Mr. and Mr. Chadwick were very very conflicted about their desire to get divorced. They were a gay couple, about 35 years old, they’d been together since middle school and they’d been out together since undergrad. They were always best friends, their parents were so happy they had such a good friend in one another. They were the rock of their decades long friend group. Their love was a truth in the lives of their friends – all of whom were their age, unmarried, but hopeful.

They felt bad about the notion of letting their friends down, suggesting that eternal love is not always eternal, and for dissolving the rock at the center of their friend group. They were also, of course, scared to be apart!

There was also the political ramifications of their choice to divorce. They had been staunch marriage equality advocates from the age of 19. They had decided together to come out, they hosted a dinner with all four of their parents to tell them. It was, to their surprise, a joyous occasion. Being so accepted by their parents drove them to want that for all the gay kids. So they moved to DC and took up the fight.

They married the day it became legal.

It was as though the fight for marriage equality was the extent to which they’d prepared because once they actually wed, they were fighting constantly, they both felt experimental and claustrophobic, and they no longer knew how to relate to one another without the shared struggle and mission. They started taking vacations separately, making elaborate excuses to not attend friends’ functions together. One or the other was always “working late” or “not feeling up to it” or “buried with housework.” They exhausted every possible excuse before even discussing it with one another.