Is Our Marriage Still Safe? The New Anxiety Haunting Gay Couples
Thursday, August 6, 2026.
Married on Paper, Alert in the Nervous System
There was a brief and rather lovely period when gay marriage became boring.
This was the dream.
Not merely legal. Not merely tolerated. Boring.
Two men could marry, buy a sectional sofa, develop surprisingly rigid opinions about backsplash tile, and spend fifteen minutes outside a restaurant trying to remember where either of them had parked.
Two women could become wives and discover that equality included the right to ask, “Are you almost ready?” in a tone suggesting that diplomatic relations had deteriorated.
Marriage equality had reached its highest developmental stage:
Ordinary aggravation.
Gay couples had finally won the right to be mildly exasperated in public.
And then the background music changed.
There was no national announcement advising gay couples to place their marriages in the upright and locked position.
Instead, there were court cases.
State resolutions.
Polling shifts.
Political speeches.
Another elected official explaining that certain rights, previously described as settled, might benefit from becoming unsettled again.
And quietly, in kitchens, bedrooms and lawyers’ offices, gay couples began asking questions they had hoped belonged to another era.
Is our marriage safe?
Would both of us still be recognized as parents?
Should we update our wills?
Could one of us be treated as a legal stranger in a hospital?
Should we move?
And beneath all of them:
How much of our future is actually ours?
This is the return of the contingent marriage—the feeling that your most intimate relationship remains, somehow, subject to public permission.
The Revocable Future
Let us begin with what is true.
Same-sex marriage remains legal throughout the United States.
The Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges still requires states to license and recognize marriages between two people of the same sex. The Respect for Marriage Act provides additional federal protection and requires states to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed elsewhere.
Gay marriages are not evaporating next Thursday.
That sentence matters because fear has already generated a brisk little economy of catastrophizing, fundraising and people on social media announcing that civilization will end shortly after lunch.
But another sentence matters too:
The cultural direction has changed.
Gallup reported that American support for legally recognized same-sex marriage declined to 65% in 2026, down from its 71% peak in 2022 and 2023. It remains a clear majority position. It is also the third consecutive annual decline.
The percentage of Americans who regard gay and lesbian relationships as morally acceptable has fallen as well, reaching its lowest point since 2016. Gallup
Meanwhile, legislators in several states have introduced resolutions asking the Supreme Court to reconsider Obergefell. The Court declined a prominent 2025 petition inviting it to do precisely that.
Reassuring.
But not reassuring enough to end the conversation.
The threat should not be exaggerated.
The anxiety should not be mocked.
Those two positions can share a room, although American public discourse generally prefers that one of them throw a chair.
This Is No Longer a Small Legal Abstraction
More than 823,000 married same-sex couples now live in the United States. They are raising nearly 300,000 children.
The Williams Institute estimates that over half of America’s same-sex couples live in one of the 31 states that still has an unenforceable statutory or constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Those bans remain dormant under Obergefell, but their presence gives political uncertainty a distinctly local address.
That includes approximately 433,000 married same-sex couples and 305,000 unmarried couples. Williams Institute
These are not theoretical marriages waiting in a law-school hypothetical.
They contain mortgages, aging parents, school pickups, military benefits, small businesses, cancer diagnoses, retirement plans and children who expect both parents to be permitted into the room.
Marriage equality did not merely allow gay people to hold weddings.
It allowed families to build futures without having to construct every protection from scratch.
The anxiety now is not simply that a wedding certificate could lose value. It is that hundreds of thousands of families may once again have to wonder which parts of their lives remain portable, recognizable and secure.
The Nervous System Is Not a Constitutional Scholar
Anxiety does not wait for oral arguments.
It notices movement.
It notices tone.
It notices that ideas once consigned to the political attic are being brought downstairs, dusted off and introduced as reasonable questions.
The nervous system is not especially interested in the distinction between a state resolution, a federal statute, a Supreme Court precedent and a man with three followers shouting beneath a local-news article.
It asks something simpler:
Are we becoming less safe?
For gay couples, that question carries history.
Many remember when long-term partners were excluded from hospital rooms, inheritance rights, health insurance, pensions, parental recognition and end-of-life decisions.
Some attended commitment ceremonies that asked family and friends to recognize a relationship the law politely declined to notice.
Others spent thousands of dollars constructing legal scaffolding around partnerships their heterosexual neighbors could protect with a marriage license and an afternoon at the county clerk’s office.
Those experiences do not disappear because a ruling finally arrives.
The nervous system keeps minutes.
It remembers what the culture once permitted.
It remembers how quickly an institution can convert intimacy into paperwork and paperwork into exclusion.
When the political climate changes, an old piece of knowledge returns:
This has happened before.
When Politics Moves Into the Guest Room
Political uncertainty does not remain politely outside the marriage.
It moves in.
At first, it occupies the guest room.
Then it leaves its shoes in the hallway.
Eventually, it is sitting at the breakfast table while two people who love one another argue about whether they should call an estate attorney.
One partner says:
“We need to make sure everything is protected.”
The other replies:
“We are protected.”
“I know. But we should update the documents.”
“Why are you panicking?”
“I’m not panicking. I’m planning.”
“You’ve been reading too much.”
“And you haven’t been paying attention.”
Now the legal question has become a marital one.
One partner experiences preparation as love.
The other experiences it as surrender.
One believes vigilance keeps the family safe. The other believes vigilance allows hostile political forces to colonize the private life they worked so hard to build.
They appear to be arguing about documents.
They are actually negotiating how much danger must be acknowledged before a couple is permitted to continue enjoying its life.
The Scanner and the Shutter
Minority stress does not consist only of direct discrimination.
It also includes the anticipation of discrimination: scanning the environment, monitoring changes and calculating whether a workplace, neighborhood, institution or government remains safe.
Research suggests that minority stress can spill across the boundary between the individual and the relationship.
One partner’s encounter with prejudice can affect both partners, while stress aimed specifically at the couple—rejection by relatives, discomfort with public affection or unequal legal treatment—can become a burden carried by the relationship itself.
Researchers call this couple-level minority stress.
It helps explain why an external threat may eventually appear inside the marriage as irritability, withdrawal, conflict or reduced relationship satisfaction. Frost et al. Research also suggests that positive dyadic coping—partners approaching the stress as something they will manage together—can buffer some of its effects. Sarno et al.
Inside the couple, uncertainty sometimes produces two recognizable roles. Your mileage, of course, will vary.
One partner becomes the scanner.
The scanner reads everything, tracks every case and would like a binder containing every conceivable legal document, preferably tabbed.
The other becomes the shutter.
The shutter closes the browser, changes the subject and would like to eat dinner without reviewing the composition of the Supreme Court.
The scanner protects the relationship by preparing for danger.
The shutter protects it by preserving ordinary life.
Both may be trying to love.
But when fear rises, each partner begins to misread the other.
The scanner sees denial.
The shutter sees obsession.
The scanner says, “You are not taking our safety seriously.”
The shutter hears, “You are failing me.”
The shutter says, “We cannot live like this.”
The scanner hears, “You will not protect me.”
This is how a public threat becomes a private attachment injury.
Legal Hypervigilance
Some preparation is prudent.
Some becomes compulsive.
The distinction lies partly in whether the preparation can be completed.
Practical planning produces an action:
The will is updated.
The healthcare proxy is signed.
Parentage is clarified.
Beneficiaries are confirmed.
A qualified attorney answers the legal questions.
The couple establishes the conditions under which relocation would be reconsidered.
Anxiety planning produces no stopping point.
There is always another article to read.
Another scenario to rehearse.
Another state to investigate.
Another person on TikTok explaining constitutional law from the driver’s seat of a Kia.
Planning ends with a decision.
Hypervigilance demands another round.
A couple does not need to choose between naïveté and permanent alarm. It needs a plan sturdy enough to permit rest.
The Re-Closeting Disagreement
For some gay couples, the anxiety is less about legal documents than visibility.
One partner becomes more cautious.
He removes the photograph of his husband from his desk.
He stops mentioning weekend plans at work.
He scans the restaurant before reaching across the table.
He suggests that perhaps they do not need to hold hands here.
The other partner is furious.
Not because caution is incomprehensible.
Because it feels like reversal.
We already did this.
We already survived this.
I am not disappearing again.
The conflict is not simply between bravery and fear. It is between safety and dignity—two legitimate needs that do not always provide identical instructions.
The more cautious partner may have a job, racial identity, immigration concern, disability, religious background or geographic location that changes the practical risk.
The more visible partner may experience concealment as a return to the shame he spent decades dismantling.
Neither is necessarily cowardly.
Neither is necessarily reckless.
But each may begin treating the other’s survival strategy as a character defect.
“You’re paranoid.”
“You’re naïve.”
“You care more about making a point than protecting us.”
“You care more about strangers’ comfort than acknowledging me.”
This is not merely an argument about public affection.
It is an argument about what the relationship owes fear—and how much of the couple must disappear to satisfy it.
There Is No Single Gay Couple Experience
Political danger is not distributed evenly.
A wealthy married couple in Massachusetts, surrounded by affirming family and competent attorneys, is not navigating the same exposure as a low-income couple in a rural county with children, health problems and no nearby legal support.
Age matters.
Race matters.
Money matters.
Disability matters.
Immigration status matters.
Parenthood matters.
Geography matters.
So does whether a couple can relocate without losing work, housing, medical care or the community that helps them remain stable.
In approximately 22% of married same-sex couples, at least one spouse was born outside the United States. About one-third of people in married same-sex couples are people of color.
One partner in five is 65 or older. Same-sex marriages are also more likely than different-sex marriages to be interracial. Williams Institute
These identities do not merely make a demographic table more interesting.
They shape which dangers feel plausible, which institutions are trusted and which protective choices are financially possible.
“Just move to a safer state” is not a clinical intervention.
It is sometimes a plan available only to people with portable careers, adequate savings, good health and a remarkably cooperative housing market.
The Blue-State Exit Plan
Still, many couples are asking:
Should we leave?
One partner wants to move to a state with stronger protections.
The other sees the proposed move as an expensive upheaval organized around a danger that may never materialize.
The argument becomes especially charged when children are involved.
Now the couple is not merely choosing where it prefers to live. It is trying to predict where its family will remain culturally, educationally and legally legible.
In the Trevor Project’s latest national survey, nearly one-third of LGBTQ young people said recent LGBTQ-related policies made them or their families consider moving to another state. The Trevor Project
But relocation may mean leaving grandparents, careers, businesses, physicians, friendships, housing equity and the neighbor who can fix anything with a socket wrench but has never disclosed a recognizable feeling.
A couple can become politically safer and financially destabilized.
Closer to legal protection and farther from emotional support.
Relieved to have moved and furious about having been pushed.
There is no anxiety-free option.
There are only tradeoffs that must be named honestly.
Your Marriage Is Not a Referendum
Perhaps the most corrosive feature of this moment is the return of public evaluation.
Gay couples are once again hearing strangers debate whether their marriages are good for society, compatible with morality, appropriate for children or deserving of equal recognition.
This creates an absurd and mostly unspoken burden.
The marriage must be happy enough.
Stable enough.
Respectable enough.
Monogamous enough.
Parental enough.
Tasteful enough.
And, ideally, hosted in a kitchen featuring reassuringly neutral countertops.
The heterosexual couple next door is not required to maintain constitutional standards of marital excellence.
They are permitted to marry badly.
They may communicate entirely through sighs, quarrel in Home Depot and spend the ride home prosecuting the question of who said they already had painter’s tape.
Their failures are regarded as personal.
The failures of gay couples are too easily recruited as cultural evidence.
Equality includes the right to be unremarkable.
A gay marriage does not owe the public a persuasive presentation.
It is not a referendum.
It is a relationship.
The Three Conversations
Couples cannot eliminate political uncertainty. They can decide how it will be handled inside the marriage.
That requires three conversations.
What is actually happening?
Separate current law from feared possibility.
What protections exist today?
What has actually changed?
What remains speculative?
Neither catastrophizing nor denial is a reliable legal strategy.
What can we reasonably do?
Consult an attorney if needed.
Review the estate plan.
Confirm beneficiaries and healthcare proxies.
Clarify parental protections.
Discuss geography.
Identify the specific developments that would cause the couple to reconsider its plans.
A useful plan names both actions and thresholds.
When do we return to our life?
This is the conversation anxious couples often omit.
Without a boundary, the threat receives unlimited access to the relationship.
It is permitted at breakfast.
In bed.
On vacation.
During the child’s soccer game.
Between episodes of whatever the couple was watching before democracy required immediate supervision.
Set a regular, time-limited meeting for legal and political concerns. Thirty minutes once a week may be enough during an unsettled period.
Write down questions that arise between meetings.
Complete agreed actions.
Then stop.
Fear needs office hours.
The Bigger Story
The deepest anxiety is not simply that a right might disappear.
It is that security itself has begun to feel provisional.
For gay couples, this can reactivate an old developmental injury: the experience of anticipating rejection before it arrives.
The therapeutic task is not to decide which partner is politically enlightened and which one is psychologically defective.
It is to help the couple stand on the same side of the stress.
Not:
You are overreacting.
Not:
You are refusing to see reality.
But:
Something outside our relationship is frightening us differently. How do we protect both our future and our capacity to live in the present?
That shift matters.
Research on same-sex relationships suggests that shared coping can reduce the psychological burden of minority stress. The goal is not perfect agreement about risk. It is the experience of not facing that risk alone.
A couple may still disagree about how closely to monitor events, whether to move, when to call an attorney or how visible to be in public.
But disagreement feels different when both partners understand:
Your strategy is not an attack on me.
It is an attempt to keep something precious safe.
The Future Must Also Be Lived
Prudence is not panic.
Gay couples have sound reasons to protect themselves carefully. Legal recognition has not eliminated discrimination, political hostility, family rejection or dramatic geographic differences in safety.
But a protected life cannot consist entirely of preparing for its possible destruction.
There are dinners to make.
Dogs to walk.
Children to raise.
Anniversaries to forget and then recover from with suspiciously expensive flowers.
There are friends to care for, vacations to argue about, homes to build and ordinary Tuesday evenings no court can manufacture.
The political future may be uncertain.
The marriage need not become uncertain with it.
Complete the paperwork.
Make the plan.
Decide which developments would require renewed attention.
Then close the laptop.
The most defiant thing a gay couple can sometimes do is not to monitor every threat.
It is to return to the stubbornly ordinary business of loving one another.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is gay marriage actually at risk, or is this mostly political panic?
Same-sex marriage remains legal throughout the United States. Obergefell v. Hodges is still controlling law, and the Respect for Marriage Act provides important federal and interstate-recognition protections.
The risk is neither imaginary nor immediate.
Political efforts to reconsider Obergefell are real. So are the legal protections currently in place. A psychologically healthy response holds both facts at once: stay informed, secure what can be secured and resist organizing the entire marriage around the worst possible outcome.
Could an existing same-sex marriage simply become invalid?
There is no current legal mechanism automatically erasing valid same-sex marriages nationwide.
Even if Obergefell were someday overturned, the Respect for Marriage Act would continue to require federal recognition of valid same-sex marriages and recognition across state lines. Questions about whether every state would have to issue new licenses would become more complicated.
This is precisely why couples should rely on qualified legal counsel—not an alarming video recorded by someone sitting in a parked car.
What does “contingent marriage” mean?
A contingent marriage is a legally recognized marriage that nevertheless feels psychologically conditional.
The couple may possess a valid license while sensing that its legitimacy still depends upon courts, elections, geography or changing public attitudes. The marriage exists securely on paper but less securely in the nervous system.
That gap between legal fact and felt safety is the anxiety explored in this article.
What is legal hypervigilance?
Legal hypervigilance is the persistent monitoring of courts, laws and political developments for possible threats to one’s relationship or family.
It may include repeatedly checking news, researching relocation, reviewing hypothetical legal scenarios or seeking reassurance that never lasts.
Prudent preparation answers a question and produces an action.
Hypervigilance produces seventeen browser tabs and a new question.
How can we tell the difference between planning and catastrophizing?
Ponder 4 essential questions:
Has something materially changed?
Is there a specific action we can take?
Would that action meaningfully protect us?
Can we stop monitoring once it is completed?
Planning has a defined problem, a proportionate response and an endpoint.
Catastrophizing treats every possibility as an approaching certainty. Because certainty is impossible, the preparation never feels complete.
Should married gay couples create additional legal protections?
Many couples should periodically review their legal and financial arrangements regardless of the political climate.
That review may include:
Wills and trusts.
Healthcare proxies.
Durable powers of attorney.
Retirement and insurance beneficiaries.
Property ownership.
Guardianship arrangements.
Adoption and parentage documents.
Emergency contact and medical-authority records.
This is not evidence that the marriage is weak. It is evidence that American adulthood eventually turns every expression of love into a form requiring two witnesses.
Because laws differ, couples with specific concerns should consult an attorney licensed in their state.
Why is my partner far more frightened than I am?
Partners may share a marriage without sharing the same history of danger.
One may have experienced family rejection, employment discrimination, religious condemnation, immigration insecurity or physical harassment. The other may have lived in affirming communities and experienced greater institutional safety.
Neither reaction automatically reveals who is more rational or devoted.
The frightened partner may be detecting genuine risk. The calmer partner may be preserving perspective. The trouble begins when vigilance is interpreted as hysteria or calm is interpreted as indifference.
What if my partner refuses to talk about any of this?
Refusal may be avoidance, but it may also be emotional self-protection.
Try replacing an unlimited political discussion with a contained request:
“I don’t need us to solve the future tonight. I need twenty minutes to identify what is true, what we can do and when we will review it again.”
A defined conversation is easier to enter than an anxiety spiral with no visible exit.
If even a contained discussion repeatedly ends in shutdown or escalation, the deeper issue may be whether each partner feels emotionally protected by the other.
What if my partner will not stop talking about it?
Begin by validating the underlying need before challenging the behavior.
Constant monitoring often contains a plea:
“Please show me that you understand what could happen—and that I will not have to face it alone.”
Offer partnership, then create limits.
Agree on trustworthy information sources, a scheduled time to discuss developments and the specific events that would justify action.
Reassurance works better when accompanied by a credible plan. But no partner can provide absolute certainty about politics, courts or the future.
Your spouse can stand beside your fear.
Your spouse cannot make uncertainty cease to exist.
What is the “scanner and shutter” pattern?
The scanner monitors danger and prepares for it.
The shutter limits exposure and protects ordinary life.
Each strategy has value. Each also has a failure mode.
The scanner can become consumed by vigilance.
The shutter can become dismissive or emotionally unavailable. The couple becomes polarized when each partner exaggerates their own protective strategy in response to the other.
The goal is not to eliminate either role. It is to help the scanner rest and the shutter remain emotionally present.
What if one of us wants to become less publicly visible?
Treat this as a safety-and-belonging conversation, not a courage contest.
Ask:
Where does the partner feel unsafe?
What specific behavior feels risky?
What would greater caution protect?
What would concealment cost the other partner?
Can visibility change by setting without making the relationship feel denied?
How will affection and acknowledgment remain unmistakable between the partners?
Caution is not always cowardice.
Visibility is not always recklessness.
But no safety plan should require one partner to feel erased inside the relationship.
Should we move to a more LGBTQ-friendly state?
Possibly—but “move somewhere safer” is not a complete plan.
Compare:
Current legal protections.
Parentage and adoption laws.
Schools and healthcare.
Employment and income.
Housing costs.
Access to affirming community.
Proximity to family and caregivers.
The emotional and financial consequences of leaving.
A move may increase political security while reducing financial or social stability. The right decision depends on the whole ecosystem supporting the couple—not the color of a state on one map.
How do we keep political anxiety from taking over our relationship?
Give it office hours.
Schedule a short weekly meeting during periods of heightened concern. Keep a shared list of questions rather than interrupting daily life with every alarming headline.
During the meeting:
Identify what has actually changed.
Separate verified information from speculation.
Decide whether action is required.
Assign any practical tasks.
Set the next review date.
Stop.
A threat that receives unlimited attention begins governing the relationship before it has changed a single law.
Can minority stress affect a strong, loving marriage?
Absolutely.
External stress can enter a healthy relationship through irritability, withdrawal, sexual disconnection, sleep disruption, vigilance or conflict.
Some research calls this couple-level minority stress because the relationship itself becomes exposed to stigma, rejection or unequal treatment.
This does not mean the relationship is defective.
It may mean the couple is carrying something that did not originate between them.
The most protective shift is from:
“Why are you doing this to me?”
to:
“What is happening to us, and how will we face it together?”
When is couples therapy appropriate?
Consider couples therapy when:
The same political or legal argument repeats without resolution.
One partner feels chronically dismissed, exposed or unprotected.
The scanner–shutter pattern has become rigid.
News consumption is interfering with sleep, sex or companionship.
Decisions about relocation, visibility, parenting or legal planning cannot be discussed safely.
External hostility has begun making the partners hostile toward each other.
Good couples therapy does not decide which partner has predicted the political future correctly.
It helps the couple prevent an uncertain future from dismantling the relationship they have now.
Why Work with Daniel?
Gay couples do not need a therapist who treats their relationship as a heterosexual marriage with the pronouns changed.
External stress enters a relationship in distinctive ways.
Political anxiety may disguise itself as conflict about relocation, money, visibility, parenting, family loyalty or how much news one household can reasonably consume before breakfast.
Daniel helps couples distinguish prudent concern from relationship-consuming hypervigilance.
The goal is not to debate politics in the therapy room or persuade either partner to adopt the other’s coping style.
It is to help both partners understand the fear beneath the argument, make proportionate decisions together and protect the ordinary life they have worked hard to build.
Your relationship should be prepared for the world.
It should not be governed by it.
Free Introductory Consultation
If external uncertainty has begun creating conflict inside your relationship, a focused couples consultation can help you identify the actual problem, understand each partner’s protective strategy and decide what needs attention now.
The future may contain uncertainty.
You do not have to face it from opposite sides of the marriage.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Cao, H., Zhou, N., Fine, M., Liang, Y., Li, J., & Mills-Koonce, W. R. (2017). Sexual minority stress and same-sex relationship well-being: A meta-analysis of research prior to the U.S. nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family, 79(5), 1258–1277. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12415
Feinstein, B. A., McConnell, E., Dyar, C., Mustanski, B., & Newcomb, M. E. (2018). Minority stress and relationship functioning among young male same-sex couples: An examination of actor–partner interdependence models. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 86(5), 416–426. https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000296
Frost, D. M., LeBlanc, A. J., de Vries, B., Alston-Stepnitz, E., Stephenson, R., & Woodyatt, C. (2017). Couple-level minority stress: An examination of same-sex couples’ unique experiences. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 58(4), 455–472. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146517736754
Jones, J. M. (2026, June 3). U.S. support for LGBTQ+ issues remains down from peak. Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/710810/support-lgbtq-issues-remains-down-peak.aspx
LeBlanc, A. J., Frost, D. M., & Wight, R. G. (2015). Minority stress and stress proliferation among same-sex and other marginalized couples. Journal of Marriage and Family, 77(1), 40–59. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12160
Meyer, I. H. (2003). Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations: Conceptual issues and research evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 129(5), 674–697. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.5.674
Nath, R., Matthews, D. D., Hobaica, S., DeChants, J. P., Eden, T. M., Taylor, A. B., & Suffredini, K. (2026). 2025 U.S. national survey on the mental health of LGBTQ+ young people. The Trevor Project. https://doi.org/10.70226/EKGT3197
Sarno, E. L., Bundy, C., Dyar, C., & Newcomb, M. E. (2021). Examining minority stress, dyadic coping, and internalizing symptoms among male same-sex couples using actor–partner interdependence models. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 68(5), 515–525. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000542
Sears, B., Cisneros, N., & Mallory, C. (2025). Married same-sex couples in the United States on the 10th anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges. The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/married-ss-couples-obergefell-10/
Legal Authorities
Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
Respect for Marriage Act, Pub. L. No. 117-228, 136 Stat. 2305 (2022). https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ228/PLAW-117publ228.pdf