Are You a Family if You Don’t Have Kids?

Pets and spiritual practices aside, some couples just know they are a family, and have no wish or need for an explanation. My friend Beth says, “I have no idea what makes us a family. But when Rob and I are lying in bed together watching TV and our cat jumps up and falls asleep between us—I melt and think, ‘Ah, I’m home.’” Richard Borofsky, EdD, a longtime couples’ therapist and founder (with his wife, Antra) of The Center for the Study of Relationship in Cambridge, Mass., agrees that shared interests and deep emotional bonds are helpful. But he also points to the importance of community. “For many childless couples, gay or straight,” he says, “their friends are their family.” But, he adds, “family is simply created over time, organically. When you’ve moved through enough ups and downs together, celebrated gains and mourned losses, a couple becomes a family.”

On the long drive home from the weekend with my parents, Duncan and I talked about our life, our relationship, and what it meant to both of us. When we arrived at last, we unlocked the front door, and lugged our suitcases upstairs. As he always does, Duncan began unpacking immediately, placing clean clothes back in their drawers, dirty ones in the hamper. As I always do, I plopped my suitcase in a corner, knowing I’d unpack it in a few days when I needed something I’d left in there. But before I set off to go watch TV, I turned and gave Duncan a hug. It lasted a long time; I think we both began to let the tension of the last week fall away. In that embrace, what I felt for him was probably what you would call love. But there was also something beyond definition, and that thing was embracing us both.