Q 11: Queer homemaking and other messy things

My wife and I are both in our mid-thirties, and we’ve been together almost fifteen years. One of the things I love best about our relationship is that classic queer thing of having to decide for ourselves how our home works, how we divvy up responsibilities, what a marriage means to us. For a good while, we had this balance that felt…well, like how modern women are supposed to be (trap number one!). We both worked full time, we split up chores and domestic stuff based on who liked/least hated what, and we felt bad for our straight cis women friends who struggled hard with getting their boyfriends/husbands to chip in with anything outside of work. We had it Figured Out.

Oh but wait, a twist: WE DIDN’T. We didn’t because while we were happy with each other, we were both miserable in our daily lives outside of that. I started my own business a few years ago, and I love it, and I’m good at it, and it’s doing very well. But it’s also a lot of stress and juggling, and I’m overwhelmed at finding the time/energy/brainspace to take care of the home, too. My wife, on the other hand, has never had a job she’s liked, and she comes home from her current one anxious and depressed every single day. What she does love is domestic projects and making stuff. She loves to experiment in the kitchen and provide her own food and sew and build and weave and hammer and putter around the house. All the things on the to-do list that make me despair at the end of a day. After endless long talks about it, we know what we want: I want to keep at it with my business, which has gotten to a point where it actually might be enough to take care of both of us. She, on the other hand, wants to quit her job and homestead. In other words, I provide the money, she provides the home.

Here are the hangups. I know these are all internalized bullshit and societal pressure bullshit and things I should ignore. I know that. I just need some wise learned queers to help me unpack it.

1. HOO BOY DO I FEEL WEIRD ABOUT POTENTIALLY LEAVING THE BULK OF THE HOUSEWORK TO MY WIFE WHILE I GO OFF TO MY SELF-IMPORTANT JOB. I know, I know this is different than straight couples wherein the dude expects that to be the dynamic. But my feminist heart feels like I’m being selfish or lazy here, or that we’ve reverse engineered the patriarchy or something. Yes, we’re both women and we came to this on our own, but I cannot get past this. There’s the added layer of icing that she presents super femme, and I’m somewhere in the tomboy realm of the spectrum. I feel like all of our cool self-definition journeying has somehow led us to traditional-looking gender roles, and I’m feeling fucked up about both what that means for our relationship, and what it means for my own sense of what it means to be a woman if I am also the literally-pants-wearing breadwinner who doesn’t do her own damn cooking.

2. My wife has no idea how to explain this to her family. I don’t need to explain the baggage that comes along with the word “housewife.” She’s afraid of looking lazy and worthless. (Why do we both feel like not doing ALL THE THINGS makes us lazy? This is rhetorical, I know the answer, it’s garbage.)

3. We’re not alone, right? We know there must be other couples like us out there, but if you google “lesbian housewife,” you wind up with nothing but porn for straight cis dudes (this was a depressing discovery).

I know this is all capitalism and the patriarchy’s fault as per usual but I could use some help untangling this.

A 11:

You have to divorce yourself from the idea that there’s only one right way to create a life with someone you love. You make the rules together and you can change those rules together. It sounds like you’re both extremely self-aware people who have figured out what you want in life AND how to make it happen. Be proud of yourself and decide, today and every day, not to give a single shining fuck what anyone else thinks about anything you’re doing!

If your wife’s family thinks she’s lazy and worthless, they don’t know her and they’ve never run a household. I was a housewife for a decade or more and it was EXHAUSTING but SO MUCH FUN. It was an honor and privilege to have so much control over how I used my time. I learned more about myself and humanity than I could’ve imagined.

And no, you’re not alone! I suggest substituting “queer” for “lesbian” when you’re doing a search like that, specifically to avoid the porn shit. Here are two sites I found with a quick search and I’m sure there are more:

Postnuclear Era
The Queer Housewife

Q 12: Mother’s Day help

How do I dodge direct questions about Mother’s Day? My biological mother is a manipulative, cruel sexual abuser, but I don’t feel comfortable sharing this with coworkers. On the other hand, I can’t stand the patronizing orders to “call her.” I don’t really have anyone else in my life who I would consider a “mother” such as grandmothers or older friends. Should I suck it up and lie? This also makes me feel gross, like she doesn’t even deserve to be lied about, but maybe that’s my best option? I wish I had a clever way to turn this back on the asker without being obvious. Thanks.

A 12:

What if you just matter-of-factly stated that your family doesn’t participate in Mother’s Day? People who ask pointed questions about a personal holiday and then give unsolicited advice are the worst kind of people. Just shut them down as quickly as possible and turn it back to them and their dumb lives. “Oh my family doesn’t observe Mother’s Day. What do you have planned?”

Q 13: Complicated religious question

I first noticed a same-sex attraction to women when I was 18 and kept quiet about it. I tried to make myself interested in guys so much that I’d try online dating or talk to other guys on forums but all we did was talk. I never met them in person or dated them. I just couldn’t go through with it. Around 6 years ago I was trying really hard to be straight, so much in fact that I found an online religious forum and in the prayer section I asked for the members to pray away my same-sex attraction. 3 years of unhappily trying to please everyone I stopped and admitted I was a lesbian. For the past 3 years I have had the worst luck finding a woman to begin a relationship with or even just go on a date. I feel like those members of a Catholic community, mind you, prayed so much that I’ll never be in a relationship. I’ve made myself visible in the LGBT community – online and off -and it feels like I’m cursed and God, the Universe or whoever is up there intervenes and says – Nope, not for you. Some days I just feel like giving up. Why does religion and sexuality have to complicate everything?

A 13:

I am so sorry, this is a terrible way to feel and to think of yourself! I’m confident you’re not cursed, though, and I believe you have just as much of a right and a chance to be happy as anyone else does. Asking for people to pray your gay away wasn’t a fucked up thing that has ruined your chances at happiness. You were doing what you thought was best, and no one — not even you! — can fault you for that. Forgive and love up on the past version of you who tried so hard to do the right thing. I’m sure that was an exhausting and miserable time, and it took a lot of inner work to pull yourself through it.

Dating is hard and stupid and weird. It’s not just you — it’s like that for almost everyone. I mean just take a scan through any advice post on this website and you’ll see that dating and putting yourself out there is something pretty much all of us have slogged through, and there’s no magic answer to make it any easier, other than just doing it. Just keep showing up and being the best version of yourself. Keep being dedicated to your own truth, and to having fun, and to seeing the bizarre beauty of this whole thing.

Q 14: Confused bi/pan/queer

Hi! I am a 24 year old bi/pan/queer woman and I am feeling VERY confused. Specifically, I am confused about how I want to present myself, who I want to make out with/date, and just generally how to be a fully expressed/realised version of my queer self.

Firstly, I am confused about how I dress and hair/makeup etc which sounds vain but I am very femme presenting so I get read as straight which pisses me off. I want to look more futch/tomboy I guess but I look like an awkward teenager if I dress this way! Like lipstick and eyeliner and a dress makes me look my age and put together. If I wear a shirt and jeans it just looks ill fitting and awkward.. any advice?

Secondly, I want to date a lot of people and it is very confusing and overwhelming. I want to meet lots of people and see what happens but my family keep pestering me to find ‘the one’ but I don’t want to find just one person I want to be with lots of people! I think because I haven’t dated anyone in a while I now want to date a lot of people in a casual way… but I have never really done that before…

Which I guess brings me to my last point that I feel kind of like a caterpillar in a little cocoon about to burst forth into all this queerness which is wonderful and exciting but also terrifying. I am not out to my family because they are homophobic but I am tired of hiding and being small. I want to live my life as my complete queer self but it’s scary. I guess I am just writing this for a bit of encouragement to start being myself. Thank you x

A 14:

Ok first of all, you don’t sound vain at all and your family has no say in how you date or when you ‘settle down’ or whatever. If you’re in a safe place and aren’t financially or physically dependent on your family, go ahead and come out to them! It’s absolutely something you can do and that kind of honesty is something you deserve to express. It’s not bad if you don’t come out, but I think a lot of people feel like their own coming out can wait, or that it’s not necessary or that it’s selfish, when actually coming out can feel like taking the first step to being who you really are, and everyone deserves that.

Keep trying different styles of clothes and hair. Hair grows back, so cut it, color it. Clothes can be replaced with other clothes. Try looking for styles and clothes at places you don’t usually buy from. Find a celebrity or even just another regular person whose style you admire and pick it apart. Find versions of what they wear and try them out. Makeup can be worn differently, so look around for other ways to express yourself. Keep trying! There are so many options between eyeliner and a dress and jeans and a t-shirt! And go, get out there and meet people and date them or don’t! Go go go and have fun and be kind and make mistakes and keep trying!

Q 15: Is this as good as it gets?

So basically, I’m unhappy, every day, but I feel like it’s not valid/not a real problem because I am drastically less unhappy than I used to be. I’ve had some serious mental health struggles over the years, and invested many years in an effective outpatient program, as well as finding a medication combination that works well for me. I’m better. I’m a lot better. I’m a lot more functional and a lot less destructive and overall things have really improved for me. But like…..I’m still so unhappy and unfulfilled and just fucking discontent with myself and my life. And I am struggling with whether or not I need to just stop whining and accept that for me this is perhaps just as good as it gets? Like we all have a finite amount of happiness, or a happiness plateau, and this is just mine? Like I’ve improved things a lot but perhaps this is realistically as good as things will ever get for me? And I don’t know what to do with that. Some days I feel like I should just be grateful that I’m much less miserable and dysfunctional than I used to be, instead of complaining that my life isn’t sunshine and rainbows. But other days I feel like if this is as good as it’s possible for me to feel, I’m not sure I can live with that.

A 15:

I don’t know if it’s possible for you to be happier with sunshine and rainbows and all that jazz, but I do feel like you owe it to yourself to keep trying to find out! For me, my depression is like an enormous ocean that I’m always floating on. So some days are sunny and there are cool fish down there in the calm waters and things are cute and great, and other days it’s storming and dark and I can’t sleep or hear anyone over the roaring and crashing waves. I try so hard, constantly, to remember all the days on this ocean, and accept that all of them can’t be sunny and know deep deep down that all of them won’t be dark. Maybe there are small bursts of happiness for you and you’re not putting as much stock into them because they don’t sustain themselves and don’t last longer? Even the happiest motherfuckers aren’t happy all the time though. Maybe the difference is that ‘happy people’ are just the ones who recognize all the times they’re happy and keep them together in a lantern to use when it gets dark?

I really don’t know. I wish I had a neat answer for you. I’m not sure if it’s possible for everyone to ‘find happiness’ in the way that we’re taught to define happiness. Maybe it’s a matter of redefining happiness. I think just keep trying to find out if you can be even a little happier. Try small things, like really fucking small things: a new plant, changing the curtains in your bedroom, playing different types of music. See how those things feel and then keep trying small things? As always, I think a therapist could help! If you’re already seeing one, maybe try another one, or a different type of therapy altogether.

I know you deserve to feel happy. I do know that.

Q 16: In love with my friend and can’t get over it.

I fell hard for my friend when I met her online, a year and a half ago. It was a love forged out of shared interests and misery; we met through a love of the same fandoms, and we’d both been single for a long time and suspected that we were both too difficult in our own ways to find relationships again. She understood me in a way that I rarely feel understood. I could talk to her about anything. I fell pretty fast.

We live far apart, but I invited her to join me at a queer event I was attending, and decided to ask her on a date while we were there. When we got there, she wasn’t interested. Not in the same way I was. We talked about it, and realized that we’re not very compatible romantically. So part of what I can’t quite parse about all of this is it’s not about not getting what I want. If we tried to be together, we wouldn’t make it past sex or even making out for the first time without annoying each other very quickly.

But of course hearts are stupid and don’t listen to logic.

I might have walked away from that and cried for a few days then returned just as really good long distance friends. If anything she proved how awesome a pal she is by not ghosting on me when I told her I was into her. I felt like she was that much more trustworthy as a friend by navigating that awkwardness, and talking to me honestly about her feelings instead of freaking out. Things might have been fine, except at that event we met people who host another event, which is in her city. I told her she should go – I would go, if I could have. It was exactly the sort of thing we both love.
So she went. And she met a girl there. And they started dating.

I know partly, I lost my partner in misery. We were both convinced there was something essentially unlovable about us, and she found someone she loves who loves her back. She broke free from that while I’m still there – and feeling like it’s that much more true in my case, because look what happened when I tried. Partly, I feel like I’m getting kicked around by bad luck. I’ve been in a bad place financially for a while now, and she’s been very generous to me with emotional support and gifts. I suspect her generosity comes from gratitude that she has a girlfriend because I got her to get out of her house and do things. But that feels weird, like I’m a supporting character in someone else’s story. Especially since it’s a story I wanted a leading role in.

I met her girlfriend a few months ago, and was shocked to find myself being catty towards her. This isn’t a way I’ve ever acted before, not even with exes and their new partners. And now, they just got engaged. I’m already dreading being invited to the wedding. I feel miserable, and I also feel like a jerk for not being happy for my friend. I know she’s going to want to talk about her hopes and fears about all of this, and all I can think about is how falling in love with a girl and then inadvertently causing her to meet her future wife feels like a trick has been played on me. It’s nobody’s fault. Nobody set out to hurt me. But I am very hurt and I don’t know how to get past it and stop being jealous of her relationship.

A 16:

Your subject line is that you can’t get over your friend but the thing to remember is that you have to. You have to get over her and move on. I can’t tell you how to do that with any specificity, but I can say that no, you’re not being a good friend if you can’t be happy for her, and if you can’t stop yourself from being catty toward her fiancee. That’s absolutely not to say that you’re not being a good person or that I don’t understand exactly where you’re coming from — I do! I have lived through a similar thing, it was a pile of shit. I understand and I sympathize with you, but you have to get your shit together here!

Instead of continuing to believe that you’re unlovable (which is not even close to true!), choose to see her situation as proof that you aren’t unlovable, let it give you hope. It’s trying to give you hope and you’re being a real bitch to it by not letting it give you that hope. Let it give you hope!

You were not the right person for her, and thus — and this is important! — she was not the right person for you. A person can’t be the right person for you if you’re not the right person for them. It doesn’t work that way. She was not and is not the right person for you. Period.

You have a leading role in your own story, right now. Caving to the feeling that you’re a supporting character in someone else’s story doesn’t give your story justice, and that’s shitty of you. Your story is very interesting and full of potential and excitement and everything, and you have to see that! You just do! You have to see it. Stop not seeing it! SEE IT. And stop suspecting that her generosity isn’t just that: generosity. Stop suspecting that she’s trying to assuage her guilt or show her undying appreciation for your encouragement. Let it just be generosity, and be grateful for it.

So in short, you have to get over her and you have to make yourself do it. Everyone has had to get over someone, so know in your heart that you aren’t alone in this experience. It’s easier to get over people when you cut ties with them, even if it’s just for a little while, so you can reset your life and begin to see them differently. That takes time but it’s 100% possible and necessary! And you have to love yourself and your story more. If you don’t love your story, change things about it but never forget that it’s YOUR STORY, the one you’re starring in.

I BELIEVE IN YOU.

Q 17: Repression?

I realized I was a lesbian almost a year ago, and spent several months after that coming to terms with things. I’m definitely in an okayer place than I was last summer, but I haven’t really liked anyone since then, and I can’t tell if that’s normal for me or because of repression. I’m not even fully sure what a crush would feel like because the things I was later able to identify as crushes on girls mostly involved me building a wall between me and my feelings and the “crushes” I had on boys I could feel so much more strongly because they were me renaming the very strong anxiety I felt about a guy getting near me. The times I know I had feelings for a girl are few and far between, but I don’t know if that’s because I don’t develop feelings easily or because I was so deeply in the closet any feelings had to be super strong to escape being shoved into my subconscious forever. This is very much in contrast to one of my straight friends, who once told me she had crushes on ten (10!) boys at once (which probably isn’t normal, but I don’t have much of a benchmark for these things here). If anything, I can’t help but wonder if realizing I was a lesbian made it harder for me to like girls because now any plausible deniability about my feelings is gone. I guess what I’m asking is: Am I being over dramatic and worrying about nothing or am I really still repressing my feelings the way I did a year ago? And if so, is there any way to stop repressing everything, because spending the rest of my life unable to love fully sounds not fun?

A 17:

It is totally normal to not have a crush or be into anyone, even for a year, especially in the first year after you’ve come out. You won’t spend the rest of your life unable to love fully because eventually someone will come along who’ll blow your doors clean off, and you’ll have no choice but to love her. And maybe, like the person up above you here in this post, she won’t love you back and you’ll WISH you could go back to having no feelings at all, but you can’t! So you’ll have to power through all that hurt and bullshit just like #16 there, and you will. And maybe months will go by and you’ll have no feelings for anyone but then, somehow and because the universe is wild and crazy, someone else will come along and you’ll be like UGH DAMN IT, HERE WE GO AGAIN.

Life is a fun ride, and you’re doing great! Also I think it’s normal to have crushes on up to 10 people at once because crushes are just excited feelings you get about a person without the full commitment of actually doing anything with or for that person, which is very nice and safe.

Q 18: Confused baby dyke.

About a year ago I came out as bi and quickly ended up in a relationship with one of my best friends. We have been dating for just over a year and they were my first kiss. When we first started dating they were presenting as female but have since come out as trans FTM. This was fine with me and probably not relevant to the story but I think its important that he is queer. Anyway. The relationship is nuts. He is my best friend and I care about him on a very deep level. But he is also one of those people who said he ‘loved’ me after one week of dating. He also keeps planning things insanely far in the future. Its hard to tell him when he does something that makes me uncomfortable because he blames himself and goes off the deep end. To be honest I have wanted to break up with him for a while but he is a half suicidal mess and currently in the middle of coming out to his family. I am worried if I break up with him he will do something stupid and there aren’t many resources I can reach out too. I am tired of feeling like his therapist and dealing with wild mood swings. Over the past year I developed depression and an eating disorder. Its not fair to say he caused it, but he has put me in a lot of stressful situations. What can I do? Im also afraid of losing my best and only friend.

A 18:

You should break up with him. Here is our entire catalog of breakup stories and advice. His mental health crisis is creating a toxic relationship riddled with manipulation that, even if it’s unintentional, is playing a role in the ruin of your own mental and physical health, and it can’t go on.

Break up with him. His mental health is his responsibility just like yours is yours and mine is mine. We can and should rely on other people who love us and look to them for help when we need it, but it’s ultimately up to each of us to take action for ourselves in an effort to survive and thrive and be healthy. No one can make us healthy or even help us get a little healthier without us putting in our own work. He’s responsible for that work and he’s responsible for his own decisions.

There are online resources if you don’t have local ones available. Put together a list for him and offer to help him find someone who is trained to help people. You can’t be that person for him. Hopefully, after some work on his part and after you’ve had some time and space to work through your own health, you can be friends later. But right now this isn’t a friendship so much as it’s an unhealthy codependence.

Q 19:

I’m a lesbian in college. Freshman year I had a childhood friend that I hadn’t seen in years as my suitemate, and we rekindled our friendship. She told me she was a lesbian too (and asexual: that is important later). Now we are sophomores, and we are still rooming together… and I have a massive crush on her, even more than I did freshman year.

This wouldn’t be a problem, as I am fairly skilled at dealing with having unrequited feelings and I got over it freshman year, but recently (past two or three months) she has started saying and doing things that indicate my feelings may be requited, which confuses/upsets me, because I had gotten used to the idea that nothing romantic was going to happen between us. She told me freshman year that she’s fairly neutral on being in a relationship, and since she’s asexual she’s fairly neutral (or negative) on physical affection in general. Yet she holds my hand and takes my arm and hugs me all the time (I do mean ALL the time), and it’s becoming difficult for me to separate my desire for physical affection in general (from anyone, regardless of context) from my desire for romantic physical affection when I am with her.

I am not sure whether I should withdraw from the physical affection she offers me (which would depress me; I need physical affection lest I perish) or confess my desire to change the nature of our relationship from friendship to platonic romance (I’ve not much interest in sex either) OR just deal with the fact that I’m only going to get non-romantic affection from a person I’d very much like to be romantic with. Advice on which option to choose or tips for each?

A 19:

I think you could confess to wanting something more romantic while reiterating that you don’t have much of an interest in sex either, etc, and go from there. If she doesn’t want to move your friendship to a more platonic romance situation, you have two options: frankly telling her how the touching makes you feel and then setting up boundaries round that, or letting the touching continue while you work very hard internally to divorce that from anything else in your imagination. You just have to decide how important the physical affection is to you! Seems like it’s pretty important, so maybe get some practices in place for yourself to help deal with your other feelings!

AREN’T FEELINGS GRAND. I bet you wish you could get a little bit of what #17 is having right now, hm?

Let’s all have some nachos, for this has been a very long post with lots of stuff and things. GOOD WORK OUT THERE, EVERYONE.

Y’All Need Help is a biweekly advice column in which I pluck out a couple of questions from the You Need Help inbox and answer them right here, round-up style, quick and dirty! (Except sometimes it’s not quick, but that’s my prerogative, OK?) You can chime in with your own advice in the comments and submit your own quick and dirty questions any time.

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