Within the lesbian community there is a group of women who are married and also have same-sex relationships. There is a lot of ambivalence about these women within the community and I think, within the married women themselves.
There are several variations of married lesbian lifestyles. There are married women who are involved in same-sex relationships but who do not define themselves as lesbians. There are also married lesbians who have just never obtained a divorce. There are married lesbians who have an “open marriage of convenience”. And there are married women who live a double life of living in a traditional heterosexual marriage, having a lesbian lover, and considering themselves to be lesbians.
A person’s sexual orientation may not be easily captured in a single word and it may change over time. Sexual orientation is a complex and dynamic concept rather than a simple, fixed label. Married lesbians illustrate this and challenge our tendencies toward oversimplification.
Married lesbians bring up some interesting questions. How are married lesbians different from other lesbians? Why do they end up married and lesbian and why do they remain living this dual life? Where do they obtain support for their marriage and for their lesbian relationships? Can they maintain intimacy in their lesbian relationship when there is such limited contact?
There seem to be four issues that address these questions. First, being closeted versus coming out as a lesbian. Second, receiving support for being a lesbian/being in a lesbian relationship. Third, balancing two lives, and lastly mataining romance in the lesbian relationship.
Married lesbians seem to have a longer period of mystery and romance in their relationships than other lesbian couples. They usually report little or no sex in the heterosexual marriage and a good deal of mutually satisfying sex in the lesbian relationship. This is true regardless of how many years the women have been lovers. The longevity of a romance stage also may be due to the “balance” that their arrangement offers. They maintain a dynamic tension between their Mrs. Role in the heterosexual world and lover role in the lesbian world.
The trade-offs required to maintain this balance are complex. Coming out into the lesbian community or changing their perspective about their marriages may drastically alter the balance that has supported their lesbian relationships. It is as if the marriage and the lesbian relationship depend on each other for their survival. This would be described as triangulation in family systems theory.
Two-person relationships are inherently volatile and difficult to keep in a balanced state. Triangles develop when there are problems in the relationship but the partners do not want either to confront the problems or end the relationship. If neither of these options is chosen, triangulating a third person in the relationship allows for other resolutions. Triangulation does tend to stabilize a relationship and probably prevents things from becoming worse. But it also prevents them from becoming better. For a married lesbian, neither relationship may be able to stand on its own.
Married lesbians’ relationships come in two forms: either both women are currently married or one is and the other is not. These women are often in their forties or older. There are various reasons for this. Some are rooted in society’s expectations of women who were so entrenched prior to the renaissance of feminist consciousness during the sixties. For many of these women there was little support to pursue a career, which left them vulnerable to poverty and/or dehumanizing jobs. Even more than now, women were dependent on men for financial survival.
Under these circumstances, it was harder for women to admit to themselves or even realize that they were lesbians. Many of these women married men in a “last-ditch” effort to establish a “normal” life. Now these married lesbians may be able to be financially independent and have support from other lesbians. However, they stay in their marriages for a number of reasons including children, economics, loyalty, comfort, religion, fear, and habit. Society and environments that restrict women’s economic opportunities encourage all women, including lesbians, to marry men and stay that way.
Who then do these women rely on for emotional support? They rely on each other and sometimes a very small group of others, usually women and usually lesbians. Frequently the only people who know about the other relationship are themselves very closeted. Married lesbians are often criticized by the lesbian community for their unwillingness to give up their “heterosexual privilege”. This animosity isolates these women from a possible support group.
The risks associated with coming out as a lesbian include loss of spouse, home, children, income and established social acceptance. Married lesbians seem to feel overwhelmed by these risks. For them, the benefits of their current situation far outweigh the dubious potential gain of coming out.
Alone times are often difficult for married lesbians to manage. They frequently see their lover during the day and in public places such as restaurants, movies, plays, and community meetings. Married lesbians seem to have an abundance of intrigue and romance. They sometimes see that as an advantage to their lifestyle choice. Having little time together gives them a relationship that retains much of the early stage romance and sexual excitement.
Because of the duality of their lives and the restrictions on their time together, married lesbians are definitely not merged in the same way as other lesbian couples. They are free to have the best of each other as lovers and still feel protected from having their lover enter into their whole world. When they are together, they focus intense energy on each other; and when they are apart, they are clearly separate.
The married lesbian is very concerned with image and the general sense of order in their world. They value guidelines for behavior, dress, and relationships. The visible lesbian community feels alien to them because it lacks clear norms for just about everything. They may also be frightened or put off by the lesbians they do see. The heterosexual world, on the other hand, has accepted social and legal guidelines for most behavior. Living predominantly in the heterosexual world and being an infrequent visitor to the lesbian community helps these women stay grounded in the world in which they feel most comfortable.
The consequences of living in such a delicate balance can be costly unless the two women address the issue of their growth as individuals. When one woman changes, the relationship must change or it is likely to end. Married lesbian couples have two areas of potential change. The first is individual growth, such as becoming more assertive. The second is attitudes toward lesbianism. Married lesbians have found a way to live intimately with a husband, to do without contact in the broader lesbian community and to do with only intermittent in-person contact with their women lover. If one woman in the couple begins to change in any of these areas, the entire relationship many be at risk. The balance is threatened.
It is a constant challenge for married women who also have same-sex relationships to live a closeted duel life. They must sneak around to spend time with their lesbian lover. They are obsessed with the illusion of balance. They have to work to face the challenges within themselves to confront and examine their values, their stereotypes and their definitions of sexual orientation and lesbian lifestyle. Dabbling in the lesbian lifestyle is complex and not easy for married lesbians.
