Advice

Abusive Lesbians

Please tell me why so many women, straight and gay put up with abusive relationships? I get emails every week from women in terrible relationships. All sorts, femmes getting abused by their butches, butches taking verbal and physical hits from their femmes and butchies in love with other butchies that hurt them. WTF is wrong with us? Why do we make excuses for the people that hurt us? I know, I wrote “us.” No I am not in an abusive relationship right now. In fact, Remi is the best thing to ever happen to me. But I have been in horrible relationships in the past and it took me too long to get out of them. That’s why when I read the emails from anonymous women, I don’t feel like they’re anonymous. I feel like I know them, because I’ve been there. And I want so much for them to listen to what I have to say, but I know full well that just like me, they won’t leave the relationship a minute before they’ve had enough. But why do we stay for so long, when even a moment after the first time they hurt us is too much? Many reasons. These are just a few: Because we love them and think that they can change with our help, with counseling, with prayer, with our love ..... with something. Because they love us. Or so they tell us after they’ve hit us or yelled at us and now are begging our forgiveness, swearing it will never happen again. Uh huh. Because it’s not really them ..... it’s the disease, it’s the alcohol, it’s the drugs, it’s the _____ fill in the blank for whatever excuse you give them. Because we want to save them from themselves, their past, their disease. Because they need us. Biggest bullshit answer yet! If they needed us or loved us so much then they should treat us better! Hello? Is logic home?
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How To Be a Lesbian

Alright, so if you'll look over in the right hand column down to recent comments, you'll see a few new comments on When you realize you're a lesbian and I thought I better write something on this. Of course this is a complicated, personal issue fraught with personal baggage, religious guilt, fear of family judgment and who knows what else. But let’s try to keep it simple, shall we? Here’s how I knew I was gay: I fell in love with my best friend. I’m talking, love at first sight - the rest of the world dropped out of focus and all I could see or hear was her, in slow motion, moving towards me in the dark room on campus late one night. (Can someone say run-on sentence?!) But at that point I was clueless and thought I was straight. So was she. So what’s a naive, confused, maybe lesbian supposed to do? Make this chick her new best friend. Which wasn’t hard since we had this undeniable connection that we both felt and admitted. However this would prove to be the single most painful relationship in my life to date. Why? Because being in love with your straight best friend is no way to live. After I came to terms with my gayness I began to branch out and focus my newly found lesbian eyes on available women, aka other gay girls. Don’t get me wrong, I spent years and  years pining away for her .... but that’s a long and too painful story for this little blog. I also did the whole, “I’m just bi” routine and got my toes wet with other “bi-curious” girls. Big mistake!!! Because while I thought I was bi but was really gay, they all seemed to think they were bi but were actually straight. Usually leaving me trying to mend my little gay heart while they ran back to their boyfriends. Basically, what I’m trying to tell you is that most of us have a pretty rocky road to navigate from the All-American girl who’s supposed to grow up, get married to the man of her dreams and have children, a career and an SUV to realizing your future is never going to be what your mother dreamed of for her little girl. It really is a big adjustment, it was for me. I had to wrap my brain around a whole new culture. And as silly as it sounds, things like who pays, who drives, who initiates intimacy, who asks who out were all things I had to figure out along the way. Huh, a new culture.
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