In the early days of our relationship, I used to think if we worked really hard at it, we could make our marriage better. I longed for a relationship where we told each other everything, met each others’ needs and kissed each other madly at the end of every separation. In short, I wanted more. I worked hard to get it and asked my spouse to work hard, too. In retrospect, all that longing wasn’t great for my relationship. Asking for my partner to give me more, didn’t make our relationship better. However, the desire to reduce all that conflict kept us in dialogue and helped us to change our marriage. Instead of asking for more of each other, the phrase that we laugh about repeatedly is, “If you aren’t happy in your marriage, lower your expectations!” After that, Mel always says, “If that doesn’t work, lower them some more.” In our early marriage, I had an unspoken expectation that it was Mel’s job to make me happy. Over the years, I have heard my clients suffer with these expectations. I was in agony and I hear my clients in agony because their expectations are unmet. I had to realize Mel signed up to do life with me, not in service to me. Understanding that changed everything. I watch Mel work extremely hard in our lives and I appreciate it. I realize if there is something around our house that needs doing, then I can do it, or request that he do it. And, as a kind and loving husband, he is usually happy to help with my request. I had to lower the expectations of what marriage should be (I often think of “should” as a dirty word!), and had to start appreciating what marriage is. Lowering expectations has worked wonders for our marriage–and laughing about it hasn’t hurt, either. Not having expectations of the way it is “supposed to be” has allowed us to appreciate the contributions from all of our family...
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Dear Diary, Yesterday was a crazy day. And by that, I mean that I made myself a little crazy. I created a world I don’t really want to live in–but only in my head. It has been a tough week. I have been sharing the Crucible with a focus group and I also took some entries to my writing group. Then, one of my kids told me “gay” is a bad word. We talked about it, and then I talked with the vice-principal to try to figure this out and to help the kids understand why they shouldn’t say “you’re gay” but not because “gay” is a bad word. All this has been going on, and then I sent out a page of the Crucible as a way to “come out” to a new friend about our family. I sent the page to her on Friday with a note that said how vulnerable I felt sharing it with her. Mostly I felt vulnerable because she is religious, and I honestly never know how some religious people will respond to our family. I say this, and yet in our little world, we have been extraordinarily safe. We simply haven’t come across many people who don’t like our family because we are queer. That said, I don’t test friendships with religious people very often. But we met some people we really liked and we had them over for drinks. It became clear to me that it was time to tell them. So I sent a page that described The Crucible Bookii and waited to hear back. Five days passed and I heard nothing about what I had sent her. I really couldn’t believe it. I am accustomed to the world surprising me with its acceptance. Could it be that she actually wasn’t going to respond to my coming out at all? I sent her the link on Friday, and by Wednesday I was pretty upset. I decided to send one more note, “Did you read what...
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After deciding to try being in a relationship with Mel, I had to try to figure out how I wanted to “be” in the relationship. I know the rules are different for us, but I didn’t know how I wanted to “be” with those rules. Also, we were in a new relationship and I wasn’t ready to tell everyone I knew about us because I wanted to keep him to myself. After we had been together about a week, we went to an event I have come to recall as my “One Day in the Closet”. This was an event put on by our church and ironically, it was an informational event for congregants about the church becoming a “welcoming congregation”. Being a “welcoming congregation” is a Unitarian Universalist designation meaning the church is GLBT Friendly. The church has a series of information sessions and then votes to become “a welcoming congregation”. Mel and I go to this and pretend for the whole day that we aren’t together, that we aren’t a couple. We know most of the people there and we try to “act normally.” It is agony. I want to hold his hand, I want to sit next to him. I feel physically sick from the deception. The event goes from 9am-3pm and when the end finally comes, I realize that if I am going to be in a relationship with Mel, then I am not going to hide. I am going to have to be brave enough to come out of the closet and tell everyone I know that we are together. Even though I am sure I don’t want to be closeted, I am also sure that I want to be safe. I become acutely aware of the special attention we get if we hold hands in public. I learn to ask myself whether it is safe before I grab Mel’s hand. I look around–usually for conservative looking rednecks–before offering a kiss. I am a rebel, so I like the...
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I just spent 10 days in Texas with my 98-year old grandfather, Bubba. “Bubba?” you ask. Yes,that’s what we call him. It’s a nickname he got many years ago when his sister couldn’t say brother. I was in Texas because Bubba recently spent some time in the hospital and I needed to visit him and the rest of the family.
Since we were eating out a lot I got to have some pretty tasty Texas-style food. The Tex Mex Chile Rellenos and BBQ brisket were good, but by far my favourite–for culinary and sentimental reasons–was a nifty little corn tortilla sandwich called a “Chihuahua.”
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When we first moved to Canada in 2002, we were immigrants. We didn’t have family to show us around so we stumbled our way around the culture, trying our best and sometimes failing both miserably and comically. Fitting into the local school system was challenging for us since we looked like we spoke the language and we seemed to fit in. Our immigrant-ness was invisible so it led to some funny challenges. Like the day Sela came home and said, “Quiz me on the provinces and their capitals!” I have to admit it had never actually occurred to me that provinces had capitals although when I thought about it, it made sense. “Do you…er…have a list?” I asked. We figured it out and we all learned the capitals together. All Canadian elementary students have an agenda from the school that is used for back and forth communication with the teacher. We got a note one day in the agenda that Sela needed duotangs. We were puzzled. I knew that duotangs had been on Sela’s school shopping list at the beginning of the school year but since I had no idea what they were, I had ignored them (one of my immigrant strategies is to wait to see if things get clearer with time). I figured, maybe the teacher could help us with the duotangs, so I told Sela to ask the teacher where we could get them. “Shoppers” was the answer. We actually were lucky enough to know this did not refer to personal shoppers like they have at Nordstrom or any other kind of actual shopper, “Shoppers” refers to Shoppers Drug Mart which is the Walgreens of Canada and a near monopoly. They are a little different from Walgreens and most of them have cosmetics and a small grocery section. And apparently, school supplies. We went off to “Shoppers” and looked around everywhere to see if we could find a sign that said duotang. We are fairly smart, we started in the school supplies...
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Question: When you write, you always use “he” when you write about Mel. Shouldn’t you use “she” before Mel transitioned and “he” after? Anonymous Answer: First of all, thanks for asking. There was a moment in time when we actually changed pronouns. I designed this with Mel’s mother and it was for us, not for Mel. It felt so hokey to wake up one day and change pronouns but it was starting to be weird. We went on one very memorable camping trip where half of the people were calling Mel “she” and half were calling Mel “he.” I tried not to use any pronouns at all. It was weird. So, on Labor Day, Mel’s mom came for a visit and we took the plunge. We started the process to change pronouns. I have to say it was a messy business. For several years I worried I would slip up and say the wrong pronoun. Mel has always been incredibly gracious about this but I have felt like I would fail him with a wrong pronoun. But now, I don’t slip. He is firmly placed in the “male” category in my mind. Somehow, I can’t go back and call Mel “she.” For me now, Mel was never a “she.” He has always been the exact same person he is now. And I feel like we righted a wrong and I have no desire to go back to a “wrong” construct. So, when I talk about Mel, I might talk about before he transitioned but he never wanted to be “she” and now I never want to go back either. So in my stories, Mel will always be “he.” Melanie The Crucible Bookii is my story as it continues to unfold and how I see the world from my perch on the edge of the Crucible…because falling in love changed everything. To read more about our story, may I suggest Unlikely Renewal of...
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