The lesbian relationship cycle explained

I pull off my shelf the well-known book ‘The Road Less Travelled’ by psychotherapist Dr M. Scott Peck. Gathering dust for many years its’ been waiting for the day to finally be opened.

I read my way through the first chapter and am presented with the second: ‘LOVE’. As I turn the pages I increasingly become absorbed, but not with how the information relates to me, but by how I could relate it too so many lesbian relationships!

Dr Scott Peck starts the chapter by stating that ‘of all the misconceptions about love the most powerful and pervasive is the belief that “falling in love” is love or at least one of the manifestations of love. It is a potent misconception…the experience of falling in love is specifically a sex-linked erotic experience...we fall in love only when we are consciously or unconsciously sexually motivated.

‘The experience of falling in love is invariably temporary. No matter whom we fall in love with, we sooner or later fall out of love if the relationship continues long enough. This is not to say that we invariably cease loving the person with whom we fell in love. But it is to say that the feeling of ecstatic lovingness that characterises the experiences of falling in love always passes'.

Of course we’re all familiar with the ‘honeymoon’ stage at the beginning, but it’s when Peck goes on to explain the relationship cycle in more detail, that I think of how fast lesbian relationships seem to go from meeting someone, to moving in together, (to getting civil-partnered in many cases) and then as fast as it seemed to start, it’s all over. Thankfully we have Facebook, a blessing in disguise for lesbians to keep us up-to-date and informed of who’s with whom.

'The experience of falling in love…permits one to merge her identity with that of another person…the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved…experienced by most of us as ecstatic. We and our beloved are one! All things seem possible! United with our beloved we feel we can conquer all obstacles. We believe that the strength of our love will cause the forces of opposition to bow down in submission and melt away into the darkness. All problems will be overcome. The future will be all light.

Sooner or later, in response to the problems of daily living, individual will reasserts itself. You want to have sex; she doesn’t. You want to go to the movies; she doesn’t. You want to put money in the bank; she wants a dishwasher. So both of them, in the privacy of their hearts, begin to come to the realisation that they are not ‘one’ with the beloved, that the beloved has and will continue to have their own desires, tastes, prejudices and timing different from the other’s…they fall out of love. Once again they are two separate individuals. At this point they begin either to dissolve the ties of the relationship or initiate the work of real loving’.

I’ve continually questioned the speed, intensity, ditching of friends and loss of individual identity with lesbian relationships, subjects I covered previously in ‘Relationships on the first date’, ‘Lesbians + internet dating = Removal vans’ and 'Losing Friendships when THEY gain lovers’.

Now it all makes perfect sense.