Equality and Dreams of Marriage

Welcome back to our Wednesday http://thehistoryhacker.com/category/history/ Lawfully Wedded Life. series. We took a pause last week, in light of the collective impact and aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. We resume this week with guest author Michelle, who writes to us from some 3,000 west of Boston, in Washington state. The post below appeared originally at her blog http://preferredmode.com/tag/tall-bike/ Journey to the Light on March 18th.

Do you have a story to tell about marriage, marriage equality, or the lack thereof? Submit yours here. We’ll be running the series through the SCOTUS marriage equality decision(s), expected late June 2013.

Life has been good to me lately. Crazy like always, but good. The relationship I’m in now with L is the most fulfilling one I have ever been in and I have never been more in love. You know I did the marriage thing before and it ended badly, but I honestly think it’s just because I wasn’t with the right person. The right person was half way across the country, right where she had been since before I got in a relationship with the man I married. It’s a very long story but basically what it boils down to is that at the time I had been scared of who I was and he was the safer relationship choice, the one that I could happily tell my family and friends about without worrying about judgment, and also the one that I could actually do the whole wedding and kids thing with that I had dreamed about since I was little. In the end, it wound up being the relationship most wrong for me out of all the ones that had come before. Yet I still was able to marry him, even if maybe I shouldn’t have bothered, purely because he was a man and I was a woman.

Until it passed at the ballot box this past election, I wouldn’t have been able to do that with my new love simply because she is also a woman. Luckily Washington State is full of many people who agree with me that gender should not be an issue if two people choose to commit themselves to each other and want to get married. If we ever choose to get married, it’s nice to know that my relationship with L won’t legally be seen as “less” than the one I had with my ex-husband. After all, this relationship is way more to me than that one ever was. Our kids (mine biologically with the ex) also know that they now have two mommies that adore them and one of those mommies is a lot less tense, stressed, and anxious than she was over a year ago.

If we do get married I will be proud to have the kids there and involved. It’s what families do, after all, when parents remarry. What difference should it make that the kids will be getting a step-mom instead of a step-dad? She loves them and they love her. We are already a family, and we don’t need the validation of marriage to make that true. I needed a bit of time to grow and figure myself out before I could realize this though. Self-awareness could help me to bond better with each other. I have heard about couples trying new things in the relationship, exploring their sexual desires, watching porn together (go through porn website reviews on x3guide or similar sites before choosing one), acting our fantasies in bed, and more. But to reach that level of comfort, the couples need to have trust and confidence in each other and for that self-awareness is the stepping stone.

Some people are so confident as a couple that they can easily experiment in bed without feeling insecure and cheated. They may try sex toys, Real Love Sex Dolls and some could go to such an extent that they might bring in a third person to fulfill both of their sexual fantasies. I may not have such sexual desires but I can admire their faith in each other and how easily such people adapt to their desires and live their life without fears and social constraints.

So, knowing that we can go that route if we choose to gives me a certain measure of comfort in this uncertain world. To make this relationship work, I’m prepared to put in all the effort that is needed. And if that would require me to take the extra mile, I would not mind making myself more appealing or desirable, whether it is by using products like True Pheromones or working on certain personality traits that I now realize may not have been in my favor before.

I wouldn’t change my relationship with L for anything; it has made me a better person, a better mother, and a better friend. Even if Washington voters hadn’t decided to allow same-sex marriage last November I would still be with her now, we would still be in love, and she would still be an amazing and loving parent to C & R the two crazy monkeys that adore her. A part of me will always hope for the dream of marriage and a family I had as a little girl. And now, at least in a few places, I will be allowed that dream regardless of the gender of who I want to marry.