Lesbian Ex-Lovers: The Really Long-Term Relationships

"We have earned a certain place in each other’s lives, and in the best of times we can rest on what we have made together."

Lesbian Ex-Lovers: The Really Long-Term Relationships examines the need for the development of better understanding and more critical analysis of lesbian ex-lover relationships. This eye-opening look into the minds and hearts of women offers personal insight into the possibilities for and potential pitfalls of lesbian ex-lover relations. This book contains personal stories, fictional accounts, poetry, and theoretical analyses of the frequency and significance of ex-lovers at different stages in a relationship.

Topics of interest in Lesbian Ex-Lovers include:

• the roles ex-lovers play in our lives
• ex-lovers as contexts for change and development
• how we continue to be influenced by ex-lovers
• letting go and moving on
• ex-lovers as current friends and family
• themes of betrayal and loss of faith
• reconstructing friendships and community
• the mystique of the ex-lover
• friend/family connections among lesbian ex-lovers

Lesbian Ex-Lovers is the only book in print that explores how a lesbian’s ex-lovers impact her subsequent romances and lifestyle. This special collection adds a new dynamic to the current literature for and about the lesbian community.

Lesbian Ex-Lovers offers advice, anecdotes, and interpretations from such authors, poetesses, and artists as:

• Michelle Gibson, PhD—educator and editor of Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go— who says goodbye to her lover in a sad, passionate elegy
• Marny Hall—Psychotherapist, editor of the anthology Sexualities, and author of several books, including The Lavender Couch: A Consumer’s Guide to Psychotherapy for Lesbians and Gay Men—who muses on the unique bonding between lesbians and their ex-lovers, lending a mystique that surrounds the lesbian lifestyle
• Alison Bechdel—creator of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For—who presents a humorous comic strip thanking her former lovers for teaching her about herself
• Jane Futcher—newspaper reporter and author of three novels—who uses a chapter in her novel to illustrate the tensions that can occur when ex-lovers choose to remain friends, especially when those bonds provoke jealousy in both current and ex-lovers
• Renny Christopher—educator and award-winning poetess—who expresses her love, loss, and regret in three poems about her ex-lover
• and much more!

This volume contains personal stories, fictional accounts, poetry, and theoretical analyses considering how a lesbian's ex-lovers affect her subsequent romances and lifestyle. Contributions include (for example) a novelist's description of the tensions that can develop when ex-lovers choose to remain friends; a psychotherapist's explanation of the role transition from lover to ex-lover; and a humorous comic strip by Alison Bechdel. The volume has been simultaneously published as Journal of Lesbian Studies, vol. 8, nos. 3/4, 2004. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR