It’s been nearly exactly a year since we last took a peek into the marriage and divorce of Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger and both seem to have moved on to new adventures and new partners. But never fear, more information is here, as Ashlyn Harris recently appeared on the Naked Sports podcast and really dug back into the breakup and her feelings around it.
At the podcast’s opening, Harris explained that she’s spent a lot of time in therapy and gotten to a place she was not in last year. This place is “an age where you stop giving a fuck what people think of you.” She added that she feels that a lot of the backlash she received last year was “projected trauma… the projection that people have based on their own scars, It’s not my burden to carry. I’m good with the decisions I’ve made. Do I always get it right? No. But I continue to wake up every day and choose to be excellent.”
Ali + Ashlyn in 2020 (Photo by Brian Ach/Getty Images for TAG Heuer )
Harris says that in her marriage, she felt that she had become “very, very good at disassociating.” As a “team player” she says that she hadn’t learned to put herself first, oversharing: “And that’s what my therapist knew right away — it was my ability to sit and suffer…my ability to serve other people before my own wants and needs, which I genuinely think probably kept me in that marriage for as long as it did.”
She says that they’d not been intimate for a long time prior to the divorce which was hard for her as a “touchy feely person.” The two had already separated and had been living separately for months by the time Ashlyn filed for divorce.
She also shares that the vitriolic and intense reaction to the breakup from fans and all the online bullying that ensued was the hardest thing she’d ever been through, even driving her to have suicidal thoughts.
Ashlyn says they considered an open marriage a year before calling it quits, but it felt out of step for both of them. They feared the impact of the public eye and public response to their highly public and highly commodified relationship. She added:
“I would never want to torch her reputation… and no matter how painful this process has been… I know I stand in my integrity and it will not make me feel better by hurting her. I want her to be happy, I want nothing but the best for her. I care about her genuinely. There is a reason we chose to have children together, there’s a reason we were together for a decade. Some relationships just don’t work and that’s okay.”
After Ali’s Self magazine story came out, Ashlyn says that she felt hurt and misrepresented — she told her therapist about it and her therapist explained:
“This is [Ali’s] experience, and you can’t change that. She’s allowed to grieve this way, if this is her truth, this is her truth. But if she would’ve saw you and your side, you wouldn’t be in the position that you are. stop expecting to be seen and heard, that’s the reason why you’re not together anymore…. that’s when I was like, we’re going to have two versions of this that are going to be very different. And she’s never gonna be okay with my version and I’m never gonna be okay with hers. But we never spoke the same language, which is how we got here.”
You can listen to the full podcast episode here.
If there’s anything I loathe, it’s weaponized therapy-speak.
Ashlyn Harris is a typical lesbian fboy weaponizing therapy. reminds me of so many of my backwards hat exes that ended up with formerly straight women. dang….
I’m guessing she was shiv and the other was tom when it came to the open relationship thing
Yuck
I find her super slimy and dubious – she’s shared a lot of personal information about her relationship with Krieger here in a way that feels super unfair when the other person isn’t there, she handled the breakup poorly, and the amount of weaponised therapy speak is grim. But I am annoyed at how many people have just assumed she cheated on the basis that they saw some photos of Harris with Bush prior to the breakup, and because Krieger has done the odd vague post. I don’t like Harris. I don’t like internet sleuths who claim to know more about a relationship than the people who were in it. Some things just aren’t our business and I’m annoyed at commenters who’ve made a load of accusations without evidence beyond TikTok likes and insta photos, and at Harris for sharing a bunch of stuff about her relationship with Krieger that should have been kept private. This feels like a situation where everyone sucks except Ali Krieger and I wish internet losers would give them some privacy.
Yes it’s vulgar and cruel to her partner. AS needs to dial back on the celeb gossip. Updates are fun, but there’s far too many, & I have several friends who’ve unsubscribed bc of the lessened amount of serious content. More varied personal essays would be appreciated, as would more & updated Queer Girl City Guides
as the managing editor of Autostraddle, this comment has broken my heart and made me feel like so much of the work we do goes unnoticed or under-appreciated. Autostraddle has NOT lessened the amount of serious content we publish. if anything, it has increased in recent years. we’re paying for more original reporting than ever before, work we would NOT be able to do without member support. we’re publishing so many personal essays, too. during the month of October, thanks to the Horror Is So Gay series, we published one almost every single day from people of all identities and backgrounds. Stef Rubino is writing in-depth historical and political pieces on the regular. we have covered hyperlocal scenes extensively, including reported features on dyke bars around the country. we’ve covered global politics with more moral clarity than many newsrooms can muster. the only reason I’m not dropping links to all of the things I’m talking about here is that they’re actually quite easy to find! check out the First Person category on the site or the LGBT History one or the News + Politics one. hell, look at the homepage RIGHT NOW for a wide spectrum of writing.
even our approach to celeb gossip is often nuanced — Riese’s recap of this podcast is a pure update/reporting of what was said unlike a lot of the salacious and judgmental drivel published elsewhere. we publish this stuff because people read it, because social media and search algorithms that we are unfortunately beholden to prioritize it. we try to always do so with nuance and care and empathy, hopefully adding a clear and smart voice to the conversation.
Hello! I was the original comment writer here and I hope it didnt come off like I meant AS when I described “internet losers” – I meant the online sleuths who spend ages trawling through social media as though it offers definitive proof of exactly what happened between two people we don’t know. It was more a statement about the horrible panopticon of Very Online celeb gossip spaces and how they’ve played a cruel role in this whole situation than about specific AS coverage and I’m sorry if it came off that way!
oh no totally! I was responding to the comment under yours. I didn’t feel like you were critiquing AS coverage and was kind of surprised someone had responded as if you were when it was clear you were talking more about those internet sleuths, subreddits, etc. but it was that response beneath yours I was specifically replying to! I totally agree with you that the celeb gossip machine surrounding this particular relationship has completely overshadowed anything either of them have personally said. reminds me of the Anjali/Sufi breakup but on a much larger scale! and I wrote something about the discourse surrounding that relationship as well, instead of just sensationalizing the breakup like a bunch of other places were. anyway, thank you! sorry for any confusion!
what reporting does AS do? it just seems like a bunch of privileged literary lesbians and queers with grievances. i see no genuine journalism here but do in fact come here for the fluff.
i work in DC, am a lesbian, and nothing AS posts here as “journalism” musters anything close to accurate or breaking. However as a lesbian I do come for the gossip and fluff that real journalism doesn’t cover because it’s straight. so a lot of us are actually the opposite
Fluff AS does well, journalism and serious topics tend to be sloppily done with a lot of grievance, assumptions, half facts, and self flagellating common among in the US culture of privileged queer and traumatized women.
You guys do great work in challenging circumstances. The fact the managing editor is regularly engaged in the comments, as are other staff members, indicates how meaningfully invested you are in this site, which I’m sure for some of you is your life’s work. Easy to say but hard to do, please try not to take that comment to heart. I read Autostraddle every day and thoroughly enjoy the variety of content. Sure I don’t agree with everything written, but that is healthy and fine.
I don’t know why one of my fellow commenters has chosen to extrapolate well beyond Riese’s brief reportage. I for one was interested to read the cringe parroted therapy speak. It’s a lesson in what not to say in an interview and a reminder for all of us who are in or who have had therapy that nuance and authenticity, rather than rote learning, should be at the forefront when we share out stories.
Kia kaha (be strong), your work is valued.
appreciate it! <3
Thank you Kerryn!!
It’s brave of Ashlyn to open up about her journey and the emotional challenges she faced during her marriage and breakup with Ali. It’s clear that growth and therapy have played an important role in her healing process. Relationships are complex, and it’s refreshing to see her prioritize her well-being.