Lesbian Ex-Lovers The Really Long-Term Relationships

Lesbian Ex-Lovers: The Really Long-Term Relationships examines the need for the development of better understanding and more critical analysis of lesbian ex-lover relationships. This eye-opening look into the minds and hearts of women offers personal insight into the possibilities for and potential pitfalls of lesbian ex-lover relations. This book contains personal stories, fictional accounts, poetry, and theoretical analyses of the frequency and significance of ex-lovers in lesbians' lives.

“We have earned a certain place in each others lives, and in the best of times we can rest on what we have made together.” Lesbian Ex-Lovers: The Really Long-Term Relationships examines the need for the development of better understanding and more critical analysis of lesbian ex-lover relationships. This eye-opening look into the minds and hearts of women offers personal insight into the possibilities for and potential pitfalls of lesbian ex-lover relations. This book contains personal stories, fictional accounts, poetry, and theoretical analyses of the frequency and significance of ex-lovers at different stages in a relationship. Topics of interest in Lesbian Ex-Lovers include: the roles ex-lovers play in our lives ex-lovers as contexts for change and development how we continue to be influenced by ex-lovers letting go and moving on ex-lovers as current friends and family themes of betrayal and loss of faith reconstructing friendships and community the mystique of the ex-lover friend/family connections among lesbian ex-lovers “Rather than totally scrap a relationship, we recycle it—from lover to ex-lover to friend in a relatively short half-life.” Lesbian Ex-Lovers is the only book in print that explores how a lesbians ex-lovers impact her subsequent romances and lifestyle. This special collection adds a new dynamic to the current literature for and about the lesbian community. Lesbian Ex-Lovers offers advice, anecdotes, and interpretations from such authors, poetesses, and artists as: Michelle Gibson, PhD—educator and editor of Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go— who says goodbye to her lover in a sad, passionate elegy Marny Hall—Psychotherapist, editor of the anthology Sexualities, and author of several books, including The Lavender Couch: A Consumers Guide to Psychotherapy for Lesbians and Gay Men—who muses on the unique bonding between lesbians and their ex-lovers, lending a mystique that surrounds the lesbian lifestyle Alison Bechdel—creator of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For—who presents a humorous comic strip thanking her former lovers for teaching her about herself Jane Futcher—newspaper reporter and author of three novels—who uses a chapter in her novel to illustrate the tensions that can occur when ex-lovers choose to remain friends, especially when those bonds provoke jealousy in both current and ex-lovers Renny Christopher—educator and award-winning poetess—who expresses her love, loss, and regret in three poems about her ex-lover and much more!

INTRODUCTION Lesbian Ex-Lover Relationships: Under-Estimated, Under-Theorized and Under-Valued? (Jacqueline S. Weinstock) “THE CHANGER AND THE CHANGED”: EX-LOVERS AS CONTEXTS FOR DEVELOPMENT To All the Girls I Left Before (Alison Bechdel) Tenth Anniversary (Jill Stranger) Coming Out of My Closet (Barbara Brown) In My Dream: My Ex-Lovers Unconventional Convention (Pat Pomerleau Chávez) These Most Difficult Tasks (Karen Heise) Passion (Marilyn Lee) MOVING COSTS: CHALLENGES OF (RE)DEFINING OUR RELATIONSHIPS AND DEALING WITH UNFINISHED BUSINESS Still the One (Susan McCully) Loading Up the U-Haul: Traveling the Spaces Between Friends and Lovers (Tammie M. Kennedy) Daring to Take the Risk (Myra Betschild and Adrienne Fortanier) Family Affairs (L. J. “Tess” Tessier) Highly Favored Ex (Gina Perille) For Emily, Many Years Too Late/Years Later, in Another City, I Still Think of Her (Renny Christopher) TOO MUCH TSORAS? THE HIGH COSTS OF MAINTAINING TIES Truth, Dreams and the Li(v)es Between (Marilyn Lee) Temporary Temptation (Cecilia Stanton) Lost Love (Renny Christopher) Neurotic Love Letters (tatiana de la tierra) Goodbye to My Lover (Michelle Gibson) Leaving Liza (Jane Futcher) Lesbian Ex-Lovers by the Numbers: A Reflective but Not Contemplative Love Poem of Sorts (Dr. Dyke) NOT LOVERS BUT NOT “JUST FRIENDS”: RECONSTRUCTING FAMILIES, FRIENDSHIPS, AND COMMUNITIES PERSONAL STORIES Im Not Lisa (Kate Brown) The House on Transcript Avenue (Bernadette Barton) The Politics of Potlucks (Barbara Esrig) Family Doggerel (Becky Thacker) The Visit (Marilyn Lee) Irritating and Constricting/Elating and Elastic—Being “Ex” as a Lesbian (Fe Day) THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS Consummated Friends and Ex-Wives: Two Types of Lesbian Ex-Lovers (Tabitha Eden) When Threes a Crowd: Ex-Lovers and Lesbian Families in 2 Girls in Love (Kelly McWilliam) Making the Transition: Understanding the Longevity of Lesbian Relationships (Susan B. Fitzgerald) Lesbian FLEX-ibility: Friend and/or Family Connections Among Lesbian Ex-Lovers (Jacqueline S. Weinstock) AFTERWORD The Migration of the Mythic Lesbian (Marny Hall) Index

Esther D Rothblum, Jacqueline Weinstock