|Relationships and the traditions attached to them are very tricky and very outdated; I’ve attested to the latter the entire time this website has been up. I crave for any opportunity to display a “non-traditional” relationship that seems to actually work.
Last night, I found one example.
I met this wonderful lesbian couple (We’ll call them “Ann” and “Nicole”, for the sake of anonymity) and we got involved in a heated conversation about gender roles and “the joys” of being in a relationship1.
Then, somewhere in the debate, “Nicole” brought this aspect of her relationship up, completely destroying any counter-argument I would have:
Ann and I go through the same stuff any straight couple goes through. We argue, we bicker, one of us gets pissed at the other for absolutely no reason, but there’s one aspect of our lives straight people don’t understand because they are used to their “traditional model” of dating.
There is no breadwinner in our relationship. I don’t pay for Ann to be my girlfriend and she doesn’t pay for me to be hers. We’re a team. Most decisions made in the relationship are made as a team and if there is some discrepancy, we work it out. We don’t go on dates every week, but when we do go, either Ann will take me out or vice versa. When we go out with friends, one of us will pay for drinks and food and then the other person will get it the next time. There’s equality.
Our relationship isn’t perfect. We fight. Sometimes, we get pissed at each other. But, and this is the key, we don’t let fights drag on and because we both understand each other’s position on things, we know where to avoid battles. I know what gets Ann going and I don’t go there and I know for a fact she doesn’t do it to me. Trust me, there are times when I want to pull out the heavy artillery and make her cry, but I’ve learned that’s being selfish and vindictive, so I never do it. I’d rather leave the situation or hang up the phone until we’ve both calmed down before saying something I’m going to regret.
We have real passion in our relationship. We been together five years and we purposely don’t live together because we want there to be heat between us. She’s Ann, I’m Nicole, but together, we’re great, because we know who we are as individuals and we know who we are as a team. We have sex three/four times a week because we know that’s essential to our happiness. We have stressful jobs and we need that release to be connected. We never fight in bed. It’s all release and pleasure and we’re both still really into each other. We both go to the gym and keep ourselves looking good for the other.
We’ll never get married because the law won’t allow us to without giving us shit but that’s fine with me. I’ll spend the rest of my life with Ann. I’ll grow old with Ann. She’s my other half. She perfects me. I perfect her. You straight people spend too much time living to your standards and traditions, but Ann and I prove that doing things “differently” is what works. Not one time in our 5 years has one of us came close to breaking up with the other person. That’s love.
For about 4 minutes, I tried to find a counter, but I couldn’t. Nicole knocked it in the top left bleacher with that speech.
Why can’t heterosexual relationships be like this?
The follow-up article to this one, based off something Nicole said, elaborates further, but I don’t understand why people don’t look at their relationships from this point-of-view more often, as being a “team” and not just “a man and a woman and one person has to support the other”.
Nicole doesn’t try to butter shit up; she acknowledges her relationship isn’t perfect, but the two seemed genuinely happy to be with one another when I met them. They laughed about past fights, their sex lives, and the such, and I really got into that and I’m happy for them. They have no strings attached, in the sense of they don’t live together, they don’t support one another, and they have no children. They can come and go whenever they want to if they chose to, but they don’t, because they really do love one one another.
I hope to find that someday, if it exists in the heterosexual world. It sounds real nice.
- Well, I argued against “the joys”. [↩]
1 response so far ↓
1 Rosemarie // May 15, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I think it does exist in a hetero world… it will be difficult to find though. How do I know? Because that’s what I am looking for as well. As a woman, the men I come across either want me to carry their baby and be their sweet complacent wife, or want to objectify me to achieve their sexual fantasies without realizing that I am a person. Also, my desire to never have children, opinions about religion, and free thinking attitude tends to turn guys off. I will stay positive though, we all should. Good post.
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