Along with the comfort, rituals and rights of marriage, some gay and lesbian couples are beginning to experience another hitherto exclusively heterosexual privilege – divorce.
But if the desire to marry is universal – American playwright Terrence McNally, who is married to a man, has called it “the right to love as everyone else loves” – are some of the issues that precipitate heterodivorce the same as those for gay couples?
It's a big question, and some family lawyers say there hasn't been enough time for same-sex marriage to incubate for anyone to analyze why it fails, when it does. (The number of gay divorces in Canada is hard to determine. Statistics Canada's last report on divorce is from 2004, the year before the federal government enacted legislation that made same-sex marriage legal across the country.)
Marriage legalization itself can contribute to divorce among same-sex couples, some experts say.
“A lot of people wanted to make a statement, and others got married for no other reason other than suddenly they could,” says Jo Ann Citron, a divorce lawyer in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage was legalized in 2004.
In California, where the Supreme Court recently overturned a ban on gay marriage, a rush to the altar is under way, including comedienne and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres, who declared her intention to marry her long-time girlfriend, Portia de Rossi.
“It's very easy to get caught up in the moment, in an exciting historical time, and this newfound freedom and opportunity of the revolutionary moment often overrides the personal issues that marriage usually involves,” Ms. Citron says.
The duration of a common-law partnership doesn't necessarily translate into a happy marriage. In Canada's first gay divorce in 2004, the lesbian couple, who didn't want their names publicized, had married in June, 2003, a week after same-sex marriage became legal in Ontario. They had been together for about 10 years but separated five days after they legally tied the knot.
Marriage, as anyone who has done it knows, is very different from a common-law union. As Ms. Citron says, “It's like someone who gets anxiety about where they sit in a theatre. Put them in an aisle seat, where they know they can get out at any time, and they never get nauseated. But put them in the middle of the row and they start to tremble and sweat. Suddenly they get married and they think, ‘Oh my God, I'm stuck.'”
Gay divorce rates may also be affected by a lack of social support, therapists say. Although the sanctioning of gay marriage is a crucial part of a prejudice-fighting normalization and validation of the relationship, same-sex couples do not benefit from the same support systems in society that straight couples enjoy.
“Sometimes, they don't have the support from their families that others do. They don't have support from churches or synagogues,” says Caryn Miller, a psychotherapist in Toronto who counsels both heterosexual and gay couples.
Gay spouses also lack the role models who can stabilize the structure of opposite-sex unions. “Most gay kids are born into families with heterosexual parents, who raise their children to be heterosexual. If they are gay, and they look around for models, there are none,” explains Greg O'Donohue, a Toronto clinical psychologist who has a subspecialty in gay men's identity formation.
That idea underscored a feature in the Sunday New York Times recently that pictured married gay men in incongruous 1950s-era images of all-American family life. In the story, Brandon Andrew, 26, who is engaged to his boyfriend, referred to “traditional heteronormative married culture” as something he and his future spouse have to confront.
In other words, people assume that one plays the role of husband and the other plays wife. While this gendered idea of marriage is clearly a projection from people in the straight world, gay and lesbian couples acknowledge that the role each plays is a point of discussion in their relationships.
“You just don't fall into roles as easily,” says Diane Flacks, actor, columnist and author in Toronto. She and her partner, Janis Purdy, have been a couple for 13 years. Married in 2004, they have two sons, Eli, 5, and Jonathan, 1. Each took turns being pregnant with the sperm of a known donor.
“We're not in stereotypical roles. I do take the trash out. But on the other hand, my partner fixes everything. The roles switch more often [than in heterosexual unions]. There is a division of labour based on who likes to do certain things,” Ms. Flacks says.
The irony is that for all the debate about (and in some circles, condemnation of) same-sex marriage, gay couples may be forging a healthy model for long-term committed relationships that are equitable.
“We have the same fights as anybody, but the fact that we don't fall into roles forces us to communicate about things,” Ms. Flacks says.
The institution of marriage is under revolution as it is. That women and men in heterosexual marriages face a high divorce rate may be partly attributed to the discomfort they feel with traditional gender roles and expectations.
Terms of engagement, as it were, have to be renegotiated. Since gay couples have fought for what we have, maybe it's time for us to look at what they have.
