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Lesbian Ex-Lovers

The Really Long-Term Relationships

By Esther D Rothblum, Jacqueline Weinstock

Published November 12th 2004 by Routledge – 276 pages

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    Description

    “We have earned a certain place in each other’s lives, and in the best of times we can rest on what we have made together.”

    Lesbian Ex-Lovers: The Really Long-Term Relationships examines the need for the development of better understanding and more critical analysis of lesbian ex-lover relationships. This eye-opening look into the minds and hearts of women offers personal insight into the possibilities for and potential pitfalls of lesbian ex-lover relations. This book contains personal stories, fictional accounts, poetry, and theoretical analyses of the frequency and significance of ex-lovers at different stages in a relationship.

    Topics of interest in Lesbian Ex-Lovers include:

    • the roles ex-lovers play in our lives
    • ex-lovers as contexts for change and development
    • how we continue to be influenced by ex-lovers
    • letting go and moving on
    • ex-lovers as current friends and family
    • themes of betrayal and loss of faith
    • reconstructing friendships and community
    • the mystique of the ex-lover
    • friend/family connections among lesbian ex-lovers
    “Rather than totally scrap a relationship, we recycle it—from lover to ex-lover to friend in a relatively short half-life.”

    Lesbian Ex-Lovers is the only book in print that explores how a lesbian’s ex-lovers impact her subsequent romances and lifestyle. This special collection adds a new dynamic to the current literature for and about the lesbian community.

    Lesbian Ex-Lovers offers advice, anecdotes, and interpretations from such authors, poetesses, and artists as:

    • Michelle Gibson, PhD—educator and editor of Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go— who says goodbye to her lover in a sad, passionate elegy
    • Marny Hall—Psychotherapist, editor of the anthology Sexualities, and author of several books, including The Lavender Couch: A Consumer’s Guide to Psychotherapy for Lesbians and Gay Men—who muses on the unique bonding between lesbians and their ex-lovers, lending a mystique that surrounds the lesbian lifestyle
    • Alison Bechdel—creator of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For—who presents a humorous comic strip thanking her former lovers for teaching her about herself
    • Jane Futcher—newspaper reporter and author of three novels—who uses a chapter in her novel to illustrate the tensions that can occur when ex-lovers choose to remain friends, especially when those bonds provoke jealousy in both current and ex-lovers
    • Renny Christopher—educator and award-winning poetess—who expresses her love, loss, and regret in three poems about her ex-lover
    • and much more!

    Contents

    • INTRODUCTION
    • Lesbian Ex-Lover Relationships: Under-Estimated, Under-Theorized and Under-Valued? (Jacqueline S. Weinstock)
    • “THE CHANGER AND THE CHANGED”: EX-LOVERS AS CONTEXTS FOR DEVELOPMENT
    • To All the Girls I Left Before (Alison Bechdel)
    • Tenth Anniversary (Jill Stranger)
    • Coming Out of My Closet (Barbara Brown)
    • In My Dream: My Ex-Lovers’ Unconventional Convention (Pat Pomerleau Chávez)
    • These Most Difficult Tasks (Karen Heise)
    • Passion (Marilyn Lee)
    • MOVING COSTS: CHALLENGES OF (RE)DEFINING OUR RELATIONSHIPS AND DEALING WITH UNFINISHED BUSINESS
    • Still the One (Susan McCully)
    • Loading Up the U-Haul: Traveling the Spaces Between Friends and Lovers (Tammie M. Kennedy)
    • Daring to Take the Risk (Myra Betschild and Adrienne Fortanier)
    • Family Affairs (L. J. “Tess” Tessier)
    • Highly Favored Ex (Gina Perille)
    • For Emily, Many Years Too Late/Years Later, in Another City, I Still Think of Her (Renny Christopher)
    • TOO MUCH TSORAS? THE HIGH COSTS OF MAINTAINING TIES
    • Truth, Dreams and the Li(v)es Between (Marilyn Lee)
    • Temporary Temptation (Cecilia Stanton)
    • Lost Love (Renny Christopher)
    • Neurotic Love Letters (tatiana de la tierra)
    • Goodbye to My Lover (Michelle Gibson)
    • Leaving Liza (Jane Futcher)
    • Lesbian Ex-Lovers by the Numbers: A Reflective but Not Contemplative Love Poem of Sorts (Dr. Dyke)
    • NOT LOVERS BUT NOT “JUST FRIENDS”: RECONSTRUCTING FAMILIES, FRIENDSHIPS, AND COMMUNITIES
    • PERSONAL STORIES
    • I’m Not Lisa (Kate Brown)
    • The House on Transcript Avenue (Bernadette Barton)
    • The Politics of Potlucks (Barbara Esrig)
    • Family Doggerel (Becky Thacker)
    • The Visit (Marilyn Lee)
    • Irritating and Constricting/Elating and Elastic—Being “Ex” as a Lesbian (Fe Day)
    • THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS
    • Consummated Friends and Ex-Wives: Two Types of Lesbian Ex-Lovers (Tabitha Eden)
    • When Three’s a Crowd: Ex-Lovers and Lesbian Families in 2 Girls in Love (Kelly McWilliam)
    • Making the Transition: Understanding the Longevity of Lesbian Relationships (Susan B. Fitzgerald)
    • Lesbian FLEX-ibility: Friend and/or Family Connections Among Lesbian Ex-Lovers (Jacqueline S. Weinstock)
    • AFTERWORD
    • The Migration of the Mythic Lesbian (Marny Hall)
    • Index

    Related Subjects

    1. Area Studies

    Name: Lesbian Ex-Lovers: The Really Long-Term Relationships (Paperback) – Routledge 
    Description: By Esther D Rothblum, Jacqueline Weinstock. “We have earned a certain place in each other’s lives, and in the best of times we can rest on what we have made together.” Lesbian Ex-Lovers: The Really Long-Term Relationships examines the need for the development of...
    Categories: Area Studies