Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Where is everyone today? Reluctant update.

Dear Steve:

I'm really sorry you're having such a rough time right now. I'm sure you already know this, but it can never hurt to say it a few more times - her sexuality is not your fault. It's possible that she was always conflicted about whether or not she was gay - there are some huge societal pressures for people to be heterosexual despite how they feel. Or perhaps she's bisexual - we often forget that as an option when we're trying to pin people down on one side of the sexuality spectrum or the other.

The end of a relationship is always difficult, but this definitely adds a whole other dimension that most people don't have to deal with. It sounds like you have a good amount to access to the kids. It's a good sign that you were recently able to have a good chat with your ex-wife, it's not the first time I've heard of a friendship lasting beyond the end of the relationship. I've personally never been able to do it, and I admire people that can.

Hang in there. I know it might be too soon to think about it yet, but the world is full of good and loving people. I hope you meet someone who treats you like you've always wanted to be treated (and vice versa of course!)

Jeanna

Dear Maggie from Oz.

Please know that I'm replying to your post with the utmost respect. I enjoy reading your posts. I am also completely sympathetic to Steve's situation. However, I feel it is unfair to comment that his ex's sexuality is abnormal, and to extrapolate further that her relationship will harm the children.

Hetero-, homo-, bi-sexuality are all 'normal' choices. Homosexuality may not be the majority choice, but it doesn't mean that it is abnormal.

Any divorce (and seemingly especially those that involve children) has the potential for one or both parties to be 'bitter'. What is most important is that both parents are respectful in front of the children in all areas concerning the other parent, and that they assert over and over again that the break-up was in no way related to the kids themselves.

If you're using normal as majority, then the 'normal' family - children living with both biological (and married) parents is probably less of a majority than what you think. People are choosing to live together and have children without being married. Step-parents and step-children make up many households these days, 'blended' families with children from two different marriages live under the same roof. People are adopting children from their own and other societies. Gay couples are having children of their own (through miracles of medical science), and adopting children too.

Isn't the most important thing that people who have an significant role in the life of a child love that child, care and nuture them, and support them throughout their lives? Any person, regardless of their sexuality can provide those things.

Respectfully yours,
Jeanna

I can never figure out if you are seriously trolling or just live in some sort of parallel universe. Your comments regarding children being "confused" by being raised by single parents, divorced parents, or gay parents should be offensive to every single or divorced parent of either sex or sexual orientation with children and with or without custody in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia and Polynesia.

Margaret,

I have to agree with Belle and say that I am very troubled by the clear bias that you are demonstrating in your posts about Steve's children. I will not speak for the moderators here, but there is a clear history in KA of controversial topics such as religion, politics, and others being more or less "off-limits" unless the discussions they are part of are relevant to the treatment of AS or living with AS. The believe as to whether or not homosexiuality is "normal" behavior is right about at the top of the controversy list, I would say, and I think perhaps this entire discussion about what happens to children raised in households with two homosexual parents should be tabled right now.

In his beginning post, Steve was simply talking about an event that happened in his life, one that he feels was AS played a part in. After rereading them, I cannot see anywhere that he made any value judgements about his wife's sexual orientation or it's effects on their children. He certainly let his ex's new mate have it with a few other well-timed potshots, but they didn't involve her sexuality. Heck, who could talk calmly about the man or woman who helped break up his/her marriage? Steve was just expressing emotions you would expect him to have, and with Steve's already infamous outspoken attitude here at KA, I gotta say that his comments were unexpectedly, uh, mild (I bet I'd hear the "non-mild" version if I PM'd you on that one, wouldn't I steve? ).

In your first reponse and your subsequent answer to Belle, however, you have made it very clear how you feel about homesexuality when it concerns families and raising children. I disagree with you on this matter completely, and that is where the problem begins. Because a topic like this one IS so controversial and brings about extremely strong feelings in most people no matter which side they believe in, and because it has NOTHING to do with AS in this context (certainly, there are ways this issue could be part of a relevant AS thread, but this is not it), I think it would be best if the discussion of that portion of this thread stopped immediately. It is is not, I have no doubt that the moderators will step in and lock the post.

I want to make one important point very clear right here: I am NOT asking that the topic be droppee because I disagree with you, although I have made it clear I do disagree. I am asking that the topic be dropped because it clearly violates this portion of the KA Rigts and Responsibilities (see the link at the top of every page):

[color red]All KickAS members will be expected to:

a) Conduct themselves in a respectful manner, which includes, but is not limited to, the following:

i) The use of language suitable for all, including those of a young age or sensitive nature
ii) Consideration for the opinions, religions, nationalities and political views of all other members. (Color text and bolding added by me to indicate that this section was quoted material --B.)

This discussion no longer meets the expectations established in section ii of letter a. Sexuality is not specifically mentioned, true; "consideration for opinions" is, however, and the R & R document continues on to make perhaps its key point:

[color red]All KickAS members have the right to expect:

a) A safe and supportive environment where sufferers and their loved ones can share with - and learn from - the experiences of others coping with Ankylosing Spondylitis and other rheumatological conditions.

This discussion has already veered away from "supportive" aspect of KA amd will only get worse if the oncoming debate over sexuality is allowed to continue. I can say that with certainty because I know that my own feelings on the issue are quite strong and I would not be able to stand by without making my own strongly worded post in reply to items already posted. That, in turn, would lead to other strongly worded posts taking me to task, and off to the races we'd be. But wait, doesn't free speech allow us to talk about any topic if we so desire? I'm an editor and writer--I worship the idea of free speech, but as we have been told before (and I support in theory), this is a privately owned and operated forum, an free speech extends no further than the owners of the forum allow it to extend.

A long-winded way to ask that you, Belle, and other let this part of the thread die a natural death, but there have been a LOT of new members joining KA lately, so I thought it would be good to explain why anyone--moderator or member--would ask that a topic be made "off-limits" Please know Margaret--and anyone that agrees with her--I am in no way doing this to attack you personally or to stop your views on this topic from being heard. I would be doing the same if someone had touched off this thread with posts directly contradicting yours--all I can do is offer you my word on that. Just because we disagree on this topic does not mean that I respect you any less or value your contributions to KA any less than before this matter arose. I do hope you believe that; I have enjoyed many of your posts in the past few months, and I know I will continue to enjoy your future posts as well.

Moderators--If I am wrong about how this post should play out from here, please let me know publicly with a post in this thread, and also send me a PM so I know to return to this thread and edit my last post (delete it, that is; in fact, if you I was wrong about this, any moderator has my permission to delete the content of this post). I was not trying to do your jobs for you--it's just that I figured I was the only insomniac here at 4:30 a.m. Eastern time so I would be proactive and try to nip this in the bug. If I was wrong, very sorry about that, and won't happen again!

Oh, and just as an FYI Steve--my wife also, uh, tried out for the other team once during our marriage, but she decided that she was happy with her original orientation and did not take things any further. It might have been a very good thing if their relationship had worked, as my AS was flaring horribly at the time that she met this woman, and it probably was partially due to the stress caused by our already deteriorating marriage, which procedeed to get worse. Had she left me for anyone at that time--man or woman--it would have saved more heartache down the road, definitely.

Brad

YIKES! I was definitely not the only one toddling around KA right now, as three new posts went up in this thread while I was busy righting my book-length post, two of them making a very similar point to the one I made. That makes me feel better, and on firmer ground. I forget that just because my corner of the workd is supposed to be asleep, many other parts are wide awake (nice response on yor post Jeanna).

Brad

Think of how your kids would feel reading these comments or some of these responses in public.

the children should come first, and that they need to be exposed to the normal family relationships

Some normal families are pretty bizarre places, but what children need is the time, and the love, of their parents, whatever the sexual orientation.

Good morning to you Jeanna,

You had this quote in your post to Steve: " . . . it's not the first time I've heard of a friendship lasting beyond the end of the relationship." Amazingly enough, I have remained good friends with the only two women who I was in committed, serious relationships with. One I dated for over a year in college, and I was convinced we were going to get married; so was she at one point, but she got bored and slept with someone else then confessed it to me almost immediately. We weren't too friendly for about six months, but then we found ourselved living across the hall from each other during a summer term in Ann Arbor at UM. I don't know if it was the laid-back summer vibe that always filled A2 or just the fact that time had healed the open wounds, but we started talking when she moved in across the hall, and by the end of summer we were good friends again and we ended up trading letters for two years while she attended grad school at USC. Soon enough, she got married out there, and hat was the immediate end of any letters of phone calls--apparently her hubbie was the jealous type. Which is too bad, because we never once even thought about the friends with benefits thing--we were just good friends who shared a lot of the same opinions.

The second one involves my current situation.My wife and I split up back in early 2004, but we had drifted apart a good two years before that. It took her finally making the move to bring things to a head, as she had made me promise I owuld never leave her (serious, serious abandonment issues from her youth, which I understood and respected, although it did lead to undue difficulties for both of us). Once she said she had to leave and we were done, it was like a huge weight was lifted off both of us. Sure there was a lot of sadness when she finally moved to her own place two months later, but without the anchor of the marriage around our necks, we were free to once again be ourselves and reconnect with the good parts in the other person, the parts that drew us together in the first place. We recognized that we had just developed some different goals and values over the course of six years, and that made the separation much easier.

And I say separation because, believe it or not, that is still where we stand. Since she moved out in 2004, we first agreed not to divorce until early 2005 for tax reasons and so she would hav better healthcare for as long as possible. When we finally did see the lawyer in 2005 and have the paperwork drawn up, she came down with some serious health problems that actually were bad enough to rival my own. She was temporarily unemployed then, and NO WAY was I going to let her face her illnesss without insurance or meds. She got one of her old jobs back not to long after that and had her own insurance again, but her problems continued to get worse and she was facing tremenduos stress because not all of her ailments were easily or quickly diagnosable (although the docs did eventually find everying and she is finally getting better ). We then decided to wait until Jan. 2006 to wait for THAT round of taxes, and we talked tonight and agreed that as soon as she gets back from a one week trip to Maryland, we are once and for all going to file all the paperwork and actually get that divorce.

Oh, did I mention she's been living in my house since November 2005? No? Must have let the slip. She had moved to Baltimore area for a while to try working at a branch of the retail chain for which she worked and because she loved the area and had friends there, but the job didn't work out and then her health rapidly deteriorated. She needed her family and friends, and I invited her to move in back with me. It's been very tough on us at times--once again, we're both seeing first-hand that we are MUCH better friends whenwe don't live together, and man, I just WANT MY HOUSE BACK!!! I lived alone for 10 years before I was married, and it took me, oh, about a day, to get used to living on my own again nce she moved out. Neither of us are particularly neat people, although I do have her beat by a fair piece, and I am SO glad that she will be moving out no later than June 1 (a friend from Baltimore is moving here and hey are going to get a place together). Despite any differences we have, I am very glad we have been able to reman friends through all that we've experienced, and I know that she cares about me very deeply (as do I care for her)--things would so much harder if our split had been acrimonious. Still, it's funny when people ask why she is at my house, and when I explain she is living three and we are still good friends, almost all of them are just stunned (esp. the ones who have been through their own divorce are the most incredulous!!!).

Ugh, enough, enough. I have to go to sleep. Have a good day across the pond Jeanna (and everyone else near and far, for that matter)

Brad

Playtpus,

Quote:

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It is very sad that she cannot have sexual contact in a more "normal" way.

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What is normal for one, may not be normal for another.....define normal.

Steve,

Things will get better. Focus on yourself and your kids. One more thing....you and your wife had to of been in love at one time. You share the world's greatest gift...children.

Take care,
Cara