BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK NEWSLETTER - NOVEMBER 2020

 

NOVEMBER 2020     Volume 21, Issue 208
Bonnie’s Mantra: LIFE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE THIS COMPLICATED. PERIOD.

SAY HIS NAME, SAY HIS NAME—GAY HUSBAND

One of my readers asked me to address the issue of revealing her husband’s homosexuality to other people when he specifically asked her not to do it. I think the majority of our women have been put in this most uncomfortable position of “keeping his secret." Do we owe this to our husbands? Is it really our secret to have to keep? I say NO with a resounding thunder. Why? Very simple. It’s not our secret to keep.

I remember during my marriage how isolated I felt. Part of that isolation was because my ex-husband alienated so many people out of our lives specifically MY friends and family. It was almost as if he could keep people away from me, I wouldn’t “slip” and tell them the truth. Quite honestly, I was scared to tell anyone the truth because if my ex would have found out, I would have been vilified and punished. He was never physically abusive, but he was very emotionally abusive knowing how to attack every weak point in my ego and then some. He was also very volatile. As I’ve said before, he liked to “shout me down to shut me up.” And he was quite successful at doing so.

So you may say, but after the marriage….well, after the marriage wasn’t much better in the early years. He would be leading his gay life while warning me to keep “mum” so no one else would know it—except for the numerous men he was sleeping with. It was no secret to them for sure. And so I suffered in silence with people who were imagining where “I” went wrong in the marriage. To some he seemed like such a great guy—like many of our ex-husbands. They can charm a snake and convince people they are faultless for the breakup of the marriage. In fact, they are usually the victims. Why did they leave us? Because we weren’t supportive enough or we didn’t clean the house well enough. They usually never take the responsibility, do they? It’s so much easier to shift the blame over to us especially when they explaining this to their families. And their families who looked at us as daughters now look at us through faulty vision based on the lies they are being told by our gay husbands. It’s a no win situation. If we keep their secret, we come out losing.

In a world that now sympathizes with the brave gay husbands who have sacrificed their “authentic lives” to do the “right thing” by staying in their marriages until their families were grown up--while wasting years of their wives’ sanity and sense of self-worth--I don’t see any point in having to keep that secret any longer. Why is it our job to keep silent when they can live their authentic lives at our expense? That doesn’t make sense.

Keeping his secret hurts one person—namely YOU. First of all, it puts you in a position of telling a lie on his behalf. That’s the kind of lie that will eat your soul out and make you sick. In many cases, your husbands will deny that they are gay and claim that you are making it up to get back at them. I say tell it anyway. In time, almost all of these men will live the life they want to lead even if it’s behind your back or when you’re not looking. If they are gay, they are going to act on it. Maybe in the beginning it could be just looking at gay porn, but it time, it will be acting on those urges that won’t go away. If  you think your gay husband isn’t having gay sex, well, then you are the one in a state of denial—not him.

I recently had a chat with one of our members the other day, and she insisted to me that her husband couldn’t possibly be cheating on her because she knows where he is at all times. I explained to her that these men can be with you at all times and still be cheating on you. I know that as a fact because I have worked with several thousand gay men over the 35 years that I’m doing this. Their stories are unbelievable.

For instance, one man I personally know told me how he always went shopping with his wife to a local national chain department store. She would go into the ladies department; he would tell her he’s trying on clothes in the men’s department. He would exit to the men’s department and meet up with someone in the dressing room (planned out ahead of the visit) and have one minute sex with the guy in the dressing room. This happened on multiple occasions.

Another man would tell me about his “dining experiences” in a large chain restaurant where he would go with his wife. She would be ordering dinner, and he would excuse himself to go outside to have a cigarette. He would meet up with a guy outside in the back of the restaurant, “relieve” himself, and go back to dinner as if nothing had happened.

One other man told me of his adventures in his HOUSE while his wife went shopping. He actually had men come over for what he described as a “quicky” in his marital bedroom and be done long before she came home.

These are true and validated stories. How does this happen? Easy. These guys have all kinds of apps to meet people for anonymous sex. They throw out the word that they are married men looking for fast fun—and they find it. And I know it works. A few years ago we had a healing weekend in Texas. We downloaded the app to try it out because we couldn’t believe it. We put out the word that we were a “married man” looking for fun with another man. Within five minutes, there were six responses ready to come to the hotel—no questions asked.

Getting back to my original point, you can feel free to tell anyone you want the real truth. You don’t need to keep a secret that is not yours to keep. Let people know the truth on why your marriage breaking up. It doesn’t take “two to tango” when you have a gay husband—it only takes one—the gay husband. PERIOD. Well, not exactly. This will take me to my next topic!

 

HOW MANY PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO BREAK UP A MARRIAGE?

Let’s talk about marriage for a moment. Actually, let’s first talk about straight marriages. Now I realize that most of my readers have a difficult time talking about this because they haven’t experienced it—so let me be the one to tell you about it based on my own experience and the experiences of others that we know.

They say that 50% of marriages with straight couples end in divorce in this country. There are numerous reasons why this happens which include:

1.    Marriage at a young age when you are unsure of who you are.

2.    Marriage at a young age when you are unsure of what you want.

3.    People aging and growing in different directions.

4.    People getting tired of each other or just fall out of love.

5.    Personality conflicts that develop more clearly.

6.    Financial problems that break people apart.

7.    Infidelity in a marriage.

8.    Addiction.

All of this factors into the loss of a straight marriage. As I tell women I work with in this situation that there doesn’t have to be a good partner and a bad partner—a marriage may not work with two good people just going in different directions. In every marriage there will be problems, but it doesn’t have to come down to blame and stacking up who has more right and wrong points to justify the end of a marriage.

However, when it comes to being married to a gay man, all of this changes. It doesn’t matter how young or how old you are when you get married. It doesn’t matter what his personality is or what yours is. All that matters is one thing—he is a gay man and you are a straight woman. That is the recipe for disaster.

I hate when I first meet women who are internalizing what they did wrong in the marriage or what they could have done “better.” I also understand why they feel this way. Their husbands have been training them for years to believe that his frustrations and their problems in the marriage were the result of her—not him. Women start analyzing what they could have done differently in the marriage. This is where I have to “knock some sense” into them to make them realize that nothing would have changed the end result.

Men tell me a whole list of excuses for the failure of the marriage—not of which, by the way, is the gay factor. They say:

1.    We married too young – No, it’s because you are gay.

2.    We’ve grown apart – No, it’s because you are gay.

3.    My wife isn’t supportive to me – No, it’s because you are gay.

4.    My wife isn’t interested in sex – No, it’s because you are gay AND you’ve done nothing to make her feel sexually wanted (I have to add that)

5.    My wife is always depressed – Yes, because you are gay.

6.    My wife is always suspicious – Yes, because you are cheating on her.

7.    My wife is always accusing me of being unfaithful – Yes, because you are.

The list could go on indefinitely, but you get the point.

True, I became a different person from living with my gay husband. I was a strong and independent woman when I married him. How strong was I? In 1970 – 1979,I was the a local leader and later national director of a of an activist/militant Jewish organization fighting against neo-Nazis and Nazi War Criminals. I spent ten years getting arrested, jumping barricades, getting thrown down steps, hit by bottles—yes, I was strong. When I met my gay husband, I was charmed by his good looks, sense of humor, intelligence, and charisma. His strength drew me to him because I wanted a man I could lean on. I came to learn that his strength was that of a bully—always having to get his way or screaming and shouting. It didn’t happen for a while. He didn’t display any fits of anger prior to our marriage. After all, he was an excellent actor. He had been performing his whole life pretending to be a straight man.

We married much too soon. He was desperate for stability, and I believed whatever little faults I had noticed could be “cured” by the love and security he was so desperate for. I had come out of a previous bad marriage and was looking for someone to love. He came from an unstable family and suffered as a result of that. He sure knew how to get me to feel sorry for him.  He had that vulnerable side that always sucked me in even after I escaped his mistreatment of me long after the marriage was over. I think these men target women like us who are caring and compassionate knowing that no matter what, we will still be there for them when the truth comes out.

We were only married for a short time—five years--which produced two children. I suspected his homosexuality two years into the marriage, but by that time, I was pregnant with my second child and since he was adamant he wasn’t gay, I let it go. He was not adamant that he wasn’t bisexual. By year three, when he confessed to me that he had a “moment of weakness” with some younger guy, and after I went and vomited in the toilet for a number of days, I stated to him that I was willing to “bargain.” Here were my terms: If you could disappear once every six months and not let me know about it—and if you are willing to be with someone of age limit—I CAN LIVE WITH THAT. Silly me. Imagine bargaining with a gay man!! Well, at that time what I thought was a “bisexual” man.

Why bisexual? Because he was married to me. He had sex with me. Maybe it wasn’t much and maybe it wasn’t great, but it was still sex and that wasn’t something a gay man couldn’t do, right? Wrong. But no one was out there telling me that at the time long before technology had kicked in.

Did I change? Yes. I became suspicious every time he walked out the door wondering when that “once every six months” was going to be not realizing it would become more like once every six days. I would suspect the crime was being committed each time he left for any parts unknown. Was he always walking out to cheat on me? No—but I know that he was a lot of the time.

I began to recognize the signs. He would shave, dress up, wear cologne, and “look” like he was going out on a date—even when he was going to the “gym,” the biggest pick up places for gay men. Yes, straight gyms. Steam baths with other “straight” men who had male indiscretions—but they weren’t gay either. Gosh, I was so lost.

In1980, there was no realistic information at all out there even if you could find it. People believed that gay could be a choice you could make. I believed it. I believed that if I would try harder, clean better, lose weight, cook more, be more supportive, be less jealous (of nothing so he claimed), then maybe he could be a “better husband.”

I was a prisoner running around the “circle of crazy.” He was cheating on me regularly, but I didn’t confirm this until after the marriage when he told it to me in a joking, bragging way. Yes, he had many a conquest of “quickies” in convenient places from the gym to our bedroom when I wasn’t home. This man had no boundaries. If he gave me anything, it was the truth after the marriage was over. But not because I DESERVED IT, but because he thought he got away with something time and again. This is the sign of a true sociopath.

Getting back to my point, I did become a different person while living this nightmare. I didn’t know who I was anymore and either did my family and friends. I had been isolated from them by my ex who made sure to have a fight with me every time someone was visiting us for fear I might tell one of them my suspicions about his secret. They just didn’t want to come to see me anymore for fear of being caught in the crossfire.

 I begged him to go to counseling with me, but he refused. He told me if I needed counseling, I could go—as long as I never discussed my “suspicions” with the counselor. If he found out that I did, he would leave and take the children. At that point, I was so beaten down. He had total control of all of our money. I rarely had more than a dollar in my wallet—another form of control.

It’s funny. My ex fell madly in love with a younger man, Billy, two years after we split up. I really believe he was truly enamored with this guy. It was different than all of his other hookups. He was obsessed. Billy stayed with him for a couple of years on and off. I had a number of interactions with him because the children would visit their father a couple of times a year. I found it so amazing that he treated Billy the same way he treated me. Not at first—but once he had him. This young man would commiserate with me about the way my ex treated him—the same way he treated me. Never believe these guys with personality disorders change even when they start leading their new “authentic lives.” They don’t. They can’t. They don’t want to.

Today, nearly 40 years later, things have changed. Women have access to information. The Internet is scattered with stories of women who have been married to gay men. I have had my website up for 20 years and had over 560,000 hits for information. Today when women want to learn about this disaster—it is out there. And yet, the truth is still so hard to believe. We still try to bargain with our realities. My heart aches each week when women contact me looking for some false hope that I can’t give them. When women with “bisexual” husbands ask me if their husbands can truly be bisexual and just not cheat on them, what can I tell them? I tell them maybe it’s possible, but in nearly 40 years, I haven’t seen it happen yet. That’s me—the voice of “doom and gloom” or rather honesty and tough love.

When I talk to women who lived with their gay husbands for 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 plus years, my heart breaks for them. Living a life time of deceit and always wondering what you are doing wrong to create it is a painful way to live. Some women are beaten down like I was. They don’t have the courage to take their lives back. I was lucky that my ex walked out in anger leaving me with two babies and $50.00. I had no car, no phone, and no self-esteem at that point. He thought he would teach me a lesson so that when he came home, I’d be so happy to have him back that I would give in to his (as my sister calls them) SHENANGANS. Ah, no such luck. In that one week I didn’t weaken—I found my former inner strength. And as scared as I was to be broke with no job or minimal resources, I found the strength to say NO when he returned a week later. But being honest—if he would not have left for that week, who knows how long I would have stayed in that state of fear and hopelessness? Maybe I would have been one of those heartbreaking stories of suffering for another 20 years or more.

People tell me that I am one of the strongest women they know. Hardly. I am one of the luckiest women they know because my ex left me and  after five years and gave me the chance to find myself again. I tell you my own story so you should never second guess yourself or blame yourself for staying longer than you should have. Never blame yourself for hoping against hope that you imagination was running away with you. Never beat yourself up for wondering why it took you so long to see the truth. We are good-hearted, loving women who try to find the best in the worst or at least the not-best situation. We need to stop blaming ourselves for any of the problems in our marriages. Any mistakes we made were directly due to the way we were treated and ripped down either passively or aggressively. We became different women than we were when we entered the marriage, and those traits that are husbands created were the ones that our husbands complained about. We were too “needy,” “suspicious” or “jealous.” I wonder why. We have nothing to feel ashamed about. No one has the right to judge us for how long we stayed or why we stayed. It’s bad enough we lived through this experience. No apologies or explanations are ever needed to anyone—including yourself!

MY HOLIDAY MESSAGE FROM 2016

I wrote a holiday message four years ago that I will repeat in this newsletter. The sentiments are the same.  I know this is such a tough time of year for so many of our straight wives, so I hope this article will help you.

 

IN THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT….

Ladies, I’d like to wish you a holiday season. It would be a little silly to say “Happy” holiday season to the many of you who would feel I’m being sarcastic or insensitive during the worst months of each year.

For those of you who are still suffering in your marriages built on illusions and mirrors, there is no real happiness to talk about. Your future is in limbo, and you know that any moment your husband walks out the door some shoe can fall on your head.

For those of you who are newly divorced, this will be your most difficult year yet. All of those holiday traditions you celebrated together are no longer there. And as much as people like me advise you to “start new traditions” and give you “tips” for getting through the holiday, let’s be for real—it’s never, ever that simple.

For those of you in the early years of Gay Husband Recovery, memories of what you thought was yours forever will do the dance of the sugar plum fairies in your brain—no pun intended. They just make you wonder on what was real or not real for those years.

For those of you who are further into your recovery and still struggling with “issues” that create residual feelings of PTSD when certain triggers remind you of what you had, lost, or never had and lost—this is the time to expect those feelings to rise to the surface.

No matter what phase you are in, we are all struggling in this game of either GIVE ME BACK MY LIFE AS IT USED TO BE, or when you realize that won’t happen--TAKE BACK MY LIFE SO I CAN MOVE AHEAD. Unfortunately those pictures being shoved in our face every day and everywhere of families living out our fantasies that we believed to be our realities really tips our boat over making us feel like we are drowning or tilts the pin ball machine in our brain with bright lights until we are screaming “Tilt, Tilt.”

Personally, I think the holidays are a time we don’t have to be happy or even pretend to be happy. We’re not going to fool ourselves for sure. Maybe we can fool others around us, but do we need to do that? Do we need to pretend that our feelings aren’t really that important? Do we need to feel any more “minimized” than we already do?

Being in or ending a marriage to a gay man—whether he is open, in the closet, or somewhere in between—is a traumatic life event. Your investment of time and love into a no-win situation is your reality. In most cases, knowing that your husband was “exploring” his sexuality while lying next to you while he was lying to you and blaming you for the mishaps along the way is something you have to process. In over 20% of the cases of women who come to me, they have the received a gift from their gay husband’s indiscretions that never goes away—namely an STD that will last forever in some cases. And if that isn’t enough to kick you in the gut, people are praising him for being “brave” for coming out. Hello….what about us??? Is anyone praising us for the years we devoted to our family trying to be superwomen in hopes that our husbands would want us? Is anyone marching on a special day saying, “We are proud to be Straight Wives”? Do we get a special day of recognition or a movie about our pain?

And what about how we are portrayed by the media? First we had Brokeback Mountain that portrayed the two wives of gay men as idiots. Now we get a Netflix dramoedy with a real-life older out lesbian playing a straight wife. Oh—we also had Fran Drescher playing Nanny to her gay ex-husband on their double dates and a few Mormon women on TLC talking about how they are happy to marry their gay boyfriends. Is it any wonder that our ex gay husbands are the heroes? There is nothing real about how the media portrays our struggle—we appear as stupid bimbos who should have known better.

Yep. I’m angry. But I’m not bitter. There’s a line that separates them. A few people call me bitter—but that’s not the case. My life moved on, and I am living happily ever after. I’m angry because too many of you still suffering. Bitter would mean that I’m encouraging our women to stay angry. I don’t encourage it at all—but I do acknowledge it. I will validate every raw feeling that you have and make sure that you take absolutely NO RESPONSIBILITY for the demise of your marriage. I will not accept any man telling me, “Well, it wouldn’t have worked out even if I were straight.” That’s what I call denial. They just don’t get it because gay men don’t think straight. They don’t get that the way that you act is in response to the way they treat you.

Most of our women are wonderful women who want to be wonderful wives. Yes, some of us come from situations where there were “issues,” but that doesn’t mean that we can’t be wonderful wives—if we have wonderful husbands to nurture us and help us thrive. When we live a daily life of lies, confusion, and blame, we become different people. We become fearful, co-dependent, and suspicious because we are living someone else’s lie. This is the true shame of the holidays when you are a straight wife.

So, my message to you is to “just get through it.” It’s going to be a rough time until mid-February when all of those loving holidays are finally gone. Until then, it will be one reminder after another of what you thought you had but don’t have.

One of the reasons I get bummed out around this time of year is because I do know what’s ahead. I know that within the next 4 weeks or so, I am going to be meeting dozens of new women who will be hearing the news they never wanted to hear. This is the time of year that many married gay men wait for to tell their wives. They don’t want to louse up the holidays for the family, so they hang in there until January 1^st or shortly thereafter. No comment. I’ll just be waiting for them.

Maybe it’s not the best time of the year for many Straight Wives—but it is a psychological time of renewal when January 1^st comes along. The worst of the holiday season is behind us so things can get back on track. I was going to say “normalize,” but that would be misleading, wouldn’t it?

To all of my straight sisters, I wish you pleasant holidays. I am here for anyone who needs support. Just email me! I’m here for you!!

Love, Bonnie

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                        

 

 

 

BONNIE KAYE CLASSIC ARTICLE = GAY MEN DON'T THINK STRAIGHT

Hi Friends,

I wrote this article back in 2013, but it is just so important that I wanted to reprint it now. I hope it helps you gain perspective of the failure of your marriages.

 

NEW EPIPHANY - GAY MEN DON'T THINK STRAIGHT - July 2013

Every few years, an epiphany hits me like a ton of bricks. The first one was in 2001 when I realized that we became women who we were not necessarily supposed to become because our husbands are gay.  Instead of working to grow emotionally and professionally, we are spiritually muted or stagnated for years living in a state of what I call "Muck"...much like sinking in quicksand. That is because we dance in that "circle of crazy" which means running around in circles like a dog chasing after its tail. Even the dog is in better shape than we are because sometimes he gets a hold of his tail--we just keep sinking further into helplessness.

Several epiphanies later, I now have a new one. This comes from 30 years and over 90,000 women asking me dozens of different questions that usually start the same way:

"HOW COULD HE DO THIS TO ME?"

It's very simple--he's GAY.

And here's my newest epiphany:

"GAY MEN DON'T THINK STRAIGHT."

Please don't misunderstand me. This is not a put down on gay people at all. It's just a reality based on years of observation. I am the first to say that I don't think gay. That is because I am straight. Once again--an observation.

So when women ask me how their gay husbands can do the things they do, it's quite simple--they are GAY. They don't belong in a marriage to you. PERIOD.

The problem with our women is that they keep expecting their husbands to act as if they are straight--not gay. You forget that gay men who complain about their unhappiness are unhappy because they are married to you--a woman. And even though your husband  was for the most part all excited about the "opportunity" to marry you before you said, "I do," he was saying, "I hope I can, I hope I can make love to her, I hope she'll believe me when I pretend to be straight, I hope I won't keep fantasizing about men anymore, I hope those things I've done with guys will be in the past, I hope that if I can't resist these urges and she finds out, she won't leave me," etc. etc. You see, while you were entering the marriage filled with hopes and dreams, he was entering your marriage filled with the hope that he could "pull it off."

Don't ever believe that your gay husband just found out he was gay after he married you--after 10, 20, 30, or 40 years. That isn't true. And don't believe that he thought all men--including straight men--fantasize about being with men or have occasional sexual encounters with men because that is NOT true. And he knows it isn't true--he is just justifying his sexual fantasies and encounters. And why? He doesn't want to be gay.

I do believe that most gay men marry you because they love you--but let me clarify that by saying that they love you to the best of their ability as gay men. They love you the way they would love a sister or a cousin--but you are not his family--you are his WIFE. And as a wife, you are expecting more out your husband than to love you as a family member or best friend.  That's where the disconnect begins. Some of us have that happen sooner than later in a marriage--but eventually, it does happen. And when things are not heating up in the bedroom, that's where the anger, resentment, and blame begin.

          You: Why does it feel like I have to ask for sex all of the time?

          Him:  Why are you always thinking about sex?

          You:   Other women spend romantic evenings with their husbands.

          Him:  You are watching too many movies. It doesn't happen that way                      in real life.

          You:  We've only been married a couple of years. Why don't you                            make love to me?

          Him:  What are you? A nymphomaniac? All you think about is sex,                        sex, sex.

Here is the disconnect. As a gay man, he is also thinking about sex, sex, sex. But he is not thinking about having it with you. When he thinks about sex with you, he is thinking about a way out of having sex with you. Just like the thought of having sex with your brother or uncle would be repulsive to you, he has the same thought when it comes to you. It's not that he doesn't love you--he just doesn't love you the way you love him--because he is gay. He can love you, but he can't be "in love" with you. He is gay--he doesn't know how.

Gay men in denial who have a deep enough desire to stay married because they can't face living in a "gay world" will go through the motions. They can talk the talk. After all, they've been practicing their whole lives observing straight people. They can walk the walk--they know what a "straight walk" looks like. But they can't do the "dirty" indefinitely no matter how hard they try. And after a while, it becomes "dirty" to them. It becomes as incestuous to them as it would be for us to have sex with a family member--or even your best girlfriend whom you love--but not as a lover.

Why do we keep expecting gay men to be straight men? That is the faulty thinking that we have. Every response they have with you is based on their gay thinking--not on straight thinking. The resentment they have towards you is because you are a woman who wants them to be a straight man. Why wouldn't you? He married you. He promised to love you through everything--but he didn't understand that everything meant being a husband who wants intimacy and sex with his wife as part of the marital deal.

When your husband married you, he figured he could do it and maybe enjoy it. After all, he could always close his eyes and fantasize about his dream man. Many of these gay husbands do just that--and they have told me so. But they don't want to do more than they have to do to convince you that they are straight. After all, if they can get an erection every now and then--even if they can't keep it during your intimate moments--that will prove to you that they are straight. And if they lose the erection in the middle of one of those moments--no problem. It's your fault, isn't it? If he can get one, he takes the credit, but can't keep it going, then you get the credit because it must be your fault. Let's see, you're too fat...thin...dirty...smelly...flat chested....big chested...have bad breath...breathe too loud...demand too much...boring during sex...didn't clean the house enough, don't use the right shampoo, etc., etc., etc.

And then you ask me how they could do this to you.

So ladies, here's where my new epiphany should become your new mantra:

GAY MEN DON'T THINK STRAIGHT BECAUSE THEY ARE GAY!

You need to say this over and over again to yourself daily whether you are still in your marriage or not. You see, we keep wondering how they can worse after they leave the marriage. We keep thinking like straight women who have a straight husband:

Us:       Maybe now that he has left, he'll realize how much he has                             hurt me.

Them:    I gave up so much of my life for her. I was such a good                                husband and provider. I gave her everything I had, and all                           she did was complain and complain about sex. She's so                              ungrateful.

Yes, we just don't get it. Women have come to me and said, "He's willing to give up his family for a roll in the hay with someone? Sex means more to him than his family?

Yes, you just don't get it. It's not about sex--it's about being gay and being free of living a lie where he can never please you. It's about him feeling the kind of love and excitement with a man that he can never feel for you because he is gay. And say it again:

GAY MEN DON'T THINK STRAIGHT BECAUSE THEY ARE GAY.

The key to healing from this nightmare is to realize that you can't do anything about it other than accept it. You can't personalize it. When your husband or ex-husband blames you for his unhappiness, you can believe it because you are a woman. You can never be the wife he needs because he doesn't need a wife--he needs a man. He is gay.

When he blames you for ANYTHING, hold your head high because you need to believe this has NOTHING to do with you. You didn't create it, and you can't change it. In Bonnie Kaye terms that means: You didn't break him--you can't fix him. Stop trying.

Nothing upsets me more than women who tell me that some of the problems in the marriage happened because of their behavior so they have to take some of the blame. Well sister, here's the news--you don't have to take any of the blame. You married someone who can never make you feel good about yourself because he was rejecting you on some level since the day he married you. Even though he didn't want to hurt you, he couldn't help himself because he is gay.

What does that mean? He resented you. You became the enemy. You were the keeper of his internal prison he created, and YOU held the key that you refused to hand him to escape. It doesn't matter that he wanted to marry you, nor does it matter that he refuses to leave his safety net and comfort level of leading a "straight life." Now you are the one who "keeps him trapped" into being someone he doesn't really want to be---namely your husband..

This is where another disconnect sets in. He continually picks, picks, picks--and he is picking at you and on you because of his frustration. He'll look to blame you for the problems in the marriage. After all, he's done everything to make you happy, but you are never happy. He's a good provider. He's a good father. What's the problem in the marriage? It has to be YOU. In his mind, he does what he believes is the right thing to do--other than giving you sex every time you ask for it--and don't you keep asking? What is with you?  

Since most of these men don't  or won't tell you the truth until they are ready--and sadly, too many will never be ready, even when they leave you--you slowly begin the deterioration process that strips down your self-esteem one layer at a time. You lose your footing because no matter how hard you try, your husband doesn't love you the way you know a man should love a woman. You're not stupid--but you sure are feeling very stupid because nothing you do is making your husband happy. When you don't know why all of your efforts don't bear the results you want, you finally understand what is wrong in your relationship--YOU ARE INADEQUATE. You have made every attempt to make your husband love you by showing him with love, affection, and passion--but nothing helps. What is wrong with you?

This is where the anger, depression, and worthlessness starts taking over your psyche. Many of our gay husbands/ex-husbands are passive-aggressive. They use a "slap and smile" strategy meaning they slap you down (mostly emotionally, but in some cases physically) and then tell you that they love you. Our "perception" of love gets distorted. As long as you hear those words "I love you," you feel there is a chance if only you can change some of your ways. You know what upsets him most--SEX. Other than that, he's not "that bad." As your family and friends keep telling you, "He's a good dad. He's a good provider. You go on nice vacations. He's not a WOMANIZER. You are a lucky woman." Message: There's nothing wrong with him. You should be happy.

So why aren't you? You start feeling guilty because you think you don't have the right to complain. Then you start reading magazine articles that say most relationships "lose their groove" sexually in time, but the friendship and love is still there. As the song goes, "Don't worry--be happy." Right? Wrong.

This is not about straight couples who get caught up with life on life's terms over the years where sex can diminish due to health issues or job pressures. This is about a gay man who has never made you feel valued as a woman--only as a sexual aggressor who has turned him off. It's about losing confidence in everything you do because no matter how much you have done, nothing is working. So many of our women try transforming themselves by going through life-changing surgery like gastric bypasses, breast implants, liposuction, and plastic surgery in order to make themselves more beautiful so their husbands will desire them. That's because he usually throws in those little excuses, "If only you weren't so heavy....if only you would lose weight...if only your breasts weren't so small....if only your body wasn't so flabby....if only, if only, if only.

Ha, ha, ha. Like changing this will make their husbands want them sexually more. They soon find out that "enhancing your appearance" to make yourself more beautiful is an act in futility. Your husband doesn't want you more beautiful--he wants a man--he is gay.

 When you are a normal woman, years of getting the message that you are 'abnormal" deprives you of ever knowing who you really are. There won't be much personal growth or actualizing here because you are too busy trying to get your husband to love you which means "desire you." You have to learn to accept the way you want your husband to love you WILL NEVER HAPPEN BECAUSE HE IS A GAY MAN!

Never mistake "cuddling with you" for "passion" with you. If it gives you some false illusion that "cuddling" means loving you, then you are deluding yourself. A marriage doesn't need cuddling as its primary source of affection. It needs the passion and desire that that makes you feel like you can climb a mountain or float on a cloud. A straight man will never just "do it" to make you happy. He will make you happy because it makes him happy when you are sexually satisfied. He loves to touch you. Cuddling is secondary--not the primary reason he wants to touch you. When a man loves you, he wants to "make love" to you.

I have been with my boyfriend for 19 years and 6 months. We have a beautiful and regular sex life that is always top of the line even at our age. As he explains to me, "Making love to you is the best way for me to express how much I love you." Yep, that is how a straight man thinks. We are both so in sync with each other because we know what pleases each other. After nearly two decades, I can tell you that he still works just as hard to please me because to him IT IS NOT WORK. It's passion that has built our intimacy to survive those difficult time when sex isn't possible due to medical issues. The medical issues are never an excuse--they are just a delay knowing things will be better and we will be fine. That's the difference between a straight man and a gay man. Straight men want sex with you because you are a woman--gay men don't want sex with you because you are a woman.

In closing, repeat these words every day:

GAY MEN DON'T THINK STRAIGHT--GAY MEN DON'T THINK STRAIGHT

BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK AUGUST 2020

 

BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK

Last January, I resumed my weekly podcasts on Blog Talk Radio. I want to thank the wonderful members of my support group who have been kind and generous in being a guest on the show—and some of you more than once. Our women need to hear you to feel inspired and supported in their own recovery process. I have received some beautiful feedback from women all over the world about your interviews that is so rewarding to me. Since January, we have had over 17,200 listens to the show on every continent of this world. You can listen live to the podcasts on Sunday evenings at 8 p.m. EST or anytime afterwards at this link: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/bonnielkaye If you would like to be a guest on my show—anonymously—just drop me a note at Bonkaye@aol.com. We all need to learn from each other how to balance this life changing experience.

UPCOMING INFORMATION FROM THE NEW STRAIGHT WIVES #3 BOOK

I am in the process of collecting stories for my new Straight Wives: Shattered Lives III book which I hope to have published this fall. I have some wonderful stories from some of the women in this support network, but I would like to have three more if you are interested. You can email me at Bonkaye@aol.com for the guidelines.

People wonder why this book is necessary. The last volume, STSW: 2, was published TEN years ago. In our changing current society where homosexuality is celebrated rather than hidden, people can’t conceive that this is still going on. But it is. Gay men are way ahead of where they were, but many of them are still confused. They don’t understand why they can still have feelings and attractions to women but still be gay. It doesn’t equate for them in their late teens, twenties, and sometime thirties. They can fall in love with a woman, have sexual relations with her for a number of years, produce children, lead a straight life—so how can this be gay? Okay, so they find men sexually appealing. But that’s just sex—not emotions. Sex is not a big deal in marriage after a while, so what’s the difference. Yes, they think they can go through life like that, but it all changes later. Those attractions to men intensify in time. Their desire to be with men sexually is overwhelming, and the need to act on it is their new reality

Okay, we all know that story. We’ve all lived it in one form or another. But I have found is that attitudes about this situation from outside our world have changed, and we need to acknowledge this. In the introduction to my new book, I state why we need to keep this momentum going. This is a portion of it for you to read. I lead into it by talking about how I believe that things are worse for straight wives now in 2020.

So what’s the “worse” part? That is the part that our straight wives have to endure when their husbands come out and become the new heroes. Now society sings praises to these men who have the courage to live their new “authentic lives.” They cheer them on. They feel saddened over the years of torture they had to endure by pretending they were “straight men.” They want to pin a big round badge of COURAGE on their shirts. In the past, women would at least get some sympathy from their friends and acquaintances. Not now—now our gay husbands are getting that misplaced sympathy. Society sees them as the victims—rather than us. That has changed—and it doesn’t help us.

In the past, we’d get some snickers from people with the usual, “You didn’t know he was gay when you married him? It’s so obvious,” or “Was he gay when you married him?” Yes, those were the usual passive-aggressive comments we would hear as if we had missed the boat. Or they thought maybe we did know—but we were desperate. Sadly, that’s how ignorance thinks.

But back then—after the little slap down of accusation, we would be lifted up like a wine glass with some words of comfort including, “That’s so terrible. How could he do that to you?” Yep, those words would take away the sting of the initial slap in the face with a few soothing words.

Well, I don’t hear those words very much anymore. People don’t sympathize with us—the true victims of this situation. And that is what has changed the most. They are so impressed with these gay men who spent 20, 30, 40, and more years of their lives living their lies with us—their loving (although confused) wives giving up what these men claim were the “best years of their lives to their families.” So now that their dues have been paid, it is time for them treat themselves to authenticity in a world where they always belonged. Yep, they are the new heroes for their bravery. People applaud them for staying in their marriages until the children were grown and on their own.                                                                          

So, in other words, these men spent a few decades living a daily lie with their family. They were gay men playing the role of straight husbands. And yes, I mean playing a role. Gay men are not straight. They learn to “imitate” the actions of straight men. They study their body action, walk, arm motions, their speech, and heterosexual interests the same way that an actor prepares for a role. They usually have a lot of material to draw from via their family and friends. I always use the example of the comedian Lily Tomlin who is in the sitcom Frankie and Grace. Tomlin plays the role of a straight wife who in later life learns her husband is gay. She plays the role very well—because that’s what it is—a role. Tomlin is a lesbian who is honest about her sexuality. And yet, she is also an excellent actress who can portray a straight wife. That is different than being in a relationship with a partner. Then she would be in the same position as our gay husbands trying to figure out how not to get caught.

When most of our husbands were growing up, gay was taboo. Being straight was a requirement. “Practicing straight” was a daily job—and these guys learned how to imitate and play the role. In fact in many cases, they went beyond normal “straight behaviors.” Self-loathing or throwing us off-track often translated into anti-gay sentiments that these guys dropped in their conversations with straight people. My ex-husband would mock gay men who were effeminate calling them insulting names. He wasn’t “that kind of gay” as if it would make him less gay.

When people ask our women, “Didn’t you know he was gay when you married him,” the answer is a resounding NO. How would we know? My gay husband was a kung-Fu teacher who was tall, handsome, and muscular. Women fell for him fast and easy. He was the epitome of a macho athlete. Why would gay even enter into my mind? Gay men wanted men, not women, right? Why would a gay man romance me, claim to fall in love with me, make love to me (rather have sex with me) and want to marry me? That’s not what a gay man is supposed to do. But who knew? Not me. Not us.

This is where I find that times are different now. It’s a different “feeling” than it used to be. People don’t look at us as being on the losing side. They listen to these men’s words’ of, “I had a great marriage for 30 years. They were the happiest years of my life.” They assume because these men were so “happy,” we, their wives, must have been happy too. Wouldn’t that make sense? Our exes aren’t complaining about us—they are saying how wonderful the years were—at least in public. No doubt they were happy years—FOR THEM. Why not? They controlled the marriage. Most of us were slowly broken down step by step through emotional and sexual rejection. There was no intimacy for years or a sense of romance with our husbands. We worked harder and harder running in circles trying to make the man we loved happy because he never seemed happy. And although he didn’t blame us all of the time, he did blame us enough of the time for feeling “TRAPPED.” I love that word in a marriage—TRAPPED. My ex-husband used it daily. I couldn’t understand why he felt trapped, but it seems to be a common expression that gay married men use according to the women who are part of my support network.

They feel trapped because they ARE trapped in a marriage they don’t belong in—through their own doing. Yes, they trapped themselves—WE DID NOT TRAP THEM. No one told them they HAD to get married to us nor did we hold a gun to their head—that was their choice. But once they got into the marriage, it started unraveling for them. Things started to fall apart—and MOSTLY in the bedroom. These men believed that marriage would solve those sexual naggings and attractions to men—but it didn’t. If anything, they started intensifying within a short amount of time. This is when they start feeling “trapped.”

Getting back to my initial point, people assume we were the lucky ones to have such great guys for our husbands—even if they are gay in the end. After all, they are telling the world about how wonderful their marriages were. So, people ASSUME we must have been happy too. After all, if our husbands are saying it was great—why would we feel differently?

It’s so funny. These men who neglected us in every possible way and made us feel worthless are now saying publicly what a wonderful marriage they had. So who comes out the winner here? They do. No one ever thinks to interview their wives for a reaction. No one has any interest in finding out how we think.

Truth be told—I haven’t been able to find an interview with any wife of a famous gay man who came out from a wonderful marriage. Most likely, it’s because there are none. What was good for these men wasn’t good for us women. But that’s the point. No one is asking us. They are assuming we’re fine with everything just because our voices are silent.

There have been numerous actresses who have been married to gay men through the years. Some of the more famous ones include Judy Garland, her daughter, Liza Minelli, Amanda Blake, (who died from AIDS after her gay husband died), Vanessa Redgrave, Charlotte Rae, Angela Lansbury, Carrie Fisher, and Fran Drescher. I never hear anything negative about their after-lives together. Heck, Fran Drescher was double dating with her gay husband and did a television comedy about it.

And that’s the other problem. Our marriages became comedy series shows on television. Fran Drescher had a show for a couple of seasons called “Happily Divorced.” She and her husband loved each other so much they became best friends and double dated on the show. Ha, ha. Very funny. Well, people thought it was funny because they never lived this nightmare. This show did more to distort our cause than any progress we made over the years. I complained to the station with no response. And then there is Frankie and Grace. Another comedy that is more realistic about older women in long-term marriages to gay men, but again, it’s a comedy.

When the movie Brokeback Mountain was popular many years ago, I went to see it. Again, the reviews were rooting for these two men who had to hide their sexuality. Their wives were portrayed as totally unsympathetic. One was a passive woman who couldn’t stand up for herself, and the other was an aggressive bitchy like woman who didn’t care about her husband being gay. Neither one of these women represents the women I know and have worked with whose lives were devastated once they found out the truth.

My point is this. Our realities have never been presented realistically on the big screen or the little screen. We are either hysterically funny or pathetic women, so no one is looking to acknowledge our pain. We can be laughed at or minimized which is where we now stand today. As it wasn’t hard enough to live with this during our marriage with our gay husbands, now our life is viewed the same way by the public. Uggggh.

Unless we start standing up and yelling our feelings to people, nothing will change. That’s why our voices must be heard—whether it is in books or on radio shows. We can only hope that people will read and learn to understand so we have a fighting chance of being recognized and understood one day.

Much love,

Bonnie xoxo

 

 

BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK - MAY 2020

BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK

MAY 2020     Volume 20, Issue 206

Bonnie’s Mantra:

LIFE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE THIS COMPLICATED. PERIOD.

                   COMPUTER RADIO PODCASTS - www.blogtalkradio/bonnielkaye                    Live on Sunday night 8 p.m. EST or any time after the live broadcast!

I’M BACK!! J

Just when I was sure that I was finished my final newsletters last year, life changed. I assure you there was no epiphany that drove my desire to revive this newsletter. I thought I had said everything that needed to be said on this topic—and then some!! Nearly 19 years of newsletters gave me plenty of time to say it all—and then over and over again!

Actually, I was on the trail to retirement from Straight Wives last year. It was my 35^th plus years of connecting with women from “discovery to recovery.” It wasn’t always a happy road because my heart was breaking daily from the pain that our women were going through year after year. Each week over the past 20 years, between 10 – 25 women would find me seeking sanity and hope. Well, at least I could offer them sanity. I also offered them no hope. Why no hope? Because I didn’t feel like lying about it. I wasn’t giving any straight woman a thumbs-up on having a gay husband and expecting to live a happy and fulfilling life. There are enough ignorant and misled “specialists” in the form of counselors, coaches, and therapists who can convince your husband that he has a “straight orientation” while he just has a longing for an oral or anal rise from a man because he was sexually abused when he was younger. Sorry—I’m not buying it.

But that’s me—the voice of doubt and gloom. But also—the voice of reason and future happiness. Women do not seek me out because they are happy. If they do, they haven’t read my website, newsletters, or books. They find me when they just can’t keep making excuses for the lack of love and lust in their lives. They are living at best with someone like a “brother” and at worst, an abuser. They know something is off in their marriage. But sadly, due to years of “gaylighting” by their husbands, they are reassured that the problems usually start with themselves instead of the forbidden culprit of GAY.

In 2010, I wrote this little article when I came up with the term “GAYLIGHT.”

GAYLIGHTING

In our support chats, hardly a week goes by where someone doesn’t bring up the term, “Gas Lighting.” This is a term taken from the old movie Gas Light from 1944 staring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Although I never saw the movie until a few weeks ago, I was certainly familiar with the terminology from members of our support group who used it frequently to describe their situations with their gay spouses. After watching it, I realized that this terminology certainly has a connection for many of us.

According to the Internet:

From the film's title, "Gaslighting" acquired the meaning of ruthlessly manipulating an individual, for nefarious reasons, into believing something other than the truth.
Well, that certainly sums it up for some of us, doesn’t it? I know that I was made to feel “crazy” if I suggested to my husband that maybe…just maybe…he’s….ummmmm… oh yes—“bisexual.” That was the nice way for me to frame it in my own mind back in those days. He would tell me I’m out of my mind and…oh yes…CRAZY. How could I ever think something so horrible and disgusting? Now in the beginning, I felt a big sense of relief. But as time wore on, the relief turned to doubt—and not doubt about HIM—but rather about ME! And once self-doubt starts, it’s a quick progression down that road called “I can’t trust my judgment anymore.” Like the peeling onion, your self-confidence gets peeled down one layer at a time until it shrinks to nothing.

The problem with too many gay husbands is that they have to find a way to protect the lie they are living. Those three little words—and I don’t mean “I love you” but rather “I AM GAY”--are too difficult to say to you—and often to themselves. For them, it is easier to just make you think you are CRAZY when questioning their repeated lies that start to pile up and make little if any sense. How many times have you heard, “Are you out of your mind?” “How could you think such a think?”  or “What are you—CRAZY?” With a gay husband, in almost all of our cases we’ve heard these words more than once or twice.
So now I’ve added a new word to my “Bonnie Kaye’s Pocket Dictionary of Gay Husband Lingo” which includes some of those clarifying terms that I’ve made famous like Limbo Men and Straight-Gay Men. Now I am adding the term GAYLIGHTING.

This means:  “Your husband’s attempts to make you think that you are losing your mind when in fact you are just finding out his truth.”

Trust me—you’re not crazy, you’re just being “gaylighted.”

I felt the need to post that reminder that all of us have been reminded of too many times throughout our marriages. That may sound redundant, but it does keep repeating itself.

Getting back to my story, in my year of “retirement” from our cause, I never really had a chance to retire. I still received between 10 – 15 letters each week seeking help from new women who are hit with our realities. I am happy to help all of them by sending them information and finding support for them. I sent them my old newsletters, and there were many letters of thanks and appreciation. There were also many requests to get on a newsletter list that wasn’t happening anymore.
I really thought I would run out of things to say after 18 years, and the pressure of coming up with new issues month-in and month-out was a lot. And so I decided I needed a break. And I took one.

Now, a year later, I’m rested and re-nourished. I still have some thoughts inspired by my support members and new women/men coming my way. And so you’ll be hearing from me each quarter with some more thoughts and reminders. We go through so much on our journeys from “discovery to recovery” that sometimes we lose our sense of perspective. We get so “stuck in the muck” during this period that we can’t always process the many different feelings we have. And so I’m here to guide you by confirming your doubts to be truths and reconfirming your instincts.

THE  SHAME GAME

In my early years of my newsletters, I wrote about the “Blame Game.” That included the “If Only” game where you would question yourself endlessly about if only….If only I had been more supportive, if only I weighed less, if only I initiated sex more, if only I wasn’t so prudish in bed, if only, if only…..then my husband wouldn’t be gay. Remember that old game?

Over the years I have realized there is another game we all play. It’s called “The Shame Game.” I can also subtitle it as “The Ashamed Game.” Whether you want to admit it or not, there is a feeling of shame that overtakes most of us when we learn that our husbands are gay.

It takes a while until a wife understands that she has absolutely no part in her husband’s homosexuality or more importantly, the failure of the marriage. As soon as she said, “ I do,” she was being set up for failure. Marrying a gay man is a ticket to disaster in a marriage. I don’t care how nice he is and how not-nice you are. It’s not about nice—it’s about living with a man who can’t be a husband to you in a way that you need him to be because he is gay.

I talk to over 100 gay husbands each year. Most of them say that the marriage was doomed for a long time before the news of his homosexuality came out. How many of your husbands have told me that there were other problems besides gay? Almost all of them. Here are some of the complaints I hear followed by my responses:

1.    My wife has a bad body odor. (yes, it’s called WOMAN)

2.    Her breath is always sour. (because kissing a woman is repulsive to a gay man)

3.    My wife is always suspicious that I am cheating on her. (because you are)

4.    My wife is never supportive to me.(she is, but you don’t care about her)

5.    She is always depressed. (of course—you’re a gay man acting)

6.    She never initiates sex but complains because I don’t do it all of the time. (she is complaining because you DON’T do it most of the time)

7.    She’s not adventurous in bed. (she doesn’t want your kind of “adventure” like male sex toys and gay porno.)

8.    When I married her, she was 20 pounds thinner. (you didn’t want her then either.)

9.    I need my space and she doesn’t understand that. (to go to meet men for sex)

10. She thinks I’m keeping secrets from her because she doesn’t have my passwords. (she is 100% right about that because she’d find your gay stuff.)

And the list goes on.

Sadly, none of these reasons are legitimate. But while you’re living them, you don’t realize that. This is part of a calculated daily plan on the part of your husband to get you off his back—especially when it comes to SEX. That’s the real issue. If only you weren’t so needy—then maybe the marriage could work. But you want something from him that he doesn’t want to give to you. Oh, every now and then he’ll do it to you or for you—but not with you. And that’s the difference.

Almost every man can get an erection and dump the remains somewhere—yes, even deposit it in you when they try hard enough—but they are not doing it because they really want to. They are doing it so you will believe that they are straight. They tell me they fantasize about men and look at gay porno before they do the deed so they can get aroused. Sad to say, it’s not you doing the trick for them. But once they do it a few times—BINGO—you will now be convinced that sex is not a problem—especially for them.  

In the beginning, they put some effort into it to create an illusion of straight, but it doesn’t last for long. Too many women have described their experiences in the same way I felt about mine—doing the minimum to create an illusion. I remember when I met my gay husband how frustrating sex was from the beginning. It’s true we were in our mid-20’s, but we were both experienced. It wasn’t my first marriage. I knew what satisfying love making was about. This was back in 1978, and women were just getting liberated about sex. After our first few times together that left me feeling deflated, I tried really nicely to talk about upping the game so to speak. I approached it that every woman was different and had different needs. That’s when he first jumped up and yelled at me, “No woman has ever complained about me before you!!” He claimed to be very “experienced,” but he never mentioned that experience was with men—not women.

That was how the relationship started—with me feeling like a sex ogre because I wasn’t sexually satisfied with an “act of sex.” To prove that it wasn’t me, I went shopping at the bookstore and bought some books that were popular back in those days about women wanting to be sexually satisfied. “See, it’s not only me,” I would say hoping to defend myself. So he tried a little more to be accommodating, but you can tell when someone just doesn’t want to touch you where you want to be touched. It becomes degrading. So many of our women shared that degrading feeling of sexual rejection.

Years later after he came out, he admitted that I was the first woman he had ever been with, so at least he told the truth when he said, “No woman has ever complained before.” There were no other women before to complain. He was so charming, handsome, strong, and funny, so women always gravitated to him envying me for having him. They would tell me how lucky I was to have such a great guy. If only they knew…

What creates the shame for us is the lack of advocacy on the part of our women. While gay men have a cheering squad praising their “bravery” in living their “authentic life,” no medals are pinned on the chests of their wives for enduring years of emotional and sexual abuse and neglect. No one is having parades for us with banners flying high. Instead, we get indignant stares or comments such as, “You didn’t know? I thought everybody knew!!’ or “If he’s gay, how did he have sex with you and father your children?” This is where the shame unfolds—as if we are at fault for either being stupid not to see it or inadequate to “keep him straight.”

To add to this, some of these men throw it in our faces. “If you would have had better sex with me, I wouldn’t have had to look for oral sex with a man.” Or “I didn’t cheat on you just because I let a guy give me a blow job. Or often the families of our gay husbands who “love us” so much that we believed we were their daughters now look at us with accusing eyes thinking their sons weren’t gay when they married us—where did “we” screw up? And trust me, in 95% of our lives, blood is thicker than water when the marriage ends.

Shame is an emotion that is developed over time when you are made to feel inadequate or undeserving of anything better because you are not “good enough.” I think for most of us, this is the case. As the emotional abuse kicks into our marriages and starts knocking us down, the feelings of shame increase. It shakes our internal belief systems no matter how strong you were going into the relationship. The daily “strip down/slap down” breaks us down making us question our whole belief system. As long as our gay husbands can make us feel at fault, they feel safe—and our feeling of shame just increases. We internalize our husbands’ unhappiness and our lack of ability to make them not necessarily to love us—but to want us.

One of the ways our husbands pump up the shame is by telling us “how much they love us.” Yep, they say talk is cheap, but for women who are desperately trying to hang on to any hope at all, the word ‘love” sounds really promising. Somehow, that build-up never quite meets the hurdle of physical intimacy or love making, so once again the “build-up” is a “let down.”

This is where relationship illogic steps in. First, we are being told our husbands love us. Next, we’re told that if there are problems in the marriage—they are “OUR” problems—they don’t have a problem. So they love us, and they don’t have a problem—BUT THEY DON’T WANT TO BE WITH US. It can’t equate except for us to internalize that WE ARE THE PPOBLEM. This is where the shame comes in and sinks us like quick sand. We stop asking because it just hurts too much.

After the marriage ends, you might think that recovery would include ridding ourselves of the shame—but that doesn’t quite happen. Why? Because once people start finding out WHY our marriage ended, more SHAME comes our way.

“Your husband is gay? A lot of people make that up to punish their husband.”

“You didn’t know he was gay? We knew—we thought you didn’t care since everybody knew.”

“If he is gay, why is he getting married to a woman again?”

Ugh. As if we weren’t feeling bad enough to start with, now it’s time to retreat into our own closet—the one abandoned by our husband. Yes, he’s out and about and giving a shout-out while we are retreating into our second wave of shame. We’ve learned that people don’t get it, but it still hurts. It hurts that our experience is minimized while our husbands are being hailed our heroes for their bravery of living their new authentic lives after wasting 10, 15, 25, or 30 years of our lives.

I am still waiting for our medals for bravery and courage. Actually, I’d be happy to settle for a nod of the head of acknowledgement. I don’t need a ribbon or trinket. I just want someone to say—“I get it—and you are a hero!!”

To all of my readers—I do get it. You are all my heroes.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who are mothers who have to battle with challenges you face daily. Hold your children tight when you hug them. Feel their love because they genuinely love you.

BONNIE KAYE’S STRAIGHT WIVES TALK SHOW…

In January of 2020, I started back my weekly talk show. This time I was emphasizing some of the struggles women in our network are facing. I will be taking a break from the show after next week until July. You can listen to them any time you like. Here is the link to my past shows: 

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/bonnielkaye

With lots of love and hope!!  

Bonnie ❤