Bonnie Kaye’s Straight Talk
Newsletter
JANUARY 2014 Volume
14, Issue 149
Bonnie’s Mantras:
LIFE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE THIS COMPLICATED. PERIOD.
YOU CAN'T FIX A BROKEN MAN--BUT HE CAN BREAK YOU!
THE NEXT HEALING WEEKEND - MARCH 1/2 IN HOUSTON TEXAS!
My next Healing Weekend will be in Houston,
Texas, on March 1st and 2nd. The women in Texas are strong and compassionate,
and I know you will love meeting them including two of my radio show
favorites, Grace and Wendy. Everyone who
attends a healing weekend leaves feeling far more validated than before. Some
even have quick life changes after all of the positive energy that reaches out
to them. If you would like information, please write to me at Bonkaye@aol.com
as soon as possible!
HAPPIER NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU
The New Year is always a time of hope and
inspiration for most of us. Some of us look forward to new starts while others
look forward to new endings. Regardless of where you are on the road to Gay
Husband Recovery, knowing that others can feel your pain is always
comforting--and VALIDATING. As I've said before, we are not part of a vocal
national movement of survivors like those who survive other catastrophes. We
are hidden and quiet. No one is out there shouting, "I'm proud I survived
my gay husband...Yaaaaaaaay!!!" Yep, no special awards or recognition or
ribbons for this one. In fact, most of us barely acknowledge this information
to anyone. Yes, we are still in our husbands' closets long after our husbands
have left them to claim their "authentic new lives." Or reclaimed. Or
carry on in secret. Or whatever--away from you.
It is my plan this year to start moving
forward on my "His Fault Divorce" national movement. I think the only
way women are going to stop being victims is to become victors. We don't feel
like victors when some of our gay husbands hold the financial purse strings
over our heads forcing us into financial ruin in order to get a fair divorce.
I tell this with sincerity to all of our gay
husbands who contact me:
You
have no choice in being gay. And I even accept that MOST of you married in good
faith loving your wives or even in some cases "in love" with your
wives at the time you said, "I do." But you didn't--you couldn't. You
are gay. Take responsibility. That means financial responsibility. This is not
a divorce coming about because things didn't work out between two people--it's
a divorce that comes about because you are gay and don't belong in a marriage
to a woman. It's really all that simple. You don't have to complicate it and
make it any more difficult than that. You need to pay for this divorce and not
drag your wife down a further road to hell than the one she has been on or
facing ahead. You made the mistake. You need to do the right thing and FIX IT by being emotionally and financially
responsible. Yes, it may cost you more than
you would like to pay in terms of money, but you'll come out with so
much more when it comes to feeling good about having INTEGRITY. Your children will respect you, and your wife may be
able to forgive you because you are doing the best you can in this sad situation.
Sadly, most gay husbands are not coming to
me. They are going to groups that feel differently than we feel. Some of these
groups are telling them that it's their time to live their life and enjoy it.
They've already sacrificed too many years taking care of you and the children.
They put their lives on hold doing "the right thing," and now it's
time to move on. They will sit and "bitch" about their nagging wives
and convince each other that gay wasn't the issue. They could have stayed
forever in a "good" marriage and be gay. While they were working hard
to support the family and sacrifice their happiness, all you were doing was
complaining. You were never happy no matter how hard they worked. Now it's
their turn--and in the words of Celo Green, "Forget You." Most likely
they are saying the words in the original title which I won't print here, but
you get the idea.
So given the choice of the Bonnie Kaye
Integrity Way or the Gay Husband "Forget You" Way, which road do you
think most of your husbands are going to choose? They will take the high road
leaving you on the dry road rather than my road to INTEGRITY. Therefore, we
need to start trying to do something to make it better for us now or for others
in the future who are in our shoes.
I am going to launch my plan to make a stand
this spring. I will ask you then as I have in the past to actively work with me
on this issue. I have some volunteers, but I need many more to make this
happen. When we stand up for ourselves, then we will have the respect of others
who will finally stop thinking that we had any responsibility or fault in this
situation. We need to stand up for ourselves and fight for what is rightfully
ours without feeling ashamed or embarrassed. Your husbands' homosexuality is
his issue--it shouldn't have to define you forever or push you further back
into the closet.
When I am in Houston for our healing weekend
on March 1/2, I will roll out my plan to others who are looking to move ahead.
Then I will put it send it out to you in my March newsletter. Hopefully this
will be a Happier New Year for all of us if we stick together.
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD OF
TWENTY YEARS!!!
I have been writing about my wonderful
soulmate since I started writing this newsletter in 2001. Now, on January 5, we
celebrated our 20-year anniversary. It was a long and winding road, but it was
one that taught me how to feel good about myself as a human being and as a
person. Having unconditional love from someone who also wanted great sexual
experiences for twenty years really has done wonders for me. It has given me
the inspiration to write the words that many of you cling on to while you are
going through your hopeless days thinking you are alone or never going to feel
better about life.
We have had some rough spots, but 95% of our
time has been magic. I don't think you can ask for more than that. We are not
married, and most likely, won't be. As I wrote in my book Manreaders: A Woman's Guide to Dysfunctional Men, I know myself
well enough to know that I love the romance rather than the day-to-day
companionship, and I don't have to apologize for that. Seeing the man you love
four or five days a week and talking in between has kept our time together
quality time. Many of you have commented to me over the years that would be the
most you could ask for as well. For those of you who are younger, you may feel
very different and that is fine! But now that both of us are way past middle age,
we're happy just as we are.
I am telling you this because it is so
important to hold out and give yourself a chance to heal after your marriages.
Learning who you are before you jump to the next man is so important. And trust
me--I know how hard it is for some women who have felt that constant sense of
rejection on both a personal and sexual level for so long in their marriages.
But without waiting, unraveling the emotional mess you are leaving, and getting
to know and love yourself again, you are doomed to repeat this mistake over and
over again. There are so many predators out there waiting for you.
Here is
a case in point. One of our straight sisters overseas allowed me to share her
story with you:
Dear Bonnie:
I was trapped in an
unhappy marriage to a man who had spent the duration of our married life
looking at gay porn. He had a gay facebook account and was looking at webcams
of gay men on a regular basis. I had asked him on many occasions if he was
interested in men and he had come up with a range of seemingly legitimate
excuses. Looking back, these were purely farcical, but, at the time, I would
have believed anything from the man I loved.
It was at this time when
I met Derek. He was exciting, very attentive and seemed to adore spending time
with me. For an attention starved woman, who was married to a gay man, that was
the best thing that had ever happened to me in around a decade. His brutal honesty
was very appealing. He quickly informed me that my husband was indeed gay, that
straight men didn't look at gay porn, end of story, let alone do all of the
other things he had done. I was wasting my time with him and he would help me,
just as a friend, as I needed my life sorting out. This conversation arose
after a drunken night out, where I had fallen out with my friends and called
him on my way home. We spoke for around two hours and I told him everything
about my life and how unhappy I was with it.
Derek and I began a
sexual relationship while I hunted for yet more proof that my ex husband was
gay. I didn't think anyone would believe me on what I had found and I would
look like the bad person who had run away with another man. This evidence
appeared a few months later when I found out he had seen a gay friend of mine
and they enjoyed a lot more than just each others company. I told my husband it
was over and began to make plans to leave.
Derek was amazing at
this time and was showering me with gifts and listened to me for hours and
hours while I told him about my life. Our sex life was amazing and I started to
enjoy sex again and learn that women can have fun in the bedroom too. I stopped
my negative thoughts and actually started to believe I was worth something.
Derek was the life and soul of the party and sent me joke after joke throughout
my days. I spent time at his place relaxing, away from the daily grind, and we
made plans to enjoy the rest of our life together. I couldn't believe my luck,
finally something was going right. I ignored some of the warning signs that
Derek wasn't quite what he made out to be, he was incredibly possessive and
often sat outside my house at night while I slept. He bad mouthed all of my
friends and had a reputation for being a nasty man and had served time in
prison.
We moved in together the
following March, and for a while things were pretty perfect. He was kind and
attentive. He took time to get to know my two children and he took them for
days out. Everyone told me how well I had done as he was a really nice person.
However, cracks began to
show. Derek refused to use any contraception with me and then allowed me to
take the blame for my ex being gay, which put him at risk from getting a
sexually transmitted disease. I was an evil person for allowing this to happen
and I should go to an std clinic to get tested. If we had a disagreement he
would disappear and leave me alone at night. He would refuse to answer his
phone to me and leave me worrying about what I had done and where he had gone.
He started to moan about my children's behavior and tell me that a biological
child wouldn't be that hard to manage. That my two children were very badly
behaved and we only had peace while they were at their dads. He was unkind to
my dog and had stopped her from sleeping in my bedroom. She was only allowed in
the kitchen and was chained outside when I was out without any water, even in
the middle of summer. He began to criticize me for the clothes that I wore and
the way I had my hair.
Gradually over time
these things happened more and more often and by July that year I was pregnant.
Derek said he was delighted, but when he was on the phone to his mates he made
out that I had deceived him. He told his friends that I had told him I couldn't
have children. I knew I had been honest with him, but seeds of doubt grew in my
mind and I began to wonder if I had deceived him
I have to be honest now
about what Derek was. He was an abuser and he abused me and my children in my
own home. When I fell pregnant with his child, the abuse escalated. He would
leave me stranded in the family home. I had moved away from my friends and
family to spend my life with him and he spent time convincing me that my
friends were no good and weren't really friends. He cut me off from a lot of
support networks as I lost touch with a lot of them. If I wanted to go out he
convinced me that it was a bad idea and made me feel so bad about abandoning
him that I would cancel. When I fell pregnant, he came up with the perfect excuse
to keep me at home. He was very attentive but insisted that I rest a lot so
wasn't able to keep up a social life. I stopped going out and for a while he
used my car leaving his van behind, as it used a lot of diesel, and we needed
the money. This left me stranded in the village as I was too unsure to drive
the van. He never used his cash to fill the car up so I covered my diesel as
well as his.
Derek had periods of not
working, as he was self-employed, and that left me covering for all of the
bills in the family home. When he did work it was nights and he slept most of
the day. He expected me to keep the children quiet and grew angry if they made
the slightest noise. He threatened me with hurting them as they were so badly
behaved and even threatened to kill them if he fell terminally ill and often
spoke of the various ways he would like to torture them. He filled my head with
stories of the violence he had inflicted on people and he left me with no doubt
that he could hurt them if I ever tried to leave or end the relationship.
There was no form of
negotiation in our relationship. I was always the one in the wrong. If I asked
him for money to cover the bills he told me that the work was drying up or that
he only just had enough to cover his bills and was unable to support me with
the ones I needed. He was the sort of person that didn't exist on paper and he
had several addresses where he resided but he could never be traced at any. If
he wanted his own way about anything he either put pressure on so that I would
give in or threatened to harm one of my children or my ex husband. I trod on
eggshells every day and often took my children out of the house to avoid his
outbursts or the chance that he would harm them. On the odd day when we were at
home, the children would always insist on coming with me to the shop or on a
walk around the block after my youngest was born.
If things were bad
before mine and Derek's baby was born, they became a million times worse after
she was. He disappeared for a day after I had my first membrane sweep leaving
me stranded with two children unable to get to hospital should I go into labor.
When I went into hospital to have her, he refused to come in while I had an
emergency c section and then kept my daughter with him after she was born. I
didn't see her for the first hour after her birth. That night he called me
telling me that my dog had done a runner and he couldn't find her. He called me
a couple of hours later to say she had rematerialized. When he took me home
after two days of being hospitalized, he refused to wait until I had strapped
her in to the car and drove off very quickly. He stopped after a few minutes of
driving to allow me to strap her in and I was crying from the pain of my
operation. He then zoomed off moaning about how his feet and arms were hurting
from having to carry the car seat to the car and my bags. Never mind the
operation I had just had and how much him driving at 100 miles an hour was
hurting my scar from the surgery.
When we arrived home, I
spoke to my other two children who were very distressed as they hadn't spoken
to me for a couple of days and Derek had refused to allow them to see me at the
hospital. He didn't want my 'gay ex-husband' near his daughter. He then
threatened to hurt my ex as he had expressed how upset he was with me about not
letting my two older children visit me in hospital. Derek told me to give him
his number or he would go there and 'fuck him up'. I called a neighbor in
distress and she came over to diffuse the situation.
When my littlest was
severely ill with tonsillitis and there was a possibility of her being
hospitalized. He disappeared, leaving me stranded without any means of getting
to the hospital for over 24 hours. He left me stranded several hours on another
occasion when my car failed its mot, my youngest had gastroenteritis at the
time and I had no means of getting home until he decided to collect me. He
disappeared more and more regularly at this time refusing to answer his phone
and leaving me wondering where he was. My youngest was a difficult sleeper and
I was often tired, but he expected me to deal with this alone and moaned if he didn't
get his full night's sleep, despite me being up and feeding her several times a
night. If I was tired and grouchy he made me feel worse.
The verbal abuse
escalated too and the put downs became more and more frequent. My hair was
horrible, my teeth were yellow, my skin was a mess and I was moody and ugly.
These happened most often in front of his friends and family. It was constant.
He hit my dog more and more regularly and was leaving her outside for hours on
end. I never actually saw him hit her but she limped frequently and had cuts
and bruises. He told me it was my two oldest children that were doing it and I
needed to protect my youngest from harm. I kept the door to my bedroom locked
at night and only allowed them supervised contact during the day. It was a
horrible life.
I was starting to see
all of the things he was doing after Christmas and tried a few times to kick
him out. He always turned the waterworks on, and I felt sorry for him and
agreed to give him chance after chance.
Things finally came to a
head when he assaulted my son in April last year. He hemorrhaged behind his ear
drum and caused a bruise 12 x 12 cms. I kicked him out and started to take
control of my life once more. Social services and the police became involved
and I have managed to turn my life around. It's been an up and down road since
then but I can safely say things are beginning to get a bit better. I have
received some support from domestic abuse services and have moved to a safe
location. Derek is no longer a part of our lives and we hope it stays that way.
I would firmly advise a
woman in a gay marriage to get out and stay out. But take your time and heal
before moving on with your life, it's too easy to jump out of the frying pan
and into the fire!!!!!
A straight spouse sister
Keeping this in mind, I
asked Donna Andersen from Lovefraud.com if I could reprint an article from one
of her recent newsletters. This is an issue that affects many of our women in
one form or another:
I recently received an email from a Lovefraud reader who had only one question. It’s a question I hear frequently: Do sociopaths return?
The answer: Some of them don’t, but some of them do. Many people who have been romantically involved with sociopaths experienced the sudden “devalue and discard.” One day the sociopath loves you. The next day the sociopath tosses you aside like a used tissue and walks away, without ever looking back.
As the person left behind, you may be in shock. You may have had no idea that your partner was unhappy. You may ask yourself, did I do something wrong? Why didn’t he or she say something? Can’t we work this out?
You are also astounded at the callousness of your partner’s behavior. All those statements of “I love you” and “we’re soul mates” — did they mean nothing? After all the time you spent together, and everything you’ve been through, how can this person just leave?
The answer may be that your former partner has drained all your resources, and there’s nothing left to take. Or your former partner has simply found a juicier target. Or your partner simply decides that he or she is bored. For whatever reason, you are no longer of any use, and the sociopath is gone. If this person doesn’t return, consider yourself lucky.
The return
Sometimes the sociopath does return. They often have a sixth sense of when you may be receptive to hear from them. They just seem to know when your anger has subsided, or when you’re feeling lonely, or when you feel strong enough to be “just friends.”
Then, because they’ve spent so much time studying you, they know exactly what approach to use to hook you again.
They may proclaim their love, confessing that they never knew how much they truly loved you until you were gone.
They may apologize profusely, seeming to take responsibility for their heartless actions, while conveniently blaming something else, such as work stress or alcohol.
They may promise to go to counseling, or church, or rehab. Or, they say they’ve already been to counseling, church or rehab, and they’ve changed.
Or, they seduce you sexually.
Why do they return? Perhaps the “juicier target” has thrown them out and they have no place to go. Whatever the reason, they were able to manipulate you before, so they assume they’ll be able to manipulate you again.
Maintain No Contact
In numerous articles on Lovefraud, I’ve explained that to end an involvement with a sociopath, you must have No Contact with him or her.
If the sociopath returns after a period of time, your response should be the same: Maintain No Contact.
They may catch you off-guard by contacting you from a new phone number or e-mail address that you haven’t blocked. They may show up unannounced at your home or place of employment.
Do not fall for their apologies, excuses or professions of love.
Never forget: Once they are adults, sociopaths do not change. Sooner or later, the old games will start again, except they’ll be worse.If a sociopath returns, do not let him or her back into your life.
Donna will be a guest on
my radio show on February 9th. To hear the show, go to www.blogtalkradio.com at
10 p.m. EST and type Straight Wives Talk Show into the search bar. Otherwise
you can listen after the broadcast anytime!
MAILBAG
Dear Bonnie,
Once again...wonderful letter. I can
testify...even after 2 years apart,
and divorced one.... the pain is still there. The "angry" days are still
there. The "I wasted so much time!!" days are there. But...life goes on.
And life is good and truly it is a blessing. I have been able to find
myself once again. I sure missed me!! Thank you God for your blessings and
for Bonnie Kaye. Your books opened the light for me several years ago
when I already knew what I didn't want to accept! I look this year to a
strength in my relationship with God and my family that I am proud of.
and divorced one.... the pain is still there. The "angry" days are still
there. The "I wasted so much time!!" days are there. But...life goes on.
And life is good and truly it is a blessing. I have been able to find
myself once again. I sure missed me!! Thank you God for your blessings and
for Bonnie Kaye. Your books opened the light for me several years ago
when I already knew what I didn't want to accept! I look this year to a
strength in my relationship with God and my family that I am proud of.
Straight Wife
Here were some of the shows in recent weeks. You can cut and paste
the links into your browser to listen.
This show features Jason, the head of our Adult Children
of Gay Fathers group. This is such an important show. Do yourself a favor and
find an hour when you can listen to the show.
This is Dr. Brian Hooper's holiday message for us.
Grace from Texas joins Bonnie to talk about obstacles
women face.
That's it for the month! Happier New Year to all of you!
Love,
Bonnie ♥
