Unnatural Relationships

OK, here's what I hope for.

I hope for discussions about attraction and relationships involving gay men in same-sex relationships and gay men in mixed orientation marriages not to be carried on as if marriage were a zero-sum game. As if what gay men in same-sex marriages win, gay men in mixed-orientation marriages (and their wives) lose, and vice versa.

There's a dynamic that always goes on in discussions about same-sex marriage. Sometimes it's at the fore, sometimes it's the unspoken elephant in the room. On the one hand, discussions of desire and nature seem to come with the implication that mixed orientation marriages shouldn't exist or are doomed. On the other hand, discussions of choice and change seem to come with the implication that same-sex marriages are unfaithful or selfish.

I notice when some of these discussions take place, there are quiet calculations taking place in the background. Someone shares his or her experience, and others listening in are trying to figure out whether that person's experience adds to or subtracts from their commitments. The happiness of a gay man in a same-sex relationship is taken as implying that a gay man in an opposite-sex relationship is hard-wired to be unhappy with a woman. In defense, people start piling in and testifying that God condemns same-sex relationships; and same-sex relationships just don't last. The happiness of a gay man in a mixed-orientation marriage is taken as implying that a gay man in a same-sex relationship was too weak or selfish to have made the morally superior choice of marrying a woman. In defense, people start piling in and testifying that people in mixed orientation marriages won't ever get their needs met; and mixed orientation marriages just don't last. And so on and so on, around and around it goes.

But relationships are not mathematical equations. They are living organisms with histories and habitats that are utterly unique. One of the things that often delights me about relationship stories is hearing how two people met. So often there's an element of serendipity involved, a chance encounter or some unusual introduction or something out of the ordinary that takes two people out of the usual course of their life and throws them together in some way that makes them take notice of each other in a new light. I've so often heard a couple tell, with knowing smiles, how "if it hadn't been for so-and-so, we never would have met."

And if the account of the encounter has interesting twists and turns, so much more the tale of the subsequent relationship. The longer a relationship lasts, the more choices an individual makes in the framework of that relationship; choices that determine not only whether or how that relationship can last, but the whole texture and character and personality of that relationship. And what is even more miraculous is that there is not one but two people making choices; often very, very different choices in the same relationship. At any point, any one member of the relationship could make a choice that causes a terminal divergence, bringing the relationship to an end. A relationship only lasts when two people both make choices that somehow converge, that somehow always lead back to the other. Like a dance.

Like a dance, each partner responds to the moves of the other. A change of rhythm or the introduction of new moves might confuse a partner for a moment, but that partner can always choose to adjust their own moves, matching their partner and coming back into sync. Or they might introduce some new moves of their own, challenging their partner to respond, forcing their partner to decide how or whether they want to keep dancing. I've been on many dance floors with my partner, but I've never been part of a dance where every couple had the exact same moves. I've never seen a dancer respond to a new rhythm in exactly the same way as any other dancer.

So a gay man comes out to his wife. New move, new rhythm. Some wives will follow, some won't. Sometimes that dance ends, and starts again with new partners. If the dance continues, the wife may make certain accommodations and certain demands. New move, new rhythm. Some gay men will follow, some won't. Sometimes the dance ends, and starts again with new partners. Sometimes the dance continues, with new levels and kinds of interaction and satisfaction for the partners.

The particularity of the moves in a mixed orientation marriage are different from the kinds of moves you typically see in a heterosexual marriage or in a gay marriage. Gay marriages have particular moves that you don't see in heterosexual or mixed orientation marriages. Heck, lesbian marriages have different moves from gay male marriages. But the fact of moving is the same in every relationship.

Why do two partners end up together? And why do they stay together? The answer is unique in every relationship. I hear the repeated refrain from gay men in mixed orientation marriages that they never had the experience of "falling in love." That really only gets disconcerting when they compare their moves to someone else's. But the only thing that's really important at any given moment is that you are in the dance, not necessarily how you got to this point in the dance.

Gay men in same-sex relationships have historically been told that their relationships are "unnatural." As our understanding of the nature of sexual orientation has evolved, gay men in mixed-orientation relationships increasingly find themselves being told that they are the ones in "unnatural" relationships.

But the truth is that every relationship is unnatural in the sense that relationships don't last unless two people are willing to put effort into them. No relationship just happens. It has a history that makes it unique -- a history that may have analogues in other people's lives, but that is actually unrepeated and unrepeatable anywhere else, with anyone else.

Every relationship is also natural in the sense that human beings are social creatures. Every relationship comes into being both through choice and desire. Every relationship meets needs. Every relationship fulfills some needs better than other needs, and each relationship has different proficiencies in terms of the kinds of needs it meets. That works, because every individual in a relationship has different needs.

I can't imagine being in a mixed orientation marriage. At one point, I considered the possibility very seriously, and even went through a period of fasting and prayer to discern whether I should seek to marry a woman. The result of that fasting and prayer and discernment led me to conclude that that would be a very bad choice for me. I made decisions that ultimately led to my relationship of more than 17 years with my honey pie, Göran. Looking back, there are things I might have done differently, but in terms of the grand story arc, I am incredibly grateful that I made the choices I did that led us together and made a couple of us. My relationship with him is the single greatest blessing in my life, after my relationship with God and my testimony of the gospel. When I contemplate the choices of folks like Bravone or Scott or Beck, they look impossible to me. I get a headache trying to imagine myself in their shoes.

But that doesn't make the choices they've made invalid. Nor does it make their relationships more or less deserving of happiness and success, nor more or less capable of achieving happiness and success. Nor should their happiness and success be taken as some kind of proof that I should have made different choices, that my relationship with Göran is somehow sinful or selfish or wrong. Nor should their success be used as ammunition for legal campaigns that deny me and my honey the protections of marriage.

I wish we could get that kind of stuff out of our system. Because there is value in comparing notes. We do learn from hearing how others made the choices they've made, where those choices led, and what it has meant to them to do what they've done.

Sometimes, the problem doesn't come from others trying to undermine us. Sometimes the problem comes from our own insecurities and fears. We hear what someone else has to say, and all our anxieties about our own relationship come to the fore and make it impossible for us to hear what they're actually trying to say. We need to get spiritually centered, find a way not only of speaking but hearing without fear.

This is difficult because we live in a culture that has turned these kinds of discussions into a political, social, spiritual, religious, and legal minefield. There's always somebody ready to turn somebody else's life into a political or theological argument; or perhaps we too readily indulge the temptation to make an argument of our own lives. It's disrespectful, it's painful, and it's terrible. To do so totally violates the sanctity of human life, human freedom, and human relationships. And it leaves us living in fear, and alienates us from one another when we ought to be living in love, and helping lift one another's burdens.

Any ideas how get through the minefield intact?