LESBIAN RELATIONSHIP BREAKUPS
As I step into my office, the phone is ringing with an urgency that communicates
itself even before I answer. When I do, it is Celia, a former client who lost her
partner of two decades a year ago to a sudden illness. Celia just celebrated her
eightieth birthday in excellent health and, shortly thereafter, she tells me
excitedly, fell in love with a woman who had been a friendly acquaintance before
now. They declared their mutual affection for each other on the telephone prior
to their first date. One hour into that date, they declared their love and three
days later, made a lifetime commitment, which included living together within the
month.
Later the same week, I attend a local social event. I am pleased to recognize an
old friend, Cheryl, whom I have not seen for a little more than a year, and we use
the time to catch up with each other. After exchanging pleasantries, she
hurriedly informs me that she and her partner have broken up. However, she
immediately reassures both me and herself, she is already in a new relationship,
has sold her share of their home to her previous lover and has already bought a
new one with her current partner, in which they are now happily nesting. I have
no idea whether to express regret at the loss or congratulations on the new
circumstance and manage a sound somewhere between supportive and
unintelligible.
There is much to be said about both of these experiences, but I mention them
now as I begin to discuss lesbian dating and mating patterns. I mention them
because they are both emblematic. Neither is at all atypical. Each can help us
to understand a few things about lesbian relationships, their beginnings and their
endings.
How can we understand these two experiences? Are these just two separate
and individual incidents or do they have something significant in common, not
only with each other, but with many other lesbian relationships that most readers
can all too easily recognize. Perhaps you say “No.” Something like this did
happen to me, but my situation was very special. This is just what these two
women also said to me. Did each of these women act as an individual or is there
more to their stories, to all of our stories.
It is an established principle among feminist psychotherapists that individual
psychology is strongly influenced and can only be understood by looking at the
cultural context in which it has developed and is maintained. That context
reveals the meanings, hidden and not so hidden, which are so central to making
us who we are. It includes the rules, prescription and proscription, about how to
live in that culture and how to observe them. These include rules concerning
gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. They also include rules about how
to conduct relationships and how to do all these things in a way that increases
