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Together Forever: Gay and Lesbian Couples Share Their Secrets for Lasting Happiness
 
 
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Together Forever: Gay and Lesbian Couples Share Their Secrets for Lasting Happiness [Paperback]

Eric Marcus (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)


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Book Description

May 18, 1999
Traveling across the United States, Eric Marcus met and interviewed forty gay and lesbian couples who have achieved the dream of a happy, lasting relationship. In Together Forever, Marcus writes about their lives and the secrets to long-term happiness these couples have learned over the nine to fifty years they've been together.

From Together Forever:

On Meeting:  "I said to myself, 'That's it. ' I don't know what 'it' was, but there was just something that was apparent to me right then--it was just a very deep sense of recognition that something was there that you had looked for all of your life. And it was there when you least expected it. "--Anyda, eighty-six

On Difference:  "The icing on the cake was after we had sex, after this very lovely experience with Curt, he said, 'Do you want milk and cookies?' And I thought, He's like a big girl, you know? And we're sharing vanilla wafers and milk in bed. And I finally got it at that point. That leather coat, the jeans, everything, it was just a fashion statement. "--Brian, thirty-five

On Monogamy:  "I really believed in nonmonogamy as an ideal...I still think if we worked really hard on making nonmonogamy work, we could probably do it, but I can probably learn Chinese, too. Look, I'm a vegetarian, but I still have a leather couch. No one's perfect."--Lindsy, fifty-two

On What Makes a Happy Relationship:  "I feel that it's the same secret between a gay couple or a lesbian couple as a heterosexual couple. It's sharing. It's giving a little, taking a little. Because if everything is going to be only about me, me, me, it's not going to be a good relationship. "--Stewart, forty-four

Most people long for a lasting love relationship. The couples in Together Forever have found it. Their experiences offer lessons to us all.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Just because gay men and lesbians are denied the right to get married under the law does not mean that there have not been gay "marriages": committed, sustained, emotional and physical relationships. In Together Forever, journalist Eric Marcus interviews 40 gay and lesbian couples who have maintained decades-long relationships and presents us with a complex tapestry of love, desire, and friendship that is as stirring as it is heartwarming, as invigorating as it is moving. While Together Forever contains much of what you might expect--coming-out stories, meeting-cute stories, tales of horrific homophobic cruelty, and just-folks-at-home images--Marcus is an astute enough writer and interviewer that the individual tales are always surprising. He is also not a single-minded booster for idealized, perfect relationships. Many of the couples here talk about their hard times with one another as well as their struggles with work and family. A compelling theme running through the book is how sexuality shapes and informs long term relationships. Questions of fidelity, open relationships, and monogamy surface in these interviews, discussed with honesty and a rare understanding and compassion. Written with a incisive eye for detail and an ear for the quirky phase and insight, Together Forever is a welcomed addition to the ever-increasing wealth of materials on the complexity and courage of gay and lesbian relationships. --Michael Bronski --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A complex tapestry of love, desire, and friendship that is as stirring as it is heartwarming, as invigorating as it is moving--written with an incisive eye for detail and an ear for the quirky phrase and insight. "
--Michael Bronski, Amazon. com

Product Details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Anchor; Reprint edition (May 18, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0385488769
  • ISBN-13: 978-0385488761
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,147,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully affirming of lasting same sex relationships!, May 26, 1998
By 
D. Tussey (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Together Forever (Hardcover)
Eric Marcus proves once again that strong, loving relationships between people, are the same regardless of the gender of the couple. This book was a pleasure to read because it gave an honest glimpse into the lives of couples who have spent many years loving one another in spite of a sometimes disapproving world. I found many of the comments and responses of the couples to be very touching. Love is love is love.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Being in Love, January 2, 2003
By 
This review is from: Together Forever: Gay and Lesbian Couples Share Their Secrets for Lasting Happiness (Paperback)
To be able to find that special someone in the sea of crowds & fall in love it's a beautiful thing. What makes it even better is that these love stories last through the years. Dispite being in a sometimes discriminating society when it comes to gender issues, I applaud all the couples who have made it this far and to more years to come.

Through all the individual stories I read, I smile, I cried. Most importantly, I began to believe in love again.

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2.0 out of 5 stars 40 SAME-SEX COUPLES, September 24, 2010
This review is from: Together Forever: Gay and Lesbian Couples Share Their Secrets for Lasting Happiness (Paperback)
Eric Marcus
Together Forever:
Gay and Lesbian Marriage

(New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1998) 347 pages
(ISBN: 0-385-48875-0; hardback)
(Library of Congress call number: HQ76.3.U5M354 1998)

This book is based on interviews with 40 couples
who had been together at least 9 years
in what they described as a happy relationship
--20 gay male couples and 20 lesbian couples.
The over-all impression is that these are quite ordinary relationships.
The major themes: how they met; starting the relationship;
differences in life-style and personality; open or closed relationship;
housekeeping together; levels of commitment; work and colleagues;
handling money; sex; dealing with families; raising children;
problems in the relationship; dealing with change;
being public about the relationship; aging; death;
what makes a happy relationship?
The book includes pictures of several of the couples interviewed.

If you would like to read other books on same-sex marriage,
search the Internet for the following bibliography:
"SAME-SEX MARRIAGE--FIRST BOOKS".
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
MY HEAD is filled with the remarkably engaging "how we met" stories of the forty couples I interviewed, and I wish I could tell them all: Stewart and Stanley, two nice middle-aged men who met at a bathhouse in Queens, New York. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
gay kit, forty couples, separate finances
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, San Francisco, Long Island, Salt Lake City, Palo Alto, Central Park, Correction Officers, Gay Men's Health Crisis, Mormon Church, Slut of the Western World, The Male Couple's Guide, World Bank
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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