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The fact is, gay marriage is such a contentious issue because the concept of the "nuclear family" is the foundation for much of our current public policy and political priorities. That's a matter of history and ingrained cultural and legal tradition that's hard to break out of.The "nuclear family" isn't going away any time soon -- and recognition of same-sex marriages will necessarily expand the definition of "nuclear family." Here are some of the far-reaching consequences of this redefinition:Foreseen Consequences: Federal recognition of same-sex marriages will bring the Church/State separation debate to a head in a way that few other issues (with the possible exception of abortion) can.This will change the nature of the "gay" debate. The current opponents of same-sex marriage are generally focused on "Why same-sex marriages are (or, are not) bad for the children/America/society." (That is, on the nature of homosexuality.) However, once same-sex marriages are legally recognized, this focus will necessarily need to shift to, "Why you personally have (or don't have) the right to deny recognition of/service to same-sex couples." (That is, focus on your individual right to exercise your beliefs.)Unforeseen Consequence: It will shift the major players in the "gay" debate. Once the Federal government recognizes same-sex marriages, overtly faith-based groups will be pretty much the only actors with legitimate authority to establish and maintain "Heterosexuals Only" zones. Aside from completely overturning the law that permits same-sex marriage, the most visible and fruitful gains opponents can make will be in the "Right to religious freedom" domain. This means that religious, semi-religious and non-religious individuals who staunchly oppose gay rights will channel their support/funding/power away from political organizations and into faith-based organizations, who will channel most of their energy into "freedom of religion" battles.Foreseen Consequences: Public schools will no longer be able to ignore/exclude the fact of homosexuality.Those that ban teachers from mentioning LGBTQ couples/families will be forced to reconsider this policy once the relationships are federally sanctioned. This will also directly impact: inclusion of LGBTQ issues in the sex ed curriculum; allowing more Gay/Straight alliance clubs at public schools; permitting transgender expression among students; and permitting same-sex couples at school-sanctioned social events.Unforeseen Consequence: I suspect that in the backlash against these actions, we will see stronger support for faith-centric activities in schools, such as the inclusion of intelligent design in science curricula; greater support for permitting deity-specific prayer in schools; and in particular greater formalization of "opt-out" structures - allowing parents to pull their children from classes which contradict their faith.Foreseen Consequences: Federal funding of social programs will be under more scrutiny (and heated/partisan debate) that ever before.Once legal "marriage" includes "gay marriage", programs which receive public funding will need to serve couples of all orientations. On the "Gay" side, activists will be drawing attention to programs which solely promote heterosexuality and/or refuse to serve LGBTQ couples/families/individuals.On the other side, we'll see renewed/ongoing support for denying federal funding to programs that are not 100% abstinence only.Faith-based programs which receive public funding will be under particular scrutiny and will likely be forced to greater levels of transparency and reporting on program impacts and targets.Unforeseen Consequences: As a backlash, we'll likely see a great increase in faith-based organizations participating in "protests" by threatening to end all social services. (E.g., copycats of the the Salvation Army's threat to close all its Soup Kitchens in New York City a few years ago). Depending on which way public support turns, this could result in a change in our model for providing social support services.Foreseen Consequences: The Healthcare Industry will have to become more culturally competent with respect to LGBTQ individuals and women. For example:LGBT discrimination in the Healthcare Industry will come to a head: we'll see equal insurance coverage for (for example) IVF/fertility treatment for same-sex and mixed-sex couples; and we'll finally be forced to confront (on a national level) the rights of a healthcare employee to refuse to serve an LGBT individual/couple. By extension, the same (redefined) lines will be used to define rights/duties of religious pharmacists who must distribute contraceptives, etc.Health intake forms will no longer assume that you are heterosexual, and will no longer force LGBTQ individuals to jump through ridiculous hoops to try to jam their relationship and sexual history information into form fields that are a bad fit.Unforeseen Consequences: Maybe this one's a pipe dream, but once there are a significant percentage of state-sanctioned marriages based on factors other than spontaneous procreation, maybe we can start to overturn the existing body of laws and heath policy based on the concept that you must treat all female patients as though they are potentially pregnant.Foreseen Consequences: In books and the media, we'll see greater inclusion of LGBTQ issues and gay characters. For example:As schools (and school libraries) are forced to deal with legitimate gay couples, overt censorship of Young Adult books featuring LGBTQ characters will decrease. And as school curricula and library collections departments become less gay-phobic, we'll see a explosion of books containing LGBTQ characters. Publishers will stop encouraging/forcing authors to "de-gay" characters; and it'll be less risky to write books which include a character who happens to be gay.As the percent of gay marriages (and by extension, gay families) increases, "Gay Wedding" and "Gay Parenting" issues will be less of a niche market - and we'll start to see mainstream lifestyle/parenting/relationship magazines/etc. incorporating content which is inclusive of both gay and straight relationships.Unforeseen Consequences: As LGBTQ issues become more "mainstream", we'll see more LGBTQ individuals employed in the media, and adding their perspective to the shaping of mainstream culture.Foreseen Consequences: Surveys/the census will show more same-sex couples, and families with same-sex parents.Once same-sex couples are state-sanctioned, not only will LGBTQ individuals feel safer in engaging in public same-sex relationships, but those who currently are in long-term committed relationships will be more likely to accurately report this fact in surveys/the US Census.Unforeseen Consequences: A reported increase in the number of same-sex couples and families in the US will cause growth in a number of LGBTQ-related industries. Obviously, marketing/PR agencies priorities, as well as funding/setting health & human services priorities will shift according to the data trends. Several folks have pointed out the obvious growth/changes in the wedding industry, targeted toward LGBTQ couples. But I'd also posit that we'll also see wide growth and changes in industries specializing in LGBTQ-specific services and needs (including LGBTQ financial planning, LGBTQ counseling services, LGBTQ family law); and, most certainly we'll see a great deal of growth in the LGBTQ Aging sector (including long-term care providers and home-based care providers).

The moment when I realized something was truly “insane” was during the second counseling session that we went to. The only reason he agreed to go to counseling was because he did not think the courts would grant our divorce, unless we made a “solid” effort to repair the relationship. I know this, because he would still have sex with me, but started to become increasingly paranoid that the courts would “throw out the divorce” if they found out that we were still having sexual relations. Mind you, my husband holds multiple degrees (multiple graduate, master’s and a doctorate) and is typically one of the most intelligent people that I know. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of medicine and a photographic memory. That fact, in correlation with his odd behaviors, have been the biggest disconnect for me during this whole “BPD splitting” phase. I told him that the courts “did not care if were were still having sex and they would only care if we were having sex with other people (and barely at that), as it is a no fault state. I said this was not like a tv drama, where someone stands up and says, “Ah ha! They are still having sex!” and the divorce would be denied. That was my first true indicator of the “child-like“ mind he had.We were in the counseling session and the therapist asked if we were still intimate and if he was still sleeping in the marital bed. He had just moved to the spare bedroom the day prior, yet would still have sex with me in his room. He answered yes, but then went on to state that he only did because he was afraid that I was going to lock him out of the house. I looked at him incredulously, shocked that he would almost make it sound as if I raped him. As the Zoom session was over, he proceeded to go into the dining room and sit at the table. He looked at me and asked, “Are we still having dinner together, or do I need to figure out something on my own?” I proceeded to say sure, and cooked something. As he sat there gleefully eating the food, he said in his best chipper voice, “I know why you wanted to cook dinner.” I replied, “Why?” confused, as ever. He said gleefully again, “You want me to take you out for ice cream.” I looked at him in shock and once again replied, “Sure.” We then went to get ice cream and came home, as if nothing happened.The next day, I decided to broach the topic to him. I said, “So, I know when you were growing up, your mom would scream and yell at you and your sister and (then you guys would have to act like nothing happened after she bought you a toy), never speaking of it again. Yesterday you all but accused me of rape during the counseling session, then went to the dining room wanting to have dinner and ice cream together, as if nothing happened. That was not normal behavior. Normal people don’t do that.” He just looked at me blankly and did not have a reply.I convinced him to go to another counseling session because I told him that it would “help me with my issues being emotionally distant,” as he put it. The new therapist, (who was familiar with both BPD and DID) was then notified that he was coming to the session as we were on the way. He told me to pick him up at his place at the last minute on our way out of town (at his invite). He immediately switched to his dissociative state, as she began asking him the questions to determine his attachment style. I thought for sure, that he would realize what she was asking and deflect or outright lie, but he complied and answered all of the childhood questions. This was a shock to me, because when we originally went to separate therapy sessions, I asked him if he listed his childhood traumas on his psychiatric intake form and he answered, “I didn’t have any childhood trauma.” I wasn’t going to volunteer the information that we were on our way out of town, as I knew it did not make logical sense, as we were in the process of a divorce. He told her and she responded, “Well, you two still act very much like a married couple” and proceeded to give us homework for the trip. I told her that he hated that I was ambivalent to most food choices, because unless I am specifically in the mood for something, I am fine with anything. I understood that he had a huge problem with that, as his mom always exhibited passive aggressive behaviors on restaurant choices, but I was actually that easy going. His mom would say she was fine with whatever restaurant choices he picked, but then she would complain incessantly at the restaurant. I also brought up the fact that he thought I was emotionally distant and the therapist told him, that she was confused by that, as she always found me warm and open during our sessions. As we left the session with our instructions for our trip, we decided to stop to eat at a Mexican restaurant. We had a great dinner and then arrived at the hotel. As soon as we got to the hotel, he turned to me and asked, “Why don’t you just block my number and move on?”I was shocked for a minute, confused as to what was happening. I proceeded to ignore and not even respond to his question and we proceeded to have a fun weekend filled with hand-holding, kissing, movies and dinners. I went to his office (out of town) and his employees treated me as if nothing was amiss. They acted as if I was still his wife and no one seemed to know anything was different. I started to ask myself, how this had become my life. Was I really the “crazy” one? I had read up enough on the disorders , so I learned to not take things so personally, but his behaviors kept getting worse over time. The tests kept increasing and the devaluation was getting to be too much for my own psyche. He even, at one point asked me, “Do you know how hard this is going to be for me? Everyone loves you and they are going to keep asking about you.” I thought I had imagined all of this. There was no way this could be my reality. I kept asking my diagnosed bipolar friend, “How did I get here and how is this my life?” He kept answering, “Because you love him.”When I went to the next therapy session by myself, the therapist actually admitted she was confused as to how we were a couple, as she said she felt I was “vibrant and full of life” and he was very robot-like. I told her that he was not always like that. I showed her a video of him, where he was laughing and joking as he was swinging from a tree. She responded that it was not the same man that was in her office. She felt that he filed for divorce in a dissociative state. She said that she had a married couple that came to her for counseling and the wife was actually unaware that she dissociated and the behaviors that she exhibited during those dissociative states.I loved him and still do (even through the divorce process and all of it’s ugliness). I wish sometimes that the one BPD trait I did possess, was the ability to hit the reset button. For me, forgetting is not that easy. The trauma that caused his ability to compartmentalize and forget, must be something so horrendous that even I cannot know it’s depths. I even wished that I was as emotionally distant as he accused me of being, because it would not hurt this bad to end a marriage that I thought would last forever. My diagnosed BPD friend said that clarity only comes years after acceptance, treatment and self work. He is years away from any of that. She said someday he will realize what he put me through, should he ever start to become self aware and he will feel regret and sadness. She also said that listening to me and my side of of a relationship with an untreated pwBPD, makes her try harder to have a healthy relationship by communicating better and realizing her own triggers.I know most who have read my other answers, especially ones where I reference other conversations with mentally ill people, wonder how I ended up down the rabbit hole. In trying to understand and research personality disorders, I came across several other disordered individuals inadvertently (not on Quora). This also may have been because I was more hyper aware from the trauma I endured in my marriage, that I was able to see borderline tendencies more easily in people. I engaged in conversations that I normally probably would not have (responding back to people), trying to understand the behaviors and actions and then utilize that understanding to help in interactions with my husband. Ultimately, it failed because there are so many adaptations of BPD and figuring out certain behaviors could only help so much. His co-morbidities are unique to him, as his trauma and no matter how much I understood the disorder(s), his refusal to get treatment would be the ultimate reason why our marriage/relationship would not work. As with most partners of pwBPD, we wish and hope that they will realize their behaviors are a result of the disorder and seek treatment. When they don’t, we have to move on in order to save ourselves, regardless of how much we still love and care for them.

If you need an accountant to figure out your earnings and deductions. If your earnings come from an employer that gives you a W-2 or 1099 and from investments that provide tax forms at the end of the year, you don’t need an accountant to determine your earnings, only a calculator. If your mortgage interest, medical expenses, state taxes and charitable donations don’t add up to more than 12,000 for singles, 24,000 for married couples, then it is unlikey that itemizing deductions will help you, do no cpa needed to find those.On the other hand, if you are a business owner or invest in rental property, then you need a cpa to tell you what your income is (as opposed to your intake).