Why I Refuse to Settle: Rewriting the Fairy Tale of Marriage and Embracing True Freedom
No ring, no strings, no bullshit: My Terms, My Life.
Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not sitting around, waiting for a knight in shining armor to swoop in, sweep me off my feet, and ask for my hand in marriage.
Yawn.
Pass the sick bucket, please.
No, the highlight of my life is not going to be some grandiose wedding, complete with a diamond ring, a white dress, and the eternal promise of “till death do us part.”
That narrative?
It’s outdated, and quite frankly, it’s the stuff of nauseating romantic comedies and antiquated fairy tales, not the epic saga I’m writing for myself.
As I strut down my path — because, yes, I strut, I don’t walk — I’ve noticed something fascinating: the sheer number of men who can’t quite grasp the concept of a woman being genuinely happy and fulfilled without their involvement.
The confusion on their faces is almost as entertaining as it’s telling.
It’s like they’re trying to solve a Rubik’s cube, but with their brains stuck on a single color.
It’s in these moments of male bewilderment I’ve come to realize something profound about our society: it scares them.
It absolutely terrifies them that a woman might one day wake up and realize marriage, as we know it, is nothing more than a cleverly crafted institution designed primarily to serve men.
You’ve been led to believe it’s just a small fraction of “no good” men – a few “bad apples” spoiling it for the rest.
You’ve been convinced what you see and experience every day is all in your head, just make-believe.
But it’s not.
The truth? Men haven’t evolved much since the institution was constructed, and the majority today?
Bad apples.
What if a woman sees beyond the sweet nothings whispered in her ear, the fairy tale of the beautiful dress, the diamond ring?
What if she realizes she can’t be bought?
This goes far beyond tradition, ladies.
It’s rooted deep in our collective psyche, in a world where capitalist society understands the power of storytelling.
Well, buckle up, because here’s the thing — so do I.
And while society is pushing a safe, predictable sedan, I’m revving the engine of my sports car.
Vroom, vroom, baby!
Now, a little about me.
I got my shiny four-year degree at the University of Florida in advertising, with a concentration in psychology.
But don’t get it twisted — I’m not here to brag about being intelligent.
You decide.
That degree?
It’s a testament to my ability to play the game, not my capacity to buy into the nonsense society is selling.
I originally set out to be a doctor, but the endless studies and the smell of formaldehyde started to bore the shit out of me.
So, I strutted into the College of Journalism and Communications, changed my major, and never looked back.
My decision felt right, like slipping into a pair of heels that fit perfectly and make your legs look amazing.
Fast forward, I found myself working at the top advertising agency in South Florida.
No Spanish needed — just a whole lot of hustle.
What a time to be alive — daily valet service, living in a beautiful, secluded spot just a short walk from the beach, though I barely took advantage of it because I was so consumed with my career.
But let’s be real, I still found time to suck my partner’s dick.
Priorities, right?
As a media planner in traditional media — radio, TV, billboards — I was the one chatting up executives from big-name brands like Michael’s, Virgin Mobile (when it was still a brand in the US), Papa John’s, and Five Below, coaching them on exactly how to spend their millions to capture their audiences in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market.
It was all about women, of course.
They would regularly end our meetings with a quick, “Make sure we capture these women who are watching daytime TV, making decisions for the home. Do your job.”
I was doing my job, and I was damn good at it.
My adrenaline rush? Hearing them say, “Tell us how to spend these millions. Sell it to us.”
I’d spend countless hours crafting elaborate, beautiful presentations and knocking pitches out of the park.
The cherry on top?
I was the highest-paid on my team — a little secret my boss advised me to keep to myself, so I didn’t make anyone uncomfortable.
Truth be told: I loved going on lunch dates with potential clients the most — free food and an excuse to get out of the office?
Yes, please.
But as much as I enjoyed those perks, I knew I wanted more.
So, one day, I expressed my desire to transition to digital media strategy within six months.
My team and I drew up a plan, and off I went.
During my university days, I discovered a knack for strategy — the brain, the one who got to take data and tell everyone else what it meant.
I even won awards for my work.
Quietly.
It wasn’t long before the director told me I was a prodigy; I reminded her of her younger self when she first got into the industry.
Her words?
“You’re a woman with powerful insight and talent for this kind of work. One day, you could be a director too.”
I was 24.
At the time, I was binge-watching Mad Men (one of my all-time favorite shows) during the little free time I had, furiously taking notes because, honestly, I had no idea what I was actually doing.
But everyone in the C-suite seemed to know what they were doing — or at least put on a good show.
It was all the rage come lunchtime.
You couldn’t miss the display — kids’ pictures on their desks, drawings framed on the walls, and a photo of the wife positioned near the computer.
Perfectly curated smiles.
Women with their big, shiny diamond rings would waltz in, requesting, sometimes demanding, various meetings.
Meetings that weren’t on the global schedule.
Deadlines looming but not being able to get an “OK” from the big man at the top?
Not a good look.
I never reached out to the CEO directly — he had a penchant for yelling.
“Where’s Lisa? I need her to sign something,”
Tim would say.
“She’s in Ron’s office,”
Carol would reply.
Wicked smiles all around as we sipped our Starbucks teas.
Let’s be clear: marriage doesn’t cure sexual desire.
It just looks good on paper.
I left advertising because I didn’t love it.
I was on track to use this as my “starter” job before heading to Manhattan, where my boss hailed from — a direct pipeline, if you will.
The entire team is still in New York.
That director? When I resigned, she was heartbroken.
I was her right-hand woman — reliable, high-performing, a trusted sidekick.
We were really hitting our stride together.
Her parting words?
“Don’t work for anyone else as much as you did for me. You could have been me one day, but there was a cost. I barely saw my kids grow up, and my 7-year-old died while I was at work. Hit and run on a bike. It was one of those days I stayed past midnight again. And I regret it every day.”
Then she pointed to a sign on her wall that read, “Leave work at 7 pm.”
One of my coworkers made it for her to help her balance her life.
Her husband? Didn’t have one.
She divorced him, deciding she’d rather pay a nanny to take care of the kids — he was more into golf.
More into girls.
I got my “foot in the door” at that agency through a friend of my ex-partner’s — someone he was heavily eyeing on both social media and in real life.
Who could blame him?
She was a beautiful, vibrant Latina, an old coworker.
Her free hot pics online? Oh, kryptonite.
But I was thankful every day for the opportunity she gave me.
I love women.
Leaving the agency and turning down the straight path to financial security haunted me for years.
But deep down, I knew I had to carve out my own destiny.
I needed the freedom to explore my voice, to write about what truly mattered — because writing has always been a part of me, ever since childhood.
I remember my first award back in fifth grade — a short novel I wrote, which my mom helped edit and we illustrated together.
It’s a piece she still keeps in the memory bin, a reminder of where my passion began and why I needed to pursue it fully.
So, I took the leap and became a freelance writer.
I didn’t stop there — I launched a fitness blog, earned my Certified Health Coach title in 2015, and began sharing not just workout routines, but the deeper journey of health and strength.
My partner? He was all in.
A man who lived and breathed the gym, and we loved lifting together.
I thought I finally found the sweet spot in life.
But life had other plans.
Just as the blog started to take off, he’d regularly remind me of how much money I “lost out on” for our home, often comparing me to the other women in his life who were content working just to work, while I was focused on building my dreams.
How much it burdened him.
I felt like a failure in his eyes.
I started to feel so unattractive.
And he was the only man I wanted to attract.
So I stopped.
Moved to North Florida to get a job in a department I hated at a university I loved — my alma mater.
Let’s face it — my reality shapes my perspective.
I can’t wrap my mind around how the institution of marriage benefits women today.
It’s something that was created for women to survive, but first, they have to be convinced they need to be saved.
The advertising world taught me everything is a story.
I’ve dived deep into the carefully curated narratives that shape our society, exploring how the stories of our past continue to influence the present.
And I’m ready to dismantle them.
The first one on my list?
The idea one person can be bought, owned, and tied to another until legally untangled.
Ladies, the truth is, marriage was designed as a carefully constructed social construct, crafted as a beautiful story with sprinkles of love on top.
In today’s time, it’s one that largely benefits men, like it always did in the past, with little payoff for you.
Look around.
Our society is built on the family structure.
The narrative of the importance of marriage for the kids you definitely want to have one day, without question, runs deep.
And so, while you’re young and lack life experience, you must focus on finding “the one,” a narrative sold to you since birth.
In time, this will bring you happiness – your potent, powerful, and beautiful sexual energy, sold, to a segment of men who, for the most part, lack the skills, intelligence, capacity, and mature masculine energy to handle you – an inherently free woman.
Free women do not commit to men because a paper says so.
Freedom means no control.
When you don’t have freedom, you have no control.
And then there are loopholes — freedom’s price tag.
Loopholes you have to pay for.
We buy into these messages because we don’t know our worth.
Many of us were never taught by our mothers, who sipped on the same Kool-Aid.
Who created these messages?
Powerful, old-school advertising men on Madison Avenue, in order to direct and influence society into a realm, a story, where adult life will be centered around the marriage structure.
And it helped women survive.
Our mothers and grandmothers?
Oh, they started competing for that male gaze, and they worked hard for it too.
The bigger the bank, the bigger the payoff because women have always been intelligent.
But now? It’s killing most of us.
Ladies stepping into this space today, boldly look into the eyes of the man who says he loves you and ask him: why should your love come with a price tag?
Why does he need to lock you down so badly?
What’s the urgency?
Ask him why he’s incapable of loving you as a free woman.
Does it threaten him as a free woman, you will have the capacity to choose to leave the relationship at any time?
I think most realize they’ll be left high, dry, and sexless now that he’s lost his grip on your mind and body.
Those days are over.
Now it’s a choice to enter these contracts.
One we all must strongly consider the ultimate value of in our modern era.
The truth is, if he can’t love you as a free woman, he doesn’t love you.
It’s control wrapped up in a honeymoon.
Today, that’s what marriage is about when you strip away the perfectly curated love stories advertisers, the media, and traditional institutions sell you.
What’s left?
A man that bought your love and now owns your body.
And a man who knows this. Want proof?
Just casually tell him you want to be celibate for the next year — over breakfast, of course — and see how that goes.
Far too many men would immediately consider what he needs to do to change your mind, “But you’re my woman, you owe me,” or will eventually seek sexual favors outside this once-perfect “relationship.”
This is the real story of too many women in marriage and long-term relationships.
This is not a piece to drag people who are okay and thriving within the marriage construct.
You’re not my audience.
This is a piece about having a societal conversation about who is really benefiting today.
And why are men so scared of a woman who thinks for herself and claims her freedom?
Is it because they’re threatened by the idea that a mass awakening to the autonomy of our minds and bodies means they would have to consistently step up and be the “best man”?
Let’s be honest — you’d have the freedom to connect with a man for as long (or as brief) as you desire, and to let the relationship run its course to its natural end — because, baby, all relationships do.
And here’s the kicker: he’d have to stay committed to his own growth to keep up with yours, or you’d be free to choose a man who can.
Damn right.
Men naturally do this when they don’t have the ring yet.
It’s the most exciting dance to “win a woman’s heart” in the beginning.
But once they do, no one talks about how the dopamine hit slowly leaks away, leaving most feeling empty.
It takes a special kind of man to stay on top of his A-game within the marriage construct — a man who intentionally enters the contract not to control, but to provide himself with focus and purpose, maintaining the same energy as when he was still pursuing her heart.
Because let’s be real — it’s challenging being a modern man — women online are free dopamine.
So, what do we do in our real lives?
We have to have tough conversations.
We need to confront this outdated structure that’s failing most people yet is still idealized in society as a prize only the “best” women win.
We must address the inherent power dynamics built into it.
I’ve yet to meet a married man who could honestly say he’d be content if his wife decided to stop having sex with him for an undefined period of time, for her own reasons.
And why not?
What does she owe you?
These are the conversations we need to be having.
My almost decade long relationship?
No contact with men who weren’t pre-approved, who didn’t make “the cut.”
The kicker? I wasn’t even married.
God forbid I recognize I had been getting good dick, but selling myself short.
The icing on the cake?
I was instantly discarded when I stopped having sex with him.
We had recently relocated to Oregon for the most pivotal moment in his career.
Then, he mentioned he’d bought a one-way ticket to Miami, his hometown, and asked if I could drop him off at the airport.
So, I did.
Leaping ahead to the six-month relationship I had with a man in Northern California…
I eventually moved into his home, but things quickly unraveled when I decided to close my legs and start asking deeper questions.
Questions about the sweet nothings he promised but had a hard time living up to.
His response?
“I no longer wish to continue our relationship.”
Oh, and to make him feel more at ease, I need to leave his house as soon as possible.
And yes, I can imagine how much worse it would have been if they had slapped on rings to justify their demands.
I love talking to men — not because I’m an attention-seeking slut, but because I’m a strategist and a writer, baby.
My life no longer revolves around any man.
I’m driven by a deep desire to decode the male psyche and set the record straight.
This week, I engaged two new men — one 34, the other 68 — and guess what?
They were captivated by my intellect, surprised to find I wasn’t just another pretty face.
And they admitted it — I’m the most confident woman they’ve ever encountered in real life.
I told them it was because I stopped playing dumb, and stopped focusing on men.
I focus on myself and have faith that through this new choice, the right partnerships will make their way to me.
Because I still desire the company of men.
But on my terms.
And this time, it will be men who don’t buy women for sex and love.
I’m a free woman, single by choice, with no man by my side.
Not because no one wants to fuck me.
Not because I’m broken or lacking anything of value.
I refuse to buy into the bullshit narrative I need to compete for a man’s commitment.
I know my worth.
And the next man who captures my attention?
Well, let’s just say he’s already one blessed motherfucker, and I won’t need to worry about incognito mode to know he understands that.
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