This morning finds me not waking up to a small child smiling and reaching to pat my shoulder, not waking to a small child yelling angrily "Mama, I want cereal." Instead I'm drinking my coffee black because I forgot to buy milk, chopping parsley for tabouli, checking OKC. What did we do before the internet? I'm part of a group for divorced lesbian moms, and on the whole it is a good thing. People who have been there, people to give advice and support, but in some cases these women are doing to their partners the very thing that was done to me. That's hard. Sometimes the group makes me feel incredibly lucky to have a good, mature co-parenting relationship, sometimes it just makes feel bummed out about our inevitable failures as human beings.
I don't know why I feel compelled to compile posts about lesbians divorcing, but here they are:
Susan, "Two Moms, Two Boys, Two Homes."
Casey has a few relevant posts, but I'm going to link to, "I won't tell you I miss you." I actually do say "I miss you when you aren't here," to LB, but in the context of "I miss you when you aren't here, but I always know I'll see you soon." My feeling is that LB will feel sadness/wistfullness/loss, so I want to model those emotions and how to manage those emotions. That said, I really appreciate how Casey talks about being a positive parent when you aren't feeling positive inside.
Cheryl, "When Marriage Equality Activists Break Up." This post really gets at the special guilt that comes with being gay-married and then gay-divorced.
J has been blogging her long journey surviving infidelity, divorce, and now building a new blended family. Many of her more recent posts are password protected, but you can read back about her divorce and healing. This post, "Loyalty," is representative of the journey.
And an article about lesbian divorce from 1992, in case you've forgotten that the only thing worse that getting divorced is not being able to get divorced.
I know it should not, but it still shocks me every time I hear of "another one biting the dust" in the lesbian relationship world. It is a double edged sword for me. I see that others can do it AND survive and still thrive in the aftermath and that gives me hope in the event that we are ever THERE (cause we are damn close a lot) and then it also saddens me and scares me that our community is not immune to marital woes. These pieces are all brutally honest and I admire that the most.
ReplyDeleteRight, I'm not a person who is particularly hung up on respectability, but it still bothers me more when it's a gay couple getting divorced. I guess I now need a list of lesbians blogging about struggling in marriage but staying married and getting happier.
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