This week we got two celebrity relationship updates that could not be more different, and I've been thinking about why.
Jason Biggs and Jenny Mollen announced they're splitting after 18 years of marriage. Two kids. Almost two decades. And their statement — if you can call it that — was basically: we're good, still co-parenting, great terms, moving forward with love. The internet did a double-take. Eighteen years and it's just... fine?
Meanwhile, a few weeks ago: Megan Thee Stallion and Klay Thompson. Under a year in. Cheating allegations. Not fine.
I'm not here to rank whose pain is worse or speculate about anyone's private life beyond what they've made public. I'm here to name the thing that explains the gap between these two stories, because it's the same thing LLMA was built around.
Time Is Not the Variable
Everyone's first instinct is to chalk the Jason/Jenny split up to "they had more time to build something." 18 years, deep roots, co-parenting infrastructure, shared history. Of course they're okay.
But that's not actually what's going on. Time can make either outcome worse. Long relationships that collapse in fire — and there are plenty of them — tend to leave more wreckage, not less, because there was more invested and nothing holding the structure together.
The variable is whether you built a partnership, or whether you built a feeling.
A feeling is beautiful and real and important. It is also not load-bearing.
A partnership — one you actually designed, with explicit values, honest conversations about what you both want from the relationship, a framework for what you are to each other that goes beyond "we're in love" — that can survive the romantic component changing.
What "On Great Terms" Actually Means
When two people split after 18 years and call it "on great terms," what they're usually describing (whether they'd use this language or not) is: we built more than romance.
We built friendship. We built shared commitments around our kids. We built a clear understanding of what we were trying to create together. When the romantic layer shifted, we still had a structure. The house didn't collapse because the house was more than one room.
That's LLMA's entire framework in a single real-world example.
Intentional partnership — whether it's a romantic marriage, a platonic life partnership, a lavender marriage, or some hybrid you designed for yourself — starts with a conversation that most people skip. "What are we actually building here?" Not just "do we have feelings for each other?" but "what do we want to create, what are our commitments, what does this look like when it's hard?"
Skip that conversation and you're betting everything on the feeling lasting forever. Which, sometimes it does. But usually it changes. And then you find out what you actually built.
What This Has to Do With Lavender Marriages
A lot of people come to LLMA because they want a lavender marriage — a life partnership that isn't built primarily on romantic love or sexual attraction. Gay men and straight women pairing up to build a shared, intentional life. Chosen family structures. Platonic co-parenting arrangements.
What's interesting is that lavender marriages, by design, can't rely on romantic love as the foundation. They have to design the rest of the structure explicitly. And that explicit design is exactly what makes them more resilient.
"You can't vibe your way into a lavender marriage. You have to have the conversations. That's not a limitation. That's the feature."
The conversations that feel awkward and un-romantic to have with a romantic partner? Lavender partnership people have them on day one. What do we want to build? What are our commitments? What happens if one of us wants to change direction?
And then they have a real answer. Because they already talked about it.
The Part That Hits Different
Here's the thing I keep coming back to. Jason and Jenny have presumably moved through grief, logistics, and the actual hard work of restructuring their lives — and they've done it quietly, with dignity. That's not easy. That's the product of having built something real.
Megan Thee Stallion is talented and brilliant and has every right to expect honesty from a partner. She also, by her own account, got less than that. The pain in that isn't a failure on her part. It's a collision with someone who hadn't designed honesty into their partnership.
Two different outcomes. One root cause: whether the relationship was designed or just felt.
You can feel your way into some things. Your most important partnerships deserve better than vibes.
Download LLMA on the App Store or Google Play — for people who want to design their partnerships before they have to rebuild them from scratch. Stay Bold. Stay Inspired.