This is a diary about gay marriage. I'm gay. My relationship is in disarray. I can't claim to make perfect sense, but would love some feedback about the whole point of relationships. This is a personal diary. If you're not interested please move on.
Tonight my partner and I had a very nasty fight. These go in cyclical patterns. It's difficult because I've been in terribly abusive relationships. My father was abusive, my first partner was abusive (both of these were physical and emotional). My current partner is a very caring person most of the time. No physical abuse, and not really any emotional abuse, but everything is not always well.
Lately we've been having problem due to his depression and reluctance to work. If you read any of my history you will see that he is a psychiatrist. The problem with this profession is that you can become contaminated from your patients. Fair enough. At the current point I am in a TA role at and university. I am an architect in the middle of trying to pursue a more academic role. My hourly rate as a TA isn't bad, it's competitive with private industry, however because of budgetary issues I have about 20 hours for 3 classes ( including classes which I directly lead). I spend a lot of time and devotion on my students. I really enjoy it. I want to pursue it further.
In the meantime my partner has had problems of his own making and had suffered depression, for well over a year. I do not mean to diminish depression. i have suffered greatly from it, for long periods in my life.
Tonight we got into a huge fight about values- he accusing me of having no empathy and me accusing him of having no initiative. The problem that I see most is the basic incompatibility of humans to understand and work together. The biggest problem is that he is a doctor, but is making less than I am making as a university tutor because he just doesn't feel like seeing people. I too have been through deep depressions. I returned to work and worked through it.
This isn't about the right or wrong of this situation but a larger question. Are we really meant to be in partnerships with each others (I don't mean just me and my partner). Human relationships have a high failure rate. We are infamous for not getting along. So why is the gay rights movement so invested in gay marriage? I mean I get it as equal rights, and I'm the first to fight for it. But on a more fundamental basis should we be evaluating the basic human condition and recognising that getting along with any other human is so difficult that we are destined to fail? This is a bit of a a philosophical debate for my partner and I. Despite me wanting OUR relationship to work out, I have absolutely no faith in the ability of two humans to maintain a relationship. In fact I think that traditional ideas of relationships are archaic and destined for failure, despite the fact that I don't desire an open or polyamorous relationship. I just see them as the result of human nature.
This is a very personal question, not one of political pragmatics, but is marriage equality a false argument, or should we as progressives be working to dismantle the institution of marriage in general?