United Nations first report on human rights of gay and lesbian people

On December 15, 2011 the United Nations made it’s first ever report on the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. It details how around the world people are killed or endure hate-motivated violence, torture, detention, criminalization and discrimination in jobs, health care and education because of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

According to the UN News Center, the report, released by the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, outlines “a pattern of human rights violations…that demands a response,” and says governments have too often overlooked violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The report finds that homophobic and transphobic violence has been recorded in every region of the world and ranges from murder, kidnappings, assaults and rapes to psychological threats and arbitrary deprivations of liberty.’’ LGBT people are often targets of organized abuse from religious extremists, paramilitary groups, neo-Nazis, extreme nationalists and others, as well as family and community violence, with lesbians and transgender women at particular risk.

The report—prepared in response to a request from the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year—draws from information included in past UN reporting, official statistics on hate crimes where they are available, and reporting by regional organizations and some non-governmental organizations.

In the report, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights calls for countries to repeal laws that criminalize homosexuality, abolish the death penalty for offences involving consensual sexual relations, harmonize the age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual conduct, and enact comprehensive anti-discrimination laws. In 76 countries it remains illegal to engage in same-sex conduct and in at least five countries—Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen—the death penalty prevails.

The High Commissioner recommended that Member States promptly investigate all killings or serious violent incidents perpetrated because of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. He also called on countries to ensure that no one fleeing persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity is returned to a territory where their life or freedom is a threat, and that asylum laws recognize that sexual orientation or gender identity is a valid basis for claiming persecution. It was suggested that public information campaigns should be introduced, especially in schools, to counter homophobia, and police and law enforcement officials should also receive training to ensure LGBT people are treated appropriately and fairly.

The chief of the committee’s global issues section, told UN Radio that “one of the things we found is if the law essentially reflects homophobic sentiment, then if legitimizes homophobia in society at large. If the State treats people as second class or second rate or, worse, as criminals, then it’s inviting people to do the same thing.” He stressed that all UN Member States have an obligation under international human rights law to decriminalize homosexuality.

The report, which will be discussed by Council members at a meeting in March next year, has been released as top UN officials have increasingly raised concerns about human rights violations against LGBT people. Last year, in a speech marking Human Rights Day, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that “as men and women of conscience, we reject discrimination in general, and in particular discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Lesbian and Gay Family Constellations

Family constellations among lesbian-and-gay-parented families are largely quite different from the heterosexually-parented nuclear family. Our conventional notions of a parenting family contains many presumptions: that there will be two parents, that they will be one of each gender, that they will be romantic partners of one another, they will live under one roof, that they will both be biologically related to the children they raise, and that they will be recognized legally as a family.

This is a model which applies to no lesbian and gay parented families. Gay and lesbian parents are families with one, two, three, or even four parents. Sometimes there are no men among the parents, sometimes there are no women. Sometimes there are men and women but they are not romantic partners of each other. Some families intentionally comprise more than one household. Sometimes both biological parents are included in the family and sometimes not. Often there is a biological parent who is not a family member at all. Usually there is at least one parent who has no biological relation to the child. And perhaps most important, there is most always a parent-child relationship that the law does not recognize or protect.

By this time, the ability of lesbian and gay parents to provide just as adequately as heterosexual parents for the social and emotional health of their children has been documented repeatedly in the research literature. In order to interface effectively with these families to truly meet their needs in this culture we have to go beyond a tolerance for their alternative format and radically discard to Mom-and-Dad nuclear model as any kind of standard. We must accept the premise that it is the quality of care, and not family constellation which determines what is optimal for children's healthy development. We must further learn to identify who actually is and isn't a family member based on the loving bonds of responsibility that have been both intended and fulfilled and not on any biological, legal, or conventional definitions of what is a family.

The fact that these families are thriving despite tremendous social obstacles is admirable. They have largely done their own advocacy and absorbed the difficulties as individuals. Our hopes for every member of these families is to be optimally cared for medically and educationally, the rights of children living in these families to be protected so they do not lose a parent due to homophobia and heterosexist definitions of family and that more and more people will be proactive about safely increasing visibility for them. Their visibility will help change the stereotypes and hysteria that affect our culture, and make our institutions more realistic and compassionate.

When Your Partner is a Survivor of Sexual Abuse or Incest

The number of women who have been sexually abused in childhood is staggering and, I believe, much larger than current estimates suggest. Often the memories and feelings don't surface until there is a safe committed relationship where there is support that can be trusted. That means when your partner is a survivor of sexual abuse or incest, you often suffer right along her side.

It is important for you to have an understanding about what is going on. You are going to need to be compassionate and understanding during your partner's healing process. Them seeking out a therapist and perhaps a group and fully engaging in their healing process will show you they are willing to work out what is coming up for them. This takes the pressure off of you being the only support--an unhealthy and stressful position which can cause irreparable damage in your relationship.

In addition to witnessing the pain and anguish she is going through, you may not be able to be intimate with her in the way you wish. Your sex life often suffers when you are partners with a sex abuse survivor. The following are some ideas and suggestions you can do to take care of yourself and support her at the same time.

First, I would highly recommend that you find a therapist or partners of abuse survivors group. You will need your own support system to help you understand and navigate the things that will come up in your relationship and your feelings about it. Putting a support system in place for you gives the relationship the help it will need and assures that your feelings have a place to be heard and listened to.

One thing to remember: you are not your partner's abuser! Even if you sometimes do things that trigger her, that doesn't make you a bad person. Triggers are going to happen--it is a normal part of recognizing and recovering from abuse. You and your partner need to figure out a way to deal with these triggers, and it is important you do not blame yourself if a trigger happens.

I your partner is just coming to terms and beginning the healing process of childhood sexual abuse your relationship is going to change. She is going to be spending a lot of time and energy on her own healing. She might not have the emotional energy to devote to the things in your life. It is important not to minimize what you're going through because you think her need is greater than yours. Make sure you have friends, family and a good support system around.

A difficult fact, especially for lesbians, is that you can not fix her. You can support her and help her through this hard time, but the healing is her job. She will need the help of a qualified professional therapist to guide her through this process. You can never take away what happened to her. You also cannot deny her what she is going through now. The only way for her to heal is to experience her emotions, deal with them and move on.

Educate yourself about sexual abuse and incest. Understanding the healing process will help you be a better support and also make your partner's behavior make sense to you. Without this understanding you can take on a lot of feelings that are not yours or even about you. The Courage To Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, The Survivor's Guide to Sex by Staci Haines, Can't Touch My Soul: A Guide for Lesbian Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse by Donna Rafanello are all excellent resources.

Some say healing from childhood sexual abuse or incest is a life long process. And it is. That being said, things can and will get better. Usually if will take a couple of years of intense inner work the start to heal from the abuse. This can be a tough time for your relationship, but it can also be a rewarding time.

If your partner is not able to be sexual at this time, continue doing the things you both have enjoyed together. Have dates, get exercise, visit with friends. Take time for yourself, too. Work together with your partner about the ways you can be intimate. If your partner does want a break from being sexual, you deserve to know how long she needs and the way to talk about and honor her process in a timely way for both of you.

You too may be a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. How your partner is dealing with her healing may be different from you. Feel free to share with her what has worked for you, but it may not be what she needs. Don't push her down your path. If you are both survivors of abuse, you will need to work extra hard on your boundaries. Focusing on your own healing process is also imperative.

It is definitely challenging to be in a relationship with someone who has been sexually abused as a child. While difficult, it can also be a tremendous teaching and time of growth for you. You can expect to learn many things about yourself from patience and compassion to you feelings and how they operate. If you truly love your partner, hanging in there in a healthy way while she is in the throws of her healing process can strengthen you and the relationship. If you don't deal with it, avoid triggers, take things personally and "play out" the trauma within the relationship both you and your partner will be hurt and the relationship will have little possibility of surviving.

Showing Affection In Public

Leisha Hailey, "The L-Word" actress was one of two women removed from a Southwest Airlines flight at a stop in El Paso, Texas. The Uh Huh bandmates were escorted off the plane following an exchange with crew members that began after Leisha and her girlfriend kissed.

Evidently, a flight attendant approached them after they kissed and 'scolded' them saying it was a 'family airline'. The airlines said the removal from the plane had "little to do with their kiss and lots to do with their alleged loud use of profanity and 'aggressive reaction'."

Leisha and her girlfriend issued the following statement:

We have always promoted tolerance, openness and equality both as a band and as individuals. We both come from loving homes where our parents not only love and accept us, but are also proud of who we are. We believe everyone has the right to live openly in this society as equals. In no way were our actions on Southwest Airlines excessive, inappropriate or vulgar. We want to make it clear we were not making out or creating any kind of spectacle of ourselves, it was one, modest kiss. We are responsible adult women who walk through the world with dignity. We were simply being affectionate like any normal couple. We were on the airplane less than 5 minutes when all was said and done. We take full responsibility for getting verbally upset with the flight attendant after being told it was a “family airline.” We were never told the reason the flight attendant approached us, we were only scolded that we “needed to be aware that Southwest Airlines was a family oriented airline.” No matter how quietly homophobia is whispered, it doesn’t make it any less loud. You can’t whisper hate. We ask this airline to teach their employees to not discriminate against any couple, ever, regardless of their own beliefs. We want to live in a society where if your loved one leans over to give you an innocent kiss on an airplane it’s not labeled as “excessive or not family oriented” by a corporation and its employees. We find it very disturbing that the same airline who lauds itself as being LGBT friendly has twisted an upsetting incident that happened into our behavior being “too excessive.” The above is not an apology and we are in the process of filing a formal complaint with the airline. We hope that when all is said and done a greater tolerance without prejudice will evolve.

Same sex couples do not have the same freedom to hold hands, kiss or show normal affection in public as heterosexuals. In public, I find myself restraining from all touch and ostensibly 'passing' or I'll forget and then pull back into the closet again.

This is one of the most painful areas for same-sex couples. Society not being open to normal expressions of affection has so much power over us. Think about the differences in our behavior when we are out in public and we're at home or in a safe environment. Even the most radical lesbians are more free in a gay-friendly place than in public.

Hopefully, with time and more awareness we will be able to show affection publicly. For now, I guess we have to hide our feelings or get kicked off of airplanes.

Lesbian Bed Death

Psychologist Pepper Swartz in her 1983 book American Couple, asserted that lesbians have less sex and intimacy than other couples. Although her results and mythology were later challenged, the idea of lesbian bed death has taken on a life of its own.

Sex in our culture is based on the intensity of the beginning of a relationship. No one talks about the middle or later stages. Lesbian sex is not something wild that needs to be controlled nor is it the asexual mirror-image of horndog gay men. The truth lies somewhere in between. Lesbians who have been sleeping together for decades can manage to keep their love lives spicy. All couples who are in long-term relationships must work at not getting tired of marathon sex.

After the beginning infatuation phase dwindles it is more about setting a date for sex as opposed to letting it fall by the wayside. That's why you see people break up: the sex got monotonous or needed work, and neither knew how or were willing to work on it.

Lesbian bed death can happen to any couple. Daily life and personal wounding can add to difficulities in any relationship. It more often than not has to do with lack of communication, holding onto resentments, and not taking care of the needs of the other. Sex and money are the main two reasons couples break up.

To take care of our partner's needs we must first take care of ourselves. Being healthy individuals makes for a healthy relationship makes for a gratifying sexual life. Taking care of each other's needs grows out of this harmony.

Lesbians, unlike gay men who seem to have a whole cornucopia of sex choices from sex parties to leather clubs to outdoor cruising spots, rarely stray outside of long-term relationships to find sexual satisfaction. Our desire to live our lives together as partners requires that we don't lose sight of intimacy and passion.

The myth about lesbian sex--whether wild or dead--serves to appease those heterosexuals who are experiencing "straight panic" over LGBT visibility and power. Increasingly, the country is coming to recognize that there is not a big divide between gay and straight relationships--except what's inscribed in our legal system.

What makes it harder for us is a lack of role models with that mixture of tenderness and passion that heterosexuals take for granted. Talking about sex with your partner can be invaluable. Simply talking about it opens up possibilities that make a good love life happen.

We need to nurture our relationships and work to keep the flame going. Negotiating monogamy is hard work but with communication and talking with our partners about our sexual needs, lesbians can avoid the myth of bed death.

Human Rights

It seems obvious that lesbians and gays deserve human rights given to others in America. But in the growing Conservative and Christian climate it seems unlikely that it will happen in the near future.

Weren't you surprised when New York State passed its law recently allowing lesbians and gays the right to marry? Who knows how long this will last before it gets caught up in negative legislation that could reverse or tie up the issue? Like California, before New York, there are still debilitating obstacles in the way of equal human rights.

What kind of affect does this have on us? Just below the surface is a message of inequality, judgement, fear and nonacceptance. We become so used to these messages that they almost become "normal". Those of us who are comfortable with our lifestyle simply accept things as they are and go on about living our lives.

Still, whether conscious or unconscious, the messages wear on us and on our lives. Legally we are at a distance disadvantage. Even if we are allowed to marry, as we now can in New York and a few other states, there is no legislation in place to dissolve a legal union between lesbians and gays. Some states are working to find a way through this quagmire.

Living in a country where freedom is supposed to be its basis for existence has not always proven so. We don't have to go back in history very far to find the African Americans struggle for freedom. Even more recently, the Woman's Movement fought for and won our ability to own land and the right to vote.

Today immigration, particularly aimed at Mexicans, is up for questioning around human rights. This struggle is getting more publicity than ours because it is easier for the public to look at and there are many more people involved. It seems as though the public doesn't want to look at the gay issue so they bring another problem to the forefront.

Compared to other issues confronting our world today, gay and lesbian issues appear to vanish. Does that in itself bring out a bit of laziness on our part or a feeling of despair that nothing can be done to help?

We need to remember and remind ourselves often that we not only deserve our human rights, but live in a country that supposedly offers that right to each of its citizens. We must not give up on making an impact for our lifestyle. We must persevere and take every opportunity to be visible with our needs.

I hope that eventually lesbians and gays will have true freedom like other citizens in America. As we grow in numbers, awareness and intentions, I wish for a day when we can celebrate our human rights and our lifestyle in an honorable way. That will be a great day indeed!

United Nations and Sexual Orientation Human Rights

In Geneva, Switzerland this week the United Nations Organization passed a resolution endorsing the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people. It was a momentous recognition! It was hailed as historic by the United States and other backers and decried by African and Islamic countries.

The declaration expressed "grave concern" about abuses suffered by people because of their sexual orientation. It was cautiously and carefully worded. It commissioned a global report on discrimination against gay people.

Activists called it a remarkable shift on an issue that has divided the global body for decades. The Obama administration was credited with helping to win support for the resolution because of their push for gay rights at home and abroad.

As reported by the Associated Press: "This represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement.

After tense negotiations, members of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council narrowly voted in favor of the declaration. It was put forward by South Africa. There were 23 votes in favor and 19 against.

Backers included the United States, the European Union, Brazil and other Latin American countries. Those against included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Pakistan. China, Birkina Faso, Kyrgyzstan and Zambia abstained; Libya was earlier suspended from voting.

The resolution expressed "grave concern" of acts of violence and discrimination, in all regions of the world, committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation and gender identity.
According to Amnesty International, consensual same-sex relations are illegal in 76 countries worldwide. Harassment and discrimination are common in many more.

What activists found important about this resolution, was that it established a formal UN process to document human rights abuses against gays. This includes discriminatory laws and acts of violence.

Dating for Lesbian Moms

Having children can cause complications when a lesbian mom is ready to start dating after a breakup. Some women are newly single with kids from a previous lesbian relationship. Others are newly out of the closet with children. It can be challenging to even know how to date when you are a single mom.

One of the biggest problems is finding time. You hardly have any time for yourself with all your responsibilities of your job, keeping up with your kids, cooking, cleaning and sometimes going to school. Even thinking about adding one more thing to the mix can be monumentally overwhelming.

It might be a struggle, but if you want to meet someone, you have to make the time. Making time for yourself may feel impossible or even selfish, but giving yourself some fun adult time can help you stay balanced in your life. Staying balanced can actually give you energy and change your attitude from martyrdom to a strong sense of self and freedom.

One of the best places to start might be to go to groups with other lesbian moms. This gives your children a chance to play with other kids who have same sex parents and allows you too make some new friends, who might be going through the same thing you are.

If you find someone you want to go out with, get a babysitter and go have a good time. Of course, your kids come first. Dating is something you do for yourself. They may have feelings about you dating. It could signal to them that you and your ex won't be reconciling. They could feel jealous of your taking time away from them.

When you start dating there are some things you can do that will help with these concerns. First of all, it is not necessary to let your children know that you're going on a "date". It is better to let them know you are going out with friends to have a good time. It is good for your children to see you enjoying your life.

One of the problems lesbians have is falling hard and fast into the first relationship they have. It is better to date around to find a person who has the qualities, values and dreams that are important to you. Just because you are a responsible mom doesn't mean you have to move right into a serious relationship. It will be better in the long run if you have fun and date more than one person.

When children are involved, it is especially important not to introduce a date or new woman too quickly. Experts advise waiting at least six months before introducing a new mate to your children. I have found that waiting even longer has its advantages.

During this time if you want to sleep with a date, it's best to stay at her place and preferably on a night when your kids are not at home. Bringing a new person into a child's world can be confusing, especially if the relationship doesn't work out. Then the kids have to weather yet another loss. Or you might get caught up in trying to "make it work" to avoid causing your children more pain.

When it is time to introduce a new partner it is best, depending on the ages of your children, to first introduce her as a friend. This is most positively done in a neutral location like at a movie, park, pizza place or somewhere the kids like. Going slow when introducing a new partner will empower the relationship. Over time it will naturally build and seem like a normal part of life rather than a jolting jump into trying to form a new family unit. That could create a lot of anxiety for the children and cause some backlash for you.

Even if your long-term goal might be to have a permanent partner, going about it with mindfulness is especially important when you are a lesbian mom. In the short-term, go have fun and meet new people. When you've found that "special" woman and you integrate her carefully, your new "family" can be a great source of joy, peace and love.

The Danger Of Merging

As lesbians, we too often have to hear this joke: Q: What do lesbians do on their second date. A: Go get the U-Hall. We are notorious for getting into relationships quickly. Why is that? Perhaps it has to do with merging.

Merging is being confused on where you end and the other person begins. This can happen without our knowing it and quickly at the beginning of a relationship.

I wonder if this doesn't happen for lesbians because we project ourselves onto another woman. Because we are "the same" it feels comfortable and makes merging more likely to happen.

Heterosexual relationships, being a man and a woman, provoke a different kind of experience. The projection of "the other" provides a separation rather that a merging. Even though heterosexual relationships can form quickly, the chances of actually merging seems less likely.

Does merging cause a threat to the long-term success of a lesbian relationship? One of the problems in the lack of differentiation of partners is the need that arises after the relationship has been established for being individuals. This requires that the woman have a strong sense of Self. Otherwise, merging is bound to happen.

Young lesbians are particularly at risk for merging. They have more recently separated psychologically from their parents and are vulnerable to returning through merging in a relationship because of either lack or inexperience of knowing themselves. Sometimes this can be like having an idyllic connection like being in the womb. This is all unconscious but can be a projection that promotes merging within a relationship.

Being in a relationship consciously is a big responsibility and requires lots of effort. Merging can cause relationships to end when, for example, one person goes outside the partnership and has an affair with another woman. Or one partner simply leaves a relationship, driven by the need to get their individuality back.

Merging is dangerous to lesbian relationships and requires a lot of awareness and consciousness to avoid the pitfalls. Knowing yourself well is the best way to be able to have a healthy lesbian relationship. All we can do is try.

Living Wills

My niece, Sybil, died on March 23rd, 2011 at the age of 37. After 2 years of marriage to her husband Joe, they had not discussed their deaths or what they wanted if faced with decisions about their deaths. All that Joe knew was that Sybil wanted to be an organ donner. Because she did not have a living will, when faced with decisions about her care and taking her off life supports, it put him in an emotional quandary.

Sybil had had a normal pregnancy and was not considered high risk. On March 17th (at 8 1/2 months) she woke up ill. She was diagnosed with preeclampsia and when her blood pressure spiked, she had a stroke and went into a coma. Jack Chandler McFall was delivered successfully by cesarean section in the early afternoon and is doing well. Sybil went into a coma and never came out.

Making medical decisions for lesbian partners who do not have medical power of attorneys or living wills can be even more complicated. It is not uncommon to hear horror stories about family members who have come in when medical decisions need to be made and denying the partner of any input. Sometimes lesbian partners are not even allowed to visit their ailing or dying partners.

It can be difficult for people to think about dying and what one would want. That is probably why many people avoid doing it. We have to remember though, as lesbians, without proper legal protection, we are particularly vulnerable.

Pregnancy, going into surgery, and traveling can prompt people into thinking about getting their affairs in order. I urge everyone to not wait until it is too late to have these important conversations and take the appropriate measures to get a living will and medical power of attorney in place.

Sybil's death has prompted everyone in my family to get medical powers of attorney and living wills. When you come face to face with the worst case scenario it is no longer an abstract possibility that things will never happen. It is a raw reality that they can.

Working Through Anger Stops Obsession

The process of letting go of a relationship can be challenging, especially if you are obsessing about "why" and thinking about the good aspects of the relationship. These are normal things that happen when a relationship ends. Even if you are the one who has initiated the breakup, the obsession about letting it go can make for a difficult time.

If you have been together for a number of years there are many good and bad memories that need to be processed. Just co-mingling on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level in a partnership brings a closeness that takes time to unravel and undo. That is why we are warned about rebounding and getting immediately into another relationship.

If you rebound, you do not give yourself a chance to go through the grieving process. This doesn't let you deal with the feelings from the previous relationship and therefore they accumulate and come up the next time a relationship ends. And, it is more likely that relationships do end if this emotional processing is avoided.

Many people can't stand the pain of looking at and feeling the loss of a relationship. This can become a life pattern that follows you from relationship to relationship. This is known as serial relationships, because by going from one immediately into the next, the feelings remain unconsciously buried and come out at inappropriate times and in surprising and often not so pleasant ways.

The relationship I recently got out of was my choice. It was not mutual, but, my ex got into another relationship before I moved my things out. Needless to say, I doubt that she has looked back. Unlike her, I have been dealing with my feelings as they have come up and have embraced the grieving process one hundred per cent.

Obsession was my biggest struggle. I kept thinking about her throughout every day and I could not stop it. It was a combination of remembering good times, bad times, events that made a lasting impression, emotional supports and lacks, sleeping together for all those years, intimacy, and other memories too numerous to mention.

One day I woke up with the realization that I needed to cut emotional cords with her. I imagined a huge pair of scissors cutting the emotional cord that was attached between her and mine bellys. It took a lot of effort and for a while I didn't feel anything. I continued to cut it everyday until it was gone. This helped the obsession some.

Then I decided that I would write about the obsession. I let myself write about anything that was in my mind. I found out many things I hadn't been aware of in this process. I did this for about a week. Then the strangest thing happened. The obsessive thoughts began to turn into angry thoughts. The writing turned from writing about obsession into writing about my anger.

Writing about my anger took me more than a week because I had a lot to say. Then, one day, I noticed that my writing had shifted and I was no longer obsessing or angry. I still have thoughts once in a while, which I think is totally normal, but now I have the power and strength to let myself think about something else. I have chosen, when I think about the old relationship, to think about my sister. My sister is and has always been a steady, supportive, "I've got your back" relationship and is very positive for me to think about.

So, I have learned some very valuable lessons about dealing with feelings when a relationship ends. Underneath the anxiety and obsession is anger. I got to mine through working with the process and I am grateful that I was willing to go through the feelings rather than pushing them under the carpet so that they come out some other time.

When Is It Time To Leave?

Being in a relationship is challenging. Often, our concepts and fantasies about relationships aren't realistic. These are usually created from our upbringing and early relationships with our families and those around us when we are growing up. If we are raised in a loving, consistant family then that becomes the expectation when we are adults. However, if we are raised in a family where there is dissent, discord, lack of love or separation then that effects us and influences our concepts of the difficult possibilities in relationship.

Sometimes this means that we crave the opposite of a troubled relationship. This is honorable if the issues that were present in our early experiences are worked out so that we don't recreate them unconsciously.

One of the common ways that we play out the dysfunction is feeling so wounded that we don't pay attention to the inappropriateness of the relationship. Not all relationships are good for us. When we feel so needy for a relationship to last we overlook the warning signs that it is not working for us.

This can take on many forms. Sometimes there has been a pact made where one person is dependent on the other financially or emotionally. This sets up a difficult situation to be honest with how the relationship may not be working. This feeling of being trapped is often very real. If you are honest, you could either be out on the street or left alone emotionally with the sense that you cannot deal with aloneness and the feelings that brings up.

Being trapped because of financial dependency is what I want to focus on in this piece. How this situation gets set up can be complicated or simple. The crux of the problem of this kind of dependence smacks of lack. Lack of finances usually happens because of a lack of self esteem. This produces a feeling of victimization and is followed with a diminishing of energy of all kinds in your life. Financial depletion is just one way that this is manifested.

Usually this kind of depletion is a sign that something deeper is out of balance. We have created this lack because of some sort of spiritual disconnection. This could be being hurt so that we have to look at the direction our life is going which may be not right for us. We can interpret this as being hurt and victimized rather than the positive spin which would be to let spirit show us the direction that our life wants to flow.

The hanging on to a "wrong for us" relationship is what commonly happens when this situation presents itself. Instead of being honest with ourselves we shut down our spiritual selves and get lost in the moment of being weak and needing to be taken of. Living this way continues and deepens the out of balance in our lives.

It often makes it impossible to leave a relationship. When this happens the Universe usually eventually creates a situation that makes it impossible to continue the masquerade. I just got out of one of these relationships. My partner's son was the catalyst to finally break up the relationship. His influence made the situation so obvious that I could no longer ignore the holes in the relationship that were missing and making me continue to live a life of lies.

The lies kept my spiritual self eclipsed and just outside of reach. I lived day to day outside of myself, ignoring my inner life. My inner life was screaming that it was not working and I ignored it until an ugly and dangerous situation made it impossible to deny anymore. I was forced to leave. I had to find the strength to find my resources, let go of the lies I had been living and find my own way.

This decision put me back immediately in contact with my spiritual self. Living outside of myself became a thing of the past and looking for and finding balance in my life became paramount. My main focus now is letting go of the beliefs of wanting to make a relationship work over the long haul and finding my strength inside through honest spiritual connection.

This takes daily practice and a moment to moment checking in to find the truth that lives within me. "One day at a time" is all that can be lived at this time. I wonder sometimes if my beliefs about relationships are changing. I know now that neediness and taking care of someone else have no place in relationships. I know that if I follow my spiritual path and am honest with myself, relationships have to become more accessible to what I truly want.

I am not hurting. I do not feel regret that I left. I am a bit angry at myself for staying so long, but am daily forgiving myself for feeling wounded in a way that continued the lie. Now I am gaining strength and empowerment and am happy with being alone and healthy.

It is time to leave a relationship when you lose yourself in an untruthful situation, denying that what doesn't feel good is all you can have. Honesty is the key. Spiritual integrity is the path.