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Since the retired American soccer player met the best-selling author at one of her book events, the couple have been inseparable. At the time, they were both married to other people — Wambach to fellow athlete Sarah Huffman and Doyle to her husband of 14 years, Craig Melton, whom she wrote about in her books.
The Soccer Hall of Famer was also confronted with the opportunity to change and took it.
“Before I met Glennon, I was living fast and hard,” she said.
When Wambach dove headfirst into a new life with Doyle, she became a “bonus mom” to Doyle’s three kids — Chase, Tish and Amma — who she said have completely changed her life and “taught [her] everything.”
A true blended family, the duo remains extremely close with Doyle’s ex-husband.
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Wambach and Doyle were strangers when they met at the launch of Doyle’sLove Warriorbook event in Chicago, but Doyle felt the urge to greet her like an old friend.
“Just everything in me was like, there she is. Like just an absolute and total recognizing, even though I’ve never seen her before,” Doyle said during their joint interview on theWhat’s Her Story With Sam & Amypodcast in September 2020. “Suddenly, I come to consciousness, and I’m standing up like this at the table with my arms thrown open towards the door.”
She added, “I finally get to Glennon and say hello. And then I sat down in my seat … I was next to this children’s book writer, feeling like, well, I want to sit next to her [Glennon] for some reason.”
The two chatted briefly before Doyle’s speech, and that’s all it took to form a bond.
“In the literally three minutes it took us to get from the back room dinner table to the stage, I told Glen my whole story, and she touched my arm, and for sure that was like a lightning bolt for me,” Wambach said. “I think my heart and my soul knew way, way sooner than my brain.”
The duo began emailing, and soon after, Doyle announced her divorce from her husband.
“It was the only thing that made sense at the time,” Wambach said before adding, “Like thinking back on it now, I’m like, we were probably literally insane. Like our brains were so lit up that we couldn’t make the right decisions based on external expectations. We were only operating on a soul level.”
After Doyle announced her divorce and Wambach ended her three-year marriage in 2016, the couple revealed their romance to the world.
Doyle praised her new girlfriend’s “sensitive and kind” nature and revealed they were already very serious — her three kids and ex-husband had already come to know and love Wambach.
“The kids call her an M&M because she looks tough on the outside, but inside, she’s really mushy and sweet,” Doyle continued on Facebook. “She’s unwaveringly good to Craig, to the kids, to Sister and to all my people.”
She added, “And oh my God, she is so good to me. She loves me for all the things I’ve always wanted to be loved for. She’s just my favorite. My person … I get it now. I get it. I am in love. And I’m really, deeply happy.”
In February 2017, Doyle first broke the news that the pair were engaged, sharing two black-and-whitephotos of their ringed fingers on Facebook. Doyle’s featured a large emerald cut diamond, and Wambach’s a more understated diamond band.
Wambach posted the same photo onInstagrama day later with the simple caption, “Happy,” and the hashtag “#iseethemoonnow.”
“My beloveds — please never give up on love,” Doyle captioned the photo. “Life could surprise the hell out of you. Trust me — you might just wake up one morning and find yourself smackdab in the middle of heaven. I love my wife. LOVE WINS.”
For the reception, Doyle changed into ashort white party dress, and Wambach rocked a head-to-toe white outfit.
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Doyle and her three kids joined Wambach at theESPY Awardsin July 2017. Wambach and Doyle’s youngest child Amma even wore matching black T-shirts on the red carpet: Wambach’s shirt read “be kind” while Amma’s read “be brave.” Doyle later shared aphoto of the family on Instagram, informing her followers that the uplifting tees benefitted their nonprofit organization, Together Rising.
She also posted animage of Wambach and her childrenfrom the ESPYs posing with Olympic gymnastsSimone BilesandLaurie Hernandez.
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“We will bring badass earth-shakers, hilarious heroines and revolutionary storytellers to the stage and audience,” Doylecaptioned the announcement on Instagramin July 2017. “Together, we will reclaim our shared humanity, overcome fear and division, choose love and ignite change.”
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In a 2019 interview withWSJ. Magazine, the couple opened up about their nearly two-year marriage and how communication and passion were the keys to a happy and fulfilling partnership.
“To be in a relationship with another woman,there’s a ton of talking all the time,” Wambach told the outlet. “We’re so passionate about the work that we’re trying to accomplish. We’re trying to solve for big problems, we want equality, and it calls for a lot of discussion between us.”
Doyle added, “I think that’s one of the reasons we fell in love with each other. We were doing similar work before we even met, and it was like, ‘Whoa, you’re like the business-slash-sports version of me’ … We have so many of the same beliefs and goals.”
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Doyle and her kids showed up to support Wambach’s former team at the 2019FIFA Women’s World Cup. The blended family wore matching Team USA jerseys at the round 16 match against Spain in Reims, France.
Doyle even posted a snap on Instagram of the two,captured from the televised game, along with other photos supporting star forwardMegan Rapinoe. Team USA went on to win the World Cup that year.
When it comes to their blended family and marriage, Doyle and Wambach’s focus is prioritizing the children, the couple revealed to PEOPLE in May 2020.
“Craig, Glennon and I make a choice every day. We ensure that the kids' lives are as least disrupted as possible,” Wambach said.
Wambach also shared that she’s “in constant communication” with her wife’s ex, and that she and Melton even coached daughter Tish’s soccer team together.
“Craig gave me the biggest gift in allowing me into the family dynamic,” she said. “He gave the kids permission to love me.”
Although Wambach loves being a “bonus mom” for the kids, she admitted there was an adjustment process in learning to be a parent.
“I didn’t know how to be one,” Wambach explained. “I had the instinct, but I grew up in a very different family than the one that Glennon and I are creating.”
Glennon Doyle/instagram
One week after the Catholic Church officially announced theywould not bless same-sex unions, Doyleshared a photo kissing her wifein Vatican City. In the caption, Doyle recalled how she felt “queasy” seeing the “emphasis on worldly power and riches” at the iconic religious capital she and Wambach visited years ago. Still, the pair opted to capture a significant moment in a chapel.
“We decided to kiss there, as our joyful loving resistance,” she wrote. “At that moment, Chase took this picture of us. As we kissed and our boy snapped the shot, a ray of light sliced through the ceiling toward us.”
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The couple showed off their silly side in April 2021 when Wambachposted a video on Instagramof the disorganized way Doyle loaded the dishwasher. The clip immediately sparked debate across the internet and even gained the attention ofKelly Clarkson, who asked Doyle about it during her June 2021 interview onThe Kelly Clarkson Show.
“She is so controlling about the dishwasher, Kelly, sometimes I load it, and she will reload it when I leave the room so it’s more organized,” Doyle said. “I don’t know what people’s problem is about doing that; I’m not sure.”
Clarkson, however, took Wambach’s side in the debate.
Glennon Doyle Instagram
In May 2021, the couple launched their podcast,We Can Do Hard Things,with Doyle’s sister Amanda.The three have interviewed guests likeSarah Paulson,Brandi Carlile,Brené Brown,Billie Jean KingandChanel Miller, while tackling difficult topics like Doyle’s eating disorder and bulimia relapse.
“I’m not trying to be shiny. We’re using this podcast — we call itWe Can Do Hard Thingsfor a reason,” Doyle told PEOPLE in May 2022 in honor of the podcast’s one-year anniversary. “We’re trying to actually help us allfeel a little bit less alone.”
In an effort to maintain full honesty, the author said she couldn’t help but open up about her relapse.
“It was hard for me not to,” she added of her decision to tell listeners that she had startedpurging and obsessively weighingherself again. “I just don’t do well when there’s something important that I’m holding back. I think it comes from my recovery from alcoholism.”
Wambach was Doyle’s biggest supporter as she dealt with their son, Chase, moving out and going to college.
“The woman whose entire life strategy is FEEL IT ALL decided that the only way to survive our first-born leaving home was to REFUSE to feel it,” Wambachcaptioned a photo of Doyle. “She told me her plan was going to ‘eat and read’ her feelings. She sat on the couch for three days with a stack of books and a five-pound tub of licorice.”
Wambach continued, “I felt scared so I begged her to let me take her away to our favorite place — just for a couple of days — to feel her feelings. Then she could go back to not feeling.”
The couple jetted off to Miraval Arizona Resort & Spa, a wellness retreat in Tucson, where they enjoyed some sunshine and took a yoga class while listening toDave Matthews.
“She looked at me and smiled, and I knew she’d be okay,” Wambach added. “I love you, G. You and me together — we can do anything.”
In 2021, Wambach achieved another goal: running the New York City Marathon for the first time.
“What a day!!!!! NYC marathon was really magic. I’m so proud of us and so glad it’s done and I can check it off my bucket list,” Wambachcaptioned a series of images on Instagramfrom the marathon.
Wambach finished with an impressive time of 3:44:25, and a proud Doyle cheered her on from the sidelines.
“My wife ran a marathon today. The whole damn thing,” Doyle wrote on Instagram alongside aphoto high-fiving Wambach. “You never stop stunning me. Can we please rest now for like a year I’m really dehydrated.”
Wambach proved how strong her love was onValentine’s Day2022 when she asked Doyle to renew their vows.
She also revealed their daughter Tish played their wedding song, and the rest of the family sang along before Wambach got down on one knee.
“I asked if she’d renew our vows in May. She said YES (again),” Wambach wrote. “That’s all we can ask of ourselves and our partners along this wild ride — that we just keep saying yes.”
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After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Doyle and Wambach announced in February 2022 that their nonprofit, Together Rising, wouldinitially pledge $250,000 to help peoplewho needed “medical supplies, food, and cash, as well as medical and psychological support.”
Just three days later, the organization revealed it had raised more than $1 million in contributions.
In May 2022, Wambach opened up about her decision not to have a biological child.
“Early on in our relationship and marriage, I was considering having a biological child of my own,” WambachtoldVanity Fair. “As time went on, I realized that these three children were enough for me. I didn’t need to do it myself in order to feel like a mother.”
She added, “I’m married into these children’s lives. I don’t have any legal binding to them, no blood relation. So in some ways, they have to choose if they opt into this love. I ask Glennon all the time, ‘Do you feel jealous that our kids choose to love me and they have to love you?’ "
Doylenoted on Instagramin 2022 that she and Wambach became “the first queer women pictured inArchitectural Digestin bed” when they welcomed the outlet into their new home in California. The family, including their dogs, previously lived in Naples, Florida.
“As you likely know, I’m obsessed with home,” Doyle captioned photos of the interior, rooftop and bedroom. “Home is my favorite. I identify as home-sexual. So, it was kind of intimidating to invite the world into my safe, happy place. I’m glad we did though.”
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On the first episode ofWe Can Do Hard Thingsin 2023, Doyle revealed she was diagnosed with anorexia after years of believing she was bulimic.
“The shift of my identity as bulimic, bulimic, bulimic… anorexia is a totally different thing,” she shared. “It’s like a different religion. It’s a different identity. It’s a different way of thinking, It’s so confusing, and it shook me very deeply. And I did not believe it.”
Doyle also shared that Wambach confronted her in their kitchen and said, “I can’t do this for you,” seemingly suggesting that Doyle would need to find the strength within herself to heal.
“This was a hard thing for me to say,” Wambach explained to her wife on the podcast. “I knew I had to say it — it had to be out loud — because you needed to take complete ownership over this process.”
If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or go toNationalEatingDisorders.org.
While speaking with PEOPLE at the premiere ofWe Are Ayenda, Wambach touched on how she’s had some troublegetting her wife to understand her sport.
Doyle has documented her soccer struggles on social media, most recently sharing her confusion while watching theU.S. Women’s National Team’s game against Portugal. Despite her best efforts to explain the sport to Doyle using “metaphor and analogy,” Wambach says she hasn’t been able to help her other half completely grasp the ins and outs.
“And I do my best but she [has gone] up to me every time [asking questions]… since the World Cup started,” Wambach said, noting that despite her wife’s limited soccer knowledge, Doyle is still “the best."
“I love her,” she added.
source: people.com
