Jodie Foster and Cydney Bernard Break Up

Sad news on the lesbian entertainment front. Two-time Academy Award-winner Jodie Foster and her long-term partner, movie producer Cydney Bernard, have reportedly broken up.

Their alleged split comes just months after Foster's acceptance speech at a Los Angeles film gala in December where she first outwardly spoke about her partner, calling her: "My beautiful Cydney, who sticks with me through the rotten and the bliss."

Jodie Foster and Cydney Bernard began dating in 1993 during the filming of the movie Sommersby and have worn matching Tiffany eternity rings on their wedding fingers for many years.

Cydney was Jodie's birthing partner through both her pregnancies and has helped raise her two sons, Charlie, 9, and Kit, 6, from birth.

A source told the National Enquirer "Jodie breaking up with Cydney is shocking. She and Cydney have been together for so many years and have two children together, the potential fallout and legal wrangling from this split could be monumental."

How to Learn from a Breakup

Written by Marie Hughes

When a relationship ends, you should take the time to reflect on the reasons that it has ended so that you can learn from your mistakes.

Breakups are a learning opportunity. If you take the time to examine the reasons for your breakup, then you may be able to avoid letting history repeat itself in your dating life. There are two sides to every coin – personal growth can be the flip side to your sadness over the loss of a relationship. What was the cause of your breakup?

If you cheated on your mate, then you might be feeling very guilty and untrustworthy. You can learn from this experience that you have to work on being more honest. If you cheated, you probably were not happy in the relationship to begin with. However, you did the wrong thing by being unfaithful rather than honest. You should have ended the relationship, not strayed from it. Next time you are in a relationship, make sure that you really want to be there. It is not fair to the person that you are with for you to be unfaithful. If anyone has ever cheated on you, you know how painful it feels. Rather than dwelling on your indiscretion, forgive yourself, and move forward with the conviction that you will not do it again.

If your mate was cheating on you, and that was the cause of your breakup, there’s still an opportunity for personal growth. Understandably, you feel very hurt and betrayed. However, this is your chance to be strong and independent. You can get through this, and when you do, you will feel incredibly empowered and proud of yourself for your strength. Breaking up with your unfaithful significant other was the right move; you stood up for yourself, and you made it clear that you were not someone who is to be taken advantage of.


If your relationship ended because you wanted to take your relationship to the next level, and your mate did not want to get too serious, then you will learn to pair yourself up with a person who has similar goals for the future. Get in a relationship with someone who is looking to settle down, if that is what you are looking to do. If you were the one who did not want to get too serious, then you should be looking for someone who is also looking for a casual relationship. Leading people on is not right, and it can only lead to hurt feelings. Be honest with yourself and with the people that you date in the future.

Perhaps your mate broke up with you because you could not control your anger. You yelled too much, and you were constantly putting your significant other down. If you were not treating your mate right, then they were right to leave. You have to learn to control yourself and to express your feelings in a healthier way. This is your opportunity to change your poor behavior so that your future relationships will not suffer in the same way. You’re not a bad person; you just made some bad choices. If you have severe anger management problems, you should seek professional help.

If you’re on the other end of the abusive relationship, then you have to learn not to allow yourself to be taken advantage of and used as a human punching bag. You deserve to be treated with care and respect, and you should accept nothing less in your future relationships. Do not compromise your happiness for someone who is not treating you properly. If you have low self esteem, you have to work on feeling better about yourself before you will be ready to share your life with another person again.

If the relationship ended because you simply did not feel that it had a future, then you have to ask yourself why it is that you did not see a future between the two of you. Do you have unrealistic expectations? Or is it simply that the two of you do not want the same things out of life, or that you have grown apart over the course of your relationship? If you have established a pattern off breaking off relationships when they become too serious, then you need to determine whether not that is just a fear of commitment on your half. On the other hand, if you truly believe that your ex’s goals were too different from your own for your relationship’s future to thrive, then you should be proud of yourself for doing the right thing. If there is no future, then you should not be wasting your time, and breaking up with your mate will give you the opportunity to seek out someone whose goals are similar to your own. It is natural to feel sadness and loss after you break up with someone that you have had a romantic relationship with, but in order to get over it, you have to look for the silver lining.

End of Days: Girl-Girl Break Ups

I found this great article by K. Pearson Brown about lesbian break-ups...it is soo "right on the money," that I knew I had to share it, I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.

For two years my ex Michelle lived with her ex Karen before moving on. They dated other women, but each night they went home to each other where they made house, grocery shopped, did yard work and even hosted parties together. To outsiders they were a couple. A couple of what you ask? A couple of typical lesbians who wallow in an agonizing slow burn of a breakup instead of ending it quickly like straight folk.

Many of us are guilty of it. We fan that dying ember of a relationship because it gives us just a little warmth and comfort, usually until one of us finds a new flame. In an interview after her separation from her former partner Julie Cypher, Melissa Etheridge revealed that her love affairs always overlapped so she never had to fully deal with heartache. That’s always nice, for one side.

The emotional dynamics between women lovers are different than between hetero partners, and we don’t have a Lesbians are from Jupiter manual to help us understand our mates. Our relationships begin quickly and intensely. We meld emotionally and nest together immediately. Often our body cycles even get in synch. So when things go south, it’s hard to pull apart.

My last relationship was so comfortable that we talked about splitting up for a year and half. We’d talk about it over dinner, and then in bed. The romance was gone, but neither of us wanted to leave. We didn’t want to lose our best friend.

Perhaps one of the best things that gays would gain by winning the right to marry – besides equal rights under the law – would be the imposition of a proper divorce. No more dragging on dead-end relationships for months and even years. Sign some papers, divide the stuff, stay away from each other for a prescribed period of time, and it’s done.

But I wonder if we would miss the dyke drama that has become of rite of passage for lesbians. Often we have to have that last knock-down-drag-out screaming match, throwing things and slamming doors, to signal that it’s finally over.

At least we do it with flare. What could be worse, and more boring, than a straight friend’s recent breakup with her boyfriend in which he simply quit calling. Of course lesbians don’t have the corner on dramatic endings. Think Jean Harris and Herman Tarnower, Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuco, David Gest and Liza Minnelli, Brad and Jennifer. And certainly the boys aren’t exempt to those excruciating off-and-on again liaisons. Who doesn’t feel a twinge in the heart when Jake Gyllenhaal says to Heath Leger in the trailer to Brokeback Mountain, “I wish I knew how to quit you.”

When you think about the devastation of ending a relationship, it’s a wonder we ever regain the courage to love again. But even after a Titanic breakup, the heart does do on, as Celine Dion promises. Poor Kate Winslet. Come here, I’ll make you feel better.

A therapist once told me it takes three months for every year you were with a lover to get over the relationship. For the average two-and-a-half-year lesbian relationship, that means seven and a half months of recovery. The same therapist also told me that a good indicator of a person’s ability to have a healthy relationship is how that person ended past relationships and how friendly that person is with exes.

So, now that I have nearly two years behind me since my last romantic relationship, and my ex and I continue to be best of friends, it stands to reason that I am excellent dating material. But I have one question: Does this mean my ex has to move out?

K. Pearson Brown is a writer and public relations director living in Los Angeles. She is currently writing her first novel, You'll Never Eat P*ssy in This Town Again.