Lesbians have a lot to teach you about marriage
Philosophizing
By
on February 17, 2010
6
Meg over at A Practical Wedding has a great guestpost today from a happily married lesbian couple named Lisa and Terri, who we profiled on Offbeat Bride a while back:
[Married lesbians] don't have any societal roles but we still get by just dandy as a married couple. Which means you straight ladies don't need the rules either. You might have more pressure to adopt them, I'll admit, but always remember that you don't need them. Those rules are bullshit, plain and simple.
If a "rule" doesn't work for you and your partner, toss it on out the window! The rules are more…guidelines. Not even very good guidelines. In fact, as a graduate student of marriage and family therapy I can mention here that the current "rules" tend to lead to "role fatigue" (that thing you're worried about in which you get stuck with all the responsibilities of the housewife and the worker and the mother and then you don't have time to be yourself) which leads to unhappy wives, unhappy husbands, no sex life, and the next thing you know you're fighting over who gets to keep the kids in your two year long divorce.
About Ariel Meadow Stallings
Author of Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides, Ariel acts as the publisher of all the Offbeat Empire websites. She lives, loves, and dorks out hard in Seattle, WA.
Teri said
Hi OBB! Hahaha. Did you guys notice that we're the same Teri and Lisa of this wedding? http://offbeatbride.com/2008/11/lisa-teris-fancy-…
Keep rocking, OBB. Keep rocking.
OffbeatAriel said
OH JEEZ. That's what I get for getting so excited that I forget to think "Wait, why do those names sound so familiar?" Derrrrr.
Kristina said
The names sounded familiar to me too, and I realized it's because I went to college with Lisa! Glad to see everything's working out outside of the fishbowl
Jess said
Very thoughtfully written and insightful. My fiancé and I have already decided never to call each other "husband" and "wife," partially because of the assumptions people then draw from it about the dynamic of your relationship. Instead we're going with: "And this is the fantastic person that I'm lucky enough to spend the rest of my life with…" It's a mouthful, but we'll manage.
) Maybe I'll reclaim the word "wife" someday, but not until I get used to all the other changes.
Congrats you two!
Lucrezea said
Although I understand and agree with a lot of what you're saying, I do have to disagree with the points where you refer to people in homosexual relationships as having an advantage in the typically assigned gender role department (or at least speak from the other side a little bit).
As a lesbian living in an accepting Canadian urban environment, we are often pushed into what society deems our appropriate gender roles based on what we look like. If one partner looks more masculine and one more feminine, one becomes "the man" and becomes the "the woman". One of you must surely get your hair and nails done every second day and one must surely have football and nacho nights.
This is something that I have been fighting against our entire engagement. I am automatically seen as "the woman" and my partner as "the man" when we are striving for gender equality. I honestly never expected people to assume us into those roles, but becoming engaged has pushed that on us more than ever.
Unless you are very clearly two feminine women, two butch women, or two androdgynous folk, I believe it's inevitable that people will always assign you what they assume is your role in the gender binary system of marriage.
Jedi Jenzo said
Luc, an excellent point.
I never thought about it- you put it in a way I could understand.
As a straight woman- I have to agree with putting people in those pigeonholes based on the way they look.
I have done it myself.
Thanks for bringing about some awareness.
You made me think and I will not make that sterotype again.