With all the recent promotions and victories for equal marriage, it may seem that everyone in the GLBT community is in a perfect life-long relationship with their soulmate and that nothing ever goes wrong for these lucky couples.
Those who are on the right side of history are painting a lovely picture of successful relationships which have lasted through times so difficult I can't even imagine. However, I have also cringed to read the inevitable stories that follow almost immediately with the unpleasant reality of divorce and custody battles. I used to feel those stories should be ignored because it gives gay couples a bad name and that those unhappy couples should just stay together awhile longer and try to work things out.
Then my own relationship of six years ended with a woman I considered my wife even though it is still not legal to marry in Indiana. We even have a child together. Now I know that these important details of relationships that don't work need brought to the forefront. I secretly felt pressure to stay in my own relationship. I had to prove that a lesbian couple can make it through any dark time. I had to prove that our relationship was stronger because of everything we have had to overcome and would never end.
But you know what? Just like in any other relationship, sometimes it just doesn't work.
But then what do you do? Who do you turn to? Would counseling have helped? Where could we have gone? Those questions are too late to answer for me, but perhaps Illinois has better answers and can provide them for the Windy City area couples who are struggling to stay together despite all the other problems in this world: finances, children, jobs, health. We need to stop forcing the picture of GLBT couples as somehow better than straight couples. And we need both the same rights and the same help as straight couples. But since many gay couples don't know where to turn, they either stay in unhappy situations or go from person to person in search of something they can't find. And honestly, in some states and especially small towns, GLBT friends and relationship prospects can be hard to find. Relationships are even more difficult when gay and straight is divided somehow into two separate types of love.
Some straight couples stay together for life. Some never marry. Some have one night stands and never settle down. Some have kids and some choose not to or can't. Some don't know how to be single and some never want to be tied down. Some party like crazy as young adults and have multiple partners and then find monogamous love later in life. Replace the word "straight" with any other letter in the GLBTQ spectrum and you will see that any separation is ridiculous. We are all one. We love. Straight and gay couples alike need help with relationships, and if we don't have a good family model to go by then we can be lost.
I believe my state of Indiana should still allow me to marry if I choose to again someday. I didn't have to go through a legal divorce, but I do have to work on custody issues and prefer to stay out of court for now because I am too afraid and think it's unnecessary as long as things are civil between my ex and me. But I think it's time to stop portraying all gay couples as better than straight people, even if there are enemies who treat us as criminals. That's why homophobes think we want special rights. We are all the same and we all deserve equal rights because that's what we are: the same.
Kim Pierce Flowers is a freelance writer from Indiana.
