Constructing our collective wisdom
'Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.' — Lao Tzu
In preparing to write this column, I calculated that I've probably spent over 100,000 hours over the last 19 years listening and speaking with lesbians and gay men about love and relationships. Finding love, keeping love and losing love fill my days as a counselor working with our community. You would think all this talking and listening would make me an expert on the topic, but I will deny that at the outset. What my professional experience has revealed, though, is that there are among us many couples who are indeed experts, and I have been fortunate to learn from them.
Through my work, I meet couples in states of crisis and flux. Some have experienced a breach of trust, others find they are in constant conflict and still others worry that the thrill is gone and wonder how to get it back. While these relationships may be in jeopardy, they are also the ones that inspire me most. Through their adversity, they often find strength and deeper love. And when I go home each night to my own partner of 25 years, I invariably bring to our relationship some new appreciation or insight obtained through my work.
Even with the benefits of legal marriage in some states, same-sex couples are challenged in ways heterosexual couples are not. You know the litany pretty well: lack of adequate laws to protect us, families that struggle to accept us, the wear and tear of living day-to-day as a same-sex couple in a homophobic culture, and the lack of role models or a clearly marked path toward longevity. I know it, too. But I also know that many couples manage these challenges incredibly well.
I witness couples who have learned great lessons of love, who have discovered core principles that sustain their relationships, who know how to thrive in adversity and heal from wounds they themselves might inadvertently inflict on each other. The wisdom I encounter in the privacy of my office, however, is not always accessible to others. Couples seem to fall off the radar screen in our community. We lack a forum to talk about these things and to learn from them. And we are unable to pass this wisdom on to others.
So I offer this column as a place to do just that. As opposed to the standard advice column, I ask you to join me in constructing a collective wisdom about how we love and how LGBT relationships work. Let's make it part of our legacy to future generations.
My work with my clients is, of course, confidential. I will reveal nothing about them. But I will share with you the lessons I take from their experiences and my own, and I ask you to bring yours to this forum as well. In fact, your insights and perspectives will be the central focus of this space. I will do my best to get the ball rolling, ask good questions, share my own observations, and when necessary, get out of the way. And although I know that LGBT couples may differ in many ways, it's been my experience that the great lessons in life lie more in our differences than in our similarities.
So tell us how your relationship works. How did you pace yourselves in those first few months? How do you deal with conflict? How does monogamy or non-monogamy work in your relationship? What is a 'healthy' relationship? How do you deal with changes in sex and attraction? What impact does 'outness' have on the relationship? How did you decide whether or not to get married or have children? How do you manage the more vulnerable emotions of fear, sadness or insecurity in a relationship? How do you know when you feel love instead of lust? How do you make decisions fairly? What do you do to show your partner that you care? How do you manage money? Whose career is more important and why? What do you do to make sure there's time for the relationship? Where do friends or family fit in and where do you draw the line? What happens when one or both of you are ill, or HIV-positive? How do you cope with significant differences in age? How do interracial couples thrive?
I could go on, but you get the picture. E-mail me with your own questions, observations and experiences and I'll take it from there. Through this column, I hope we connect and forge a path that others can find.
Bruce Koff, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and COO of Live Oak, a group of psychotherapists and consultants who provide counseling and educational services that enhance the emotional and psychological well-being of individuals, families, organizations and communities. Bruce specializes in clinical practice with LGBT individuals and their families. E-mail bkoff@liveoakchicago.com or visit www.liveoakchicago.com .
Copyright 2008 by Bruce Koff, LCSW
