"Lessons In Love"

[Gay Health Project]

Article in yesterday's Irish Examiner

Vickie Maye

"US studies indicate a higher level of satisfaction within same-sex relationships because, unlike their opposite-sex counterparts, overall the relationships were more equitable. Now in their 80s, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who have been together for over 50 years, were married in San Francisco on June 16.

When Matt Lucas and Kevin McGee, who married in December 2005, announced their separation, it marked the first high profile gay divorce in the UK.

As Ireland recognises gay civil partnerships, research shows same-sex unions may have a lot to teach their straight counterparts, writes Suzanne Harrington

MISERY loves company, as the gleeful reporting of the first high profile gay divorce clearly shows. Matt Lucas, best known as Little Britain’s "only gay in the village", recently announced his split from Kevin McGee, just 18 months after they married in a panto-themed ceremony, in December 2005. This was when civil partnerships became legal in Britain. As with public heterosexual splits, the usual reasons were offered: the couple had grown apart due to pressures of work, no third parties were involved.

Obviously, being gay or lesbian does not provide immunity from splitting up. But with gay marriage a relatively new concept - the Civil Partnership Bill in Ireland will offer same-sex couples rights in areas of tax, property and social welfare but falls short on marriage - it is evident that sustaining same-sex relationships without the support or formal approval of mainstream society must require that bit more dedication, determination and tenacity than heterosexual marriages.

So could it be that - whisper it - gay men and lesbians are better at marriage and relationships than their straight counterparts? That because they have never been allowed to take committed relationships for granted, the way heterosexuals do, they have more of a handle on how to make things work?

In the US, there’s a growing body of evidence which shows that same-sex couples have much to teach everyone else about successful marriage and relationships. While most US studies show little difference between gay and straight couples in committed relationships, the main differences which emerge involve the conflicts which jeopardise heterosexual relationships.

These sources of conflict are not, it transpires, down to biological gender differences, but involve concepts of equality and power sharing. In other words, heterosexual couples can get into conflict because there are still tacit expectations around gender roles. Same-sex relationships are free of such constraints.

The US state of Vermont legalised gay and lesbian unions in 2000. In a study of 1,000 couples, including same-sex couples and their married siblings, it emerged that the same issues were sources of conflict in both homosexual and heterosexual marriages: sex, money and housework.

However, the crucial difference revealed by this research showed that same-sex relationships were far more egalitarian. Heterosexual women still did more work in the house, still withheld sex and still had less financial responsibility; heterosexual men were still less active around the home, still initiated sex and were still rebuffed by women who preferred to initiate conversations about problems within the relationship. Within same-sex couples, these dichotomies were not possible and so each partner shared responsibilities more equally.

"When I look at what’s happening in California, I think there’s a lot to be learned to explore how human beings relate to one another," University of Vermont psychology professor Sondra Solomon told the New York Times. "How people care for each other, how they share responsibility, power and authority - those are the key issues."

The Vermont study showed a higher overall level of satisfaction with gay and lesbian relationships because, unlike their opposite-sex counterparts, overall the relationships were more equitable.

"Heterosexual married women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only in the house but in the relationship," says Professor Esther Rothblum, a women’s studies lecturer at San Diego State University. "That’s very different than what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live with."

According to another US study, published in 2003 in the Journal of Homosexuality, same-sex

couples make fewer verbal attacks and try harder than opposite-sex couples to defuse confrontation. Gay and lesbian couples were less likely to be belligerent or domineering during conflict, and were less likely to experience adrenaline surges or increased heartbeat; straight couples, however, were more likely to remain physically agitated after a row.

"When they got into really negative interactions, gay and lesbian couples were able to do things like use humour and affection that enabled them to step back from the ledge and continue to talk about the problem instead of just exploding," says Berkeley psychology professor Robert Levenson.

However, the demand-withdraw dynamic of straight couples -- she demands change for the better, he withdraws from any conflict - appears in same-sex relationships too, undermining the idea this is exclusively a male-female thing. Dr Levenson says this is good news for all couples. "Like everybody else, I thought this was male behaviour and female behaviour, but it’s not," he told the New York Times. "That means there is a lot more hope that you can do something about it."

News of Ireland’s Civil Partnership comes just weeks aftersame-sex marriage was legalised in California. One of the most touching celebrations was the legal union of a lesbian couple who had been together for 50 years. Now both in their 80s, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon were married in San Francisco City Hall in a ceremony presided over by the mayor. They quipped that they had not planned to marry when they first met, but had finally decided to commit.

"The Civil Partnership Bill is a significant step," says Brian Sheehan, director of GLEN, the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network. "But there is no equality of marriage, and both members of same-sex couples are still not able to establish a legal connection with the child or children they have parented, often from birth. There is also exclusion from adoption. These are critical areas. It’s not equality. Real equality is opening up marriage for same-sex couples.

"We have had no status and no societal support, which often adds stability to long-term relationships, yet we are still together 20 and 30 years later. There has been no legal support, no financial support, no structures from the State offering support. Married people are supported via the intangible yet important social status of marriage.

"Gay relationships were only decriminalised in 1993, so if you and your partner got together 20 or 30 years ago, you would have been classified as a criminal. You just kept quiet."

Of course, there is the stereotype of same-sex relationships being transient, as posited by Pete Burns recently following the break-up of his 10-month marriage to Michael Simpson. Rather than acknowledge that the dissolution was caused by his partner’s infidelity, he declared that all gay men were ill suited to the concept of a committed relationship.

"There’s a lot of promiscuity in the gay community," said the 80s pop star, now better known for his plastic surgery. "I think two men naturally are predators."

Clearly, Burns appears to be applying the model of his own failed relationship on to a highly diverse community."

(c) Irish Examiner