Ending a Relationship

chapter 1  | Defining Family |  31
And in Maine, a lesbian was unsuccessful in her attempt to void her 1991
adoption of her ex-partner. With the adoption intact, the partner can
inherit through a family trust.
As domestic partnership registration and even marriage become more
widely available, adoption—never a particularly desirable option—
becomes even less attractive. You will likely face many barriers if you try
to adopt your lover, including:
• state laws barring adult adoptions—Alabama, Michigan, Nebraska,
and Ohio all have such laws
• state laws barring gays and lesbians from adopting at all—currently,
Colorado, Florida, Mississippi, and Utah have such laws
• incest statutes that prohibit sexual relations between an adoptive
parent and child, and
• laws specifying a minimum age difference between the adoptive
parent and child.
In addition, many other factors should give you pause. As lesbians
and gay men seek the right to raise children, adopting a lover may seem
inappropriate—adoption connotes parent and child; to allow lovers to
use it to confer legal status upon themselves is repugnant to some people.
Also, adoption is permanent in most instances, removing the option of
ending the relationship. (In rare instances, there may be grounds for
rescinding an adoption decree.) Finally, adoption means that the court
must terminate the parent-child relationship between the person to be
adopted and his or her legal parents. For a lesbian or gay man with a
positive relationship with parents, this could be destructive and insulting.
Ending a Relationship
Ending a relationship can often be harder than starting one. If you have
kids, we suggest you read Chapter 5 and the pertinent parts of Chapter
10. For help dividing your property, take a close look at Chapters 8, 9,
and 10. This section discusses only how to end your “family” status.
If you went through some kind of union, commitment, or marriage
ceremony that was not legally sanctioned by the state, you are not
required to take any legal steps to end the relationship—remember, you