Love is different than you would think.
Sep. 10th, 2018 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miladygreyCrusade is officially released into the world! We attended the release party this weekend in Bethesda despite the heavens opening up, and while attendance was lower than the last few years, due to weather and the release being in September rather than May, we still sang and danced and drank and applauded Yeats and his fellow authors. This may be the last release party we'll get to attend, as the publisher is about to realize his long-held dream of leaving the expensive area around DC and relocating to the Southwest. So we got a nice room in a nice hotel within walking distance of everywhere we wanted to go, smuggled some wine up to our room, and had fun.
Mostly fun. There was a complication.
So our friends Tall and Steff, whom I have mentioned in this journal before, are getting divorced. This is not due to any falling-out between them, rather, it is because Steff, who identified as bisexual fifteen years ago when she and Tall were dating and getting married, now identifies as lesbian. She still cares about Tall very much, but doesn't want to be married to him anymore. Tall still lives in their house while he locates a new one for himself, and they are working to present a friendly united front for their children and everyone else. They want to stay friends, says Steff. No one wants to lose long-established friendships over this. There's no acrimony. Everything's fine, we're all fine here.
Tall is...not fine. He's trying, but he's taking this so hard. He had no idea Steff felt this way, not until she sat him down and told him a couple of months ago. His whole image of himself--as a husband and father and, well, as a man, I guess--is blown to hell and gone. He's angry, but swallowing it down because he feels like he has no right to be angry, it's not like counseling could patch this. Steff is dating, and is encouraging him to date, but he doesn't feel ready. He still loves Steff, it's not a feeling he can turn off right away. And because Steff is so determined to Be Friends and Keep Everything as Normal as Possible, he's kind of stuck in a limbo where he lives with his wife and co-parents with his wife and goes to events and hangs out with his wife--except she's not his wife anymore and doesn't want to be.
They both came to the party, and with other people around, it was okay. When they came back to our room for a nightcap (and chat that wasn't drowned out by the house band), it got awkward. Tall has been easy and comfy with Steff for so long, he just automatically starts putting his arm around her or playing with her hair when they're next to each other, and she kept moving away from him. They were both tipsy (granted, so were we), so I could hear Tall telling Yeats that being single just doesn't feel right, and it's so hard to let go when Steff is insisting they stay as entwined as possible in the name of 'fine'. While Steff blinked back tears, and told me she knows she "blew everything up", and she doesn't want anything or anyone to change except the being-married-to-a-guy part, and surely everyone will understand that, right? It doesn't make her a bad person, right?
Yeats and I talked about it after they left, and we agreed sadly that we will invite Tall to Yeats' birthday party next month, as he and Yeats have been friends for 20 years, and if Tall suggests that Steff come as well, that's fine with us. But if he doesn't...well, Yeats has the last say on who gets invited; it's his birthday. And I don't want to spend a party monitoring both of their emotional states, or talking down our shared friends who may be firmly on one or the other's side. I love them both, and it's hard.
It's a rainy grey Monday, and I've already sent two small dramas over to Aveline, scheduled two more new consults for the coming week, and given Aveline a lift to the courthouse because her car won't start. I believe this earns me lunch.
Reading Log: An Unnatural Vice by K. J. Charles; Inkmistress by Audrey Coulthurst; Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone; The White Plague by Frank Herbert; Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley; Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy; Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey; Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie; Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
Mostly fun. There was a complication.
So our friends Tall and Steff, whom I have mentioned in this journal before, are getting divorced. This is not due to any falling-out between them, rather, it is because Steff, who identified as bisexual fifteen years ago when she and Tall were dating and getting married, now identifies as lesbian. She still cares about Tall very much, but doesn't want to be married to him anymore. Tall still lives in their house while he locates a new one for himself, and they are working to present a friendly united front for their children and everyone else. They want to stay friends, says Steff. No one wants to lose long-established friendships over this. There's no acrimony. Everything's fine, we're all fine here.
Tall is...not fine. He's trying, but he's taking this so hard. He had no idea Steff felt this way, not until she sat him down and told him a couple of months ago. His whole image of himself--as a husband and father and, well, as a man, I guess--is blown to hell and gone. He's angry, but swallowing it down because he feels like he has no right to be angry, it's not like counseling could patch this. Steff is dating, and is encouraging him to date, but he doesn't feel ready. He still loves Steff, it's not a feeling he can turn off right away. And because Steff is so determined to Be Friends and Keep Everything as Normal as Possible, he's kind of stuck in a limbo where he lives with his wife and co-parents with his wife and goes to events and hangs out with his wife--except she's not his wife anymore and doesn't want to be.
They both came to the party, and with other people around, it was okay. When they came back to our room for a nightcap (and chat that wasn't drowned out by the house band), it got awkward. Tall has been easy and comfy with Steff for so long, he just automatically starts putting his arm around her or playing with her hair when they're next to each other, and she kept moving away from him. They were both tipsy (granted, so were we), so I could hear Tall telling Yeats that being single just doesn't feel right, and it's so hard to let go when Steff is insisting they stay as entwined as possible in the name of 'fine'. While Steff blinked back tears, and told me she knows she "blew everything up", and she doesn't want anything or anyone to change except the being-married-to-a-guy part, and surely everyone will understand that, right? It doesn't make her a bad person, right?
Yeats and I talked about it after they left, and we agreed sadly that we will invite Tall to Yeats' birthday party next month, as he and Yeats have been friends for 20 years, and if Tall suggests that Steff come as well, that's fine with us. But if he doesn't...well, Yeats has the last say on who gets invited; it's his birthday. And I don't want to spend a party monitoring both of their emotional states, or talking down our shared friends who may be firmly on one or the other's side. I love them both, and it's hard.
It's a rainy grey Monday, and I've already sent two small dramas over to Aveline, scheduled two more new consults for the coming week, and given Aveline a lift to the courthouse because her car won't start. I believe this earns me lunch.
Reading Log: An Unnatural Vice by K. J. Charles; Inkmistress by Audrey Coulthurst; Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone; The White Plague by Frank Herbert; Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley; Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy; Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey; Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie; Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
