You and No Other

by Jane Weiss

  I began hesitantly. “Brian, there’s something I have to tell you…remember our talk several months ago about my concers about my friendship with Jane? Well, uh, um, well…its now more than a friendship.”

  The silence was deafening. For seconds? Minutes? Could I take the words back?

  His stare was penetrating before he shout back, “What are you saying? Do you mean you’re having a sexual relationship with her?”

  I nodded, head down, unable to look at his face or find any words to say.

  “Do you honestly mean you had sex with her?” he repeated.

  Again, I nodded, becoming increasingly tense with the directness of his question. It was so unlike him to probe any sort of uncomfortable issue, let alone a powder keg of this magnitude. Impulsively, I’d chosen this pre-party time to tell him, knowing that we needed to reappear outside the bedroom in only moments, arms laden with gifts. How much further would he take the conversation now?

  No further, as it happened. We finished the gift-wrapping in silence. Within minutes, we put on stiff party faces, stepped out into the dining room, and joined our four children, who were eagerly waiting to get the celebration rolling.

  I knew Brian and I had to continue talking over the next weeks. Preparing for one of those occasions, I wrote in my journal December 15, 1981:

  Have to face Brian again soon, but don’t have the vaguest idea what I need to say. Can I ask that we suspend sex? I’ve been such a disinterested partner for so long now. What must that feel like to him? Wouldn’t it be better to stop playing the game? What will he say? Do I have the right? For how long?

  Dear God, help me know how to begin this—how to find words that will make an opening, while not increasing his fears. Bring me an understanding of what’s happened in our relationship, and help me express that with all the love I feel for this dear person. Guide me carefully—keep me open and aware of what he needs from me now, and what I have to give him.

  As if deciding to move into a same-sex relationship weren’t complicated enough, subsequent events created even more confusion. I sought counseling in January around everything that was going on—my falling in love with Jane, contemplating leaving my marriage and living with her, and thus, needing to move from our home. I would have to move out if Brian and I separated because he clearly informed me he wasn’t going anywhere. We had earlier decided the children would stay in our family home to minimize their disruption. That meant, in addition to separating from Brian, I would also live physically separated from the kids. It seemed all this should be completely overwhelming, yet my love for Jane and need to be with her kept me constantly moving in the direction of making it happen.

  Never before having been to counseling, I was more than anxious at the beginning of my appointment, and eager to hear the therapist’s assessment at its conclusion.

  “So, am I crazy?” I asked, after an hour and a half spent describing my situation and responding to her myriad questions along the way.

  Throwing her head back and laughing loudly, the therapist replied, “Not only do I not think you’re crazy, I think you could run the UN if you decided to!”

  Her off-handed comment was great appeasement for my analytical mind, and strong affirmation that Jane and I were not on an erroneous path. But relief was short-lived before her next words of caution.

  “No, I don’t think you’re crazy at all. I believe you’re thinking very clearly about the direction you’d like your life to take. I assume you do know, however, that when two heterosexual individuals leave marriages for each other, their chances of remaining together long-term are only about thirty percent. I would assume the odds would be poorer for two people leaving heterosexual marriages and entering for the first time into a same-sex relationship. If you decide to make the move you’ve described, it should be done with these statistics in mind.”

  Hearing this, I was plunged more deeply into the fear and ambivalence I had hoped the therapy appointment would help resolve. Now what would I do? How would I ever gain clarity about this momentous decision? Jane and I now regularly spoke our undying love for all time for one another. My love for her was growing by the day. But what did any of that mean for a marriage-like relationship, and could I depend on her to not renege when the going got tough?

  I was consumed by doubts and questions, and often in an agitated state when trying to sort through everything. I must have driven her crazy with my questions:

  “Jane, I need to know that if we move in together, you intend to stay with me long-term, no matter what our children or extended families think or do.” I needed constant reassurance that if we proceeded down this road, each of us had the same level of commitment to making it work. I simply couldn’t imagine needing to backtrack and reenter our families after all we’d have put them through. I knew if I worked through the decision to make the leap, it would take an unimaginable calamity to cause me to change direction. But I didn’t—couldn’t—know about Jane, and there were signs that her husband would try to keep their children from her if she moved out. How could our relationship possibly survive that?

  “Of course I intend to stay with you long-term, Bonnie,” Jane quietly answered. Though she did everything in her power to assuage my fear, fear escalated to terror as I realized there could be no certain outcome in this—the highest-stakes decision of my life. I was nonetheless plunging into it. There wasn’t any more mental peace—only the sublime contentment created unfailingly by our stolen moments together.

  Preparations Begin

  At a point probably in late November, Jane asked when I thought we might be (as in live) together. Soon after, while meditating on that question, a clear vision came to me of water rushing along a creek, its banks still deeply covered with snow. The words, seeming to come from nowhere, said, “When waters flow after the driven snow.”

  Though I had sporadically practiced meditating for three or four years, I received only vague information when asking specific questions. So I was startled to see and hear so distinct a message. But if the message was accurate, it meant a longer wait because ice breakups following Minnesota winters occurred most often in late spring. Waiting four more months to be together already felt unbearable.

  Sharing my meditation rather apologetically the next day with Jane, she was ecstatic, and shared none of my questioning or disbelief regarding its validity. She felt the clarity of the vision and message signaled that we were on the right path, and we would indeed be together. We both, however, questioned how we could survive in our present home circumstances—and without one another—until late spring. Once again, we prayed for guidance that God’s will be done, and that we could accept the outcome with grace.

  In late January, when both of us could steal away for a weekend afternoon, we began looking at rental apartments close to my family’s house. It seemed logical to be located close to one or the other of our children’s homes. As we were uncertain we could manage Charles’s anger if we lived in Jane’s neighborhood, we sought out something closer to my home. Erin, then four, sometimes accompanied us on our apartment searches, and on one occasion, napped in the back seat of the car while Jane and I sat talking in the front seat. As Jane reviewed written materials about the various rental units we’d seen, I gazed fondly at my miracle baby, now four years old, in her peaceful sleep.

  Brian and I had considered our family to be complete with our biological son, Edward, and the adoption of David and Moria. We stopped intentionally trying to conceive, yet we didn’t take any means to prevent pregnancy. Nonetheless, both of us were surprised five and a half years later to find me pregnant once again.

  Erin was born by caesarian section only three weeks short of full term, after an uneventful pregnancy. As I held her for the first time, I said to her quietly, “You’ll need to be a very good baby, ’cause you’ve got an old mother.” Though I was only thirty-six at the time, most women who were having babies were twenty-somethings—not in their late thirties or forties. Fortuitousl
y, Erin was not only a good baby, she was an easy child who simply needed lots of stimulation to keep her brilliant little mind satisfied. How could she deserve the interruption I was about to create in her young life?

  “What do you think, Bonnie?”

  My revelry came to an abrupt end as Jane and I compared features of different apartments. Learning about each other’s tastes and preferences allowed us, for those few moments, to visualize our lives together. This meant talking about daily routines, what felt important and why, and how we would use living spaces. We became giddy with excitement that we were getting closer to making it happen.

  Our laughter awakened Erin. In a sleepy little voice from the back seat she asked, “What are these ‘repotement’ places, anyway?”

  “They’re big buildings where lots of people live, but people have their own rooms, like small houses,” I answered.

  “But we live in our own house; don’t we?”

  “Yes, Erin,” was all I could say at the time, knowing we had a heavy conversation ahead within the next few weeks. How would I ever explain to a four-year-old why her mommy and daddy weren’t going to live together anymore?

  One afternoon in February, Jane and I sat on a sofa in the female caretaker’s quarters of a rental complex, nervously awaiting the decision of whether we “qualified” to rent the apartment we’d put money down to hold. A slovenly, greasy-looking man carrying tools periodically trudged through the apartment, casting leering glances at us. We had forgotten how unsafe we could feel without male protectors. We vowed in that moment that our apartment would never need repairs if this slimy character were the handyman.

  Viewing the situation from some distance, our anxiety about qualifying undoubtedly related less to qualifications and more to our “unusual” relationship and the fear of being discovered. Did people rent apartments to women in intimate relationships? Had we been able to hide it? We would know soon as the caretaker was almost through reviewing our applications. In her own methodical way, she finally concluded her paper shuffling and indicated the apartment was ours. Jane and I barely managed to cough up the security deposit and first month’s rent from our checkbooks before rushing out to the car and whooping.

  Later that afternoon on my run, I happened by the snow-mounded banks of Minnehaha Creek. I smiled in acknowledgment that unseasonably warm weather had melted ice from the shallow waters, and it was indeed a time when “waters flowed after the driven snow.”

  But the weeks were sad before our coming together, and frightening as well. Now, each happening in our days was viewed through the lens of changes we were about to make in our families.

  Sitting down with the kids at dinnertime prompted my grief that we would not have many more meals together in this place. I wondered how it would be for them to have my empty chair at the table. The same was true for kissing each of them good night and tucking in Erin. Though the kids would spend half their time with Jane and me, would they miss our daily rituals when I wasn’t with them? How would that affect them? I was frequently overcome with grief just thinking about what was ahead.

  How would I tell them—any of them—that I had to go? I didn’t yet understand it myself. There was simply this obsession to be with Jane.

  “So how long do you think you’ll live with Jane?” Brian asked out of the blue one evening.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” I couldn’t tell him I wanted my partnership with Jane to be permanent. Was that because I didn’t want to hurt him more? Because I didn’t want to burn my bridges? Because I wasn’t really sure?

  “Well, if your relationship with Jane doesn’t work out, do you think you’d want us to be married again? Or would you look for another female partner?”

  “Again, Brian, my relationship with Jane feels so unique; I can’t imagine ever loving another woman.”

  “Would you ever consider staying in our marriage and having your relationship with Jane on the side?”

  “I can definitely answer that question. No, I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to either you or Jane, and it would make me insane.”

  My fears about the move I was headed into kept escalating. Most basically, I couldn’t believe anyone could love me enough to make the sacrifices Jane would have to make in pursuing our lives together. I worried that, when she really knew what I was like, she wouldn’t choose to put up with all the trauma and grief of being separated from her family—or that I wouldn’t be enough, or be able to provide enough to fill the aching voids of absent children, if that’s what happened. Or that once the incredible excitement of our relationship mellowed a bit, we’d find it was not all that different from our current marriages. What if one or the other, or both of us, ended up with one or more of the kids? Suppose the kids didn’t get along? Suppose she or I couldn’t abide the other’s child-rearing practices? Suppose, suppose, suppose. Such questions careened madly through my head, and I couldn’t imagine how they’d get resolved.

  Yet given all that, I knew what was between Jane and me was so powerful, that if someone said the decision had to be made within five minutes whether or not to make the move with her, I would have spent those five minutes packing! I would have taken all the risks and maybe been left with nothing, but I knew I could never live with myself if I didn’t go after us with everything that was in me. I didn’t know how I’d find answers to my questions before I moved, but I also didn’t know how I’d find answers without making the move. From my journal February 14:

  I can only believe we and our children are being watched over carefully, guided closely, and loved deeply as we enter this era of deep change and growth. There’s no other one with whom I’d choose to share the journey.

  So come, Jane-One—join with me for always.

  Let us listen to the God source and harmonize our beings, as those seeking perfection through unity.

  Come Jane-One—help me know the way.

  Keep me attuned to Oneness.

  Let us expand our love to fill the universe with song.

  Come, Jane-One. The time is here.

  Come.

  What About the Children?

  Jane told me she dreaded my needing to talk with the kids about having to leave. She was right. Telling my children that their father and I were separating was a formidable task. I became nauseated just thinking about it. The kids now ranged in age from four to eighteen. How would I develop the message for each of them? Would the girls respond differently than the boys? Would the biggest variable be their respective ages? Or would it be their unique personalities or ways of relating with us, their parents, and with the world?

  Brian and I jointly decided we should be together to tell the children, and, at first telling, they should be together, so none would have any information ahead of others, thereby eliminating the risk of one child inadvertently or purposefully telling another before Brian and I did.

  We sat around the dinner table at the appointed hour, with kids chattering about their days and anything else that flitted through their minds, as usual. I looked at each of their beautiful, innocent faces and, fearing what was about to happen to their sheltered lives, asked God for forgiveness, guidance, and courage.

  I don’t recall exactly what we said that evening at the table. Brian and I had decided not to mention Jane’s and my relationship because it was still too confusing to all of us, and we had no idea how we’d talk about it to the kids. I know we explained that their father and I needed time apart to do some thinking about our marriage, and whether we should stay together in the future. That was the truth, though I didn’t say this wasn’t the first time I had considered such a move. Having a pediatric nursing background, I knew it was important to affirm that they—the children—had not said or done anything to cause this separation of their parents, and that we both loved them very much. Also, that both their father and I planned to remain active parents to all of them, albeit we would be doing that separately, at least for a while.

  From the kids, there
was no major upset or outburst and few questions. I believe the message we delivered that evening was absolutely the last thing our children ever expected to hear from us, and they were stunned. Letting silence sit like an elephant on the table through meal’s end, I said that soon we would be talking with each of them individually and hoped they would think about how they felt, what they’d like to say to us, and any other questions they had.

  The next day, I talked alone with David. He would be graduating from high school and leaving home in a few months, so it seemed he might be least affected by the impending change. On the other hand, he might have the most invested in our family remaining intact. In preparing for our conversation, memories of the last ten years with David in our family washed over me.

  When Brian and I first began the adoption process, we learned that Caucasian children in the United States had couples waiting in line for seven years to adopt them, and that mixed blood children in Korea were outcasts with no hope of finding homes in that country. That’s when we knew we wanted to adopt Korean-American children. We had spotted twelve-month-old Moria’s picture during our first group meeting at the adoption agency when we were shown files of “waiting children.” We had planned to adopt a girl younger than Edward at that point and a second child of either gender a few years later. Studying Moria’s file further, we noted that written on the card with her picture was: “See Case #405. Siblings to be placed together as a condition of adoption.” We quickly located the picture identified as Case #405, and there was handsome eight-year-old David, looking back at us with the same almond eyes, his rosebud lips forming a partial smile. We were told by the adoption agency and other adoptive parents that Korean children David’s age might have some values and behaviors we’d find unsettling—like stealing and lying—that were part of how children learned to survive in a culture where they were outcasts. But these two children simply spoke to us, and we felt confident we could manage whatever presented itself by providing enough love, attention, and stability.