Unbroken Ties

by Carol S. Becker

In 1983, Carol Becker ended a five-year relationship. “My lover and I had sat with friends during their breakups," she writes, my own relationship felt like being cut loose on an uncharted sea of pain." As a part of her recovery, Becker decided to chart that sea. Through nearly one hundred stories and interviews, Becker — also a psychotherapist - has traced the emotional trauma of a couple's breakup, the stages of recovery, and the differing ways these former lovers stayed in contact with each other. She finds the end of a relationship can be a time of positive personal growth, helping avoid destructive behavior in the future. Former lovers can also serve as the foundation for alternative family groups, strengthening our community and our ability to care for one another.

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction, Relationships

217 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1991

Reviews

[Cpt Hawk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a compilation of 100 interviews of women talking about their breakups with other women, organized into essentially the stages of grief of people recovering from their breakups and what that entailed--but it also included a snapshot of what couples's lives and relationships were like before they broke up, after they broke up, what was going on at the time they broke up, also whythey broke up. Which I shan't lie, did involve reading some truly outrageous or scandalous stories that had me slapping my forehead or needing to take a lap many times. Honestly the goss was steaming. The tea? Piping. It was what you'd call a real hoopty-doo.

It turns out I really enjoy biographical nonfiction, which is not something I saw coming. Well I guess I could've seen it coming, I AM super nosy. I love a good story, and nothing thrills like a scandal! I just really like reading about different perspectives and lives lived, everyone comes up with such interesting thoughts all the time. Also sometimes some random person will talk about some seemingly minor but infinitely meaningful moment in their life and then I have to go stare at a wall about it, so. There's lots to be entertained by.

This book also ended up being very therapeutic, which at first I found to be a confusing reaction, but it made sense as I kept reading. Reading these various women talk about how they processed their grief and what they noticed or learned from it or what changed from then on, it made me realize that on the topic, I myself have been ... missing out on quite a bit. Break-up advice online for example is by and large directed at a heterosexual audience, and heterosexual relationships really do not match up with a lesbian relationship, and the expectations and notions of what a hetero romance/break-up means and looks like permeates common culture like a fog. I mean yeah women are just as capable of atrocities in a lesbian relationship as they are in a straight one but GOD!! THE FACTORS AND FEELINGS AT PLAY WHEN IT'S GAY!!! (Which this book addressed in a variety of ways, which I really really loved.) It was just good to wade through all these interviews of these people talking about their thoughts and feelings re: their lesbian relationship and then watch how someone else dealt with it and learn from/reflect on that. It was also really reassuring, to see other people care so much and be so bothered and think, "Ah, okay, so comparatively I'm not a wimp or making something up or being really weird, it IS kinda normal to be so absorbed by all this isn't it, huh." It was just a very ... human and delightful read. I don't think you have to be gay in any sense to enjoy this book, and I don't think you need to be struggling in some sense to enjoy it, either. If you like romance, and relationships, and wading through emotional thickets, you will like this book. This book reminded me why I have a fascination with characters who are exes/divorced/something. There's straightforward romantic love, and that's interesting. And then there's all the layers and chaos that a break-up creates, and THAT'S a whole meal.

Bonus point: I am slightly less ashamed of the UHaul lesbian stereotype now. WOULD I UHaul? Absolutely not, I'm way too anxious for that. But now would I CONSIDER it? ... Perhaps.

[Highlyeccentric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what i was looking for. Doesn't really theorise much about the findings, even though the findings are precisely about the friend-lover boundary I'm most interested in. Nor, peculiarly, does it offer sociological or theoretical commentary on whether the trends reported are particular to LESBIAN relationships. The book defines itself as exclusively lesbian, and all the interviewees are, although some had girlfriends who left them for a man. Becker says she didn't address gay men or bisexual men or women or straight people, but would expect similar findings. Speaking as a bisexual woman I would /not/ expect similar findings across all those groups- and I think that failing to speak to bisexual women in particular leaves a gap in Becker's work. Bisexual women, although our experience is obviously not exactly those of either lesbians or straight women, are uniquely placed to comment on the differences between opposite-sex and same-sex relationship parameters.