It's a crisp sunny morning in late December. I'm sitting in my therapist's lobby in Midtown Manhattan, anxiously waiting for my girlfriend, Sabrina, to arrive. She's visiting my shrink with me so we can duke out our premarital differences, which can be boiled down to one, ever-nagging question: why, after three and a half happy years together, do I still cringe at the thought of getting married?
Now that same-sex marriage is legal in New York, our home state, this question shows up in conversations with friends and family on a regular basis and lingers like a houseguest who won't leave. For Sabrina, who's old-fashioned on matters of love, it's an uncomplicated "I do." But each time I think "yes" to matrimony, doubt and anxiety undermine my confidence. My ambivalence, however, doesn't at all reflect on my love, desire, or devotion toward Sabrina.
I met her three summers ago on the roof deck of a lesbian bar in Brooklyn. I was on a second date with a fiery Italian girl from Long Island. When my date went to the bathroom, Sabrina swooped in -- with liquid courage on her breath -- and boldly asked for my number.
Maybe it was the cocky way she crashed my date or the strength and vulnerability I saw in her dark brown eyes; maybe it was her Rubenesque curves (which could out-sexy Scarlett Johansson's) or the delicate features in her feminine face. All I knew in that moment was that something about her moved me, and I wanted her with an urgency and tenderness I'd never felt for another. Three years in, I can't imagine a better woman to spend the rest of my life with.
But the very thought of walking down the aisle, even with Sabrina at my side, feels like running a marathon on old and arthritic legs. Everything in me protests: "I can't do this." And it's taken months to figure out why.
When I entered puberty at the freakishly early age of 10 and realized that I was gay, it was 1986. AIDS was killing thousands of gay men while our president, Ronald Reagan, remained silent, refusing to speak out against one of the worst viral scourges in human history. Reagan's apathy toward the "gay cancer," as it was known in the early '80s, is a good measure of how little our lives were valued back then -- and how far removed the concept of same-sex marriage was from the popular imagination. The point is: I didn't even know I could have matrimonial aspirations. So I never did.
By 1998, I was a junior in college, getting schooled by queer and feminist critiques of marriage. Marriage, the theorists argued, coerces people into coupledom by rewarding them with privileged social status and economic benefits; it devalues and stigmatizes sexual relationships outside matrimony; it makes single people feel inadequate; and, historically, it benefits men far more than it benefits women. In all cases marital unions were something to run from, not toward. I almost felt happy, knowing that my queerness set me apart -- and that I'd never have to get married.
Then came the game-changing events of May 2004: Massachusetts started handing out marriage licenses to same-sex couples. For the first time in history, gay marriage became a legitimate part of our national conversation. And this past July, New York became the sixth state to grant same-sex partners the license to wed. Progress? I'm still not so sure.
Never mind that gay marriage is antithetical to the ethos of '60s and '70s gay liberationism, which was all about sexual freedom and experimentation and challenging the status quo. Wedlock feels to me like reentering the closet. It demands that I reserve my love and desire for Sabrina for the rest of my life and that if any other passions emerge while loving her, I should squash them in the service of our marital bond. But as a queer person, I've already stifled enough romantic longings for a lifetime -- so many that the monogamy imperative makes marriage feel less like a loving sanctuary than an all-too familiar prison.
That's not to say that because Sabrina and I haven't wed, our relationship is non-monogamous. But as one half of an unmarried couple, being with Sabrina is always a choice of my free will. It is not a legally binding obligation. I am not expected to walk in step with perfect morality because I've not vowed that I could, and I won't be condemned if I lose my footing, which I inevitably will.
It won't be physical attractions alone that will compel me toward another woman. I'm more likely to cave under the weight of heavier emotions -- the stuff that hits like magic: when someone ineffably moves you and floods every corner of your consciousness.
Sabrina and I are only three years in, and I've already felt that igniting tug toward another woman. My crush was laughably "not an option" -- 18 years my senior and engaged (to a man) -- but had she been, I can't say that I'd have been strong enough to wrestle down my temptations.
I know this statement alone will make me seem like a serious asshole. I also know that it'll make many believe that I must not love Sabrina enough, or that our relationship is headed toward an imminent end. Neither is true. My crush didn't in any way threaten or confuse what I feel for Sabrina. But like most people, I believed that once I felt the way I do about Sabrina, I'd never want another.
These lies -- that you can only be in love with one person at once, and that if you fall for others while in a committed partnership, that partnership must be fundamentally flawed -- carry the weight of truth only because they've been hammered into our heads.
The cultural push to find "the love of one's life" is more about social control and religious dogma than an accurate measure of true love. (And if I ever created a love pyramid, I'd probably place the one that has the electrifying, galvanizing power of passion on top, not the one that chugs along like a steady train over flat terrain.)
I know I may sound like a lecherous animal roaring for the moral right to bed whomever I want, whenever I want. But the truth is I'm just not convinced that sexual fidelity is the testament to real commitment and love. In June, Mark Oppenheimer wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine on non-monogamous marriages, elaborating on the same point. Paraphrasing Dan Savage, he writes, "Treating monogamy, rather than honesty or joy or humor, as the main indicator of a successful marriage gives people unrealistic expectations of themselves and their partners. And that ... destroys more families than it saves."
As much as I love Sabrina, I can't possibly know how I am going to feel about her, or how she is going to feel about me, one, five, or 10 years from now. Desires change, new ones emerge: marriage asks us to pretend that they don't and then vilifies us when they do, especially if we can't muster up the Herculean efforts to resist acting on them. (Why we launch our attack on the individuals -- the many individuals -- who fail the promise of monogamy in marriage, rather than on the rigid expectation of sexual fidelity, continues to boggle my mind.)
That's not to say that I want (or could cope with) an open relationship. Because romantic couplings -- in all their regressive (baby talking) glory -- mirror our first relationship (with our parents), sexual infidelity triggers a primal fear of parental abandonment that sends most of us over the edge. That's why a "don't ask, don't tell" policy -- as imperfect a solution as it is -- makes the most sense to me.
"Unless you want to leave me or you've infected me with an STD," I explain to Sabrina in my therapist's office moments later, "I don't need to know - -and I won't ask -- about your dalliances with others, because neither of us could deal with the consequences of that knowledge."
"That won't work," Sabrina tersely counters. A social worker in training to become a child therapist, Sabrina is a talk-therapy junkie who sees psychological meaning in even the most mundane things, like an untied shoe or spilt milk. "If you cheat on me, it's a symptom of a problem in our relationship," she says with certainty, "and we won't grow past it unless we discuss it."
I want to stop her and say, "You're gay. How can you be so quick to pathologize a deviation from the norm? And how are you so sure that marriage is the best way to organize our relationship?" But I don't. Instead, I go straight for the do-or-die question:
"If we both plan to live according to our opposing beliefs about this, do you still want to marry me?"
"I don't know," she says for the first time. "This conversation isn't over, is it?"
"Do you still want to be with me if we don't get married?"
"I don't know," she says again. "We'll keep talking."
But the thought of losing her stings me into silence. And our session is over for today.
This piece originally appeared in the March issue of The Progressive.
Marianne T. Duddy-Burke: Same-Sex Marriage IS Dangerous -- to Church Workers
Have not seen the Huffington Post mention this video by Clay Aiken yet.
I wonder if we'll ever evolve to a point in society where we can recognize polygamous relationships (involving consenting, non-related adults ONLY) as valid again. You know... not related to religious dogma a la Mormonism.
Truth can hurt, but better that you both remain honest with one another and accept that sometimes there are "irreconcileable differences". Just as it is possible to love more than one person at a time, it is also possible to love a person and not be able to maintain a relationship with them.
The first time my (second) husband said he wanted to marry me - I had to bolt from the bed because I was going to vomit. I had no problems living with him for nearly a year at that point and we were together 2 more years before I was able to say yes.
He was patient with me, because he could see that I had issues, to say the least, but my commitment to him was as strong then as it was when we did marry. I didn't say that I wanted to leave my options open - which you just did.
Marriage isn't for everyone, and that decision is, unfortunately, one of those decisions, like money or kids that fundamentally split a couple despite everything else seeming perfect. It may be something that your relationship can allow space for, but in a lot of those cases that means one person giving up something that really matters to them and being hurt. I agree marriage shouldn't be the one indicator of a real commitment, but in this case, it seems to be revealing something about your personal desires and has much less to do with the societal pressure to get hitched.
You clearly have an issue with the idea to commut to one person for the rest of your life and be monogamous, which you associate with the idera of marriage.
But, as you say, a marriage doesn't have to be monogamous. It can be anything you want, because it is your relationship and no one can tell you how to live it. The problem here is that you and your girlfriend have very opposite views and expectations, that you may cristallize in the issue of marriage.
For instance, a woman in Bahrain was jailed for 3 months and subjected to daily beatings simply because she read her poetry aloud to an audience.
Everyone has a story to tell. Let them tell it in their own way.
I have lived extensively overseas, and there is a common saying: "Only in America." This article is just the sort of thing that saying is meant for. So it's not just my perception that we Americans have a penchant for sharing just a little too much info.
Sorry, I can't agree that great works of fiction and poetry are more or less the same as going on Jerry Springer.
I hope she reads this and has enough sense to split .
It should be the people who enter that contract who agree on what is in it, not society, religion or politics. When you know what to expect from your partner, life's a lot less complicated. I do not mean to say that such a contract is waterproof or unbreakable. After all, we're only human and no one knows what the future has in store, but at the very least we ought not to enter into marriage on impossible terms.
I applaud Ms Fairyington for her strength in sharing her feelings, which she knows will be frowned upon. She is being honest in stating that she cannot promise her partner monogamy. So many people do that without thinking and afterwards cause their partners grief, anger and pain when they do break that promise. The terms on which a bond of trust is forged must be clear, understood and realistic. I hope for Ms Fairyington’s sake that if the marriage is still on, the agreement will be exactly that. I wish her the best of luck and the necessary courage to negotiate her terms.
But my brother was a very evolved man...sterling education, world traveled, spoke multiple languages, rose to the top of his career field....and vehemently pro marriage for LGTB's. It kind of hits at your remark about the old, arthritic legs....girl, when your legs get old and arthritic, you'll wish Sabrina were there, if she hasn't married someone else when you choked.
Another example of the emotionally and intellectually warped individuals that this society is churning out. Can't even think for themselves.
It is possible to love people and them not end up being the love of your life. However, it is best not to marry them because when and if you find that person who does fulfill the life long partnership desires, you will just cause your current partner great pain when you abandon them.