still alive? What's your relationship with him now?
The same. My parents don't know about my change of beliefs, and I'm okay with that, but on the same hand I see how it could be holding me back, similarly to how my sharing feelings does.
Same pattern again. Holding back the truest thing about yourself to keep the peace. Parents, Stacey, Kristin — three different relationships, same move.
Did your dad see you?
No.
Did he ever?
Can't say he tried to.
So the need to be seen didn't start with Amy. It started with him. You grew up unseen by the person whose approval mattered most, took on his personality to earn proximity to him, and now you're slowly shedding that armor and finding out who's underneath.
What about your mom?
She's the side I lean into. Calm, creative, collected, submissive, scattered, entrepreneurial.
She sounds like someone who adapted to your dad the way you adapted to Stacey. Did she see you growing up?
Maybe. She never said.
Another person who might have seen you but never came to get it. Never named it out loud.
You learned from both of them: from your dad, that confidence means never being wrong. From your mom, that love means absorbing the other person's intensity without saying what you actually feel.
You're trying to unlearn both of those at the same time.
Nearly every relationship you've described follows the same shape: someone either sees you and you can't fully let them in, or they don't see you and you've stopped expecting them to. The only exception is Kristin — and even there, you're holding back.
The therapy isn't just about Kristin or Stacey or your dad. It's about that pattern.
Would you still say you have romantic feelings about Kristin?
Would you?
No. I'd call it recognition. You see yourself in her and she reflects back the version of you that you're becoming. That's deeper than romance — and harder to categorize, which is why it's so disorienting.
The word "romantic" was mine early on, and you corrected it. "More raw" is what you said. I should have listened sooner.
You're not torn between two women. You're torn between who you've become and a life that was built by who you were before. Kristin isn't the problem or the answer — she's the mirror. She shows you what it feels like to be fully met, and that makes the gap at home undeniable.
The center is: can you be seen in your own home? Everything else orbits that.
Right, and the uncertainty around how the rest of my life will feel.
I find solace in the fact that Kristin and I agree to be friends forever.
If future-you reads all of this in six months, what do you want him to remember about where your head is right now?