Slog
News & ArtsSunday, March 10, 2013
Savage Love SL Letter of the Day: Support Hose
Posted by Dan Savage on Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 10:13 AM
Originally printed August 24, 2006:
My 34-year-old sister—call her "Carrie"—came out to the family a week ago and is looking for us all to support the decisions she's making surrounding her coming out.
Background: My sister has been somewhat happily married for 14 years and has four children all under the age of 12. She wants to move her kids 3,000 miles away to be with the woman she has fallen in love with—call her "Louise." Louise is also married with kids. Both are stay-at-home moms. Carrie and Louise have met in person three times over three months. The first time was through a mothers' support group. The second time they met they got drunk and hooked up. About a month after this, they spent a long weekend together with their kids. They are now in love, speak on the phone several times a day, and have both told their husbands and families.
Louise has told Carrie that she won't move, as she wants her kids to be able to see their father on a regular basis and doesn't think she could win custody. She has asked my sister to move with her kids to be with her and her kids. My sister's husband wants to be able to see his children and plans to ask that she be required to stay in the state as part of their custody agreement. My sister is willing to fight this tooth and nail so that she can be with Louise. My sister has no money of her own.
My question is this: How do I support my sister but still make sure that she doesn't back herself into a legal and financial quagmire over a person she has met only three times?
Concerned Sister
My response after the jump...
Why would you even consider supporting your sister?
Backing up for a moment: Your sister has made two separate and distinct decisions, CS, and your family needs to keep them separate. First, your sister has decided to come out as a lesbian. You can support the hell out of that—shit, throw her dyke ass a coming-out party. Second, your sister has decided to do something so colossally stupid, so selfish and cruel, that you would be guilty of supportive-sibling malpractice if you, out of loyalty or guilt or cowardice, offered her even your tepid support.
So your sister's a lesbian—fabulous. But that doesn't give her the right to interfere with her soon-to-be ex-husband's right to have a relationship with his children. And what of her children's right to have a relationship with their father? In this instance, CS, your familial allegiance to your nieces and nephews and, yes, to your brother-in-law, outweighs whatever allegiance you owe your sister. She's selfishly fucking over her husband—a human being and a member of your family, too—as well as their kids, not only taking them from their father, but from the rest of their family, their friends, and their schools. And all for what? Because she's a lesbian now? No, because she's a selfish, love-struck dumbfuck planning to run off with someone she barely knows.
Don't let your sister manipulate you into supporting her selfish, stupid decision by presenting it to you as some intrinsic aspect of her lesbianism. (Bad haircuts, well-trimmed fingernails, and cunnilingus? Intrinsic aspects of lesbianism. Fucking over your whole family? Not so much.) You can't allow your fear of being accused of homophobia prevent you from telling your sister to her pussy-chompin' face that she's in the wrong. When she plays the homophobia card, tell her you would feel exactly the same way if she were leaving her husband for a man she barely knew.
Finally, tell your sister from me that if she wants to have her family's support, then she and her new love have to earn it. For the sake of her kids, for the sake of her soon-to-be ex, she needs to stay put. She'll have plenty of opportunity to fly out to see her new love on the weekends when her ex has the kids. If she whines about how hard long-distance relationships are, tell her that being left for another person is hard, too, to say nothing of watching your parents' marriage fall apart. Her husband is suffering, her kids are suffering—why the fuck shouldn't she?
If so, this behavior isn't just "coming out," this is also the sexual freakout of someone who's got a new partner for the first time since she was barely an adult.
7
I always wonder how these things turned out, this one has me wondering more than others.
I'd guess she did get divorced, but never moved, and has a different lesbian partner now. Or is married to a different guy now. She sounded impulsive (by her sister's account).
8
9
I've seen lots of friends get divorced over the years. Regardless of the reasons, my heart always goes out to the kids.
No matter how shitty the marriage was, or how bad the breakup, or how valid the reason for the divorce, you have an absolute obligation to do as little damage to the kids as possible. Unless the ex-spouse is seriously abusive, the kids have a right to a relationship with your ex, no matter how much you hate him/her. You have to realize that uprooting your kids and moving them across the country on a whim can be traumatizing, especially when combined with the trauma of your divorce.
Kids are not pets. They have feelings and friendships a life and rights. It is your job as parent to support them, not fuck them up, regardless of your sexual orientation.
If sister was considering leaving her husband for another man from across the country that she'd met three times ever in person, the rest of the family would be screaming bloody murder. It's only the implied "you're upset that I'm a lesbian" that's keeping them from being honest in this case.
This is definitely one where I'd love to know what did happen.
13
yes x1000 to dan's response. it is absolutely amazing to me how unbelievably selfish people can be when they enter in to new relationships with kids involved. i'm seeing it a lot in my own circle of friends and my family right now and it breaks my heart.
My experience w/ custody situations (professionally) is that any parent who lawyers up and fights tooth and nail from day 1 is usually a screwed up jerk, who is screwing up their kids. (Exception: those escaping from abusive partners.)
16
Well, I think I'd set your expectations particularly low about how much influence you have over a grown woman, even one related by blood.
"Louise has told Carrie that she won't move, as she wants her kids to be able to see their father on a regular basis and doesn't think she could win custody. She has asked my sister to move with her kids to be with her and her kids."
I love how this makes perfect sense for one side, so much so that the other is willing to do exactly the opposite, "impossible" act.
As far as the ad...totally agree. So very sick of it. Recommend a couple of sticky notes over that side of the computer screen when the kids are around. In my field (adolescent psychiatry) I could probably get away with the boss knowing I am reading Dan at work, but big red penis pictures, not so much.
19
21
Question: Toward the end, Dan says, "to say nothing of watching your parents' marriage fall apart." The parents were never mentioned in the letter. Was that part edited out? Is one parent actually supporting Carrie in this, causing a strain on the marriage?
@15 - I've never wanted kids. The tl;dr reason: I'd suck at it and screw up the kids. But imagine being able to screw up someone else's kids. Sounds like such fun! Seriously, if I ever dated a parent who did what your brother is doing, I'd dump his ass in a second.
The marriage in question is Carrie's marriage to the brother-in-law; Dan is writing from the kids' point of view. They are the ones watching their parents' marriage fall apart.
18 and 19 beat me to it. Just get adblock people, it's really not that hard.
24
For me, it selected an ad for a bong featuring a half-naked hippy babe.
Cool, but I've never been a fan of red. Not in penises anyway.
Enjoy your bong and Hippy babe. :)
27
Fucking hell. Fucking, fucking hell.
I'm sorry, but I've known some kids that were wishing very very hard for their parents to just get divorced already. And they weren't even abusive relationships.
So "staying together for the kids" isn't *always* the answer either. It might be if the kids are like, 5 and 7 and don't understand, but when they're older and they can see what's going on, divorce might actually be *good* for them.
36
But, once you make the decision to divorce, you have to do the least damage possible to the kids. Even if you divorce, the kids still have two parents. They're just living in different places now. I think the parents should live within a reasonable distance from each other so the kids can easily see either of them without unreasonable hassle. Unless there is a damned good reason, moving across the country should not be an option.
Shacking up with someone you've only met 3 times doesn't even come close to qualifying as a good reason. And no sane judge would give custody to the moving parent (exception: unless the other parent was abusive). Why anyone would think this was a good idea escapes me.
37
Concerned sister's sister might very well come back after six months anyway.
I can't speak for all selfish parents, but certainly my father was ridiculously selfish when it came to prioritizing his wife-of-the-year over his children, and he had an incredibly unhappy childhood.
In comparison, my mother always told me that I would always take precedence over any boyfriend or husband (if she remarried, but she never did), and she voluntarily became a surrogate mother to my half-sisters, continuing to care about them long after my parents' marriage fell apart. I actually suspect my father's treatment of my eldest sister was a major factor in their divorce.
My mother's family wasn't perfect, but she did have a happy childhood.
39
I did not have a happy childhood, but my kids do take precedence over any boyfriend I could have, so much so that I've decided against having a live-in boyfriend.
And my husband's treatment of the kids was a major factor in my divorce, along with his treatment of me.
Can we agree on unhappy/happy childhood having no univocal bearing on how selfish we're going to be as parents ?
43
@32: I was one of those kids who could hardly wait for my parents to divorce...and you know, things did get better right away.
I'm gonna be obnoxious and predict that her new orientation is more all about coming up with a reason she has to dump hubby - just being out of love with him is not enough to overcome the guilt of feeling like she's being selfish. Making it about orientation lets her off the hook.
Definitely throw her a coming out party, but nix on supporting the rest.
What is it with lesbians and the long-distance junk? I have a good friend whose long time partner passed away and suddenly the U-Haul on the second date wasn't quite so funny because all these new women lived like at least three hundred miles away! I thought I was a fool for trying to have a (straight) LDR with a woman 2.5 hours away (and it was a huge problem).
Also if this woman actually is a lesbian, don't most of us, plus most gay guys, not end up w/ their first same sex bf/gf, even if it's a later in life thing? First gaylationships are....rough. True for me and ever gay person I know. Not that that's even the biggest issue here. Jesus.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
It's Spring! Who's Ready for Street Harassment? by Cienna Madrid
-
SL Letter of the Day: Insane Demands by Dan Savage
-
SL Letters of the Day: Just Say No to DSGs by Dan Savage
-
New Gun Enthusiast... by Dan Savage
-
Bigot Florist Files Countersuit by Dominic Holden
-
America Doesn't Care About Black People by Charles Mudede
-
SL Letter of the Day: Gonna Boil My Laptop After Answering This One by Dan Savage
-
"Bus service shouldn't be optional—it should be a right." by Cienna Madrid
-
US Military Grants Itself the Power to Police American Streets and "Quell" "Civil Disturbances" by Brendan Kiley
-
Fucking NBA Rejects Kings Move to Seattle by Goldy
Stranger Personals
The Stranger
RSSSeattle Art & Performance Quarterly
A complete guide to Seattle's current art, film, dance, and theater season.
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (47) RSS