Photo by Our Labor of Love
I was in the first grade the first time I heard about divorce. My friend Heather’s parents were headed for it. Frowning, my mother explained what that meant. I remember hearing with wonder about how Heather’s parents would live in separate houses and she would go back and forth between them. My own parents were much more unhappy than Heather’s parents had ever seemed to me. Oh how I wished my parents would divorce!
Now I’m married (illegal as it may be) with kids. We have none of the fighting and philandering that defined my parent’s marriage but we’ve had our problems. Three months after our first baby was born, we came within inches of divorce. I recently shared this information with a friend who is struggling in his marriage, and he was stunned. Up to that moment, we had represented “shining beacons of trouble-free couplehood” to him. (His actual words.) Just hearing about how close we came to ending it all, and that we made it back from the abyss, made a big difference in his perspective on his own relationship.
In our culture, most weddings are stressful but joyous events where friends and relations gather to kick-off the marriage of two hopeful people. When all the cake is eaten and the last drunk, sweaty guest is pulled from the dance floor, the happy couple is wished well and sent forth. Alone. They might be given some vague instructions like “never go to bed angry” or “marriage takes work” but mostly well-wishers only smile and hug them and say “Good luck!” (while making mental predictions about how long this will last). Our wedding, gay as it may have been, was no different. For some people, this works out fine. They’ve either had good marriage role models or they’re magical creatures who’ve managed to intuit and enact healthy relationship models in the face of an omnipresent parade of nightmarish examples.
For others, things fall apart when they hit the first or second or fifth major bump in the relationship road. My partner and I had some issues from the beginning, mostly communication-related, that caused a poisonous build-up of resentment and slow erosion of trust over a five year time span. I’m an emotional, talk-it-to-death kind of person, given to blubbering. My partner is far more reserved, stoic nearly, given to holding it all in. You can imagine how well this worked for us. After bumbling through a difficult and expensive journey of trying to conceive, we were thrilled to welcome our first son. My partner was mired in a PhD program though and I had my own business that required me to work seven days a week. We were cranky, bewildered parent ships passing in the lonesome, desolate night for months.
That’s really not even the half of it but I’m not one to publish the particulars of our marriage meltdown on the internet. Suffice it to say that:
Things
fell
apart.
For me, the situation was made worse by this new, brilliant kind of love that I felt for our son. Whereas my love for my partner was entangled in and half-choked by our issues and past wrongs, my love for my son seemed to course visibly in the electric air between us, pure and robust and incomparable. Sure, he kept me awake night after night and repeatedly threw up into my hair, but my heart pounded, my brain shut up, and birds burst into song whenever I gazed at him. Which was a lot like how I felt when I first met my partner. Which made me wonder if it shouldn’t still be like that with my partner. And if it should be but wasn’t like that, then maybe we weren’t “meant for each other,” and I wasn’t about to do what my parents did by wasting my life and raising my kids in a doomed, miserable marriage!
No, thank you.
Unfortunately, we had that “shining beacons of trouble-free couplehood” reputation among a lot of our friends, partly because we were one of the first to get married in our social group, but also because we had both had public, terrifically bad relationships prior to meeting each other, so this time around we were careful to keep our (comparatively minor) conflicts private. Thus, we didn’t feel like we could reach out much to our friends because it was embarrassing to acknowledge that our mythic status was undeserved. Besides, involving friends has its own complications. They don’t always forgive and forget when you need them to. They feel uncomfortable or unwilling or uninterested in viewing your dirty laundry. They may have ulterior motives, even subconscious ones, for the advice that they give.
We felt additional pressure to appear publicly unbreakable because of our sexuality. We knew that people in our own families, as well as many more strangers, would be pleased to see us, a queer couple with a young baby, break up, as though our personal dissolution would somehow lend credence to their belief that same-sex relationships are unnatural and unhealthy and bad for children. It made me sick to give those people that satisfaction, even though I knew they’d be wrong about all of it. (When straight people divorce or co-exist miserably for decades, that has no bearing at all on the validity of heterosexuality or its effects on children.) I couldn’t quite articulate why I wanted so badly to have a wedding when we did, in a place where we’d receive no legal benefit. It felt meaningful and natural and vaguely necessary for us, but also like a jubilant and glittery F-you to the anti-gay people in our lives, which I won’t lie, I enjoyed. But it took testing the bonds of marriage to understand what I must have had premonitory knowledge of somehow: the only thing holding us together in some of our darkest hours seemed to be a distant, misty memory of that magical day, and the awful specter of erasing it.
Photo by Our Labor of Love
Still, the recollection of our earnest promises couldn’t fix us. We needed professional help for that.
So we spent almost two years in couples counseling. Our insurance didn’t cover it but we were lucky enough to find someone who let us pay a sliding-scale fee of $35 per session. This was a significant strain on our finances because we needed a lot of work at first. Financial strain was one of our major stressors too, but we viewed therapy as a necessary investment in our future together, without which that future might cease to exist altogether. In other words, if our house had a big hole in the roof, we would have somehow found the money to fix it, rather than abandon the house outright or hope everything would be fine eventually, while rain poured on our bed and our belongings putrefied and returned to nature.
Therapy saved us.
We learned how to talk to one another about difficult subjects, how to repair damage when it’s done, and how to identify and then ask one another for what we need. (Why weren’t these topics covered in Home Economics? They seem far more useful than proper hand dishwashing technique.) We’re more content and healthier now than on our wedding day. The bliss of new motherhood for me gave way to something very similar to the seasoned, mature love I continue to have for my partner. I’m so glad we did not divorce. Still, we’re not trouble-free. If we’re shining beacons of anything, I want it to be as an example for our married or long-time partnered friends to seek help when they need it, before they reach that woeful, proverbial point of no return.
Of course, not everyone should stay together. There are a lot of circumstances that cannot be repaired and actions that can not be absolved. My parents finally divorced when I was seventeen after fooling most of their friends and relatives into thinking that they were shining beacons of trouble-free coupledom for nearly three decades, with happy-looking family photos and enthusiastic year-end wrap up letters sent at Christmastime. My mother’s life, at least, dramatically improved as a result of her divorce. But if you’ve “grown apart” or worry that you’ve “fallen out of love,” and you’re looking out at your comrades in wedding rings thinking that they’re so much more together, more in love, and happier than you, remember that you might just not know the half of it. One or two of them may even be able to refer you to their secret, heroic therapists.
Oh Aly, YES! This is so real, touching, and raw. Karen and I went through a really tough time a couple years ago and couples counseling saved our relationship. We still see our therapist to continue to learn how to communicate and to talk about anything that comes up. I am so grateful that we were able to work through our individual scarred pasts and come together as a family.
I’m terrified and thrilled to be marrying my partner, best friend, and rockin’ co-parent. It finally solidifies our life and love in a public forum. I already feel transformed through the wedding planning process. I am beginning to realize just how huge this is – we are going to be a bonafide, legitimate family! Although we’ve been living together for 3 years, getting married is touching my heart is ways I never anticipated.
Thank you for sharing your story. Speaking truth is liberating and transformative.
One thing I chose to leave out from this post is the additional pressure queer couples feel to appear unbreakable. So many people want us to break as though that would somehow prove that same sex relationships aren’t natural or healthy. The fact that some people in our own families would be happy to hear our relationships are in trouble is an unfair weight upon us.
I’m so glad you got the help you needed. Even though our marriage isn’t legal, and I’ve admitted that we’ve had plenty of struggles since our wedding day, the act of promising to entwine our futures in front of our family and friends did transform us as a couple. There were moments in our darkest time where the only thing holding us together seemed to be a distant memory of that magical day and the specter of erasing it.
In fact, I think I’ll add that.
So true, Aly. I would NEVER let my parents or extended family know that Karen and me ever had any problems. It would only legitimate their belief that my family is invalid. Luckily, we have incredible queer family who guided us through our difficult times.
I’m happy to hear someone else say that marriage is a transformative experience. I feel so grateful to have a partner who loves and supports me despite my trauma, anxiety, and high maintenance ways.
I’m really glad you started this blog. You are a beautiful writer, and your experiences mirror my life in many ways. xo
Many thanks for sharing.
I just have to say that it is such a relief to hear about your love for your son vs. your love for your spouse… that’s something I really didn’t expect about motherhood, and it’s something I’ve been struggling with internally. Thanks SO very much for sharing.
You’re welcome. I remember that feeling so intensely even now. As my first son grew out of the baby stage to a little full-fledged person with desires and plans all his own, my love for him matured with him. I love him so deeply still but the experience of it is less conscious, less frantic. All day long, I kiss him and mumble I love yous like breathing. I still feel safer in a way inside my love for him, but at the same time, I’m setting myself up for certain heartbreak because I know he’ll one day leave my nest. Just the other night I realized that he’s almost too big for me to carry anymore. He’s almost only 3 but when we’re out at the playground with his friends, I can already feel him starting to slip away out into the world. Every time I feel like I’ve gotten a handle on one stage or state of being in parenthood, it gives way to a new, differently vexing one. Not that I would trade a single second.
Wow, what a lovely and important post. Thanks for commenting on my blog. I actually just shared your article about raising boys with some other queer mamas in my circle. My wife and I got married July 2010 (it’s legal in Canada where we live).I was really amazed at the subtle ways that having the ceremony brought our families together and prepared the ground for raising a child. We started seeing a wonderful con therapist when we were having trouble conceiving, and we keep him on “standby” now. Very important!
Yes, it’s a great idea to have a therapist on standby for this new, sometimes difficult phase in your life. I wish we’d had the forethought to do that. Good luck to you!
I just found your blog today and wanted to let you know that I absolutely love it. Your topics, your writing… all of it!! Looking forward to following along…
Thank you, Amy!
This is a beautifully written and ever so true account of normalcy!
…except you’ve added more honesty than many would dare. That love for a baby/child is so stark in contrast to any I’ve ever known before and it was important for me too – to put that in a separate and healthy box. Doesn’t make the other loves less valuable but it does require some re-conditioning of the mind to get it all back in line doesn’t it?!
Kudos to you and your beautiful family for making it work!
Best,
Sarah
Thanks, Sarah! I love the idea of putting different loves in separate but healthy boxes. Good luck with your new business!. Paris on Ponce has a very special place in my heart.
I just foud your blog by way of APW and I just wanted to thank you for sharing because so many times people focus on the pretty side of marriage and it is really important to hear the other, hard side of making that marriage work.
Thank you for your comment! I agree. The more honest we can be with each other about the hard parts, the more realistic we can all be about our own relationships.
I wandered to your blog from A Practical Wedding today, and though it’s only four posts strong, I am so overcome with gratitude for you and your honesty and your candidness and and and! As the future (cisgendered, femme lite) spouse of a genderqueer person, navigating the future of us together and as individuals, and even the possibility of one day extending our family by one kid or two, I have struggled with feeling alone. In fact, I think all of the stress and anxiety I’ve felt to this point about our wedding (not even the marriage) has been the lack of access to people like us and insight into how they experienced the event and all of the steps leading up to it. That you view your wedding as the hallmark, or pinpoint, or reference point for all of the hard work you’ve done since then is such a relief to me. Focusing on the goal of making that the moment to remember gives me so much more clarity about the purpose of it all.
But also, your genuine commitment to just being _you_ in the context of your relationship gives me hope, too. Thank you for your willingness to navigate this journey so publicly. Thank you for being awesome and queer in a state that doesn’t like it (so much/at all). I live in Virginia (born and raised!). I know how it goes, so damn much. I can’t wait to keep reading and again, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Wow. Thank you so much for this comment. I’m so glad that my blog has helped you feel less alone. That’s really my whole point of writing here–to connect with people on a deeply honest level about all kinds of issues that have been incredibly isolating for me to help others through or around that isolation. But I feel especially thrilled to hear that I’ve connected with a “future (cisgendered, femme lite) spouse of a genderqueer person.” Grrrrl, we’ve got all kinds of things to talk about! I shall get all caught up on your blog next time I have a few kid-free hours. Til then, I wish you lots of light and love in your wedding planning. That can be such rocky terrain.
Hi, I stumbled upon your blog after a friend posted your very powerful post about Ammendment One. It was really wonderful and enlightening to read through your other entries. My wife and I have been trying to have a child for several years and some of the obstacles that you encountered have been fears that I’ve had as a potential co-parent. We’ve gone to couples counseling proactively and feel ready for the challenge ahead, if it is in the cards for us. Anyway, just wanted to reach out and say thanks for voicing the things that most of us keep inside. It’s nice to sometimes let it out.