Yes, I was getting married, AGAIN! What was going on with my life?! This was not why I left John. I did not leave a heterosexual marriage to be married to someone I did not love, someone who controlled me, someone who was insane with jealousy and someone who was re-exploring their drinking problem. This wasn’t really my life was it?! Unfortunately it was! I felt trapped! I did not know what to do!
I remember when I married John. I got married to John because I thought it was what was expected of me. I had been with John a long time, mainly because I was not interested in looking for another man since I did not want to be with a man! On our wedding day, I remember John getting all teary eyed up in front of everyone in the church. All I did was try to calm him down and get him to stop crying. I remember not wanting to cry at all. In fact, I remember feeling detached, empty of all emotion. I just wanted to get the ceremony over with.
I look back at my first marriage and can now see it for what it was. It was a show. I was playing the role I thought that society, my family and everyone around me expected from me. I remember not really understanding why people were teary eyed on my hetero wedding day! I did not understand everyone’s emotion because it was an emotionless event and day for me.
I still sometimes feel badly for John. I learned a lot about myself during my time married to John, all at his expense. I was young when I married John. I did not know then that I did not truly love John. I did not understand that I was marrying John out of a need to fulfill what I thought was expected of me. I did not understand love and commitment at that time in my life. I had a lot of maturing to do and a lot to still learn on an emotional and self discovery level.
I never meant to hurt John. When I married John I truly thought I would stay with him forever. I had not yet come to terms with, nor did I fully understand who I was yet. Although I knew I felt strongly for women, I did not know that I was a lesbian.
Just for the record, I want everyone to know that I am not some man hater. A lot of people assume lesbians are men haters. I am not some dyke that hates men. I am simply and truly a lesbian who loves women. The thought of women drives me crazy. I think of Kass’ body and it drives me crazy. I feel true passion for Kass and for her womanly figure. I think about Kass and I can feel blood flow to my breasts and between my legs. I feel a tingling sensation all over. The thought of her touch makes me wet. My body really, truly, fully works for Kass. When I am making love to Kass I feel this extreme intensity all through my body and each tickle, each kiss, each touch I give her is from the core of my heart. This, I know now, is what love is!
Back to reality of my time with Janice ... we were getting married. I felt horrified. I felt trapped. I did not know what I was going to do. I would never have asked Janice to marry me. I already knew somewhere within me that I was in a toxic relationship that I desperately needed to get out of. I just did not know how to get out of the relationship.
Despite my inner protest, I went ahead and planned the wedding. I had no help from Janice! I planned a wedding that I did not want to attend. I picked flowers, I picked who would perform our lesbian ceremony (which required some research) and I picked thank you gifts for the few guests that I invited. I did everything! I definitely did not plan a perfect wedding. It was a “just good enough” wedding. It was a wedding planned for the sake of planning a wedding that had to be planned.
I think the tell tale sign that the wedding was essentially a joke for me was in the gift I purchased as a thank you gift for the guests and as a memorabilia of my marriage to Janice. I picked this envelope with flower seeds in it. It contained wild flower seeds. That tiny envelope of flower seeds must have been representative of my true inner self and subconscious. Janice was anaphylactic to most of the wild flower seeds in the envelopes. If Janice had been directly exposed too long to the flowers in their grown form, she could go into anaphylactic shock, which could kill her!
To me everything was a joke. It was a farce. Our relationship and the marriage was a big charade. The envelope of flowers signified how I wanted Janice to suffer as I felt I was suffering in my relationship with her. I never knew all this at the time I ordered the envelope of flower seeds. I just knew that for some reason, right from the center of my core, I wanted those damn little envelopes of flower seeds so bad it was unreal.
There was one thing that I could not do on my own. I could not get the marriage licence alone. Janice had to come with me. The marriage licence day should have been a red flag whacking me square between the eyes! Janice asked me to marry her, she had done no planning for the wedding and now, she was not willing to go get the marriage licence. Janice’s insecure, self hating part of herself made her terrified to walk up to the counter and admit that she was a dyke wanting to get married. Janice never thought of the fact that she might actually have to let someone know she was a lesbian in order to get married! The irony of the situation was, that Janice was such a butch lesbian, that anyone looking at her knew she was either a dyke or a man the instant they saw her.
Janice begged and pleaded for me to go get the marriage licence alone. She just seemed to not get the fact that she had no choice...she had to go in and get it with me. They needed her signature too. I told her this over and over. Finally, she decided that she would drive to the marriage licence office with me. We sat in the parking lot for what seemed like forever and discussed over and over why she needed to go into the office to get the paperwork done with me. It was like talking to a wall, but that is what it was always like when I tried to talk to Janice.
You would think that somewhere inside of me that day, I would have seen Janice’s inability to get the marriage licence as my way out of the marriage and the relationship. I could have said that it is ok, we won’t get married and that I cannot be with someone in such denial. Instead of taking my free ticket off the crazy train, I fell into the trap of feeling sorry for poor Janice. I felt sorry that she was so closeted. I felt sorry that she hated herself so much. I felt sorry that she could not love who she was and live her life open and proud.
So there I was sitting in a parking lot outside the marriage licence office taking care of Janice’s feelings of inadequacy. I was sitting there convincing Janice to go in with me to get a marriage licence that I myself did not want to get. I sit here now thinking of that day and the situation and feel like a complete idiot. I truly had a way out and I did not take it. I got trapped yet again in trying to help Janice.
Eventually Janice got the nerve up to go into the office and sit down in front of the lady at the marriage licence counter. I, of course, did all of the talking. Janice reacted to the situation in her typical manner of making jokes to lighten the air. We signed the documents and about ten minutes later we were out of the office and on our way back home. Janice looked relieved that she got through getting the marriage licence. She was also very happy that there was nothing else other than saying “I do,” that she had to do in the marriage process.
We were set. Marriage licence in hand, someone performing the ceremony, outfits, witnesses, a few friends, a cake, flowers, a guest book, a restaurant booked for the reception dinner and my beloved envelopes full of flower seeds. We just had to wait for the wedding day to arrive.
More of the adventure in these posts:
You sound like a very strong woman.
I encourage anyone to live their life as they see fit and in a way that makes them feel fulfilled and happy. It sounds like you have accomplished this.
Thank you fro your comments. Please follow us on our journey.
All the best.
Hi there,
I just wanted to say that I’m sorry to hear about what happened with your first marriage.
I for one wouldn’t encourage anyone to pressure themselves to be in a relationship that they honestly could not force themselves to be in.
I think that you are right. That society does pressure many of us to get married and have children because it’s “the right thing to do” especially if there is religion involved. Being religious for the sake of looking and living the life that is “what’s expected” isn’t healthy in the least. Many people cover up and use religion to hide behind. And I’m not talking about those in society and the church even who have not yet reckoned with same gender attraction. It could be those who aren’t truthful about their own personal issues whatever they are… men with their pornographic addictions, women who tend to drift from one relationship to another because of their own neediness and to seek some kind of identity… whatever it is, even the self-righteous people who can’t see that their criticism often times get’s in the way of their relationship with Jesus. I think we’re all guilty of creating some false person to hide behind for various of reasons.
For myself personally, I was in my third heterosexual relationship at the age of 18 when I realized that I couldn’t be with the man that I was with. Instead of embracing the lesbian identity and lifestyle I chose to remain single. I wasn’t going to force myself to be in a relationship that I didn’t want to be in. And although I had strong feelings for women I didn’t want to be in a lesbian relationship either. I’ve never been in a lesbian relationship and I don’t plan on it.
I sometimes look at my life where I am at right now and I don’t regret making the decisions I have made. I heard of an alternative to homosexuality and have embraced that alternative. It’s not something I force upon myself and it’s not something that society and the church has forced upon me. It’s what I chose for myself. I have changed in ways I never thought possible. And I’m not going to debate with you on your blog about the reasons why I’ve made the decisions I have but it’s not what people have forced upon me.
One more thing to add …
Yes, I’d agree that a LOT of people think that just because you’re a lesbian it means that you’re a man-hater. I’d agree that’s not always the case but I would say that a LOT of lesbians have had issues with men and bad experiences like yourself in your first marriage. And I’d also say that different women have had different ways of coping with their negative experiences with men. For me, I was a man-hater, for me, that was the way I had coped with my negative experiences. I had to look at my perceptions of men and how I responded to men and actually change the way I treated them. I am not a man-hater anymore and while I never used to be physically and sexually drawn to men in the past I am now. I used to be more Transgendered but I now identify as a woman, it’s part of the changes I never thought was possible.
Anyways, thanks for following me on twitter. All the best to you.