Hello Loving Without Boundaries Community!
I want to tell you about Calvin.
Because Calvin’s story is one I think about often. Not just because of where he started — though wow, where he started was a genuinely painful place. But because of where he is now.
Engaged. To the man he was once so terrified of losing that he could barely sleep at night.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up to 2020.
Toronto. COVID. And a Fear That Wouldn’t Let Go.
Calvin found me through my book Jealousy Survival Guide — which tells you something about him right away. He wasn’t sitting around waiting for things to get better. He was actively looking for answers. Reading. Researching. Trying.
He was in a newer gay open relationship with someone truly special — a man he had been friends with for nine years before they became partners. The kind of foundation that matters. The kind of love that doesn’t come along every day.
But there was a complication.
His boyfriend Jeremy was living in San Francisco. Calvin was in Toronto — a whole country away — while Jeremy was in San Francisco. Long distance, during COVID, during a time when the whole world felt uncertain and isolating. And in San Francisco, seeing Jeremy about once a week, was someone else. A man Jeremy had known for years too. Recently divorced. In love with Jeremy. Right there in person, every single week, while Calvin was thousands of miles — and an entire border — away.
Logically, Calvin knew Jeremy was being transparent. Always asking first. Never hiding anything. Telling Calvin clearly: you come first. I want to be with you.
But logic and feelings, as anyone who has ever loved someone knows, do not always speak the same language.
Calvin wrote in his intake form: “At times I feel secure about this. At other times I don’t feel secure and am anxious. Logically it doesn’t make sense why — it’s just feelings that come up and overwhelm me.”
The thoughts consumed him. The ruminating. The sleepless nights. The fear — specific, visceral, named — of losing Jeremy to someone who was physically present in ways Calvin couldn’t be.
“He is like no one I have experienced ever before,” Calvin wrote. “And he says the same.”
That line. I felt that in my heart when I read it. 💛
What He’d Already Tried
Calvin is not someone who sits with pain and does nothing. He had read the books. He had talked to his partner. He had tried therapy.
And his therapist — well-meaning, I’m sure — had essentially looked Calvin in the eye during one of the most vulnerable moments of his life and said: be prepared for an answer you may not want to hear. He could leave you for the other guy.
I want to be gentle here because therapists do important work. But feeding someone’s deepest fear instead of giving them tools to work through it? That’s not healing. That’s leaving someone more stuck than when they arrived.
Calvin needed someone who understood open relationships from the inside out. Someone who wouldn’t pathologize his desire for a loving, free, transparent partnership. Someone who could meet him exactly where he was — scared, overthinking, desperate to be his best self for the man he loved — and hand him an actual roadmap.
That’s when he found me.
The Decision
Calvin showed up to our Breakthrough Session with his whole heart. And I could feel it immediately. This was not someone going through the motions. This was someone who genuinely wanted to grow — not just for Jeremy, but for himself.
He wrote: “My boyfriend is so special and I want to do everything in my power to make sure I’m the best I can be for him. I’m always looking to improve myself.”
That quality — that genuine commitment to self-work, not just relationship-saving — is exactly what I look for. Because here’s the truth: the people who get the most extraordinary results from this work aren’t always the ones in the most pain. They’re the ones who are most willing to look honestly at themselves.
Calvin was willing. Completely, courageously willing.
And so we dove in.
The Transformation
Calvin did the work. Every week. Diligently, openly, with the kind of commitment that makes a coach’s heart sing.
He learned to interrupt the mental spirals before they took over. He learned to check the accuracy of the stories his anxious brain was telling him — versus what was actually true. He learned embodied communication skills that let him share his feelings with Jeremy in ways that built connection rather than distance. He learned to regulate his nervous system instead of being hijacked by it.
He learned, most importantly, that his insecurity wasn’t a character flaw. It wasn’t evidence that he was bad at relationships or bad at love. It was a skill gap. And skill gaps, unlike character flaws, can be closed.
Fast forward a few years later — completely out of the blue, without any prompting from me — Calvin left me a five-star review. We hadn’t even spoken in years. But he sat down and wrote this:
“This program transformed me. I went from feeling lost and overwhelmed to confident and in control. The tools I’ve gained have helped me manage my thoughts, grow personally, and strengthen my relationship. Truly grateful.”
When I read that, I had to sit with it for a moment. Because that’s not a review written out of obligation or in the glow of just finishing a program. That’s a review written years later, from a place of settled, lasting, hard-won peace.
That’s transformation that actually stuck.
Where Calvin Is Now
Here’s the part that gives me the most joy to share.
Calvin and Jeremy — the man he was so afraid of losing, the man he loved so much he could barely sleep — are now engaged. 💍
I’ll just let that sit there for a second.
The man Calvin was terrified would leave him for someone else. The relationship he was so convinced his insecurity might destroy. The love he worked so hard and so bravely to show up for fully.
Engaged.
And I happened to notice that Jeremy keeps a quote on his Facebook page. A quote from Heath Ledger, who so memorably and courageously depicted a gay love story that the world wasn’t quite ready for:
“Don’t let anyone ever make you feel you don’t deserve what you want.”
There is nothing secret or hidden about Calvin and Jeremy’s love story anymore. It’s right there for the world to see — proud, public, and hard-won. 💛
A man who once couldn’t sleep at night, consumed by fear and self-doubt, is now openly, joyfully, defiantly claiming exactly what he deserves.
Calvin didn’t let anyone make him feel he didn’t deserve what he wanted. Not his anxious brain. Not the miles — and the border — between them. Not a therapist who told him to brace for loss. Not the fear that showed up at 2am and whispered that he wasn’t enough.
He did the work. He showed up. He chose love — and himself — anyway.
Could This Be Your Story Too?
Maybe you’re in a situation that feels a little like Calvin’s. Maybe the fear and the overthinking and the sleepless nights feel so familiar it almost hurts to read this. Maybe you’re loving someone wonderful and terrified — absolutely terrified — that your own insecurity is going to cost you everything.
I want you to hear this clearly: you are not broken. This is not a character flaw. These are skills — learnable, practicable, life-changing skills — that nobody ever taught you because nobody teaches this stuff.
Calvin learned them. And five years later, he and Jeremy are planning a wedding.
If you’re ready to find out what’s possible for you — I’d love to have that conversation. Book a complimentary Breakthrough Session and let’s talk honestly about where you are, where you want to be, and what a real path forward looks like.
👉 LovingWithoutBoundaries.com/apply
The call is completely free. And who knows — maybe a few years from now, you’ll be the one writing a review out of nowhere, just because your life got so good you couldn’t help yourself. 💛
With love and gratitude, Kitty
P.S. Calvin found me through my book. Jeremy lives by Heath Ledger’s words. And together they proved something I believe with my whole heart: when you stop letting fear make your decisions, love has a way of exceeding every expectation you had for it. Don’t let anyone — including your own doubts — make you feel you don’t deserve what you want. 💛
KITTY CHAMBLISS, Master Coach (ICF-Certified), CPC
Relationship Coach | Speaker | Educator | Trauma-Informed
Author of “Jealousy Survival Guide: How to feel safe, happy, and secure in an open relationship”
