December 2002

Dear Dale: I notice how positive your point of view always is. Even though your optimism is surprisingly contagious, I am not so sure that reality looks like you see it. My first lover left me after six years together for a college student 15 years younger than me. With three tries behind me, I don’t believe I’m interested in a having a partner anymore. I have a good job, my terrier, friends, vacations, and an occasional fling. Do you ever feel like you are promoting co-dependency, Dale? I don’t mean to be mean. I believe this is a legitimate point of view.
-- Terrance via e-mail from Millbrae

Dear Terrance: Perfect that you accept yourself as you are, and enjoy your life as it is. Distinguish co-dependency from inter-dependency. Inter-dependency – shared needs, values, goals, interests, culture and community – makes both friendly and romantic relationships thrive. That you are content being single I accept, but I have a concern regarding your reason.

Three or seven or seventeen bad experiences do not make your next opportunity more likely to fail. In fact, I venture that you have learned valuable lessons to employ. Enter each day fresh rather than historically, looking at this moment rather than remembering the past. In this moment if you are grateful in your heart for your life just as it is, then peace is yours. Yet even where there is peace, there are different kinds of it. And one can have peace, and still have options for growth.

I understand that it is not your mission to grow through committing to a life-partnership. You thrive on being home with your terrier, and spending time with friends. My clients thrive on practical, emotional, spiritual, sexual, monogamous union. Many of my clients have children. No, I do not promote co-dependency, Terrance. I promote love, commitment, and inter-dependency.

Dear Dale: Tomorrow my partner and I complete our move to Canada, where I posted bond to secure his permanent residency. We are leaving our home, jobs and friends because the US government does not treat gay commitments the same as straight marriages. I imagine you have lots of couples that read you as religiously as we do. Let them know the US dollar goes a lot further in the big country up north, and you won’t get separated from you partner there like you do in America.
-- Ryan Lewis and Craig Hussain via e-mail, formerly from Los Altos

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