Are "Gay Divorcees" really feeling gay?

Same-sex couples have been dealing with relationship break-ups in therapy for many years. A new wrinkle for some of these break-ups is the inclusion of legal marriage and legal divorce. While 50% of heterosexual marriages end in divorce, there are particular issues to same-sex divorce that psychotherapists and other divorce professionals must understand. These differences include same-sex couples’ lack of familiarity with the legalities of divorce, the homophobic culture that provides varying degrees of support for the marriage or understanding of the factors existing in same-sex divorce, along with added pressure from both outside and inside the LGBT community.

The Massachusetts high court ruling in November 2003, which allowed same-sex couples to marry beginning in May of 2004, was a landmark decision that took the GLBT community by surprise. Despite all their work fighting for civil rights, few GLBT activists expected the expansion of our civil rights to include legal marriage. The passage of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 had explicitly defined marriage as a union of one man and one woman for the purposes of federal law. At the time, the passage of that act felt for many in our community like large, rusty nails in the collective GLBT civil rights coffin.

The idea of having our relationships sanctioned by law was so unexpected, such a never-in-our-lifetime-feeling, that many people leapt to make their relationships legal, in order to take advantage of what they feared would be their only chance to protect their families. Some couples have reported feeling that, thrust into getting married to protect what limited benefits they were being offered, they didn’t really understand the long-term ramifications of being legally married. Some have even told of being audited because their taxes were not understood by the IRS. Other couples faced loss of their health benefits after passage of the bill, and felt they had no choice but to marry.

Same-sex couples aren’t the only ones unfamiliar with their new status. Many lawyers in Boston are refusing to take on same-sex divorce cases because the law is so untested and is even more problematic because same-sex marriages are not federally recognized. From a legal standpoint, this makes our divorces even messier than those of heterosexual couples. As Joyce Kaufmann, a Boston-area lawyer, has pointed out, divorce is one of the benefits of marriage. On top of the complex legalities of same-sex divorce, few of us have had time to catch up with the steep and complex emotional learning curve of such a benefit.

Divorcing same-sex clients often feel like they are walking on the crunching egg-shells of a legal system unprepared for same-sex marriage, let alone same-sex divorce. Kali Munro, an online therapist living in Canada says, “I find that heterosexual couples are more likely to have known other people who have divorced, what their rights were, how finances were handled, what to do, etc., whereas lesbian and gay couples are new to the legal and financial implications of marriage and don't always know their options. I've heard some lesbian couples say that they can't divorce, despite their great unhappiness, because their finances are shared and they don't see a way out of it. This adds even more strain to an already strained relationship.”

Making the decision to end a relationship is a difficult and painful one, a decision that few couples make lightly regardless of sexual orientation. Research has shown that most divorcing couples face a complex emotional salad of confusion, shame, embarrassment, uncertainty, sadness and a profound feeling of personal failure. Bear in mind that this research was carried out using divorcing heterosexual couples as the basis for the research, against the backdrop of a culture and society that promotes, supports and protects their marriages. The same situation does not pertain for same-sex couples whose relationships may have been vilified and discounted by homophobic opposition. Same-sex clients contemplating divorce, in turning to their therapists for emotional support and guidance, may find clinicians who are unaware of the particular complexities of same-sex divorce, including issues that may be concealed beneath layers of shame, humiliation, and internalized homophobia.

Same-sex relationships suffer from bad press and a host of inaccurate, homophobic myths. We have been told that our relationships aren’t “real”, that they don’t last, and have even been equated with bestiality (Thank you, Huckabee!) Joe Kort, psychotherapist and author, says that in his clinical practice he has found that same-sex clients who are in the process of divorcing “are afraid to tell family and friends for similar reasons that heterosexual couples have but, in addition, their divorce is like confirmation that heterosexism is correct and that gay relationships are doomed to fail.” None of us wants to provide fodder to anti-same-sex marriage individuals and right-wing organizations who will point to divorcing same-sex couples as evidence that we aren’t “real” couples. But, as Kali Munro points out, “How odd that anyone would even try to point to divorce in the lesbian and gay community as proof that those marriages were never 'real' when we all know about the divorce statistics in the heterosexual community!”

Same-sex couples with children choose to marry for some of the same reasons as heterosexual couples. Additionally, they want to give as much protection to their children and their own vulnerable relationship as possible by taking advantage of their ability to legally marry in Massachusetts. I spoke recently with a lesbian mother who is going through a divorce and agreed to talk with me on condition that she remains anonymous. She said that she and her partner had been together for many years before they married and her experience in her family of origin was, “You feel like an outsider when you're not married.” For this lesbian mother, having children legitimized her marriage, because her parents saw themselves as having a formal role, that of grandparents.

Regrettably, not all same-sex couples are so lucky. For some couples, some of the emotional issues that arise from dealing with a homophobic culture are further amplified by marriage and then heightened further by a subsequent divorce. A couple who saw me for therapy told me that both their families had consistently treated their fifteen-year relationship as completely unimportant and invalid, even after their legal marriage, and, now, with their impending divorce, as if that too was “invisible.” One of the partners commented that it was clear to her that her parents hadn’t recognized either her marriage or her divorce as important as they did that of one of her siblings, despite the fact that my client’s grief at the ending of her relationship was as profound as anyone experiencing the end of a marriage. While her sibling had been showered with financial and emotional support, she said her parents refused to bring up the subject of their divorce and had even changed the topic of conversation on several occasions. Some of the work we did in therapy involved validating for this couple that their deeply-felt feelings of sadness, loss, fear and humiliation were real, and nothing to gloss over, despite their families’ insistence on treating them disrespectfully and not hiding their disapproval and judgment of them and their relationship. It’s not easy work.

Many divorcing same-sex couples also report feeling pressure from within the GLBT community. The additional burden of feeling like a poster child for same-sex marriage creates an added and sometimes overwhelming feeling of pressure. These couples are struggling with feeling as if they let down their community. Joe Winn, LICSW, a psychotherapist in private practice in Arlington, Massachusetts, reports that among clients going through same-sex divorce he has noticed clients “who refuse to address the intensity of their divorce - minimizing their feelings, minimizing their loss and mourning - which I have been attributing to trying to avoid the shame and sense of failure that comes with loss.” Winn reports that he has seen in some of his clients a re-emergence of internalized homophobia and a developmental regression of their lesbian or gay identity. Other therapists report clients talking about their deep feelings of embarrassment and humiliation and, in some cases, confessing that they dread telling their heterosexual friends and relatives even more than same-sex friends. It’s not only the homophobic response from families of origin and society that same-sex couples fear. As Joe Kort remarks, “Others have been judged negatively by their friends who tell them they should not have gotten tangled up with a legal system to begin with, something that straight couples would not necessarily say to one another about marriage.”

Elizabeth Zelvin, psychotherapist and mystery author, points out that therapists need to be mindful not only of the ways in which same-sex couples are the same or different, but the fact that some same-sex clients may be less willing to reveal relationship issues in therapy. The same issues that are at play in larger society for divorcing same-sex couples may also play out in their relationship with their therapist. For example, if the therapist is heterosexual, the client may be concerned about misunderstanding or homophobia from the therapist. If the therapist is lesbian or gay, the same issue of “letting down our team” may surface for the client. Feelings of shame about divorce may make them less likely to talk about their relationship issues.

Therapists have been dealing with relationship break-ups forever. Now, they must deal with the ramifications of same-sex legal marriage and legal divorce. In order to provide useful support to their clients, psychotherapists and other divorce professionals must recognize the particular issues inherent in same-sex divorce, including lack of familiarity with the legalities of divorce, the homophobic culture that provides varying degrees of support for the marriage or support, and pressure from inside and outside the LGBT community. By being mindful of and addressing the complex interplay of these legal, emotional and social issues, psychotherapists and other divorce professionals will be able to assist same-sex couples who find themselves in this previously uncharted territory.

(With thanks to Joe Kort, Kali Munro, Elizabeth Zelvin and Joe Winn for their clinical input and ideas.)