Self-marriage goes mainstream in this remarkable 7-minute documentary on Nightline/ABC. And as my friend Melissa Banigan said about this piece, “YES to women taking charge of the ways we define and love ourselves.”

I’ve been writing about self-marriage now for over a decade, since I first wrote about it in Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics. I have observed the trend grow from a fringey thing only performance artists do to a meaningful ritual being practiced by women (and some men) who work in more mainstream occupations. It’s starting to take off. The cutting-edge of marriage is self-marriage.

The radical question we’re asking is, What if you were to make vows to honor and believe in yourself? In a world full of war and hatred, the planet definitely needs more love. In a world full of self-loathing of all kind, Americans need more self-love.

What would the world be like if our coming-of-age ritual involved committing to treat yourself well as an adult, whether you marry another person or not?

In this marvelous documentary, Nighline explores the concept with a depth that is rare for TV.
Nightline put seven minutes of attention on a woman taking herself seriously as a full human being, whether she has a husband or not–having fun with it at the same time!

There are so many incredible bits in this piece. My favorite part of me, personally, is the B-Roll. Producers tape B-Roll stuff of a person doing something, so they have more than boring talking head footage. They taped me walking around Columbus Circle in New York. It’s a bit awkward to be taped walking about, What should you be doing?

A guy selling honey in the farmer’s market in Columbus Circle started making jokes with me so you can see me laughing with him. . . the interaction with the honey salesman feels like joy. They also show a moment from my own self-marriage three years ago in the Japanese Gardens in Buenos Aires where I kiss my hands after the vows, and that feels like joy also. Erika Anderson, a woman who married herself, who is the star also exemplifies the joy. This whole segment is so joyful. It’s a deep, meaningful thing to do to commit to value yourself–and self-marriage can be a lot of fun!

The realness and vulnerability of Petra Hanson sharing her intention to marry herself with her friends is also wonderful. This is not, ahem, an easy thing to do.

That’s why I love helping women to marry themselves. I recruited Petra for this segment and gave her some coaching, and I continue to help women take this step when they feel called.

Helping a woman marry herself is just about one of my favorite things to do. It’s creative. It’s deep. It’s meaningful. It will change your life.

I get lifted up each time I’m in the presence of a woman who has married herself too. When one person marries herself it definitely lifts everyone else up too.

The haters will hate, of course. There will be people who will confuse self-marriage with a commitment to being alone or a barrier to marriage with another person, or the people who will call us insane and narcissistic.

When I started to share the story of my self-marriage, I knew that some people would think I was crazy.

I didn’t share the story immediately. It took me three years to work up to that point because I needed to let the experience bake into the cells of my being before I was ready to go public.

Choosing to take a radical stand means there will be misunderstanding and backlash.

But in all honesty, I can hardly take their criticisms of narcissism and selfishness seriously.

Over on twitter, some dude writes me:
@sashacagen are u high? It’s creative? By the way selfishness, self love & narcissism are at an all time high & the u.s is @ #1.

@sashacagen only thing u accomplished with that is making yourself look like a narcissistic insane woman. Single is great but not special!

I’m so glad he wrote these tweets–because they help me to clarify the true meaning of self-marriage.

How you treat yourself is always a reflection of how you treat others.

If you are relentlessly critical of yourself, you will also be critical of others.

If you treat yourself with compassion and respect, you will treat others with compassion and respect.

Therefore, the most generous thing you can do is commit to love yourself.

It will make you a better partner, a devoted friend, a more caring family member, and more compassionate to others.

My self-marriage vows were all about the theme of accepting all of me, even the parts I don’t like.

I vowed to love even the dark parts I reject, even those nasty, critical, vengeful parts of me.

When you marry yourself, you marry the whole world.

Vowing to love all parts of me, even the parts I don’t like, helps me receive these nasty hateful tweets and say, Ha, it’s OK. I know that nasty, critical part of me too, and I also love them.

You haters, don’t worry. I love you too.

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My self-marriage has affected me in many ways. I’m working on an essay (this is just a hastily dashed off blog post) about the whole experience, how it’s affected me, what I’ve learned, and how I now help others to take this step of self-respect. If you’re a magazine or newspaper editor and you want that essay, contact me. I’m in so deep working on my memoir I don’t have the time or energy to pitch my work. But I really want to publish this piece, so if you are interested, contact me and I would love to work with a visionary editor on it!

If you are feeling like it might be time for you to marry yourself, and you want some support and guidance, you should contact me too.