BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK
WAITING FOR HIS CONFESSION THAT WILL NEVER COME…AND WHY
Okay, I finally, finally get it. Although I’ve alluded to it numerous times in my writing, I had to really get this clear in my mind. Some of your husbands will never admit they are gay to you. You are standing around waiting for a confession so you can feel better about the void and lack of intimacy in your marriage. If only you could get a confession…if only you could hear him say those magic words…if only you found the proof you need…if only, if only….
Guest what? It is not going to happen. I wrote about this ten years ago when I described the Straight-Gay man. Since it has been a while since some of you have read it, I am going to repeat it here because I believe it helps you understand these men who won’t tell you they are gay because they don’t believe they are gay. This article is from my newsletter dated January, 2002.
I have coined a new term for another classification of gay husbands. It is “Straight Gay Husbands.” I hope you like it. It is my new reference to gay men who are permanently living the straight life, sort of like wolves in sheep’s clothing. They are the husbands who will not acknowledge their homosexuality privately or publicly--ever. Some of them know that you know, but try to confuse you enough to put enough doubt in your mind to make you think that you are the crazy one. It’s the best defense to your “offensive” questions. These are the men that shut you up or shut you down the moment you think about making mention of the possibility of homosexuality. They know what they are, and they know what you suspect, but keep your mouth shut because they don’t want to hear about it--especially from you.
These men are different than the gay husbands that admit they are gay/bisexual but promise not to act on those needs while they remain married to you. (Like we really believe that story!) They are also different than the gay husbands who are leading very secret lives and not leaving a trail of crumbs for you to follow. They are not even quite like the Limbo Men I have described who are caught in between two worlds. These are men who are definitely not stuck. They are identifying strictly as straight. There is no way they are entering the gay world through the front or back door, or even through the closet. They detest the gay world and what it stands for which gives them even greater reassurance, at least to themselves, that they are not gay.
The Straight Gay Men are the ones who have to remain in total control of all of their physical motions lest someone should suspect they are not quite as straight as they claim. It’s funny how many women tell me how their husbands’ physical appearances, gestures, and movements change once they come out. I can’t even fathom how difficult it must be to have to go through life calculating every breath and step you take. It’s sort of like walking down a sidewalk and having to make sure that you “don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back” as the game use to say. My balance and coordination never let me win that game.
These husbands are quick to use you and the children as their proof that they are not gay to the outside world just in case they let their guard down and anyone might accuse them of the “unthinkable.” They honestly don’t identify as gay even though they have sex with men. They don’t get themselves involved emotionally with men, just sexually. That helps them justify the fact that they are straight, not gay.
Some women can’t understand this. If you look like a duck, walk like a duck, act like a duck, but have sex with a goose, are you still a duck or are you a goose? I say you’re a goose. I don’t care what you act like to the outside world; I only look at who satisfies you sexually. And if you’re a duck making love to a goose, your feathers have to ruffle in a different direction when you stand up and straighten them out. But this does make things that much more confusing and complicated. So, to simplify your confusion, let me say this—STRAIGHT MEN DON’T HAVE GAY SEX. You can call it whatever makes you feel better, but I still call it gay—all the way.
Women who live with Straight Gay Men and Limbo Men are often the most commonly emotionally abused women. They would have to be. Their husbands are truly living in a complex world that makes little or any sense. They are living unfilled lives because they don’t have any emotional connections. They don’t connect emotionally with their wives because they aren’t really straight. They don’t connect emotionally with men because they refuse to be gay. And so they function but don’t connect. This lack of emotional connection creates a sense of insensitivity when it comes to your feelings and your emotions.
It also closes them up as human beings. They are unable to connect with a wife because they are living an internal--and what seems like an eternal--lie. This lie keeps overtaking any sense of good feelings towards the person whom they believe is responsible for this state of living—namely you. Now we know it is ridiculous to think that you should be their reason for living this lie, but subconsciously, this is how they feel.
As much as they love to have you as their “cover” is as much as they hate to have you sharing under their covers. They resent your nagging demands for sexual intimacy because it “isn’t their thing.” It’s your thing. And why do you have to try to make them feel inadequate just because they are? Even when you stop asking for it, you are still thinking about it and they can tell. It means they have to come up with a continuous string of stories to account for their lack of sexual behavior with you. This puts pressure on these guys who feel you are being unreasonable. Why do you have to make such a big deal out of sex?
They feel that in all other ways, they are ideal husbands. They are there raising the family with you. They are helping to support your financial needs or at least sharing in them. They are taking part in the social activities that you have decided are important. They are doing lots for you—and how do you show your appreciation? By badgering them with little innuendos and questioning looks. This really shows a lack of appreciation on your part and so they get pissed.
The Straight Gay Men think they are Supermen. And to a degree, they are. They juggle, manipulate, calculate, and carefully plan out all of their actions. It takes a lot of energy to do this, and they marvel at their ability to pull it off. It gives them an air of smugness that shows in their personality. I’m not quite sure what they think they’re pulling off because they know that you are doubtful of their explanations. There are only so many headaches, backaches, depressions, and side effects from medication that you can keep relying on. But they feel confident if they use these excuses enough, you’ll give up. Most women do. As I’ve said before numerous times, no woman wants to feel like she has to beg her husband to make love to her. It’s degrading and demeaning. We get the hint after enough sexual rejection and stop asking. But it doesn’t mean that we stop thinking—and wanting.
Every time we see other couples holding and caressing lovingly together, this is a reminder. It’s a reminder of what we thought we should have had but never were able to achieve. It’s a reminder of what our hopes and dreams were for married life when we took that life-altering step and said, “I do.” We are momentarily reminded of what marriage was supposed to be, but never became. And this sadness shows in our faces, in our eyes, and in our hearts. When our husbands glimpse at us, they know what we are thinking. They know what we are wishing. They know that the words they don’t want to hear may possibly be coming out of our mouths at any moment. Rather than take a chance and have to come up with one more excuse, they find some way to knock us down and put us back into the non-assertive mental state that they so easily know how to do.
We are women who have been conditioned. Remember, Straight Gay Men remain in the marriages indefinitely and have years to erode your sense of self-worth. They are not going anywhere, and they want to make sure that you feel inadequate enough so that you won’t go anywhere either. I don’t know who could have taught these men about the facts of life and marriage, but obviously, they weren’t listening or didn’t have a teacher. Didn’t anyone ever tell them that sex is part of marriage? Didn’t they ever hear that intimacy grows from making love to the person who loves you? Do they really believe that they can sit for years in a marriage and overlook that little detail? Yes, they do. And we become their silent partners because we have been silenced on the issue of sex.
The irony is that even if you leave these men, as some women do, they will remarry again. Yes, they will remarry another woman. They will still do their occasional gay sex thing to satisfy their sexual need, but that goes with the territory. It is amazing to me how these men can live such a delusional existence until the day they die. And they will drag other women into their web of deceit. The next victim (and men who do this more than once are victimizers) will fall for it just like you did—but even better. Your Straight Gay Husband has a track record. He will still use you as his shield by telling his next conquest that he was married before, ergo, he is straight. And the woman who is in a subsequent marriage with this man has no reason to question his sexuality at all. He married before; he’s marrying again. Chances are his next wife will feel even more inadequate than you feel. He’ll make sure to tell her that the two of you never had problems in the bedroom before. And if she does meet you, she’ll be too embarrassed to ask you the truth. And you’ll probably keep protecting him.
So if you are in a long-term marriage to a Straight Gay Man, don’t plan on things ever getting better. There may be temporary second honeymoon periods, only to prove to you once again that you are crazy for even suspecting there is something wrong with your wonder man. But it’s guaranteed that things will resort back to the “normal” pattern of digs, harsh words, and put-downs. Count on it. Then decide if this is the most that you want out of life because as long as you are in this marriage, this is all you can expect.
Looking back over these words from ten years ago, I must say these words were right-on. The only difference is today I understand the concept better because there is a word that describes what these husbands do: COMPARTMENTALIZE.
For those of you who are not familiar with this phrase, let me give you a good definition:
Compartmentalization is an unconscious psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, etc. within themselves. Compartmentalization allows these conflicting ideas to co-exist by inhibiting direct or explicit acknowledgement and interaction between separate compartmentalized self states.
The Straight Gay Men live their lives this way. They are able to separate their need for sexual dabbling with a man from their “straight lives” as straight husbands. I do tell our women that as long as you allow your husband to live in his “compartmentalized closet,” he will remain there forever. The fact that you remain in the marriage to him allows him to justify even more that he is straight—especially in his own mind. After all, his wife isn’t going anywhere, right? This convinces him even more.
So if your happiness is waiting for a confession that won’t be coming, do yourself a favor and stop waiting for it. Take control of your life and GET OUT before you allow yourself to totally lose who you are. Remember—if your husband can’t admit he is gay to himself, he will never admit it to you. In his own warped sense of reality, he is a straight man.
AND SPEAKING ABOUT LIVING IN THE WORLD OF DENIAL…
I know that the news that your husband is gay is last thing you want to hear from your husband. Your whole world as you know it has fallen apart by those few little words that can never be taken back. I also know there are some women who are so in love with their husbands and so desperate to hang on to their marriages that they believe it won’t matter if their mates are gay or not. After all, they’ve been happy in their marriages up until now, and surely there’s a way to work around the “gay” thing. You can find these women in groups all over the Internet exchanging ideas on how to emotionally manipulate their husbands into staying instead of leaving. In fact, they could have their own pathetic sit-com television show right after Fran Dresher’s show and call it “Desperate Straight Wives.”
To these women, I say, “How long do you want to play the guilt card, ladies? Isn’t there something wrong with women who have to make a man feel guilty in order to keep him from leaving?” Boy, I thought my self-esteem was low when I was 21 and hanging on to the leg of an ex-lover and crying hysterically while begging him not to leave because I was so in love with him. Yep, at 21, that was my lowest point of life that thankfully, I never repeated this with a man again. I won’t say I had “low self-esteem” at that point; rather I had “no self-esteem.” I was pitiful for sure. And trust me, I know I’m not the only one out there who was in that position at one time or another. I learned to become stronger because I didn’t like that pathetic woman who lived inside of me. But that’s what life is—a learning and growing experience for most of us. I wish these women would learn sooner than later that emotional blackmail doesn’t make for a healthy marriage. Like I said--tough love. That’s the new me! And you thought I was tough before?
I know that the thought of ending a marriage is overwhelming, devastating, fear-producing, emotionally breaking, and bunches of more adjectives that we all can describe. But the fear of staying married to a gay man should be even worse. Imagine living with a man for another 10 or 20 years who only—at best—wants to be your friend. Imagine worrying every time he walks out the door that he’s going to meet a “hook up” that may turn out to be his true soulmate in life. I lived like that for a while, but it was very mentally wearing on me.
I know many of us play the game called “how much can I live with?” First we think, “If it’s only some gay pictures on the computer, I can live with that.” Then it’s, “If it’s just meeting some other gay people in his situation, I can live with that.” Then it’s, “If he has to go out and do his thing every six months and I don’t have to know, I can live with that.” You know how the story goes. And trust me, while you are “living with that,” whatever that may be, it is very debilitating. I used to say when I offered my ex-husband an inch, he looked at it as an invitation to take a foot.
The problem is that a lot of these men can’t live with just that—especially the ones who are coming out to you and being honest for the first time in their lives. They know that they can’t keep living life as a straight husband. Why? Because they are gay. And although these on-line groups will teach you how to come up with every manipulative trick to keep your man at home, you are only deluding yourself by believing this will work itself out. It doesn’t—it can’t. You can delay his departure by using all the guilt you choose to use, but it is going to backfire in your face. He will grow to resent you for trying to keep him where he doesn’t belong. He will feel more trapped in a cage than an animal. And he will respond by running harder and faster leaving you behind in the dust.
By the time a man comes out to his wife—it’s not about just sex. These guys are not the Straight Gay Men or even Limbo Men or Bisexuals. They are gay. They have accepted who they are and need to re-create their destiny. Sure, it hurts like hell, but you will survive. You can still stay a family unit at times when the willingness is there on both of your parts. There are some decent divorces that continue on with the friendship and even love as a family member—just not as a husband. But holding on to something that you can never really have is destructive to you and your children. Listening to others who teach women ways to “hang on” to their gay husbands is not going to ever result in the happiness you deserve to have.
A RECOMMENDED BLOGI was so lucky to meet my wonderful friend Debbie when I went to Texas. Debbie is like an angel--kind, beautiful, caring, and compassionate. Debbie has been working through her own terrible times, and yet, she always has time to help other women. She has a wonderful blog that you can visit and join. She writes about feelings that affect all of us.
Take a moment a pay it a visit. Here is the link:
http://dwooding.blogspot.com
FRAN DRESCHER UPDATE
Several weeks ago, I posted this note on my blog.
This week, there were numerous advertisements announcing the return of Fran Drescher’s sit-com Happily Divorced. I could not believe it. Do you mean to tell me that there are enough people watching this comedy series about the painful marriages of over 4 million straight women to renew it for another season? Who would believe it?
As a counseling authority in the field of straight-gay marriages for nearly 30 years, I find it so offensive that Fran Drescher cannot see the lack of humor that over 4 million women in this country suffer from when they find themselves in a doomed marriage of distortion for 10, 20, 30, and 40 plus years of their lives because of their husbands' lies. None of them are making jokes about their marriages or the years that follow as Fran does in her show. They have suffered humiliation for years that were stolen and can never be returned. When a woman of 60 plus years writes to me to tell me that the only sex she had in her life for forty years was the dozen or so times with her gay husband who found numerous reasons to say “no” to her requests because she now discovered he is a gay man—it really makes me ill. What gives a gay man the right to do this to a woman? How selfish can a husband be to withhold this truth from the woman he vowed in front of God to love and cherish? Is this love? I don’t think so.
I have worked with over 75,000 women through the years. These are women who have lost all sense of who they are because they are living in a marriage to a gay man—but the joke is on them because their husbands hardly ever tell them the truth. Their marriages lack the real ingredients that marriage is about—trust, honesty, passion, making love, showing devoted love to the woman who is devotes her life to a man who can never treat her like a straight husband would. Let’s not even get into the tens of thousands of women who are now suffering with STD’s like AIDS/HIV, herpes, syphilis, and gonorrhea because their gay husbands were having unprotected sex with anonymous sex partners.
In an interview with Fran in the Huffington Post this week about her support for gay marriages, she reminded people that she was raped in 2002 in her home as well as her best girl friend by a black man. Her point of bringing up the race issue was that she doesn’t hold it against black people that she was raped; therefore, she doesn’t hold it against gay people that her ex-husband is gay. That gave me a new idea. Maybe Fran should consider doing a comedy about her rape for a next show. Since she does such an excellent job at making jokes at her misfortunes, maybe she can try that angle for her next show. She can call it “Unhappily Raped.”
Straight Wives don’t feel the same impact as a rape victim which is a heinous crime—but they do feel extremely violated and betrayed. Some of them are physically abused throughout this ordeal and the vast majority of women are emotionally abused by men who feel caught in their own web of deceit of marriage. This leads to continual mental abuse on a daily basis because the gay husband feels he is stuck in the marriage muck when in fact, he chooses to remain there because he is too much of a coward to get out. It’s easier to beat his wife down blaming her for his unhappiness than to take responsibility for his actions by telling her the truth. And please don’t tell me he’s staying there because he “loves” her. Most of these men have such contempt for their wives that love isn’t a factor by the point they realize they can’t get rid of those nagging attractions to men.
In my book “The Gay Husband Checklist for Women Who Wonder,” I have a chapter on the prototype of a woman that a gay man marries—and in Fran’s case—stays with even though the marriage is off kilter. One of those categories is about women who were victims of sexual abuse. When women have been sexually abused or raped, their desire for a healthy sexual relationship with a man is often damaged. Perhaps that is why Fran felt relieved when her husband stopped having regular relations with her. She may have been just as relieved as her husband was when she backed away. And maybe this is also why she can be so forgiving to her ex-husband who didn’t tell her that he was gay until after the marriage was over.
The problem with Fran passing off her life with a gay husband as “funny” while she continues to make a joke out of the struggles of those whose lives have been shattered is the public will never be able to understand the reality of how our lives have broken us mentally, emotionally, and sexually. The public will continue to view us as unsympathetic whiners when we should be double-dating with our husbands’ new boyfriends. After all, Fran thinks it is a laugh. When are we going to learn to lighten up a bit and make fun at our own misfortune? I say never. I don’t believe in laughing at the pain of others. But that’s me.
MAILBAG
Dear Bonnie,
I am writing you to thank you for the ongoing support you continue to give thousands of women each month through your newsletters and radio show. I live in Montana—home of the Brokeback Mountain gay men—and there is very little support for women who learn their husbands are gay.
My story is so similar to the stories I have been reading about in your newsletters for the past two years. I married at a young age, I was sexually inexperienced, and I came from a family where there was abuse by my father. Actually, I didn’t expect very much for myself except not to be as unhappy as my mother was.
When I was in my last year of high school, I met a guy, Don (not his real name), who was a year older than me. He paid a lot of attention to me and made me feel really special. I didn’t feel very special in my own house where my drunken father would often degrade me and my siblings making us feel worthless. My mother was so beaten down from living like this for years that she didn’t have the strength to stand up and stop my dad.
On my 18th birthday, Don proposed to me. He was 19 and about to join the military. He promised me that he could give me a better life—and that he loved me. I believed he did love me. He never pressured me for sex, and I thought that proved he really cared. We were married in a private ceremony three weeks later. Don was due to leave any day, and at least this way I could move into an apartment away from the chaos I knew.
Our honeymoon was a 3-day trip to Las Vegas. We didn’t really consummate our marriage until we returned home. Don admitted he was also a virgin, and he wanted the moment that we had sex to be perfect. I will say that our first time wasn’t good, but I wrote that off to the fact that neither one of us had any previous experience. I would tell you about our second time, but it didn’t happen before Don went overseas about two weeks later.
Don was deployed overseas for a year. I heard from him every few days. I felt so bad that he was taken away from me before the marriage even began, but I understood this was for our future. When he did return from overseas, he spent a second year in the military, so we were separated throughout most of that time as well.
When he returned, it was a hard adjustment period. After all, we had been married for two years but only been together for about three weeks. Don was having “adjustment” problems, but he said that is normal after men come home from a tour of duty. Part of that adjustment problem involved making love to me. He did hold me and snuggle with me, but to get much more out of him was really difficult. Amazingly, I got pregnant the first year he was home—amazingly because we were only together a half a dozen times. And those times were always a struggle.
Don was working on a ranch in our area. He was a very manly kind of man which always appealed to me. He wore a cowboy hat and boots for his job, and in my mind, I was so lucky to have someone who loved me so much. I know our relationship wasn’t “blazing with fire,” but I also knew I felt safe and secure. In our third year of marriage, I was pregnant again. Our sex life had been reduced to three times that year, so I really felt lucky that one of those three times produced my precious second child.
After that, we really didn’t have sex anymore. It was okay with me, because when we did have it, it wasn’t that exciting for me. There was no foreplay or passion—it was just kind of “obligatory” sex—or at least it felt that way.
I suppose I didn’t complain because my life was so happy with the children and Don.
He still held me at night when we went to bed, and he always told me he loved me. He was a good father to the children who loved playing with him. It was so different than living at home with my parents which was always chaotic and nerve-wracking never knowing when my drunken father would target us. My children would NEVER grow up in a home like mine.
About nine years into the marriage, Don said he was switching jobs from one ranch to another one. He explained he would make an additional $200.00 a week which would really help our bills. The only problem was that sometimes he would be required to stay there overnight in case the boss had to go away on a business trip or short vacation. I wasn’t happy about that, but I did know the extra money would help since I was a stay-at-home mom.
From the beginning of that new job, Don was away once or twice a week a night sleeping over at the ranch. He would tell me ahead of time and pack an overnight bag. This went on for the first year at the job, but then he seemed like he was changing. He wasn’t holding me anymore when we slept, and he didn’t even want to sleep in the same bed. I became extremely frustrated and didn’t know why he was emotionally distancing himself from me. He came up with reasons like he was “depressed” or going through “post traumatic stress” from the service.
One day he came home and said he had to talk to me. He told me we had been married for ten years and that he didn’t feel it was working. He didn’t blame me—he told me that I was a very good wife—but he had gotten married too soon, had a family too soon, and that he felt like he was “missing out in life.” I was devastated and had no clue what he was talking about. Maybe our life wasn’t perfect, but it was good. I always tried to make him happy and put his needs before my own. I never brought up the fact that we didn’t have any intimacy left in our relationship. Maybe that was bothering him so I asked him if I failed him in that way. He swore to me this had nothing to do with his problem.
Don said he wanted to take a “break” from the family, and he asked me to please be patient. He would send me money each week to keep the household going, and he would call me a few times a week to check on me and the kids. I admit it—I didn’t get it. I was reeling from the hurt and felt so alone.
Then something very bizarre happened shortly after his “break” began. I received a phone call from a man named Cliff (also not his real name.) He told me that Don and he were lovers and that I should not stand in their way of finding true happiness. I was so shocked and started yelling at this man asking him why he was playing such a horrible joke on me. He told me that Don and him were supposed to live together, but because of my constant “threatening” him, he wasn’t able to do it. He then asked why I was trying to hold on to someone who didn’t want me anymore.
When I hung up on Cliff, I was crying hysterically. I called Don who explained that the man was mentally imbalanced and a “homo” who had a crush on him. He constantly rejected the man because he didn’t want to be friends with a gay man. It made him ill to think about it.
I felt as if my world was falling down around me. First Don needs “space” to think about his happiness, and now this man is calling and accusing me of stopping Don from finding his happiness in the arms of another man. What was going on?
Sadly, I had no family support. My family was such a dysfunctional mess that I had no one there to turn to. That is when I wrote to you and you made me feel that I wasn’t alone—anymore—as you said. After reading all of your information, I realized that I was married to a gay man. I saved the number from the caller ID of Cliff’s phone call and called him back after reading your words. He was very happy to talk to me and explain how they had been seeing each other for the past three years. They were supposed to move in together, but Don kept explaining that I would never let him go. He was quite shocked when he found out that Don was gone.
The story ends with a twist—Don was gone, but he had met another man. Cliff didn’t lose him to me—he lost him to a new gay lover. It has been just over two years since he left our family. He still sends money every week, but he rarely sees the children. He refuses to discuss his private life with me telling me that it is none of my business what he does. There is no real remorse—no truth—and no apology. This has definitely made me stronger. At least I understand why my marriage was filled with a void and why sex was never what it should be. I am now going to school part-time so I can become financially independent. The dream of a stable home that I promised to give my children has had to be “redesigned” not to include a father. I am still hopeful that someday I may meet a man who can love me for me and not feel used. I am sure if Don would ever do the right thing and tell me the truth, I would feel differently than I feel now. He knows I know the truth from Cliff, but he still won’t admit it to me.
Bonnie, thank you for being there during my darkest days, and thank you to all of the women who tell their stories so courageously here. I hope my story will help some woman realize that she doesn’t have to do this alone. There is always support.
Elizabeth (this IS my real name!)
Thank you, Elizabeth for sharing your heart-felt story.
Until next month—
With love and hope,
Bonnie Kaye
Monday, April 16, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
FRAN DRESHER--UNHAPPILY RAPED
This week, there were numerous advertisements announcing the return of Fran Drescher’s sit-com Happily Divorced. I could not believe it. Do you mean to tell me that there are enough people watching this comedy series about the painful marriages of over 4 million straight women to renew it for another season? Who would believe it?
As a counseling authority in the field of straight-gay marriages for nearly 30 years, I find it so offensive that Fran Drescher cannot see the lack of humor that over 4 million women in this country suffer from when they find themselves in a doomed marriage of distortion for 10, 20, 30, and 40 plus years of their lives because of their husbands' lies. None of them are making jokes about their marriages or the years that follow as Fran does in her show. They have suffered humiliation for years that were stolen and can never be returned. When a woman of 60 plus years writes to me to tell me that the only sex she had in her life for forty years was the dozen or so times with her gay husband who found numerous reasons to say “no” to her requests because she now discovered he is a gay man—it really makes me ill. What gives a gay man the right to do this to a woman? How selfish can a husband be to withhold this truth from the woman he vowed in front of God to love and cherish? Is this love? I don’t think so.
I have worked with over 75,000 women through the years. These are women who have lost all sense of who they are because they are living in a marriage to a gay man—but the joke is on them because their husbands hardly ever tell them the truth. Their marriages lack the real ingredients that marriage is about—trust, honesty, passion, making love, showing devoted love to the woman who is devotes her life to a man who can never treat her like a straight husband would. Let’s not even get into the tens of thousands of women who are now suffering with STD’s like AIDS/HIV, herpes, syphilis, and gonorrhea because their gay husbands were having unprotected sex with anonymous sex partners.
In an interview with Fran in the Huffington Post this week about her support for gay marriages, she reminded people that she was raped in 2002 in her home as well as her best girl friend by a black man. Her point of bringing up the race issue was that she doesn’t hold it against black people that she was raped; therefore, she doesn’t hold it against gay people that her ex-husband is gay. That gave me a new idea. Maybe Fran should consider doing a comedy about her rape for a next show. Since she does such an excellent job at making jokes at her misfortunes, maybe she can try that angle for her next show. She can call it “Unhappily Raped.”
Straight Wives don’t feel the same impact as a rape victim which is a heinous crime—but they do feel extremely violated and betrayed. Some of them are physically abused throughout this ordeal and the vast majority of women are emotionally abused by men who feel caught in their own web of deceit of marriage. This leads to continual mental abuse on a daily basis because the gay husband feels he is stuck in the marriage muck when in fact, he chooses to remain there because he is too much of a coward to get out. It’s easier to beat his wife down blaming her for his unhappiness than to take responsibility for his actions by telling her the truth. And please don’t tell me he’s staying there because he “loves” her. Most of these men have such contempt for their wives that love isn’t a factor by the point they realize they can’t get rid of those nagging attractions to men.
In my book “The Gay Husband Checklist for Women Who Wonder,” I have a chapter on the prototype of a woman that a gay man marries—and in Fran’s case—stays with even though the marriage is off kilter. One of those categories is about women who were victims of sexual abuse. When women have been sexually abused or raped, their desire for a healthy sexual relationship with a man is often damaged. Perhaps that is why Fran felt relieved when her husband stopped having regular relations with her. She may have been just as relieved as her husband was when she backed away. And maybe this is also why she can be so forgiving to her ex-husband who didn’t tell her that he was gay until after the marriage was over.
The problem with Fran passing off her life with a gay husband as “funny” while she continues to make a joke out of the struggles of those whose lives have been shattered is the public will never be able to understand the reality of how our lives have broken us mentally, emotionally, and sexually. The public will continue to view us as unsympathetic whiners when we should be double-dating our husbands’ new boyfriends. After all, Fran thinks it is a laugh. When are we going to learn to lighten up a bit and make fun at our own misfortune? I say never. I don’t believe in laughing at the pain of others. But that’s me.
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.
As a counseling authority in the field of straight-gay marriages for nearly 30 years, I find it so offensive that Fran Drescher cannot see the lack of humor that over 4 million women in this country suffer from when they find themselves in a doomed marriage of distortion for 10, 20, 30, and 40 plus years of their lives because of their husbands' lies. None of them are making jokes about their marriages or the years that follow as Fran does in her show. They have suffered humiliation for years that were stolen and can never be returned. When a woman of 60 plus years writes to me to tell me that the only sex she had in her life for forty years was the dozen or so times with her gay husband who found numerous reasons to say “no” to her requests because she now discovered he is a gay man—it really makes me ill. What gives a gay man the right to do this to a woman? How selfish can a husband be to withhold this truth from the woman he vowed in front of God to love and cherish? Is this love? I don’t think so.
I have worked with over 75,000 women through the years. These are women who have lost all sense of who they are because they are living in a marriage to a gay man—but the joke is on them because their husbands hardly ever tell them the truth. Their marriages lack the real ingredients that marriage is about—trust, honesty, passion, making love, showing devoted love to the woman who is devotes her life to a man who can never treat her like a straight husband would. Let’s not even get into the tens of thousands of women who are now suffering with STD’s like AIDS/HIV, herpes, syphilis, and gonorrhea because their gay husbands were having unprotected sex with anonymous sex partners.
In an interview with Fran in the Huffington Post this week about her support for gay marriages, she reminded people that she was raped in 2002 in her home as well as her best girl friend by a black man. Her point of bringing up the race issue was that she doesn’t hold it against black people that she was raped; therefore, she doesn’t hold it against gay people that her ex-husband is gay. That gave me a new idea. Maybe Fran should consider doing a comedy about her rape for a next show. Since she does such an excellent job at making jokes at her misfortunes, maybe she can try that angle for her next show. She can call it “Unhappily Raped.”
Straight Wives don’t feel the same impact as a rape victim which is a heinous crime—but they do feel extremely violated and betrayed. Some of them are physically abused throughout this ordeal and the vast majority of women are emotionally abused by men who feel caught in their own web of deceit of marriage. This leads to continual mental abuse on a daily basis because the gay husband feels he is stuck in the marriage muck when in fact, he chooses to remain there because he is too much of a coward to get out. It’s easier to beat his wife down blaming her for his unhappiness than to take responsibility for his actions by telling her the truth. And please don’t tell me he’s staying there because he “loves” her. Most of these men have such contempt for their wives that love isn’t a factor by the point they realize they can’t get rid of those nagging attractions to men.
In my book “The Gay Husband Checklist for Women Who Wonder,” I have a chapter on the prototype of a woman that a gay man marries—and in Fran’s case—stays with even though the marriage is off kilter. One of those categories is about women who were victims of sexual abuse. When women have been sexually abused or raped, their desire for a healthy sexual relationship with a man is often damaged. Perhaps that is why Fran felt relieved when her husband stopped having regular relations with her. She may have been just as relieved as her husband was when she backed away. And maybe this is also why she can be so forgiving to her ex-husband who didn’t tell her that he was gay until after the marriage was over.
The problem with Fran passing off her life with a gay husband as “funny” while she continues to make a joke out of the struggles of those whose lives have been shattered is the public will never be able to understand the reality of how our lives have broken us mentally, emotionally, and sexually. The public will continue to view us as unsympathetic whiners when we should be double-dating our husbands’ new boyfriends. After all, Fran thinks it is a laugh. When are we going to learn to lighten up a bit and make fun at our own misfortune? I say never. I don’t believe in laughing at the pain of others. But that’s me.
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER 2012
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
I admit it—I am really behind on television in my life and especially shows that are current. When one of our women sent me the link to the show “What Would You Do” on ABC several weeks ago, I was totally unaware of the show. However, I watched the promo where a couple posed as married and celebrated their anniversary in a busy restaurant. The wife excused herself to go to the bathroom, and the husband’s gay lover, who was observing the couple from the bar, went over to the married man to embrace and kiss him in public. The question was, “What would you do?” Would you tell the wife her husband was smooching with another man or would you mind your own business?
I often discuss this in our support chat with women who don’t know what to do when their husbands start dating other women—and these are ex-WIVES that know the truth, not just bystanders observing. The people who responded to the ABC survey (where you can still vote at http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2012/01/husband-cheats-with-male-lover-would-you-tell/) are pretty evenly split with those who would tell slightly winning over those who would not because it’s “none of their business.”
Through the years, women have asked me what to do if their husbands start dating another woman. And as many of us know, some gay men will continue to date and marry women—in fact, some will do it multiple times. Should straight wives keep quiet and mind their own business? Should they confront the woman and tell her the truth about the gay husband?
Interestingly enough, many of the women I’ve discussed this with would not tell. In fact, a few years ago I did a survey here and found that to be the case. Yes—I was really surprised and didn’t expect the response I received with the large numbers of “No’s.” It was interesting to listen to the women’s reasons:
• She wouldn’t believe me anyhow.
• I had to learn the hard way—let her find out the same way.
• Someday she’ll call me and then I’ll tell her if she asks me.
• My ex will only lie, and she’ll believe him.
• It’s not my job to “out” my ex-husband.
• I don’t have concrete proof, so what could I tell her?
• I’m getting child support and alimony, so I can’t take a chance on losing it.
Hmmm—legitimate reasons? I’m not saying no. I’m just saying that I’m surprised. I say that because I know how much each and every one of us reading this newsletter truly had her life turned upside down from being married to a gay man. We know the pain. We know the emotional turmoil that we have all been through. And that’s what puzzles me. Why allow some unsuspecting woman who is most likely just like you—kind, loving, compassionate, and understanding—walk into a web of lies and deceit if you can stop it? We know the kind of gay husbands who are the “straight-gay men.” These men will continue to coast through the straight world proving themselves worthy of justifying that they are “straight guys” by marrying another woman—or women. We all know the types—and some of you are or have been married to them.
Even if the new woman wouldn’t believe you, the thought is planted in her head. Of course, these women have already been adequately brainwashed by your ex-husband about how “crazy” you are and how your mission is to destroy his life by spreading the most vicious of rumors. He’s already told her that you’ll stoop to any level to make her leave him—even telling people that he’s gay. Ha, ha. What a joke. He was married and had children, right? And now he’s engaged or married again. Ha, ha. Again. He really thinks he can keep having the last laugh. Yep, put any thoughts of the truth to rest before the new wife starts wondering if something is wrong in “her” while she is in a relationship with your gay ex-husband.
What I find ironic is that the overwhelming majority of us say that we WISH someone would have told us, and how ANGRY we feel when people tell us after-the-fact that they always knew or suspected. And yet, when we see a new woman getting ready to step into quicksand, we turn the other way and say, “Hopefully she won’t sink.” Yikes! No one walks on quicksand—sinking is the only option.
I know there are lots of emotional issues when presented with this situation. I was once in this situation myself, and it wasn’t easy to do the right thing. But in time, I couldn’t let the lie keep perpetuating itself. I couldn’t stand to see a wonderful woman suffering because she believed something was wrong with her when it wasn’t. I always tell women that if you can’t tell her, I will be happy to accept the responsibility. I will send the woman one of my books (as I have done for a few women who requested it) and tell her that she needs to read the stories. Power is knowledge. She may not want to believe it at that moment, but when things start falling apart—as they always do—she’ll know exactly why.
You can still vote in that ABC poll. Please go to that link and vote YES—tell the wife. Let people know that keeping this kind of secret is not a secret that should be kept. Remember—it’s not a matter of outing him—it’s a matter of informing a woman of something that will only create unhappiness in her life.
ONE MILLION MOMS
Recently, there was much ado in the news from a group called One Million Moms about Ellen Degeneres representing JC Penny stores in their advertising. Why? Because she is a lesbian and does not represent “family values.” I don’t know much about the organization, nor do I have any idea how many women are really part of this group that stresses Christian Family Values. It could be ten—or it could be a million. Regardless, the message is scary.
One of our straight wives, my friend Debbie in Texas, brought this to my attention when she received this letter from the One Million Moms organization:
From: OneMillionMoms [omm@afa.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 10:00 AM
To: Debra xxxxx
Subject: JC Penney Offends Traditional Families Again
February 1, 2012
Dear Debbie,
Recently JC Penney announced that comedian Ellen Degeneres will be the company's new spokesperson. Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly. Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful.
Their marketing strategy is to help families shop and receive a good value for their money. Degeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there. The small percentage of customers they are attempting to satisfy will not offset their loss in sales.
JC Penney has made a poor decision and must correct their mistake fast to retain loyal customers and not turn away potential new, conservative shoppers with the company's new vision.
"Importantly, we share the same fundamental values as Ellen," said Michael Francis, president of J.C. Penney Company in a press statement. "At JC Penney, we couldn't think of a better partner to help us put the fun back into the retail experience. Moving forward, we'll be focused on being in sync with the rhythm of our customers' lives and operating in a 'Fair and Square' manner that is rooted in integrity, simplicity and respect. We're thrilled that she's joining our team to help convey the exciting transformation under way."
"They have an incredible vision for the future and are completely re-inventing themselves to become America's favorite store," said DeGeneres in a press statement.
By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years.
* UPDATE: In a previous campaign we emailed Disney Channel and requested that the film "Little Manhattan" no longer air on their channel or at the very least cut out the offensive scenes. It did not air for some time. During last night's episode on January 31, the curse word OMM was concerned about being in a children's movie on a kid's network has been edited! The 10-year-old Gabe originally said, "What the hell?!" and now the word "hell" has been edited. Instead of the obnoxious beep to bleep out the foul language, which would raise questions, it was just removed.
TAKE ACTION! Make a personal phone call to JC Penney's customer service department. Their numbers are 972-431-8200 (customer service) and 972-431-1000 (corporate headquarters).
Ask JC Penney to replace Ellen Degeneres as their new spokesperson immediately and remain neutral in the culture war.
Sincerely, Monica Cole, Director OneMillionMoms.com
Debbie sent a response to the organization that I would like to share with you.
OMM,
Please take the time to read this heartfelt email from me, one mother, to you, many mothers. I appreciate most of the notices and warnings you send out, but I believe we should give a break to the homosexual community and those who support it and this is why:
I have been married to a "devout" Christian man for almost 13 years. I recently found out that he is a homosexual. I do not know that he was out having affairs, BUT he chose to hide his true sexual orientation from me because of the shame from the church and society should he reveal his true identity. He thought he could live a normal married life and love a woman, but it turned out that he could not. No gay man can. Thousands of Christian women are unknowingly married to a gay man. These marriages cannot be normal or healthy. Wives wonder for years why their husbands cannot emotionally and sexually bond with them. They begin to feel that it is their fault and often the husbands are happy to make them think that the dysfunction is the wife's problem. Some of these men will never reveal their true identity and will keep their wives suffering for their entire married life. Most will act on their urges and have liaisons with many men, thus putting their wives in danger of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Some will be found out and others will not. Some brave ones will decide to come out to their wives and give their wives an opportunity to leave the troubled marriage that isn't a real marriage, in my opinion, based on the foundational lie of the man's true sexual orientation. Even if the husband never strays physically in the marriage, he cannot love his wife in the way God intended because his inner desires for being emotionally and sexually intimate with a man rule his inner life. Plus he is living a lie in his church and community.
My husband works in Christian PR and is hiding the truth from all his friends, colleagues, and clients. If they ask him why his wife left, he tells them that she has mental problems, which is another lie.
The church and anti-homosexual groups are part of the cause for homosexual men hiding in marriages with unsuspecting Christian women. The children in these homes do not see normal husband and wife affection or an appropriate emotional bond between their parents. My children do not know that husbands and wives can and should be physically affectionate with each other, even in appropriate ways in front of their children. They never saw it. My husband shied away from all my physical affection until I just gave up. They also didn't see their father being "real" in emotional ways. He was always so guarded and putting on a holier than thou front. The only time he showed some emotion was to angrily, condemningly, and destructively point out to the children where I was wrong. His lifelong cover-up has made him very selfish, and lies flow easily from his lips. His favorite verse to quote is "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus". Yet, he only quotes that verse to defend himself, not me or others. He even co-leads a men's bible study at church, and a very recent study was on integrity. Marriage and the church are favorite places to hide for homosexual men who want to pretend they are someone else. My husband claims to have been healed of his homosexuality. He says that when he was in high school and college he secretly practiced homosexuality to some extent but was healed practically over night after some years of struggling and praying. He claims to have zero temptations to be with men. Well, even Christian ex-gay ministry spokespersons claim that their "healing" is ongoing and that they constantly battle temptations and urges but must suppress them and pray through them regularly. Most of them do not believe that one's sexual orientation can completely switch from homosexual to heterosexual, and that they must constantly do battle with the flesh. Yet, these men are also almost all married to Christian women. There are many mixed messages and schools of thought about these men, but the bottom line is that women and children are hurt and are not experiencing God's intended plan for marriage, a true oneness as with Christ and the church.
My story is virtually identical to thousands of women's stories. Please research this phenomenon. If you cannot stop hounding the gay community and those who support the homosexuals who chose not to live a lie, please at least find a way to reach out to the many, many Christian women who have found or will one day find themselves married to a closeted homosexual man. The Christian resources for women in this predicament are very few. There are some very good secular sources of help, but even they are few and far between. We could use support from you and other ministries that have the topic of support for women, marriage, and family in their mission statements.
Thank you for your time. I have written you before. I would love to receive any kind of response from you on this subject.
Sincerely,
Debbie Wooding
JC Penney Offends Traditional Families Again
These Christian groups have no idea how they contribute to the problem of gays marrying straights. As you know, Bonnie, the more homophobia that is spoken, spread, and published...the more challenging it will be for gays to live freely out of the closet.
Out of the so-called one million moms of OMM, I wonder how many more children will grow up thinking they are despicable sinners if they have same-sex attractions. These moms will have to choose to either support their children or to support an organization that condemns their children.
Debbie
Thank you, Debbie, for standing up for all of us. Groups like this are dangerous to us all.
MAILBAG – Each month, I ask some of my writers if I can share their words with my readers because their impact is so strong. Feel free to share letters with our readers. No letter is printed without your permission, and it can be signed however you like.
Time to Start Thinking About ME
January 05, 2012, 14:57
So for the past almost 21 years, I have expended all my energy on my children and have enjoyed every minute of it. But now that they are getting older and figuring out what they want to do with the rest of their lives, it is finally time to start thinking about me. I've made a conscious decision to start doing things that I like to do. I've decided that I'm going to start speaking up for myself and not always give in to what other people expect of me or worry about hurting their feelings if I don't go along with what they say or want to do.
It's NOT an easy decision to follow through on, simply because I'm so accustomed to making sure everyone else is okay. Simple things such as going to a restaurant that someone else wants to go to, but I don't really feel like it, but I go along with it anyway just to appease everyone else. There are times that I don't want to go out to eat. Or times when I'd rather do something else than see a movie as if that's the only option for entertainment. Maybe I'd like to stay home and cook a meal and then dance together in our home without a certain someone finding it silly and unable to enjoy the moment in seriousness.
I have to admit, I'm experiencing some anxiety about this decision because I'm not sure where it could lead and it is completely out of my comfort zone. I know I'm going to have to come clean about some things and that's scary! But the alternative of living in sadness and depression of not being able to be my true authentic self... is worse.
My Christian views and upbringing have taught me to always put others before myself which I still agree with to some degree, however, if I'm not taking care of me...then who takes care of others when I'm at the point of burn-out, frustration and depression and can no longer help ANYONE, much less myself. I think it's more about thinking about what I really want out of life right now. Some may call it mid-life crisis, but I honestly don't care. All I know is at the end of the day, when everyone else is living their life and dealing with their own struggles and issues and enjoying their own successes and pleasures, I will be left to consider whether or not I'm happy with the choices I've made and left to deal with ups and downs of my everyday life. They will be sleeping in their beds, not even thinking about me and my & "mid-life" crisis. I prefer to see it as a defining moment. A moment when I become available to me, when I have access to me again and am able to do absolutely anything I want. It is so freeing!
I certainly don't plan on doing anything that will result in catastrophe, but I do want to LIVE again. I want to LAUGH out loud! I don't want to make mistakes, but knowing that I will, I want to be able to forgive myself and not live in guilt, self-pity, anxiety, but the forgiveness of God's grace. And I want to extend that grace to others without exception. Because I know, at any moment, I could be the one in need of forgiveness.
Star
Hi Bonnie,
First I’m raising my hand, guilty of taking too much care of everyone in my life! As you know, I am trying to think of myself and my children as the only real priorities in my life.
About the “alpha-male”….the only thing he got right is that it’s passed in the genes, I believe that. Other than that, I don’t care if he’s alpha, beta, delta or zeta…or any other Greek letter (interesting he labels himself in Greek terms, I won’t go there!) He volunteered that he’s done this to 2 women, which means he’s searching for more victims. Such CRAP! He should be castrated and publicly outted!!!! The nerve! And, he actually believes that crap that’s falling from his mouth. So similar to my ex’s posturing and like many others….we, the girls who survive were made to think we had no idea what end was up and that all was our fault.
I also agree that I was broken long before I got involved with my heinous ex…I really thought that I had made changes before we’d gotten together, but it turns out that money (or lack thereof) had nothing whatever to do with it. It is my need to please, fix and do for everyone and thinking that people I’ve been involved with have the same integrity that I do…I am very self critical, nobody yells at me better than I do.
Michael Jackson’s song “Man in the Mirror” (and I don’t usually quote him, may he rest in peace…I think his life was very tortured and likely he was guilty of many things that wouldn’t have been ignored had he not been who he was)
“I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change)”
These lyrics resonate with me in a bi-fold manner
..I think we really have to look in our own mirror to effect any change in our lives…what in us (as women) is so broken that we accept and try to justify our spouses to others while we live in the craziness?
Secondly, our spouses…even if they loved us at the time of marriage, even if they didn’t know they were gay…none of it excuses the lies and deception or betrayal they force upon us, turning all our reality into literal lives of hell. These men (and I use the term loosely) also need to look in the mirror…take a really hard look.
The change comes from within, no matter who we are. Owning who and what we are is the first step to living authentically….gay or straight.
Narcissistic sociopathy doesn’t allow these guys to see anyone but themselves, without regard to what anyone else lives.
I think our job as survivors is to look in the mirror until we can look at ourselves with happy eyes. None of us needs to accept another “project” guy. No matter what the project is.
The guy that wrote the open apology, It’s a start…he still doesn’t understand how his behavior altered the lives of those around him…he doesn’t think he’s as bad as she thinks…yeah ok!
All my love and my gratitude!
Wanda
Thanks to all of my writers who help women in their journeys through Gay Husband Recovery.
With Love and Hope,
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.
www.Gayhusbands.com
I admit it—I am really behind on television in my life and especially shows that are current. When one of our women sent me the link to the show “What Would You Do” on ABC several weeks ago, I was totally unaware of the show. However, I watched the promo where a couple posed as married and celebrated their anniversary in a busy restaurant. The wife excused herself to go to the bathroom, and the husband’s gay lover, who was observing the couple from the bar, went over to the married man to embrace and kiss him in public. The question was, “What would you do?” Would you tell the wife her husband was smooching with another man or would you mind your own business?
I often discuss this in our support chat with women who don’t know what to do when their husbands start dating other women—and these are ex-WIVES that know the truth, not just bystanders observing. The people who responded to the ABC survey (where you can still vote at http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2012/01/husband-cheats-with-male-lover-would-you-tell/) are pretty evenly split with those who would tell slightly winning over those who would not because it’s “none of their business.”
Through the years, women have asked me what to do if their husbands start dating another woman. And as many of us know, some gay men will continue to date and marry women—in fact, some will do it multiple times. Should straight wives keep quiet and mind their own business? Should they confront the woman and tell her the truth about the gay husband?
Interestingly enough, many of the women I’ve discussed this with would not tell. In fact, a few years ago I did a survey here and found that to be the case. Yes—I was really surprised and didn’t expect the response I received with the large numbers of “No’s.” It was interesting to listen to the women’s reasons:
• She wouldn’t believe me anyhow.
• I had to learn the hard way—let her find out the same way.
• Someday she’ll call me and then I’ll tell her if she asks me.
• My ex will only lie, and she’ll believe him.
• It’s not my job to “out” my ex-husband.
• I don’t have concrete proof, so what could I tell her?
• I’m getting child support and alimony, so I can’t take a chance on losing it.
Hmmm—legitimate reasons? I’m not saying no. I’m just saying that I’m surprised. I say that because I know how much each and every one of us reading this newsletter truly had her life turned upside down from being married to a gay man. We know the pain. We know the emotional turmoil that we have all been through. And that’s what puzzles me. Why allow some unsuspecting woman who is most likely just like you—kind, loving, compassionate, and understanding—walk into a web of lies and deceit if you can stop it? We know the kind of gay husbands who are the “straight-gay men.” These men will continue to coast through the straight world proving themselves worthy of justifying that they are “straight guys” by marrying another woman—or women. We all know the types—and some of you are or have been married to them.
Even if the new woman wouldn’t believe you, the thought is planted in her head. Of course, these women have already been adequately brainwashed by your ex-husband about how “crazy” you are and how your mission is to destroy his life by spreading the most vicious of rumors. He’s already told her that you’ll stoop to any level to make her leave him—even telling people that he’s gay. Ha, ha. What a joke. He was married and had children, right? And now he’s engaged or married again. Ha, ha. Again. He really thinks he can keep having the last laugh. Yep, put any thoughts of the truth to rest before the new wife starts wondering if something is wrong in “her” while she is in a relationship with your gay ex-husband.
What I find ironic is that the overwhelming majority of us say that we WISH someone would have told us, and how ANGRY we feel when people tell us after-the-fact that they always knew or suspected. And yet, when we see a new woman getting ready to step into quicksand, we turn the other way and say, “Hopefully she won’t sink.” Yikes! No one walks on quicksand—sinking is the only option.
I know there are lots of emotional issues when presented with this situation. I was once in this situation myself, and it wasn’t easy to do the right thing. But in time, I couldn’t let the lie keep perpetuating itself. I couldn’t stand to see a wonderful woman suffering because she believed something was wrong with her when it wasn’t. I always tell women that if you can’t tell her, I will be happy to accept the responsibility. I will send the woman one of my books (as I have done for a few women who requested it) and tell her that she needs to read the stories. Power is knowledge. She may not want to believe it at that moment, but when things start falling apart—as they always do—she’ll know exactly why.
You can still vote in that ABC poll. Please go to that link and vote YES—tell the wife. Let people know that keeping this kind of secret is not a secret that should be kept. Remember—it’s not a matter of outing him—it’s a matter of informing a woman of something that will only create unhappiness in her life.
ONE MILLION MOMS
Recently, there was much ado in the news from a group called One Million Moms about Ellen Degeneres representing JC Penny stores in their advertising. Why? Because she is a lesbian and does not represent “family values.” I don’t know much about the organization, nor do I have any idea how many women are really part of this group that stresses Christian Family Values. It could be ten—or it could be a million. Regardless, the message is scary.
One of our straight wives, my friend Debbie in Texas, brought this to my attention when she received this letter from the One Million Moms organization:
From: OneMillionMoms [omm@afa.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 10:00 AM
To: Debra xxxxx
Subject: JC Penney Offends Traditional Families Again
February 1, 2012
Dear Debbie,
Recently JC Penney announced that comedian Ellen Degeneres will be the company's new spokesperson. Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly. Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful.
Their marketing strategy is to help families shop and receive a good value for their money. Degeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there. The small percentage of customers they are attempting to satisfy will not offset their loss in sales.
JC Penney has made a poor decision and must correct their mistake fast to retain loyal customers and not turn away potential new, conservative shoppers with the company's new vision.
"Importantly, we share the same fundamental values as Ellen," said Michael Francis, president of J.C. Penney Company in a press statement. "At JC Penney, we couldn't think of a better partner to help us put the fun back into the retail experience. Moving forward, we'll be focused on being in sync with the rhythm of our customers' lives and operating in a 'Fair and Square' manner that is rooted in integrity, simplicity and respect. We're thrilled that she's joining our team to help convey the exciting transformation under way."
"They have an incredible vision for the future and are completely re-inventing themselves to become America's favorite store," said DeGeneres in a press statement.
By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years.
* UPDATE: In a previous campaign we emailed Disney Channel and requested that the film "Little Manhattan" no longer air on their channel or at the very least cut out the offensive scenes. It did not air for some time. During last night's episode on January 31, the curse word OMM was concerned about being in a children's movie on a kid's network has been edited! The 10-year-old Gabe originally said, "What the hell?!" and now the word "hell" has been edited. Instead of the obnoxious beep to bleep out the foul language, which would raise questions, it was just removed.
TAKE ACTION! Make a personal phone call to JC Penney's customer service department. Their numbers are 972-431-8200 (customer service) and 972-431-1000 (corporate headquarters).
Ask JC Penney to replace Ellen Degeneres as their new spokesperson immediately and remain neutral in the culture war.
Sincerely, Monica Cole, Director OneMillionMoms.com
Debbie sent a response to the organization that I would like to share with you.
OMM,
Please take the time to read this heartfelt email from me, one mother, to you, many mothers. I appreciate most of the notices and warnings you send out, but I believe we should give a break to the homosexual community and those who support it and this is why:
I have been married to a "devout" Christian man for almost 13 years. I recently found out that he is a homosexual. I do not know that he was out having affairs, BUT he chose to hide his true sexual orientation from me because of the shame from the church and society should he reveal his true identity. He thought he could live a normal married life and love a woman, but it turned out that he could not. No gay man can. Thousands of Christian women are unknowingly married to a gay man. These marriages cannot be normal or healthy. Wives wonder for years why their husbands cannot emotionally and sexually bond with them. They begin to feel that it is their fault and often the husbands are happy to make them think that the dysfunction is the wife's problem. Some of these men will never reveal their true identity and will keep their wives suffering for their entire married life. Most will act on their urges and have liaisons with many men, thus putting their wives in danger of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Some will be found out and others will not. Some brave ones will decide to come out to their wives and give their wives an opportunity to leave the troubled marriage that isn't a real marriage, in my opinion, based on the foundational lie of the man's true sexual orientation. Even if the husband never strays physically in the marriage, he cannot love his wife in the way God intended because his inner desires for being emotionally and sexually intimate with a man rule his inner life. Plus he is living a lie in his church and community.
My husband works in Christian PR and is hiding the truth from all his friends, colleagues, and clients. If they ask him why his wife left, he tells them that she has mental problems, which is another lie.
The church and anti-homosexual groups are part of the cause for homosexual men hiding in marriages with unsuspecting Christian women. The children in these homes do not see normal husband and wife affection or an appropriate emotional bond between their parents. My children do not know that husbands and wives can and should be physically affectionate with each other, even in appropriate ways in front of their children. They never saw it. My husband shied away from all my physical affection until I just gave up. They also didn't see their father being "real" in emotional ways. He was always so guarded and putting on a holier than thou front. The only time he showed some emotion was to angrily, condemningly, and destructively point out to the children where I was wrong. His lifelong cover-up has made him very selfish, and lies flow easily from his lips. His favorite verse to quote is "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus". Yet, he only quotes that verse to defend himself, not me or others. He even co-leads a men's bible study at church, and a very recent study was on integrity. Marriage and the church are favorite places to hide for homosexual men who want to pretend they are someone else. My husband claims to have been healed of his homosexuality. He says that when he was in high school and college he secretly practiced homosexuality to some extent but was healed practically over night after some years of struggling and praying. He claims to have zero temptations to be with men. Well, even Christian ex-gay ministry spokespersons claim that their "healing" is ongoing and that they constantly battle temptations and urges but must suppress them and pray through them regularly. Most of them do not believe that one's sexual orientation can completely switch from homosexual to heterosexual, and that they must constantly do battle with the flesh. Yet, these men are also almost all married to Christian women. There are many mixed messages and schools of thought about these men, but the bottom line is that women and children are hurt and are not experiencing God's intended plan for marriage, a true oneness as with Christ and the church.
My story is virtually identical to thousands of women's stories. Please research this phenomenon. If you cannot stop hounding the gay community and those who support the homosexuals who chose not to live a lie, please at least find a way to reach out to the many, many Christian women who have found or will one day find themselves married to a closeted homosexual man. The Christian resources for women in this predicament are very few. There are some very good secular sources of help, but even they are few and far between. We could use support from you and other ministries that have the topic of support for women, marriage, and family in their mission statements.
Thank you for your time. I have written you before. I would love to receive any kind of response from you on this subject.
Sincerely,
Debbie Wooding
JC Penney Offends Traditional Families Again
These Christian groups have no idea how they contribute to the problem of gays marrying straights. As you know, Bonnie, the more homophobia that is spoken, spread, and published...the more challenging it will be for gays to live freely out of the closet.
Out of the so-called one million moms of OMM, I wonder how many more children will grow up thinking they are despicable sinners if they have same-sex attractions. These moms will have to choose to either support their children or to support an organization that condemns their children.
Debbie
Thank you, Debbie, for standing up for all of us. Groups like this are dangerous to us all.
MAILBAG – Each month, I ask some of my writers if I can share their words with my readers because their impact is so strong. Feel free to share letters with our readers. No letter is printed without your permission, and it can be signed however you like.
Time to Start Thinking About ME
January 05, 2012, 14:57
So for the past almost 21 years, I have expended all my energy on my children and have enjoyed every minute of it. But now that they are getting older and figuring out what they want to do with the rest of their lives, it is finally time to start thinking about me. I've made a conscious decision to start doing things that I like to do. I've decided that I'm going to start speaking up for myself and not always give in to what other people expect of me or worry about hurting their feelings if I don't go along with what they say or want to do.
It's NOT an easy decision to follow through on, simply because I'm so accustomed to making sure everyone else is okay. Simple things such as going to a restaurant that someone else wants to go to, but I don't really feel like it, but I go along with it anyway just to appease everyone else. There are times that I don't want to go out to eat. Or times when I'd rather do something else than see a movie as if that's the only option for entertainment. Maybe I'd like to stay home and cook a meal and then dance together in our home without a certain someone finding it silly and unable to enjoy the moment in seriousness.
I have to admit, I'm experiencing some anxiety about this decision because I'm not sure where it could lead and it is completely out of my comfort zone. I know I'm going to have to come clean about some things and that's scary! But the alternative of living in sadness and depression of not being able to be my true authentic self... is worse.
My Christian views and upbringing have taught me to always put others before myself which I still agree with to some degree, however, if I'm not taking care of me...then who takes care of others when I'm at the point of burn-out, frustration and depression and can no longer help ANYONE, much less myself. I think it's more about thinking about what I really want out of life right now. Some may call it mid-life crisis, but I honestly don't care. All I know is at the end of the day, when everyone else is living their life and dealing with their own struggles and issues and enjoying their own successes and pleasures, I will be left to consider whether or not I'm happy with the choices I've made and left to deal with ups and downs of my everyday life. They will be sleeping in their beds, not even thinking about me and my & "mid-life" crisis. I prefer to see it as a defining moment. A moment when I become available to me, when I have access to me again and am able to do absolutely anything I want. It is so freeing!
I certainly don't plan on doing anything that will result in catastrophe, but I do want to LIVE again. I want to LAUGH out loud! I don't want to make mistakes, but knowing that I will, I want to be able to forgive myself and not live in guilt, self-pity, anxiety, but the forgiveness of God's grace. And I want to extend that grace to others without exception. Because I know, at any moment, I could be the one in need of forgiveness.
Star
Hi Bonnie,
First I’m raising my hand, guilty of taking too much care of everyone in my life! As you know, I am trying to think of myself and my children as the only real priorities in my life.
About the “alpha-male”….the only thing he got right is that it’s passed in the genes, I believe that. Other than that, I don’t care if he’s alpha, beta, delta or zeta…or any other Greek letter (interesting he labels himself in Greek terms, I won’t go there!) He volunteered that he’s done this to 2 women, which means he’s searching for more victims. Such CRAP! He should be castrated and publicly outted!!!! The nerve! And, he actually believes that crap that’s falling from his mouth. So similar to my ex’s posturing and like many others….we, the girls who survive were made to think we had no idea what end was up and that all was our fault.
I also agree that I was broken long before I got involved with my heinous ex…I really thought that I had made changes before we’d gotten together, but it turns out that money (or lack thereof) had nothing whatever to do with it. It is my need to please, fix and do for everyone and thinking that people I’ve been involved with have the same integrity that I do…I am very self critical, nobody yells at me better than I do.
Michael Jackson’s song “Man in the Mirror” (and I don’t usually quote him, may he rest in peace…I think his life was very tortured and likely he was guilty of many things that wouldn’t have been ignored had he not been who he was)
“I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change)”
These lyrics resonate with me in a bi-fold manner
..I think we really have to look in our own mirror to effect any change in our lives…what in us (as women) is so broken that we accept and try to justify our spouses to others while we live in the craziness?
Secondly, our spouses…even if they loved us at the time of marriage, even if they didn’t know they were gay…none of it excuses the lies and deception or betrayal they force upon us, turning all our reality into literal lives of hell. These men (and I use the term loosely) also need to look in the mirror…take a really hard look.
The change comes from within, no matter who we are. Owning who and what we are is the first step to living authentically….gay or straight.
Narcissistic sociopathy doesn’t allow these guys to see anyone but themselves, without regard to what anyone else lives.
I think our job as survivors is to look in the mirror until we can look at ourselves with happy eyes. None of us needs to accept another “project” guy. No matter what the project is.
The guy that wrote the open apology, It’s a start…he still doesn’t understand how his behavior altered the lives of those around him…he doesn’t think he’s as bad as she thinks…yeah ok!
All my love and my gratitude!
Wanda
Thanks to all of my writers who help women in their journeys through Gay Husband Recovery.
With Love and Hope,
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.
www.Gayhusbands.com
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
DISTORTED PERCEPTIONS - ARCHIVES
First, I want to thank my wonderful support group member Debbie for reminding me about this article from nearly 9 years ago. On her new blog, she posted this and after reading it, I felt it was deserving of sharing it with you on my blog. I hope you find comfort in these words.
DISTORTED PERCEPTIONS, May, 2003
I’ve written about this before, and probably not too long ago. But I could never write about this enough, so I’ll talk about it again. It’s what I call “Distorted Perceptions.” It’s an important part of understanding the whole concept your marriage and why it failed.
I think I’ve gotten most of you on board with understanding that you had no influence on your husband’s homosexuality. No matter how easy it is for us to fall into the trap of believing that we were not “good enough” or “smart enough” or “pretty enough” or “sexy enough” for our husbands, I hope after reading my constant reassurances, you finally understand that your husband’s homosexuality was there long before you were.
The next concept of why your marriage failed is a little more difficult for you to understand. You are still looking at your marriage as if it takes “two to tango” as the saying goes. I often hear women say, “He made mistakes, and I made mistakes,” or “We both had faults,” Let’s acknowledge that no one is perfect. Yes, we all have faults. But it is not your “faults” that created the problems in the marriage. On the other hand, it is very possible that the problems in the marriage intensified your faults.
Example? Okay. Let’s start with me revealing to you some of the problems I had in my marriage. Because of all of the erratic behavior and inconsistencies in my marriage, I was overly suspicious of my husband’s actions. Whenever I couldn’t account for his missing time, I believed he was out cheating on me. I made an automatic search of all of his belongs when he wasn’t looking. This included all of the pockets in his clothes, his little black phone book, and his wallet. I looked in the car at the mileage gauge, looked under the seats for clues of unfamiliar items, and went through the glove compartment for any suspicious papers, matchbook covers, or receipts left behind and haphazardly thrown in there. As soon as I would find a possible incriminating piece of evidence, I would confront my husband. He would get angry and yell at me how I was neurotic and ridiculous. He always had an explanation of whatever evidence I found, and he did his best to convince me that I was the one with a “vivid” imagination that was always in the overactive mode.
From where he was sitting, I looked like the overly nagging wife. Snooping didn’t become me. But I became obsessed. Once the trust was gone, there was no way for me to regain it, especially when his patterns of suspicion continued. As much as I tried to ignore what kept hitting me in the face, I was unable to do so. As time progressed, my obsession deepened. Every time he left the house, my imagination took over and images of young men jolted out in my mind. Every guy my husband spoke to became suspect to me. My reactions to people were totally different because of this. No doubt, there were many innocent people who became victims of my unfounded hostility, but I was unable to distinguish fact from fiction because of the ones who were my realities and nightmares.
Now, my husband blamed me for overreacting to almost everything. And maybe in many cases I did. Bottom line: This was not who I was, but who I became because HE WAS GAY AND LIVING A LIE. And that lie infiltrated the darkest part of my soul turning me into someone whom I didn’t recognize or even like.
There were days when I woke up and didn’t want to live any more. This was NOT ME. The real me had a passion for life that had been temporarily snuffed out. I didn’t know it was temporary while I lived it because my life was now on another plane—somewhere between the Twilight Zone and death. I say death because on three different occasions I attempted suicide. It seemed like an excellent alternative during those moments that seemed so inescapable and hopeless. This was NOT ME either. Prior to my marriage, I was so high on life. I was active, sociable, surrounded by high self-esteem, and very independent. I turned into someone who was depressed, scared, insecure, co-dependant, and crying constantly from being hurt.
The decisions and the moves that I made during my marriage were based on the mutated perceptions inside my marriage. Before I suspected that homosexuality was the cause of my unhappiness, I came to believe that it was me who was causing the problems in my marriage. If I told my husband that our marriage had problems, he would reply, “We don’t have problems—YOU have the problem. I am happy in the marriage. YOU are the unhappy one.” Many of you have written to me that your husbands tell you the same thing. The problem is YOU—not him, not the “marriage.” And naturally, my husband, as well as yours, never looks beyond the fact that YOU have a problem, because it’s always all about them. I guess I was falling into a darker hole each day so it was easy for me to believe that I was the one with the problems. He wasn’t falling into a dark hole. He seemed content, and why not? He had a wife and a life outside his wife.
He was living his lie. And it was a big lie. Not a little white lie. Lying about your sexuality is a really very big lie. VERY BIG. What is a little lie? A little lie is taking money and buying something and not telling your spouse. A little lie is getting a couple of drinks at the bar with some friends while you tell your wife you are working. A little lie is not revealing that you broke your diet, smoked a cigarette after you quit, or paying more for something than you’re supposed to but keeping quiet not to start a fight because you’ve unbalanced the family budget.
It’s not like I’m condoning lying, but I certainly do understand it. I’ve lied myself when the thought of revealing something is going to result in an unnecessary argument that can be avoided and has no real effect on the state of a relationship. To lie is human. To live a lie is different. It’s not something that is inconsequential. When you live a lie, there are always consequences for someone. In our cases, it ends up being our consequence.
The basis for a relationship should be one built on give and take. When a man stops having sex with his wife because it’s too much of a burden for him because he is gay, you are giving wrong information to your wife. I don’t hear too many men take responsibility for their lack of sexual activity other than made up stories about being too tired, too overworked, too depressed, too headachy, too sore from exercising, etc. When those excuses run out, then the tables turn. Then it’s—YOU. You are too heavy, YOU are too naggy, YOU are too unsympathetic,
YOU are too demanding, and of course…..YOU ARE A NYMPHOMANIAC or something just as insulting. Because YOU now think YOU are the problem in your marriage, YOU are the one who tries to change YOURSELF. So, now you are changing yourself to become the ideal wife of a man who doesn’t want to make love to you no matter how good you look, how nice you act, how talented you are, or of course—how devoted you are to your gay husband. Ouch! That hurts.
Eventually, after your husband rejects you enough times, you stop expecting sex, and you also stop asking for it. He breathes a deep sigh of relief. Whew!! “She finally gets it. Stop asking because you’re not going to get it.” Once your wife stops asking you to have sex, she has resigned herself to living an unhappy life with you. How happy to do you think she’s going to be? And when she’s not happy, that’s her fault too, right? Wrong. It’s the husband’s fault.
Some gay husbands believe that money is the key to happiness—YOUR happiness. They will try to compensate for their sexual inadequacy by buying you gifts and trinkets, as if that will do it for you. It’s the same pattern as the physically abusive husband who beats his wife, begs for forgiveness, tells her that he loves her, and goes out to buy a present to prove it. HYPOCRITS. Like a bracelet is going to make you feel better about yourself. “I don’t think you’re good enough to make love to, but I think you’re good enough for a bracelet.” Thanks pal—but no thanks.
I know they say that the failure of a marriage is the fault of both parties, and maybe that’s the case in functional marriages. But guess what? I don’t think it’s that way when you live with a gay man. You aren’t happy. He can’t be happy. He is saying that you are making him unhappy because of your own unhappiness. But if he would have been a straight husband, maybe you would be happy. Perhaps you could have met life’s challenges as a team instead of being on different teams. And not only are you both on different teams, but you’re both playing in different ballparks. If the pitcher for the New York Yankees throws the most perfect pitch in NY, the best player in Boston standing hundreds of miles away can’t hit it—NO MATTER WHAT. You are in two different cities on two different teams. Two different places in two different spaces.
The same goes for straight wives with gay husbands. If your husband is telling you that the lack of sex in your marriage is YOUR fault, and he is a gay man, no matter what you do to make yourself more physically attractive, and some of you have gone to the extremes of breast implants and liposuction, it’s not going to change anything. You are playing in the wrong ballpark. Or shall I say, you have the wrong plumbing.
If you think I’m saying to all of you that you are perfect and without fault, well, I’m not. No one is perfect; we are all human. We all make mistakes. We all have bad days. We all have human traits, and this is fine. And no husband—straight, gay or otherwise is perfect either. I don’t think any of us are seeking perfection. We are seeking husbands who are playing in the same ballpark. And although many couples who are STRAIGHT couples grow apart, they do it in a more honest way. They don’t always look to place the blame on your lap. They take some responsibility for the marriage unraveling. And you can make sense of those marriages that don’t work without feeling that you are responsible for their failure. In a marriage with a gay husband, you don’t even know what is real and not real. You are living in a labyrinth that has only twists and turns. There is no way to ever find a way to the end of the maze. The twists and turns go nowhere except in vicious circles.
And so, when you sit back and recount the years that have passed and try to figure out what went wrong in your marriage, do yourself a favor--stop thinking about it. When you live with a gay man who is parading in disguise as a straight man, nothing can change the circumstances. Or shall I say, only you are capable of changing them—by leaving the marriage and moving on to a life that makes sense. What’s really so amazing is that life can make sense once your marriage is over. No more mazes to run through, no more Twilight Zones or Outer Limits. No more trying to solve the unsolvable, no more fighting against the unchanging tide. When you live like this, you zap your mental and physical energy because spinning gold out of hay only happens in fairytales.
Posted by debbie wooding at 9:44 AM 2 comments
DISTORTED PERCEPTIONS, May, 2003
I’ve written about this before, and probably not too long ago. But I could never write about this enough, so I’ll talk about it again. It’s what I call “Distorted Perceptions.” It’s an important part of understanding the whole concept your marriage and why it failed.
I think I’ve gotten most of you on board with understanding that you had no influence on your husband’s homosexuality. No matter how easy it is for us to fall into the trap of believing that we were not “good enough” or “smart enough” or “pretty enough” or “sexy enough” for our husbands, I hope after reading my constant reassurances, you finally understand that your husband’s homosexuality was there long before you were.
The next concept of why your marriage failed is a little more difficult for you to understand. You are still looking at your marriage as if it takes “two to tango” as the saying goes. I often hear women say, “He made mistakes, and I made mistakes,” or “We both had faults,” Let’s acknowledge that no one is perfect. Yes, we all have faults. But it is not your “faults” that created the problems in the marriage. On the other hand, it is very possible that the problems in the marriage intensified your faults.
Example? Okay. Let’s start with me revealing to you some of the problems I had in my marriage. Because of all of the erratic behavior and inconsistencies in my marriage, I was overly suspicious of my husband’s actions. Whenever I couldn’t account for his missing time, I believed he was out cheating on me. I made an automatic search of all of his belongs when he wasn’t looking. This included all of the pockets in his clothes, his little black phone book, and his wallet. I looked in the car at the mileage gauge, looked under the seats for clues of unfamiliar items, and went through the glove compartment for any suspicious papers, matchbook covers, or receipts left behind and haphazardly thrown in there. As soon as I would find a possible incriminating piece of evidence, I would confront my husband. He would get angry and yell at me how I was neurotic and ridiculous. He always had an explanation of whatever evidence I found, and he did his best to convince me that I was the one with a “vivid” imagination that was always in the overactive mode.
From where he was sitting, I looked like the overly nagging wife. Snooping didn’t become me. But I became obsessed. Once the trust was gone, there was no way for me to regain it, especially when his patterns of suspicion continued. As much as I tried to ignore what kept hitting me in the face, I was unable to do so. As time progressed, my obsession deepened. Every time he left the house, my imagination took over and images of young men jolted out in my mind. Every guy my husband spoke to became suspect to me. My reactions to people were totally different because of this. No doubt, there were many innocent people who became victims of my unfounded hostility, but I was unable to distinguish fact from fiction because of the ones who were my realities and nightmares.
Now, my husband blamed me for overreacting to almost everything. And maybe in many cases I did. Bottom line: This was not who I was, but who I became because HE WAS GAY AND LIVING A LIE. And that lie infiltrated the darkest part of my soul turning me into someone whom I didn’t recognize or even like.
There were days when I woke up and didn’t want to live any more. This was NOT ME. The real me had a passion for life that had been temporarily snuffed out. I didn’t know it was temporary while I lived it because my life was now on another plane—somewhere between the Twilight Zone and death. I say death because on three different occasions I attempted suicide. It seemed like an excellent alternative during those moments that seemed so inescapable and hopeless. This was NOT ME either. Prior to my marriage, I was so high on life. I was active, sociable, surrounded by high self-esteem, and very independent. I turned into someone who was depressed, scared, insecure, co-dependant, and crying constantly from being hurt.
The decisions and the moves that I made during my marriage were based on the mutated perceptions inside my marriage. Before I suspected that homosexuality was the cause of my unhappiness, I came to believe that it was me who was causing the problems in my marriage. If I told my husband that our marriage had problems, he would reply, “We don’t have problems—YOU have the problem. I am happy in the marriage. YOU are the unhappy one.” Many of you have written to me that your husbands tell you the same thing. The problem is YOU—not him, not the “marriage.” And naturally, my husband, as well as yours, never looks beyond the fact that YOU have a problem, because it’s always all about them. I guess I was falling into a darker hole each day so it was easy for me to believe that I was the one with the problems. He wasn’t falling into a dark hole. He seemed content, and why not? He had a wife and a life outside his wife.
He was living his lie. And it was a big lie. Not a little white lie. Lying about your sexuality is a really very big lie. VERY BIG. What is a little lie? A little lie is taking money and buying something and not telling your spouse. A little lie is getting a couple of drinks at the bar with some friends while you tell your wife you are working. A little lie is not revealing that you broke your diet, smoked a cigarette after you quit, or paying more for something than you’re supposed to but keeping quiet not to start a fight because you’ve unbalanced the family budget.
It’s not like I’m condoning lying, but I certainly do understand it. I’ve lied myself when the thought of revealing something is going to result in an unnecessary argument that can be avoided and has no real effect on the state of a relationship. To lie is human. To live a lie is different. It’s not something that is inconsequential. When you live a lie, there are always consequences for someone. In our cases, it ends up being our consequence.
The basis for a relationship should be one built on give and take. When a man stops having sex with his wife because it’s too much of a burden for him because he is gay, you are giving wrong information to your wife. I don’t hear too many men take responsibility for their lack of sexual activity other than made up stories about being too tired, too overworked, too depressed, too headachy, too sore from exercising, etc. When those excuses run out, then the tables turn. Then it’s—YOU. You are too heavy, YOU are too naggy, YOU are too unsympathetic,
YOU are too demanding, and of course…..YOU ARE A NYMPHOMANIAC or something just as insulting. Because YOU now think YOU are the problem in your marriage, YOU are the one who tries to change YOURSELF. So, now you are changing yourself to become the ideal wife of a man who doesn’t want to make love to you no matter how good you look, how nice you act, how talented you are, or of course—how devoted you are to your gay husband. Ouch! That hurts.
Eventually, after your husband rejects you enough times, you stop expecting sex, and you also stop asking for it. He breathes a deep sigh of relief. Whew!! “She finally gets it. Stop asking because you’re not going to get it.” Once your wife stops asking you to have sex, she has resigned herself to living an unhappy life with you. How happy to do you think she’s going to be? And when she’s not happy, that’s her fault too, right? Wrong. It’s the husband’s fault.
Some gay husbands believe that money is the key to happiness—YOUR happiness. They will try to compensate for their sexual inadequacy by buying you gifts and trinkets, as if that will do it for you. It’s the same pattern as the physically abusive husband who beats his wife, begs for forgiveness, tells her that he loves her, and goes out to buy a present to prove it. HYPOCRITS. Like a bracelet is going to make you feel better about yourself. “I don’t think you’re good enough to make love to, but I think you’re good enough for a bracelet.” Thanks pal—but no thanks.
I know they say that the failure of a marriage is the fault of both parties, and maybe that’s the case in functional marriages. But guess what? I don’t think it’s that way when you live with a gay man. You aren’t happy. He can’t be happy. He is saying that you are making him unhappy because of your own unhappiness. But if he would have been a straight husband, maybe you would be happy. Perhaps you could have met life’s challenges as a team instead of being on different teams. And not only are you both on different teams, but you’re both playing in different ballparks. If the pitcher for the New York Yankees throws the most perfect pitch in NY, the best player in Boston standing hundreds of miles away can’t hit it—NO MATTER WHAT. You are in two different cities on two different teams. Two different places in two different spaces.
The same goes for straight wives with gay husbands. If your husband is telling you that the lack of sex in your marriage is YOUR fault, and he is a gay man, no matter what you do to make yourself more physically attractive, and some of you have gone to the extremes of breast implants and liposuction, it’s not going to change anything. You are playing in the wrong ballpark. Or shall I say, you have the wrong plumbing.
If you think I’m saying to all of you that you are perfect and without fault, well, I’m not. No one is perfect; we are all human. We all make mistakes. We all have bad days. We all have human traits, and this is fine. And no husband—straight, gay or otherwise is perfect either. I don’t think any of us are seeking perfection. We are seeking husbands who are playing in the same ballpark. And although many couples who are STRAIGHT couples grow apart, they do it in a more honest way. They don’t always look to place the blame on your lap. They take some responsibility for the marriage unraveling. And you can make sense of those marriages that don’t work without feeling that you are responsible for their failure. In a marriage with a gay husband, you don’t even know what is real and not real. You are living in a labyrinth that has only twists and turns. There is no way to ever find a way to the end of the maze. The twists and turns go nowhere except in vicious circles.
And so, when you sit back and recount the years that have passed and try to figure out what went wrong in your marriage, do yourself a favor--stop thinking about it. When you live with a gay man who is parading in disguise as a straight man, nothing can change the circumstances. Or shall I say, only you are capable of changing them—by leaving the marriage and moving on to a life that makes sense. What’s really so amazing is that life can make sense once your marriage is over. No more mazes to run through, no more Twilight Zones or Outer Limits. No more trying to solve the unsolvable, no more fighting against the unchanging tide. When you live like this, you zap your mental and physical energy because spinning gold out of hay only happens in fairytales.
Posted by debbie wooding at 9:44 AM 2 comments
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Holiday Message from the Past
I know that this is such a difficult time for so many of our women who go through additional pain during the holiday season. I will be reprinting some of my past holiday messages in the upcoming weeks so you will understand that you are not alone in how you feel. The dates may be old, but the message is just as relevant now as always.
This message was from my December 2003 Newsletter.
ACT 2: SCENE 3
Quite frequently, women write to me about their lack of viable skills when it comes to securing a job so they can gain financial independence. I always look for transferable skills that would be a good match such as caretaker, nurse, detective, etc. How did I miss the most obvious one, namely—ACTRESS?
Every holiday season, wives of gay men have to play their Oscar award-winning role of “Happy Wife” in front of crowds of hundreds. Of course, there is no golden statue at the end of the season like their movie counterparts, but no doubt, the performances are just as extraordinary. And the holiday season is not the yearly birthday, anniversary, or Easter. The HOLIDAY SEASON is a long stretch that starts at Thanksgiving and continues until Valentine’s Day. Between those two points, we begin the family and love ordeal. Thanksgiving is the beginning, followed by Christmas, New Year’s, and finally ending on Valentine’s Day in February. We are so relieved to have the President’s Birthday as a holiday in February because by then, all of our emotional horror of the holiday season is over. Imagine thinking that Washington and Lincoln can actually neutralize and balance out life because after three months of families celebrating family unity and love, we no longer have to cringe when we hear the word, “holiday.” The touchy-feely ones are over, and once again, we have not been touched or felt, and in fact, most of us have been living with a Novocain kind of numbness so that we can protect ourselves from crying at any given moment because we are HURTING.
The Holiday Season is such a difficult time for straight wives because it is an up front in your face reminder of what life was supposed to be like but never became. Or if it was, it’s over after years because homosexuality has joined into your previously happy union or what you were hoping would be your happy union. It’s almost like having Scrooge find his way into your husband’s body and head. When you want a display of affection and emotion, he’s saying, “Bah, Humbug.” To this I say, “Ho, ho, no, no more.”
You see, even though you may be feeling the pain of this holiday season, it could be your last year to suffer this way. Believe it or not, you can make it your New Year’s resolution to be FREE by next year. Free of the pressures and strain of living a lie. Free of the constant questioning of what can you do to make life better with a man who wants a man to make his life better. Free of the mental torture from the mind games your husband plays so well with you, trying to make you start believing that you are losing your mind and it’s just your imagination running away with you while he’s running around with men. Free of earning your professional detective license while snooping around in a relationship that is supposed to be based on honesty and truth. Free to go to bed at night and feel good about waking up in the morning. Why? Because waking up alone and having peace of mind is always better than waking up next to someone who really doesn’t want to be with you and is making you miserable because he feels that you are “trapping” him.
You see, way beyond this being a holiday season of family and love, it is a holiday season of hope. A time to make resolutions that will help you become healthy and happy. Now I know people hate clichés, but this one really catches the essence of the holiday—namely, “HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL.” This little ditty kind of coincides with my own personal philosophy; namely, each new day offers the opportunity of waking up and changing your life. I believe it. I actually did it, and I never look back and regret it. My marriage was doomed. I could have spent 10, 15, or 25 more years of wasting my life with a man who could only make me miserable. But a little bird in my head that became a choir of canaries singing to me, “Don’t Do It.” Don’t give up one more year of precious time to a debilitating situation.”
Love, Bonnie
This message was from my December 2003 Newsletter.
ACT 2: SCENE 3
Quite frequently, women write to me about their lack of viable skills when it comes to securing a job so they can gain financial independence. I always look for transferable skills that would be a good match such as caretaker, nurse, detective, etc. How did I miss the most obvious one, namely—ACTRESS?
Every holiday season, wives of gay men have to play their Oscar award-winning role of “Happy Wife” in front of crowds of hundreds. Of course, there is no golden statue at the end of the season like their movie counterparts, but no doubt, the performances are just as extraordinary. And the holiday season is not the yearly birthday, anniversary, or Easter. The HOLIDAY SEASON is a long stretch that starts at Thanksgiving and continues until Valentine’s Day. Between those two points, we begin the family and love ordeal. Thanksgiving is the beginning, followed by Christmas, New Year’s, and finally ending on Valentine’s Day in February. We are so relieved to have the President’s Birthday as a holiday in February because by then, all of our emotional horror of the holiday season is over. Imagine thinking that Washington and Lincoln can actually neutralize and balance out life because after three months of families celebrating family unity and love, we no longer have to cringe when we hear the word, “holiday.” The touchy-feely ones are over, and once again, we have not been touched or felt, and in fact, most of us have been living with a Novocain kind of numbness so that we can protect ourselves from crying at any given moment because we are HURTING.
The Holiday Season is such a difficult time for straight wives because it is an up front in your face reminder of what life was supposed to be like but never became. Or if it was, it’s over after years because homosexuality has joined into your previously happy union or what you were hoping would be your happy union. It’s almost like having Scrooge find his way into your husband’s body and head. When you want a display of affection and emotion, he’s saying, “Bah, Humbug.” To this I say, “Ho, ho, no, no more.”
You see, even though you may be feeling the pain of this holiday season, it could be your last year to suffer this way. Believe it or not, you can make it your New Year’s resolution to be FREE by next year. Free of the pressures and strain of living a lie. Free of the constant questioning of what can you do to make life better with a man who wants a man to make his life better. Free of the mental torture from the mind games your husband plays so well with you, trying to make you start believing that you are losing your mind and it’s just your imagination running away with you while he’s running around with men. Free of earning your professional detective license while snooping around in a relationship that is supposed to be based on honesty and truth. Free to go to bed at night and feel good about waking up in the morning. Why? Because waking up alone and having peace of mind is always better than waking up next to someone who really doesn’t want to be with you and is making you miserable because he feels that you are “trapping” him.
You see, way beyond this being a holiday season of family and love, it is a holiday season of hope. A time to make resolutions that will help you become healthy and happy. Now I know people hate clichés, but this one really catches the essence of the holiday—namely, “HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL.” This little ditty kind of coincides with my own personal philosophy; namely, each new day offers the opportunity of waking up and changing your life. I believe it. I actually did it, and I never look back and regret it. My marriage was doomed. I could have spent 10, 15, or 25 more years of wasting my life with a man who could only make me miserable. But a little bird in my head that became a choir of canaries singing to me, “Don’t Do It.” Don’t give up one more year of precious time to a debilitating situation.”
Love, Bonnie
Thursday, December 15, 2011
DECEMBER 2011 NEWSLETTER
TEXAS GET TOGETHER IN MARCH!!!
Plans are firming up for our Texas get-together for March 3-4 in Houston. I am really excited because we have some wonderful women in Texas who have been part of my support network for quite a while. It will be such a treat to meet or see again those who can come. And guess what? You don’t have to be from Texas! Come from anywhere for the opportunity to meet some of the most dynamic women you can ever hope to meet.
We will be staying in a wonderful spa resort for a fantastic discount price thanks to our support member Lynn who is doing all the legwork to make sure this is memorable and comfortable weekend. The dynamic Patsy Rae Dawson will be joining us to give her words of inspiration to our Christian sisters who still may have difficulty with leaving their marriages. And if you are as inspired by my friend Wendy, the author of Wendy’s Lists that you have read in my newsletters and heard on the Straight Wives Talk Show, you will have a chance to greet her in person and hear her inspiring words.
It will truly be an unforgettable weekend. If you are in the Texas area, or you would just like to get away for a healing weekend with women you will love to be with because they understand everything you are feeling, please write to me at Bonkaye@aol.com for the details. Treat yourself to healing!
NEW YORK DINNER GET-TOGETHER TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27
I’m planning to be in New York City on Tuesday, December 27, to meet with any area women who are available for dinner. Please email me at Bonkaye@aol.com if you’d like to spend a few hours together with me and some of our wonderful women. Dinner will be in mid-town Manhattan.
NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE
On November 24, 2011, this wonderful article appeared in the New York Times about how the author, Jane Isay, kept the marriage to her gay husband a secret from everyone—for the sake of her children. Isay is the author of the book Walking on Eggshells which many of our women have read and recommended to others.
I was not aware that Ms. Isay had a gay husband nor that she stayed with him for a long period of time after his disclosure. Allow me share this article with you titled “Keeping Marital Secrets Closeted.”
THIS summer, soon after gay marriage became legal in New York, my sons held a wedding for my former husband and his partner of over 30 years. The grandchildren were flower girl and ring bearers. The wedding thrust me back to the time when we faced a terrible choice and decided to stay married for the children. That’s what motivated my then husband and me to carry on our incomplete marriage for its last nine years, and that’s how we explained our actions after the divorce. It was a convenient truth, and also a self-serving one.
The year was 1980. I was waiting for my husband of 15 years to return from the last party of a psychiatry convention. I could hear voices from down the hall, happy men enjoying their time together. When he came in, his face was grave. He sat down on the bed and said, “I have something I need to tell you.” He took a deep breath. “I’m homosexual.” At that moment I saw my future collapse before my eyes. I got the chills and ran to take a hot bath. It gave me time to think and warmed me, but not for long. We spent the night talking and lamenting. On the plane home, we held each other and sobbed and planned. By the time we landed, we had decided to keep his sexual orientation a secret and stay married for the sake of the children.
Of course we both wanted to protect our sons, who were 10 and 14. Divorce was not uncommon then, but the circumstances surrounding our relationship were controversial and would have created a scandal in our small university town, so staying married for the children helped us both feel better about ourselves and our lies. We thought they didn’t notice any change, and we were mistaken. Secrets have a way of seeping into the atmosphere. Kids are natural observers. They watch parents like hawks, and they know when something is wrong, even if they don’t know what. I desperately wanted the charade to work at home — we were doing this for the children. So covering for my husband on his two nights a week out, and his two vacations a year became second nature — he was a busy man with many meetings.
I paid a price for my silence with my closest friends, because a secret of this magnitude builds barriers. I just couldn’t bear to show them the spot I was in. And I was leery of advice. When I felt so alone, I could always remind myself what a good person I was being, sacrificing for the children.
The other reasons for staying married were not so charming. If I had thought, I’m staying for the money, I might have questioned the lies I told my sons about where their father was on the nights he spent with his future husband. Or if he had thought, I’m staying to promote my career as a psychoanalyst, he might have felt a little heavy on the ambition scale. Or if we both had realized that we were just too scared to face the world alone, I might have given up some of the pretending, and he might have realized the gravity of his original secret.
But never mind. We had an explanation that made people admire us when we finally went public. Other truths might have evoked pity or suspicion: what’s the matter with her radar? How could she accept a half a marriage instead of a whole one? Who is she, really? To say we stayed married for the children put an end to uncomfortable questions.
If I had faced the other reasons to stay in the marriage, the burden of our lies would probably have been harder to bear. But the burden on our sons might also have been lightened. It’s not so great for kids to be told they are the cause of their parents’ behavior, especially when that’s only part of the story. When they finally learned the truth, our sons were more disturbed by our deception than by the facts. Our reasons didn’t seem to matter anymore. Truth trumps lies every time.
The phrase “we stayed married for the children” is like a silk duvet on a complicated and imperfect marriage bed. Nobody really wants to turn back the covers, the unhappy spouses least of all.
There were many comments posted after the article was printed. Many of them did not have sympathy for the author, although I don’t believe she was looking for any. But one profound comment by a straight wife really moved my heart:
Children know so much more than we think. Our puppet show may work for the outside world, but it is patently obvious on the inside. I thought I had successfully hidden my misery from my children and stayed married in a hugely dysfunctional and abusive marriage for over a decade. My ex was a closeted gay man but that was only part of it. Every time my sister would visit she would say, "I don't know how you can live here. It's horrible. You can't even breathe." I pretended to not know what she was talking about and was insulted. But my kids certainly did. Rather than believe we had the happy family I presented to the world, my children absorbed the misery and secrecy deep down, only they couldn't process it.
The damage is huge, over a decade later. Basically, the biggest damage is that they learned not to trust the evidence of their own senses and to think of quiet brutality as normal, and to think of their own needs as unimportant. It impacts their choice of partners, their life choices in careers, their ability to function. In weighing the decision whether to divorce, I should have taken all that into account. If you realize you're staying out of fear, comfort (money, social class), etc, it's easier to decide what to do. A marriage becomes much less justifiable when you are sacrificing your children for your own comfort and your own needs.
And now for the saddest comment of all was from an adult child from a straight/gay marriage:
You presented a most potent description of the damage done to the children when parents are keeping secrets and remaining in a marriage for the sake of the children. In particular you said: "Basically, the biggest damage is that they learned not to trust the evidence of their own senses and to think of quiet brutality as normal, and to think of their own needs as unimportant." My parents were wretched with each other, and told themselves they stayed married for our sake. We four grew up to suffer chronic depression, substance abuse problems, bulimia, and all the relationship problems attending those plagues. The toxic miasma of our parents' hostility poisoned every breath we took.
Why I loved this article and the comments after it was because it confirmed what I keep trying to hit home year after year. Staying in a dysfunctional marriage for the sake of the children is not doing anything to help the children except to damage them. The problem that I have with some of our women is that they INSIST to me that there is no way that their children know there is a problem because they are good “actresses.” I say HOGWASH—and that’s not a word I’ve ever used before in any of my writings. It seems pretty harsh, but I can’t get this message across any better without using this word.
If you are afraid to leave your marriage because you feel you can’t make it on your own, then just admit it. There is no shame in admitting this to yourself because this way you can really start to work on YOURSELF and understanding how to get “unstuck.” It may take therapy, support, education, or training, but it’s YOUR issue—not your husband’s. He can’t change—and he won’t change—so STOP trying to change him or “wish away the gay.” You can look for that little glimmer of hope like putting gold glitter on a picture without paste. It looks great for the moment, but when you pick the picture up, the glitter falls off and blows away. You may have calmer moments in your marriage when you can delude yourself into thinking that things are “going better,” and maybe they are momentarily. However, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that’s how it will continue. Whatever temporary show of affection your gay husband is showing you is temporary. Like the glitter dust, it blows away quickly.
I grew up in a broken family. I had no role models to teach me what marriage was supposed to be like—only what it wasn’t supposed to be like. I grew up screwed up with values that were twisted at best. My parents thought they were “hiding” their problems from us by waiting until we were “sleeping” before they started to argue. They thought they were “protecting” us by picking the late night hours to argue. They weren’t. They were “waking” us. My father wasn’t gay—he was straight. But growing up with parents who were destroying each other was also destroying the children. I believed I was one of the major causes of my parents’ unhappiness. After all, wasn’t I what they were fighting about? This contributed to my own lack of self-esteem and self-worth throughout the years. Those feelings impacted the poor relationship choices I made throughout the years.
I am currently updating my earlier book from 2005 titled ManReaders: A Woman’s Guide to Dysfunctional Men which I will re-release in the next few months. One of my past support network members allowed me to reprint her letter that articulated this situation so well. I met Mindy in 2003 in the aftermath of her marriage to her gay ex-husband. It was a tumultuous marriage that escalated to physical abuse because of her ex’s frustration of living in a marriage where he didn’t belong. Since ManReaders was written for women with any kind of dysfunctional husband/relationship, I asked Mindy not to gear it to the gay part of the marriage and to make it more general for all women with abusive situations because the end results are the same.
I will now share it with you:
Dear Bonnie,
I used to keep track of how many minutes a day I spent in tears... and now I can't remember the last time I cried over something other than a tear jerking movie! I had been married about 5 or 6 years when I began to think that the life I was living actually fit the description of 'abuse’. I wasn't any different from any other abuse victim though - there were so many excuses... so many "I'm sorry's"...so many promises... and I believed it would get better.... someday. Of course - that "someday" never came...not in that life, with that husband anyway. The biggest regret of my life was that I allowed my two beautiful daughters to grow up believing that their father's abusive behavior was acceptable.
After twenty-five years of enduring abuse, a visit to my oldest daughter’s home made me realize that the change was up to me, I was the one that had to change. I was never going to change him - I couldn't do that. I also knew...that as I stood there looking at the bruises on my gorgeous daughters face, if I didn't make the change now, her abuser would end up killing her. If I continued to let her believe the abuse was acceptable, she would also continue to live it.
The legacy had to STOP - and if it didn't, my precious grandson would also grow with the same skewed belief of normalcy that would either turn him into an abuser or a life as a victim of abuse.
I left my abuser - it was probably the hardest decision of my life. I knew I would be giving up a life of beautiful material goods while also giving up a life of painful emotional and physical abuse. It was difficult to see that the payoff would be worth it - but it didn't take long. I knew I made the right decision to divorce when I didn't even think about keeping track of tears and conflict. I was able to sleep at night, I was able to work all day without abusive interruptions, I was able to call my mother and my friends and family whenever I wanted. I was FREE!
There aren't enough material goods in this world to be worth my life of freedom and happiness and the freedom and happiness of my children and my grandchildren.
I am now happily married, to a wonderful, peaceful man. My daughter
also divorced her abuser, and she is also now in a healthy, loving marriage.
Life is good - and I tell my new husband every day that I don't take a minute of this peaceful life for granted. I never will.
Bonnie, I pray that all women in abusive relationships can gain the self-confidence and esteem to find the peace that I have found. Thank-you so much for your hard work toward this effort! The LEGACY must be stopped!
Sincerely,
Mindy L.
I think Mindy’s letter still says it all. It doesn’t matter if the abuse is physical or emotional—it is still destroying you—and ultimately your children. The key to this is finding the strength and energy you need to stand up for yourself and move away from a situation that is so destructive.
Several years ago, I shared this letter with my readers written by my mother after the divorce from my gay husband. My mother passed away in 2000, but her words will always be a part of my heart and my actions. I hope they will inspire you during this difficult holiday time:
Dearest Bonnie
This is not the funny card I was going to send, but instead one the color of sunshine, the sun bringing to mind that whatever happens to people, joys, tears, health, sickness, weddings, or divorce, the sun always rises bringing new life, spirit, and vitality to the world. Remembering the words, “On This Joyous Occasion” from the first time, those occasions change, and we do the best we can to look ahead to brighter days and happier times. Divorce is a finality and a conclusion to a mistake. You should be proud that you brought this to an end from a legal standpoint and a morale standpoint. Your children will someday admire your decision, as to not divorce but know of the reason for your unhappiness would lower their feelings of strength they see in you and count on for their future. Someday, they may have to accept his failings but never your weakness. My life, in limbo all these years to suit your father’s fancy, has been unproductive, restrictive, and foolish on my part. Now it is too late to recapture my years, but I’m comforted in the fact that you face a free new road. Enjoy your freedom and strength. I am proud of you always.
Love Mommie
I always take comfort in those words and can’t tell you how important they were to me haring them from my own mother who suffered with my abusive father for so many years.
I hope that hearing the inspiring words from others will give you the strength in the upcoming year to make some decisions that can “set you free” from the unhappiness so many of you are still living with. This not only applies to women still stuck in their marriages, but also to women still pushed into the back of their husbands or ex-husbands’ closets keeping “his” secret. Most importantly it also applies to women who are still questioning whether or not they need to tell their children the truth. I hope these letters will help guide you to realize that secrets destroy. The truth hurts…but secrets destroy.
COMIC JULIET JESKE – NO LAUGHING MATTER!
One of our support network members, Maggie, turned me onto a blog a few months ago written by a real “clown,” Juliet Jeske. Juliet has been performing as a comedian and a clown—yep, a clown--for over a decade. Her ex gay-husband is also a performing clown. I loved the article because it expressed the struggles that so many of you face moving from marriage back into single life, and I asked Juliet if she would be a guest on my radio blog show where she graciously joined me and my co-hostess Misti Hall on December 11.
Juliet is in the process of writing a book. Her blog has now been recognized internationally and her articles are printed in the Huffington Post. Many of her topics deal with dating in New York as a single woman and are quite interesting. Her blog about her marriage to a gay man really hit home to a number of our readers, and Juliet said I could share it with you:
Divorced after being a straight spouse two years later.
I still remember my wedding day, vividly. Any day planned and fretted about for months is going to stick in your brain for a lifetime. Any day built up as the beginning of the rest of your life will burn into your psyche, in the same way horrible trauma sears its pain and anguish deep into your bones. Try as you might, you can’t shake it the pain becomes a part of your very foundation. Few positive memories have the same effect.
For whatever reason, our bodies, hearts and minds tend to cling to the negative memories such as: being humiliated in front of your class, not being able to get jeans off in time due a broken zipper and wetting myself at girl scout camp, seeing my father lash out at me in a yet another blinding rage, losing a job or role for reasons unknown, having a voice teacher tell me I would never be a singer, seeing the face of a lover suddenly go cold and distant, having no one show up to my 13th birthday party….and on and on and on. The traumas and disappointments get inside of you like a bad virus you can’t shake, but the good memories fade quickly. The memories replaced instead by just vague emotion. Instead of specific images they blur into shifting colors through a window. Instead of the detailed sharp piercing prongs of negative memories happy thoughts become reduced to feelings. I can’t remember holding my cat for the first time, hugging a friend I haven’t seen forever, the first kiss from a person I adore, winning a competition….they drift, they fade only warm pretty shadows remain in their place.
The memory of my wedding day is now traumatic but still beautiful in my mind, so like the crazy nuanced event it has become, it is now a hybrid of negative crystal clear clarity and blurred fuzzy happiness.
The one image that keeps coming back is the walk down the aisle. I used to have PTSD style flashbacks of the very event. I would be sitting on the train or reading a book and for no reason it would flash into my brain as clear as it was actually happening. The cathedral, with his family on one side and mine on the other, the organ music, with all of these faces turned towards me. It was so overwhelming, all I could do to get through the ritual was to focus on my soon to-be husband and move closer and closer to him and the rest of my life. I knew that if I turned to look at people on either side I would start crying and I didn’t want to cry on my wedding day so I kept focusing on the task at hand and that was to get down the aisle without shedding a tear. My husband was now my new family, the scars and damage from my old one were over and I had chosen this new man to start over and help wipe away the darkness and pain of the past.
Since my divorce, I have had recurring nightmares of being outside of my body trying to run up to myself in the moments while screaming
“Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it”
The sound of my screams echoing through the great hall of marble, but no one looks up, no one even flinches and I still just keep moving forward. Nothing I can do can stop me, it is like looking at ghosts re-enacting the same scene in a play over and over.
I hate it when people say,
“Well at least your husband was just gay, it could have been a lot worse”
Or anything to the effect of that I have somehow had it easier than a typical divorced person.
I guess in some ways I have, in that the end was so absolute. There was no reason to second guess why I was leaving my husband, no amount of couples counseling, no amount of therapy or listening skills that would have made anything better, no horrible act of betrayal that I would regret for ending everything. But on the downside I felt cheated. I got cheated at a chance at a normal marriage, with a man of the same sexual orientation who loved me like a man is meant to love a woman, in mind, heart and body.
I was cheated of the chance of having children and being a mother. I know I might still have time left, but dating at age 38 is difficult as half of the eligible men already have children and don’t want more. And in my current state I couldn’t afford to raise a child on my own, as I can barely take care of myself. There are times on the subway or in the park that even the sight of a young mother with her child will send me spiraling. Suddenly tears come from nowhere and I can’t make them stop. Why is she so lucky to have the one thing that I will never get to experience? I am constantly told that I shouldn’t give up hope but I haven’t been able to sustain a relationship for any length of time and every other man who I find compatible is already a father and doesn’t want more children. I had to end therapy because literally every single session was the same conflict, the same fear, the same resentment over probably losing the chance to be a parent. When my therapist suggested I go back on medication, and then tried to get me to justify what I consider a fairly innate human desire to procreate I couldn’t take it anymore and ceased the sessions.
I was cheated of the dream that everyone has when they get married, that despite the obstacles in life and arguments, fights, and petty annoyances I no longer have a partner for life. I was cheated on the intimacy of an adult human sexual relationship. It seemed normal at first but it quickly became dysfunctional but because I loved my husband I stuck it out, and now I beat myself up for not leaving sooner.
So over two years have passed, but I am still not right. I am still not healed and I don’t know if I ever will be. I am suspicious of every man I meet, and I trust no one, it is so debilitating that I actually stick around in relationships that aren’t fully formed, that aren’t as scary, that aren’t as real…I am scared to have a real one.
But my shattered life has in some ways made me stronger, like a piece of metal cracked and then welded back together, or a bone broken and then reset. I am no longer the same shape, my insides, my skeleton is not the same, and I don’t react to pain the same way. I am far more empathetic to another person’s pain especially anyone divorced. I feel deeply for them, and I cut them a lot of slack for self-destructive behavior or lashing out at themselves or others. I know they are in a ton of pain and that most of their actions are not directed at me or anyone, but instead directed at the emptiness inside of them.
I have also learned that I have to heal myself before allowing anyone else in. I no longer have my husband to unload my emotional baggage on. And friends get tired when I repeatedly do it to them, so I am now forced to deal with it on my own, with just my broken heart and damaged soul to mend myself. These things have definitely made me a better friend and a better person, but the lack of trust and emotional scars have made me more skittish and more apprehensive about letting anyone new in. I have become damaged goods complete with certain memories playing repeatedly in my mind. Hopefully I will one day be able to replace the photo sharp negative ones with more blurry happy thoughts. But until then, I try to ride the nightmare of the memory of walking to my new life of fraud, deception and loss. Two years ago I was pushed off a cliff and I survived, now I just need to figure out how to pick of the pieces and start climbing again.
If you would like to read some of Juliet’s thought provoking writing, you can visit her website where you can see this beautiful young woman in action including a Youtube Video interview from a show in Australia. You can also access her blog from her website at www.JulietJeske.com. I’m a fan—I’m sure you’ll be one too after seeing her or listening to her. You can hear Juliet on the archives of our radio show at Blogtalkradio.com. Put in Straight Wives Talk Show December 11, 2011.
MAILBAG
Each month I receive letters from my readers. I always ask before printing those that I find most helpful for permission to reprint. It can be reprinted anonymously or with any name you choose. These letters help inspire other readers—like you!
Bonnie, I have not read your news letter for a couple of years now as I have "gotten on with my life" now, having moved out 5 years ago from my closeted husband of 20 years. But seeing the newsletter in my in-box like monthly clockwork has always given me a special comfort.
In November's newsletter I enjoyed reading the last letter. I identified with what she said so very much! I too am experiencing love from a heterosexual man for the first time (i didn’t date much before i married at age 26) and there is NO COMPARISON in the way this heterosexual wonder-man treats me and loves me. Women out there who are on the fence, just know that it is true, gay or bisexual men are not treating u the way that u deserve. The way that a heterosexual man would treat u. I too thought I wasn't pretty enough or skinny enough now I have the best love-making that is all about me (he does things to make me happy, not like the narcissistic ex who it was all about himself, even on our wedding night, and who also gradually dwindled the sex down to every couple of months to virtually non-existent sex.)
My ex died last year. He was HIV + so I am so glad he lost interest in me or else I too might have contracted the virus. Because of course he wouldn’t wear a condom because he had just gotten clipped. He died of pneumonia - age 49. What a waste of a life... But mine is just starting! So take heart, things will get better. Be true to yourself, take care of you and you will get though this! And trust me, there is sweet love at the end of the dark tunnel....
HAPPY AT LAST! Finally LOVED!!
From the West Coast USA
Hi Bonnie,
Please pass on this message to "Sarah" from the mailbag.
Dear Sarah,
From day one, my gay ex-husband (now of 3 years, HOORAY FOR ME!!) said only one thing that I believe is so true (probably the only true thing out of his mouth), yet so hard to accept. He said "GET OVER IT--JUST BE HAPPY." Well it took some time, and the anger rears its head (mainly because he puts his 4 daughters LAST all the time). His "happiness"--alcoholism and "going out"--comes way before any school function, sporting event, or social function for his daughters now ages 10, 11, 13, and15. However, it is time for YOU TO BE HAPPY SARAH!! Forget his inability to be an upstanding guy! Forget his inability to be an upstanding dad! Forget his inability to be truthful with himself! (It will never happen anyway) YOU know the truth, YOU are stronger than HIM!! Tomorrow is a new day, and you were put on this earth for a reason. So YES, MOVE ON and BE HAPPY! For those of us who ever wanted a title (like Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, etc) we have it--STRAIGHT SPOUSE! Proud of what we have endured and PROUD TO MOVE ON!!!
Kathy K.
Well my dear friends, here’s wishing you a wonderful holiday season filled with hope for brighter days. I will have online support throughout the holiday season. If you would like to join my support chat for extra support, just drop me a note and I’ll send you directions. Remember—you are not alone. And thanks to all of you—either am I!
With love and hope,
Bonnie
Plans are firming up for our Texas get-together for March 3-4 in Houston. I am really excited because we have some wonderful women in Texas who have been part of my support network for quite a while. It will be such a treat to meet or see again those who can come. And guess what? You don’t have to be from Texas! Come from anywhere for the opportunity to meet some of the most dynamic women you can ever hope to meet.
We will be staying in a wonderful spa resort for a fantastic discount price thanks to our support member Lynn who is doing all the legwork to make sure this is memorable and comfortable weekend. The dynamic Patsy Rae Dawson will be joining us to give her words of inspiration to our Christian sisters who still may have difficulty with leaving their marriages. And if you are as inspired by my friend Wendy, the author of Wendy’s Lists that you have read in my newsletters and heard on the Straight Wives Talk Show, you will have a chance to greet her in person and hear her inspiring words.
It will truly be an unforgettable weekend. If you are in the Texas area, or you would just like to get away for a healing weekend with women you will love to be with because they understand everything you are feeling, please write to me at Bonkaye@aol.com for the details. Treat yourself to healing!
NEW YORK DINNER GET-TOGETHER TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27
I’m planning to be in New York City on Tuesday, December 27, to meet with any area women who are available for dinner. Please email me at Bonkaye@aol.com if you’d like to spend a few hours together with me and some of our wonderful women. Dinner will be in mid-town Manhattan.
NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE
On November 24, 2011, this wonderful article appeared in the New York Times about how the author, Jane Isay, kept the marriage to her gay husband a secret from everyone—for the sake of her children. Isay is the author of the book Walking on Eggshells which many of our women have read and recommended to others.
I was not aware that Ms. Isay had a gay husband nor that she stayed with him for a long period of time after his disclosure. Allow me share this article with you titled “Keeping Marital Secrets Closeted.”
THIS summer, soon after gay marriage became legal in New York, my sons held a wedding for my former husband and his partner of over 30 years. The grandchildren were flower girl and ring bearers. The wedding thrust me back to the time when we faced a terrible choice and decided to stay married for the children. That’s what motivated my then husband and me to carry on our incomplete marriage for its last nine years, and that’s how we explained our actions after the divorce. It was a convenient truth, and also a self-serving one.
The year was 1980. I was waiting for my husband of 15 years to return from the last party of a psychiatry convention. I could hear voices from down the hall, happy men enjoying their time together. When he came in, his face was grave. He sat down on the bed and said, “I have something I need to tell you.” He took a deep breath. “I’m homosexual.” At that moment I saw my future collapse before my eyes. I got the chills and ran to take a hot bath. It gave me time to think and warmed me, but not for long. We spent the night talking and lamenting. On the plane home, we held each other and sobbed and planned. By the time we landed, we had decided to keep his sexual orientation a secret and stay married for the sake of the children.
Of course we both wanted to protect our sons, who were 10 and 14. Divorce was not uncommon then, but the circumstances surrounding our relationship were controversial and would have created a scandal in our small university town, so staying married for the children helped us both feel better about ourselves and our lies. We thought they didn’t notice any change, and we were mistaken. Secrets have a way of seeping into the atmosphere. Kids are natural observers. They watch parents like hawks, and they know when something is wrong, even if they don’t know what. I desperately wanted the charade to work at home — we were doing this for the children. So covering for my husband on his two nights a week out, and his two vacations a year became second nature — he was a busy man with many meetings.
I paid a price for my silence with my closest friends, because a secret of this magnitude builds barriers. I just couldn’t bear to show them the spot I was in. And I was leery of advice. When I felt so alone, I could always remind myself what a good person I was being, sacrificing for the children.
The other reasons for staying married were not so charming. If I had thought, I’m staying for the money, I might have questioned the lies I told my sons about where their father was on the nights he spent with his future husband. Or if he had thought, I’m staying to promote my career as a psychoanalyst, he might have felt a little heavy on the ambition scale. Or if we both had realized that we were just too scared to face the world alone, I might have given up some of the pretending, and he might have realized the gravity of his original secret.
But never mind. We had an explanation that made people admire us when we finally went public. Other truths might have evoked pity or suspicion: what’s the matter with her radar? How could she accept a half a marriage instead of a whole one? Who is she, really? To say we stayed married for the children put an end to uncomfortable questions.
If I had faced the other reasons to stay in the marriage, the burden of our lies would probably have been harder to bear. But the burden on our sons might also have been lightened. It’s not so great for kids to be told they are the cause of their parents’ behavior, especially when that’s only part of the story. When they finally learned the truth, our sons were more disturbed by our deception than by the facts. Our reasons didn’t seem to matter anymore. Truth trumps lies every time.
The phrase “we stayed married for the children” is like a silk duvet on a complicated and imperfect marriage bed. Nobody really wants to turn back the covers, the unhappy spouses least of all.
There were many comments posted after the article was printed. Many of them did not have sympathy for the author, although I don’t believe she was looking for any. But one profound comment by a straight wife really moved my heart:
Children know so much more than we think. Our puppet show may work for the outside world, but it is patently obvious on the inside. I thought I had successfully hidden my misery from my children and stayed married in a hugely dysfunctional and abusive marriage for over a decade. My ex was a closeted gay man but that was only part of it. Every time my sister would visit she would say, "I don't know how you can live here. It's horrible. You can't even breathe." I pretended to not know what she was talking about and was insulted. But my kids certainly did. Rather than believe we had the happy family I presented to the world, my children absorbed the misery and secrecy deep down, only they couldn't process it.
The damage is huge, over a decade later. Basically, the biggest damage is that they learned not to trust the evidence of their own senses and to think of quiet brutality as normal, and to think of their own needs as unimportant. It impacts their choice of partners, their life choices in careers, their ability to function. In weighing the decision whether to divorce, I should have taken all that into account. If you realize you're staying out of fear, comfort (money, social class), etc, it's easier to decide what to do. A marriage becomes much less justifiable when you are sacrificing your children for your own comfort and your own needs.
And now for the saddest comment of all was from an adult child from a straight/gay marriage:
You presented a most potent description of the damage done to the children when parents are keeping secrets and remaining in a marriage for the sake of the children. In particular you said: "Basically, the biggest damage is that they learned not to trust the evidence of their own senses and to think of quiet brutality as normal, and to think of their own needs as unimportant." My parents were wretched with each other, and told themselves they stayed married for our sake. We four grew up to suffer chronic depression, substance abuse problems, bulimia, and all the relationship problems attending those plagues. The toxic miasma of our parents' hostility poisoned every breath we took.
Why I loved this article and the comments after it was because it confirmed what I keep trying to hit home year after year. Staying in a dysfunctional marriage for the sake of the children is not doing anything to help the children except to damage them. The problem that I have with some of our women is that they INSIST to me that there is no way that their children know there is a problem because they are good “actresses.” I say HOGWASH—and that’s not a word I’ve ever used before in any of my writings. It seems pretty harsh, but I can’t get this message across any better without using this word.
If you are afraid to leave your marriage because you feel you can’t make it on your own, then just admit it. There is no shame in admitting this to yourself because this way you can really start to work on YOURSELF and understanding how to get “unstuck.” It may take therapy, support, education, or training, but it’s YOUR issue—not your husband’s. He can’t change—and he won’t change—so STOP trying to change him or “wish away the gay.” You can look for that little glimmer of hope like putting gold glitter on a picture without paste. It looks great for the moment, but when you pick the picture up, the glitter falls off and blows away. You may have calmer moments in your marriage when you can delude yourself into thinking that things are “going better,” and maybe they are momentarily. However, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that’s how it will continue. Whatever temporary show of affection your gay husband is showing you is temporary. Like the glitter dust, it blows away quickly.
I grew up in a broken family. I had no role models to teach me what marriage was supposed to be like—only what it wasn’t supposed to be like. I grew up screwed up with values that were twisted at best. My parents thought they were “hiding” their problems from us by waiting until we were “sleeping” before they started to argue. They thought they were “protecting” us by picking the late night hours to argue. They weren’t. They were “waking” us. My father wasn’t gay—he was straight. But growing up with parents who were destroying each other was also destroying the children. I believed I was one of the major causes of my parents’ unhappiness. After all, wasn’t I what they were fighting about? This contributed to my own lack of self-esteem and self-worth throughout the years. Those feelings impacted the poor relationship choices I made throughout the years.
I am currently updating my earlier book from 2005 titled ManReaders: A Woman’s Guide to Dysfunctional Men which I will re-release in the next few months. One of my past support network members allowed me to reprint her letter that articulated this situation so well. I met Mindy in 2003 in the aftermath of her marriage to her gay ex-husband. It was a tumultuous marriage that escalated to physical abuse because of her ex’s frustration of living in a marriage where he didn’t belong. Since ManReaders was written for women with any kind of dysfunctional husband/relationship, I asked Mindy not to gear it to the gay part of the marriage and to make it more general for all women with abusive situations because the end results are the same.
I will now share it with you:
Dear Bonnie,
I used to keep track of how many minutes a day I spent in tears... and now I can't remember the last time I cried over something other than a tear jerking movie! I had been married about 5 or 6 years when I began to think that the life I was living actually fit the description of 'abuse’. I wasn't any different from any other abuse victim though - there were so many excuses... so many "I'm sorry's"...so many promises... and I believed it would get better.... someday. Of course - that "someday" never came...not in that life, with that husband anyway. The biggest regret of my life was that I allowed my two beautiful daughters to grow up believing that their father's abusive behavior was acceptable.
After twenty-five years of enduring abuse, a visit to my oldest daughter’s home made me realize that the change was up to me, I was the one that had to change. I was never going to change him - I couldn't do that. I also knew...that as I stood there looking at the bruises on my gorgeous daughters face, if I didn't make the change now, her abuser would end up killing her. If I continued to let her believe the abuse was acceptable, she would also continue to live it.
The legacy had to STOP - and if it didn't, my precious grandson would also grow with the same skewed belief of normalcy that would either turn him into an abuser or a life as a victim of abuse.
I left my abuser - it was probably the hardest decision of my life. I knew I would be giving up a life of beautiful material goods while also giving up a life of painful emotional and physical abuse. It was difficult to see that the payoff would be worth it - but it didn't take long. I knew I made the right decision to divorce when I didn't even think about keeping track of tears and conflict. I was able to sleep at night, I was able to work all day without abusive interruptions, I was able to call my mother and my friends and family whenever I wanted. I was FREE!
There aren't enough material goods in this world to be worth my life of freedom and happiness and the freedom and happiness of my children and my grandchildren.
I am now happily married, to a wonderful, peaceful man. My daughter
also divorced her abuser, and she is also now in a healthy, loving marriage.
Life is good - and I tell my new husband every day that I don't take a minute of this peaceful life for granted. I never will.
Bonnie, I pray that all women in abusive relationships can gain the self-confidence and esteem to find the peace that I have found. Thank-you so much for your hard work toward this effort! The LEGACY must be stopped!
Sincerely,
Mindy L.
I think Mindy’s letter still says it all. It doesn’t matter if the abuse is physical or emotional—it is still destroying you—and ultimately your children. The key to this is finding the strength and energy you need to stand up for yourself and move away from a situation that is so destructive.
Several years ago, I shared this letter with my readers written by my mother after the divorce from my gay husband. My mother passed away in 2000, but her words will always be a part of my heart and my actions. I hope they will inspire you during this difficult holiday time:
Dearest Bonnie
This is not the funny card I was going to send, but instead one the color of sunshine, the sun bringing to mind that whatever happens to people, joys, tears, health, sickness, weddings, or divorce, the sun always rises bringing new life, spirit, and vitality to the world. Remembering the words, “On This Joyous Occasion” from the first time, those occasions change, and we do the best we can to look ahead to brighter days and happier times. Divorce is a finality and a conclusion to a mistake. You should be proud that you brought this to an end from a legal standpoint and a morale standpoint. Your children will someday admire your decision, as to not divorce but know of the reason for your unhappiness would lower their feelings of strength they see in you and count on for their future. Someday, they may have to accept his failings but never your weakness. My life, in limbo all these years to suit your father’s fancy, has been unproductive, restrictive, and foolish on my part. Now it is too late to recapture my years, but I’m comforted in the fact that you face a free new road. Enjoy your freedom and strength. I am proud of you always.
Love Mommie
I always take comfort in those words and can’t tell you how important they were to me haring them from my own mother who suffered with my abusive father for so many years.
I hope that hearing the inspiring words from others will give you the strength in the upcoming year to make some decisions that can “set you free” from the unhappiness so many of you are still living with. This not only applies to women still stuck in their marriages, but also to women still pushed into the back of their husbands or ex-husbands’ closets keeping “his” secret. Most importantly it also applies to women who are still questioning whether or not they need to tell their children the truth. I hope these letters will help guide you to realize that secrets destroy. The truth hurts…but secrets destroy.
COMIC JULIET JESKE – NO LAUGHING MATTER!
One of our support network members, Maggie, turned me onto a blog a few months ago written by a real “clown,” Juliet Jeske. Juliet has been performing as a comedian and a clown—yep, a clown--for over a decade. Her ex gay-husband is also a performing clown. I loved the article because it expressed the struggles that so many of you face moving from marriage back into single life, and I asked Juliet if she would be a guest on my radio blog show where she graciously joined me and my co-hostess Misti Hall on December 11.
Juliet is in the process of writing a book. Her blog has now been recognized internationally and her articles are printed in the Huffington Post. Many of her topics deal with dating in New York as a single woman and are quite interesting. Her blog about her marriage to a gay man really hit home to a number of our readers, and Juliet said I could share it with you:
Divorced after being a straight spouse two years later.
I still remember my wedding day, vividly. Any day planned and fretted about for months is going to stick in your brain for a lifetime. Any day built up as the beginning of the rest of your life will burn into your psyche, in the same way horrible trauma sears its pain and anguish deep into your bones. Try as you might, you can’t shake it the pain becomes a part of your very foundation. Few positive memories have the same effect.
For whatever reason, our bodies, hearts and minds tend to cling to the negative memories such as: being humiliated in front of your class, not being able to get jeans off in time due a broken zipper and wetting myself at girl scout camp, seeing my father lash out at me in a yet another blinding rage, losing a job or role for reasons unknown, having a voice teacher tell me I would never be a singer, seeing the face of a lover suddenly go cold and distant, having no one show up to my 13th birthday party….and on and on and on. The traumas and disappointments get inside of you like a bad virus you can’t shake, but the good memories fade quickly. The memories replaced instead by just vague emotion. Instead of specific images they blur into shifting colors through a window. Instead of the detailed sharp piercing prongs of negative memories happy thoughts become reduced to feelings. I can’t remember holding my cat for the first time, hugging a friend I haven’t seen forever, the first kiss from a person I adore, winning a competition….they drift, they fade only warm pretty shadows remain in their place.
The memory of my wedding day is now traumatic but still beautiful in my mind, so like the crazy nuanced event it has become, it is now a hybrid of negative crystal clear clarity and blurred fuzzy happiness.
The one image that keeps coming back is the walk down the aisle. I used to have PTSD style flashbacks of the very event. I would be sitting on the train or reading a book and for no reason it would flash into my brain as clear as it was actually happening. The cathedral, with his family on one side and mine on the other, the organ music, with all of these faces turned towards me. It was so overwhelming, all I could do to get through the ritual was to focus on my soon to-be husband and move closer and closer to him and the rest of my life. I knew that if I turned to look at people on either side I would start crying and I didn’t want to cry on my wedding day so I kept focusing on the task at hand and that was to get down the aisle without shedding a tear. My husband was now my new family, the scars and damage from my old one were over and I had chosen this new man to start over and help wipe away the darkness and pain of the past.
Since my divorce, I have had recurring nightmares of being outside of my body trying to run up to myself in the moments while screaming
“Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it”
The sound of my screams echoing through the great hall of marble, but no one looks up, no one even flinches and I still just keep moving forward. Nothing I can do can stop me, it is like looking at ghosts re-enacting the same scene in a play over and over.
I hate it when people say,
“Well at least your husband was just gay, it could have been a lot worse”
Or anything to the effect of that I have somehow had it easier than a typical divorced person.
I guess in some ways I have, in that the end was so absolute. There was no reason to second guess why I was leaving my husband, no amount of couples counseling, no amount of therapy or listening skills that would have made anything better, no horrible act of betrayal that I would regret for ending everything. But on the downside I felt cheated. I got cheated at a chance at a normal marriage, with a man of the same sexual orientation who loved me like a man is meant to love a woman, in mind, heart and body.
I was cheated of the chance of having children and being a mother. I know I might still have time left, but dating at age 38 is difficult as half of the eligible men already have children and don’t want more. And in my current state I couldn’t afford to raise a child on my own, as I can barely take care of myself. There are times on the subway or in the park that even the sight of a young mother with her child will send me spiraling. Suddenly tears come from nowhere and I can’t make them stop. Why is she so lucky to have the one thing that I will never get to experience? I am constantly told that I shouldn’t give up hope but I haven’t been able to sustain a relationship for any length of time and every other man who I find compatible is already a father and doesn’t want more children. I had to end therapy because literally every single session was the same conflict, the same fear, the same resentment over probably losing the chance to be a parent. When my therapist suggested I go back on medication, and then tried to get me to justify what I consider a fairly innate human desire to procreate I couldn’t take it anymore and ceased the sessions.
I was cheated of the dream that everyone has when they get married, that despite the obstacles in life and arguments, fights, and petty annoyances I no longer have a partner for life. I was cheated on the intimacy of an adult human sexual relationship. It seemed normal at first but it quickly became dysfunctional but because I loved my husband I stuck it out, and now I beat myself up for not leaving sooner.
So over two years have passed, but I am still not right. I am still not healed and I don’t know if I ever will be. I am suspicious of every man I meet, and I trust no one, it is so debilitating that I actually stick around in relationships that aren’t fully formed, that aren’t as scary, that aren’t as real…I am scared to have a real one.
But my shattered life has in some ways made me stronger, like a piece of metal cracked and then welded back together, or a bone broken and then reset. I am no longer the same shape, my insides, my skeleton is not the same, and I don’t react to pain the same way. I am far more empathetic to another person’s pain especially anyone divorced. I feel deeply for them, and I cut them a lot of slack for self-destructive behavior or lashing out at themselves or others. I know they are in a ton of pain and that most of their actions are not directed at me or anyone, but instead directed at the emptiness inside of them.
I have also learned that I have to heal myself before allowing anyone else in. I no longer have my husband to unload my emotional baggage on. And friends get tired when I repeatedly do it to them, so I am now forced to deal with it on my own, with just my broken heart and damaged soul to mend myself. These things have definitely made me a better friend and a better person, but the lack of trust and emotional scars have made me more skittish and more apprehensive about letting anyone new in. I have become damaged goods complete with certain memories playing repeatedly in my mind. Hopefully I will one day be able to replace the photo sharp negative ones with more blurry happy thoughts. But until then, I try to ride the nightmare of the memory of walking to my new life of fraud, deception and loss. Two years ago I was pushed off a cliff and I survived, now I just need to figure out how to pick of the pieces and start climbing again.
If you would like to read some of Juliet’s thought provoking writing, you can visit her website where you can see this beautiful young woman in action including a Youtube Video interview from a show in Australia. You can also access her blog from her website at www.JulietJeske.com. I’m a fan—I’m sure you’ll be one too after seeing her or listening to her. You can hear Juliet on the archives of our radio show at Blogtalkradio.com. Put in Straight Wives Talk Show December 11, 2011.
MAILBAG
Each month I receive letters from my readers. I always ask before printing those that I find most helpful for permission to reprint. It can be reprinted anonymously or with any name you choose. These letters help inspire other readers—like you!
Bonnie, I have not read your news letter for a couple of years now as I have "gotten on with my life" now, having moved out 5 years ago from my closeted husband of 20 years. But seeing the newsletter in my in-box like monthly clockwork has always given me a special comfort.
In November's newsletter I enjoyed reading the last letter. I identified with what she said so very much! I too am experiencing love from a heterosexual man for the first time (i didn’t date much before i married at age 26) and there is NO COMPARISON in the way this heterosexual wonder-man treats me and loves me. Women out there who are on the fence, just know that it is true, gay or bisexual men are not treating u the way that u deserve. The way that a heterosexual man would treat u. I too thought I wasn't pretty enough or skinny enough now I have the best love-making that is all about me (he does things to make me happy, not like the narcissistic ex who it was all about himself, even on our wedding night, and who also gradually dwindled the sex down to every couple of months to virtually non-existent sex.)
My ex died last year. He was HIV + so I am so glad he lost interest in me or else I too might have contracted the virus. Because of course he wouldn’t wear a condom because he had just gotten clipped. He died of pneumonia - age 49. What a waste of a life... But mine is just starting! So take heart, things will get better. Be true to yourself, take care of you and you will get though this! And trust me, there is sweet love at the end of the dark tunnel....
HAPPY AT LAST! Finally LOVED!!
From the West Coast USA
Hi Bonnie,
Please pass on this message to "Sarah" from the mailbag.
Dear Sarah,
From day one, my gay ex-husband (now of 3 years, HOORAY FOR ME!!) said only one thing that I believe is so true (probably the only true thing out of his mouth), yet so hard to accept. He said "GET OVER IT--JUST BE HAPPY." Well it took some time, and the anger rears its head (mainly because he puts his 4 daughters LAST all the time). His "happiness"--alcoholism and "going out"--comes way before any school function, sporting event, or social function for his daughters now ages 10, 11, 13, and15. However, it is time for YOU TO BE HAPPY SARAH!! Forget his inability to be an upstanding guy! Forget his inability to be an upstanding dad! Forget his inability to be truthful with himself! (It will never happen anyway) YOU know the truth, YOU are stronger than HIM!! Tomorrow is a new day, and you were put on this earth for a reason. So YES, MOVE ON and BE HAPPY! For those of us who ever wanted a title (like Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, etc) we have it--STRAIGHT SPOUSE! Proud of what we have endured and PROUD TO MOVE ON!!!
Kathy K.
Well my dear friends, here’s wishing you a wonderful holiday season filled with hope for brighter days. I will have online support throughout the holiday season. If you would like to join my support chat for extra support, just drop me a note and I’ll send you directions. Remember—you are not alone. And thanks to all of you—either am I!
With love and hope,
Bonnie
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
November Newsletter, 2011
THINGS I’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND—EVER
Over the past 29 years, I think I have learned about every possible situation when it comes to straight/gay marriages. I get it—no matter how I don’t understand some things—but I do get it. Most of the time—that is!
In fact, here’s a summary of what I do understand vs. what I don’t understand.
• I understand that most gay husbands (not all—but most) love their wives when they get married. They really are hoping against hope that marriage will change those attractions to men—but they don’t.
• I understand that gay men who get married really want to be straight. They are hoping a “traditional” wife/children family” will be enough for them—but it isn’t.
• I understand the need for most gay men to lead an authentic life at some point, so most of them need to leave the marriage.
• I understand that some gay men will live in denial for a lifetime pretending that they are straight while fantasizing and having sex with men in sneaky places.
• I understand that some gay men really believe they are “bisexual” because they have a wife to prove it. And if once in a blue moon, they can “perform” sex with her while they are frequently enjoying it with a man (men), they can believe in their own sense of denial that they are not gay but rather “bisexual.”
• I understand that some men will stay in a marriage forever because leaving it would be too “inconvenient” to them.
• I understand that when many gay men leave their marriages, some of their priorities change because they are now able to experience a new freedom. They are finding their way into their new lives and often make you and the family feel like you aren’t their top priority.
Now here are some of the things I don’t understand:
• I don’t understand why some gay husbands compromise their wives’ health by having unprotected sex with men and then their wives.
• I don’t understand why gay men are out there having multiple affairs before they can “believe” they are gay.
• I don’t understand how gay men marry a woman whom they supposedly love but mistreat her by making her think she’s crazy causing years of self-doubt and loss of self and sexual-esteem.
Okay, I admit I might be making some headway in understanding—not excusing, but understanding—how some of this happens.
But here is one thing I will NEVER, EVER understand. I’ll never get it.
In the past four months, two high-profile MARRIED “PUBLICLY STRAIGHT” politicians were caught having sexual relations with men. First, in August, you had Phillip Hinkle, a state representative in Indiana exposed due to text messaging he was sending to an 18-year-old male pretending to be 20. The news report said, “The Republican state representative had apparently responded to a posting on Craigslist’s “Casual Encounters” section, and he offered a young man $80 plus a tip to meet him at an Indianapolis hotel. Hinkle used his publicly listed personal email address to answer an ad looking for a “sugga daddy.” Of course Hinkle claimed he was not gay, and his actions were "stupid," but that he did not break the law. "I don't know what was going through my mind," he said. "I don't know why I did what I did."
Okay, so here an established, educated politician who is “straight” claims that he doesn’t know what was going through his mind. It reminds me of that commercial for Trix cereal. All I can say is Hinkle must be close friends with that “Silly Wabbit.”
Next, several weeks ago, a report in the news stated that:
A suburban New Jersey mayor who unsuccessfully sought a congressional seat as a Republican is being accused of paying for sex with a male escort and not following through on a promise of other gifts for the hustler.
The Burlington County Times reports that Medford, N.J. Mayor Chris Myers is being accused by the male escort of paying for sex during an October 2010 encounter at a California hotel. The man said Myers identified himself as a mayor from New Jersey and offered his township identification card and gold ID shield as proof during the early-morning meeting at the Fairmount Hotel in Newport Beach. He currently resides in his hometown of Medford with his wife of 15 years, Tiffany, and his two young children.
Okay, this is what I don’t understand. These high profile figures—with Hinkle involved in anti-gay legislation—are having gay encounters. Now I know that Ted Haggard—cut from the same mold as them—would call that “straight with issues.” I call it gay. You know my theory—if you want a penis, fantasize about a penis, watch gay porn, touch it, or have any sexual contact with it including masturbation or oral sex—it is GAY. I don’t care of you have a wife and children. It’s irrelevant to me. I don’t care if you have issues—if they are gay issues they are gay. Okay, you know my stand which never changes on this issue.
But here’s the part I don’t understand. How is it these men go and identify themselves to their young encounters bragging about their positions? They show them identification to PROVE who they are. They have to “impress” these young prostitutes that they are government officials. This is what I DON’T GET. Don’t they worry about the news coming out and how their wives and children will be affected? Do they think the 3,000 mile distance from home will never be discovered in this day and age of technology?
These guys are truly a disgrace because they bring public disgrace to their families. This is what I’ll never understand—a complete disregard for those who give them the most support in their lives—their loving families. It truly is an American tragedy.
MAILBAG
My friend Annie responded to last month’s letter by A Reader. Here are her words:
Dear A Reader -
I know your head is spinning right now, we have been there. I know your heart is broken and shattered, we have been there.I am afraid for you, I don't want your relationship with your children destroyed.
I was there, I walk the walk - I talk the talk. My daughter had suspected and her friends at college set her straight about "his friend" always being with her dad when he visited. They are the ones who put the idea in her head. To her, he was dad's friend. After all, I visited with friends (female) and it meant nothing. I had many conversations with her over this. I did not feel betrayal, I felt love and felt her confusion on what to do, she was caught in the middle of this whole blessed mess.
Her biggest question to herself was - Did she tell me? Is it possible I could hurt more than I already was? I thought what happened between her father and I was a woman, I had no idea of the truth. She was afraid for me to know because I was so fragile in the beginning and knew the day would come when I found out (unfortunately it was her college graduation day) and you know what, she was there for me. I can still feel her arms wrapping around me from behind (she ran to me from across the street seeing the look on my face) I can feel her hands on my shoulders, embracing me and hear her whispering in my ear, how much she loves me, telling me it will be okay and we will get through this together. I felt bad I was not there for her when she found out but am grateful she had friends for support.
My daughter is the product of her father as much as I. I did not want her in the middle of this. It was not her fight, it was mine. For all the things I could say about him, I will say and will defend him, he was the best dad. He was always there for her. Her father traveled with his job but it was always around her schedule and needs, as it should be.
I do hope in time you find the answers you are seeking, we all asked them a million times over. If they do know, there is probably a reason and when the time comes, you might have your answers, like I did.
As for close friends who knew and didn't say anything, I had two. We were close almost sisters, so they knew all my doubts, all my questions, the anger I felt at times etc etc etc. Why won't he make love to me anymore? What did I do that he looks at me with such contempt in his eyes. Why does he treat me like I have an incurable disease? Why do I have to ask for a hug? Why does he tell me no when I do ask? Ya Ya Ya - The list goes on. Again, in time you get your answers. I confront them, asked them why, got their answers and have nothing to do with them. Time is too precious, they are not worth my words nor my breath. To me, they died. I told them the same thing I said to gay husband, NEVER DARKEN MY DOOR STEP AGAIN.
I hope this helps. You can contact me anytime, I will always listen.
Annie - aem1951@aol.com
Dear Bonnie
I just read your newsletter and thought I'd write to you about my experience of telling the children.
After I found out, and after I rejected his assertion that it was my fault he had an affair; after I refused to agree to his statement that it was only our business - no one else's therefore I shouldn't tell anyone; after I refused his suggestion that he stay in the house, lead his gay life and I would just be the housekeeper (this was supposedly "for the children's sake") - after all this, I did a lot of reading and internet searching, and came to the conclusion that the children should know.
Several reasons
- they already knew something was wrong
- kids really HATE being lied to (this was the biggie)
- there had been enough deceit and I wasn't willing to perpetuate it
- it just felt wrong to try and keep such a huge secret from them
This wasn't a toy for Christmas - it was something which would change their lives forever.
They were - boy aged 15 and a half approaching final year of high school, girl a month after her 13th birthday and in first year high school and boy a week after his 10th birthday whose teacher had been hit by a bus and killed, outside the school gates only a month earlier, so the timing was very poor for all of them. Still, I instinctively felt that they should know the truth, and that they would get any support they wanted from wherever I could get it for them.
After a lot of talk, GEH (gay ex-husband) and I agreed a time, place and manner of telling them. The next day he told the 2 younger ones while I was briefly out of the house (not agreed) so I insisted he tell the eldest as well that evening. We then talked to them together a few days later and I spoke with each one individually. At the time it was awful, mainly because he had told them all sorts of stories, but gradually they heard the truth. They each took it differently. The 2 older ones clammed up and it took some time, after counseling, for them to regain a sense of balance. They were both hugely angry at GEH, and spent very little time with him (not that he was available very much - too busy exploring his new candy shop). The youngest one's comment was "If it didn't matter before when you didn't know, why does it matter now?" I couldn't answer that then.
With their permission, I told a trusted staff member at each of their schools, who all agreed to look out for the children, and eventually the older ones each had regular counseling with a professional at their schools. It took a long time, and each has a relationship of sorts with their father - the youngest is rather a love/hate one (he is now 15, and has Aspergers & Tourettes syndromes so it's always going to be difficult). The older ones see through him more now, and do tend to use him a bit for their own convenience but that is between them and him. He doesn't really put himself out for them - most of what he says is for show and they realise that now.
If I were asked, I would advise telling the children the truth - of course it does depend on their ages, but I think that from about 8 or 9, a child can be told realistically what is happening. I would never ever condone keeping it from teenagers or adult children. It's hard enough for the wife as it is without having to keep his secret from their children and I don't believe that older children would thank their mothers for keeping the secret.
Anyway, just my thoughts, feel free to use any of it if necessary or to forward this to anyone who is interested.
Love
Louisa
Dear Bonnie,
I am full of rage again today. I thought that was behind me. I divorced him six months ago, went to therapy, and recreated my life here in Florida. I contributed to Bonnie’s Straight Wives, Shattered Lives, Volume 2. That contribution was also a kind of therapy. But today I am raging, because my experiences today are so typical of the stories in that book! There is a pattern to this, for all of us in that book. Dealing with a gay man, whether you are divorced or not, is the same for all of us:
First, it is never about us. It is always about his life, his needs, his pathetic childhood, the torture he endured, the torture he continues to endure. In my case, he only exited the closet to act out his fantasies a number of years ago. He said he “Had no choice but to accept the love God was pouring down upon him.” But of course, he could not tell me because he didn’t want to hurt me!!
But also, in that time of accepting God’s love, he needed to share with only those he must share with in order to keep God’s love flowing. Today, he actually believes that he should continue that charade so that he can protect his sexual partner, who lives in the same town and continues to try to keep his marriage together. He is deeply involved with yet another man, but continues to live out the “my wife left me here in this big house and moved to Florida,” routine. And now all the widows in town are thronging around him in support, and to their faces he actually says, “I will not have anyone run my wife down. She is a good woman.” What a mealy-mouthed cop-out! They naturally all conclude that he is a saintly man who runs Bible studies, prays earnestly with any number of counselees, and got the royal shaft from the woman who divorced him for no reason at all. If they only knew that he not only has a married lover, but also a lover the age of his son! We spent part of this week finalizing the monetary division after the divorce. The conversation lasted an hour, during which I was able to say almost nothing. He ranted and raved about how “generous” he was by making his will and giving me everything when he dies. Yet in the meantime he is moaning and groaning about how difficult it is going to be to maintain his lifestyle on his income, which is actually more than what I get. But because he “has to keep this big house,” he is to be pitied. At the end of the conversation he said, “This has been such a good conversation, because we both agree on everything!” That is classic narcissism! It is the common thread to all the stories in this recent book. It represents a total lack of empathy for me, and for everyone who is in his immediate family.
Second, we do not deserve the truth. My ex-husband continues to decide what I can know and what I cannot know about his personal life. He tells the children, (who I forced him to tell before the divorce) and of course his most intimate male friends, that he is now seeing a man who is younger than his oldest son, but he has decided that I “am not ready to hear this bit of information.” Let’s see, how is this different than the entire scope of secrecy in our marriage? How is it different than the years since he came out to his male friends and started an affair, while treating me like a viper who invaded his house? How is it different than the repeated lies and absurd manipulation he treated me do during our entire life together? Yet today, still, after the divorce and the craziness of forcing him into the open with our children, he still is deciding what truth I should be entitled to hear!!! It’s because he doesn’t understand that I deserve the truth! I do not believe that these men are able to comprehend this simple, direct message. They just do not get it!
Third, these men all blame someone else for the difficulties in their lives. My ex-husband will blame his mother until he dies. She was a piece of work: She was also a narcissist, pathetic in her relationships with her children, never a nurturer. But I have noticed that most people I know have had a parent or grandparent who isn’t a nurturer. Lots of people have been emotionally abandoned, abused, rejected. Heck, I experienced that as well. But do you know what? I got over it!! My life is my responsibility, period. Blaming someone else does not allow you to move forward. My ex-husband, I believe, also blames me: I wasn’t enough of a wife to have made him straight!!! He wanted more than anything to be straight, and I failed him.
Fourth, I notice a pattern in these stories about how our marriages came about. There is never a direct and simple, “I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. Here is a ring showing how much I want you in my life.” No…. In my case there was never a ring. In other cases, it was an oblique discussion that resulted in a date set. In others, it just evolved into a wedding ceremony. The book shows me how a commitment from a gay man is never really there!
Finally, these men still expect the women in their lives to make it right. My ex-husband expects the women in our small town to pity him, invite him to bridge parties, make over him. He expects our daughters to pander to him as a pathetic, misunderstood, and now gay man. He expects me to contribute financially to his lifestyle, since his life style is more demanding than mine!!!! I can live simply and don’t have as many financial demands, but of course he must have his usual eating out experiences, his sports events, his experiences with his lovers. I, on the other hand, have never had excess needs. I live close to the earth, I have a simple lifestyle, so my financial needs cannot compare to his, and in the entire scope of our marriage, he deserves to have some of my income! Today, on the phone, he made it clear: He should have half of my income in order to continue to live the kind of life he needs.
Bonnie, thanks for this book. It helps me to get perspective. If I can ever help anyone else in my geographic area, please let me know!
“Sarah”
Dear Bonnie,
As I read through this last newsletter, I could feel the emotion and pain in the betrayal and lies that these women were going through. It sure brought back some memories of just how raw and painful being in this situation is.
It brought back the year 2000 ...all the suspicion I had that 'something' was wrong... the sleuthing I did to find the truth ... the lies ... being told something was wrong with me for even thinking such a "disgusting" thing ... convincing myself I just had an overactive imagination ... the sudden sex phase probably to convince me it wasn't true ... that gnawing feeling that something just wasn't right ... being told it wasn't him, it was me ...the anger ... the pain... being lied to again ... and then, finally... getting the truth that I desperately needed ... and my world collapsing around me.
I remember that pain. I wish I could hug everyone going through it now.
When I think of all the time I spent with those images in my head of what he was doing... and thinking what a fool I was the whole time ... trying to look back in the years in my head to see what clues I had missed ... I realized I had spent years of my life dealing with the aftermath of loving someone leading a double life and giving myself the strength to "un-love" him. I had to un-love him. I couldn't love him anymore, even though part of me wanted to. It was literally killing me emotionally and physically.
Fast forward to 2011. I am whole again. I have been whole again for several years. You really DO get through it. No way to go 'around' it... you have to go right through the middle of the storm and feel the pain before you come out on the other side. And you have every right to be MAD AS HELL, - don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Anger is part of getting through it. But it does happen. There comes a day when you realize it's him, not me... and you start to find your way back.
My ex died in 2008. But, I buried the pain of what he put me through long before that. I pray that all of your readers let themselves know and accept the truth and absolve themselves from any responsibility for it. I hope they all dig deep and find the strength to get through it and find themselves again -- the person they were before this deception entered their lives. It does happen, and I wish them all well and I hope they know that they are not alone on this journey, many are walking the same road. I am so thankful for you, Bonnie. So thankful for the help and support and love you have given me over the years. I am in awe of what you do so selflessly for others.
In understanding and love,
Joanie
Dear Bonnie,
I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your support over the last three years. It has been an incredible journey, one that should have never happened and one that would have never turned out the way it did without the support over your monthly newsletters. I have felt that every one of your newsletters was speaking exactly to me and my situation. They really helped changed my thinking from being paralyzed with fear to “what am I going to do to make my life better”.
My ex-husband and I were married for 28 years. For most of it, I knew things were not right. It went to having sex once a week, to once a month, once a year and then about 9 years ago, not at all. The rejection was debilitating to me. I thought I wasn’t pretty enough, sexy enough, skinny enough. Maybe I wasn’t doing enough for him? Looking back, I can’t believe I wasted so much energy focusing on what was wrong with me.
About three years ago, I noticed that he was spending a lot of time on the computer. I bought spyware to figure it out. Sure enough, the evidence was laid out in front of me. At first I was mortified and terrified. Then it went to extremely sad and then I was angry. Angry that he heard me crying myself to sleep after another rejection and he knew the answer. Angry that I put so many years into a marriage that was doomed from the start. Angry that our kids (now 26, 22 and 14) lives would be changed forever. Angry that at 49, I had missed out on the best years of my life with a man that could never love me like I should have been loved. Angry that he wanted to stay in the closet and therefore was holding me hostage.
Today, I am happy to say that there is a bright light in my future. After keeping silent for 2 years, I started to tell a few close friends. Their reaction was so different than I thought. They were supportive, understanding and truly wanted what was best for me. I got to the point where I didn’t want to live another year, another month, and finally another day feeling the way I was feeling.
Last spring, I asked my husband to leave and he did. Although being a single mom and financially maintaining my own household has been difficult, I’ve been able to keep the house and am committed to doing so until my daughter graduates from high school in 3 years. The split was shocking to our children, and without my ex admitting the truth, there has been some blame thrown my way. However, even if my ex does not face his truth, someday I will be sharing it with them.
And, as it turns out, I am pretty enough, thin enough and loving enough. Just recently I started a relationship with a man who adores me. What a difference to be in a relationship with a totally heterosexual male! I didn’t even realize what I was missing. He can’t keep his hands off of me. He is affectionate, loving and sexual. He is totally present whenever we are together. Even after rambunctious night in bed, he can’t wait until I wake up in the morning to make love to me again. Life is grand!
So, Bonnie, thank you and all you do to support women who have gone through the experience of being in a relationship with a gay man. Even though for many years I was stuck and didn’t move forward, I was reading, re-reading and absorbing the information in your newsletters. At times I felt like nothing was ever going to change for me, but it did, and I am forever grateful.
Sue in Washington.
Thank you, my women, for sharing with others. You give so many thousands of people validation each month. If you would like to share a letter with our readership, please feel free to write one. I always ask first before printing it, and you can do it anonymously.
Over the past 29 years, I think I have learned about every possible situation when it comes to straight/gay marriages. I get it—no matter how I don’t understand some things—but I do get it. Most of the time—that is!
In fact, here’s a summary of what I do understand vs. what I don’t understand.
• I understand that most gay husbands (not all—but most) love their wives when they get married. They really are hoping against hope that marriage will change those attractions to men—but they don’t.
• I understand that gay men who get married really want to be straight. They are hoping a “traditional” wife/children family” will be enough for them—but it isn’t.
• I understand the need for most gay men to lead an authentic life at some point, so most of them need to leave the marriage.
• I understand that some gay men will live in denial for a lifetime pretending that they are straight while fantasizing and having sex with men in sneaky places.
• I understand that some gay men really believe they are “bisexual” because they have a wife to prove it. And if once in a blue moon, they can “perform” sex with her while they are frequently enjoying it with a man (men), they can believe in their own sense of denial that they are not gay but rather “bisexual.”
• I understand that some men will stay in a marriage forever because leaving it would be too “inconvenient” to them.
• I understand that when many gay men leave their marriages, some of their priorities change because they are now able to experience a new freedom. They are finding their way into their new lives and often make you and the family feel like you aren’t their top priority.
Now here are some of the things I don’t understand:
• I don’t understand why some gay husbands compromise their wives’ health by having unprotected sex with men and then their wives.
• I don’t understand why gay men are out there having multiple affairs before they can “believe” they are gay.
• I don’t understand how gay men marry a woman whom they supposedly love but mistreat her by making her think she’s crazy causing years of self-doubt and loss of self and sexual-esteem.
Okay, I admit I might be making some headway in understanding—not excusing, but understanding—how some of this happens.
But here is one thing I will NEVER, EVER understand. I’ll never get it.
In the past four months, two high-profile MARRIED “PUBLICLY STRAIGHT” politicians were caught having sexual relations with men. First, in August, you had Phillip Hinkle, a state representative in Indiana exposed due to text messaging he was sending to an 18-year-old male pretending to be 20. The news report said, “The Republican state representative had apparently responded to a posting on Craigslist’s “Casual Encounters” section, and he offered a young man $80 plus a tip to meet him at an Indianapolis hotel. Hinkle used his publicly listed personal email address to answer an ad looking for a “sugga daddy.” Of course Hinkle claimed he was not gay, and his actions were "stupid," but that he did not break the law. "I don't know what was going through my mind," he said. "I don't know why I did what I did."
Okay, so here an established, educated politician who is “straight” claims that he doesn’t know what was going through his mind. It reminds me of that commercial for Trix cereal. All I can say is Hinkle must be close friends with that “Silly Wabbit.”
Next, several weeks ago, a report in the news stated that:
A suburban New Jersey mayor who unsuccessfully sought a congressional seat as a Republican is being accused of paying for sex with a male escort and not following through on a promise of other gifts for the hustler.
The Burlington County Times reports that Medford, N.J. Mayor Chris Myers is being accused by the male escort of paying for sex during an October 2010 encounter at a California hotel. The man said Myers identified himself as a mayor from New Jersey and offered his township identification card and gold ID shield as proof during the early-morning meeting at the Fairmount Hotel in Newport Beach. He currently resides in his hometown of Medford with his wife of 15 years, Tiffany, and his two young children.
Okay, this is what I don’t understand. These high profile figures—with Hinkle involved in anti-gay legislation—are having gay encounters. Now I know that Ted Haggard—cut from the same mold as them—would call that “straight with issues.” I call it gay. You know my theory—if you want a penis, fantasize about a penis, watch gay porn, touch it, or have any sexual contact with it including masturbation or oral sex—it is GAY. I don’t care of you have a wife and children. It’s irrelevant to me. I don’t care if you have issues—if they are gay issues they are gay. Okay, you know my stand which never changes on this issue.
But here’s the part I don’t understand. How is it these men go and identify themselves to their young encounters bragging about their positions? They show them identification to PROVE who they are. They have to “impress” these young prostitutes that they are government officials. This is what I DON’T GET. Don’t they worry about the news coming out and how their wives and children will be affected? Do they think the 3,000 mile distance from home will never be discovered in this day and age of technology?
These guys are truly a disgrace because they bring public disgrace to their families. This is what I’ll never understand—a complete disregard for those who give them the most support in their lives—their loving families. It truly is an American tragedy.
MAILBAG
My friend Annie responded to last month’s letter by A Reader. Here are her words:
Dear A Reader -
I know your head is spinning right now, we have been there. I know your heart is broken and shattered, we have been there.I am afraid for you, I don't want your relationship with your children destroyed.
I was there, I walk the walk - I talk the talk. My daughter had suspected and her friends at college set her straight about "his friend" always being with her dad when he visited. They are the ones who put the idea in her head. To her, he was dad's friend. After all, I visited with friends (female) and it meant nothing. I had many conversations with her over this. I did not feel betrayal, I felt love and felt her confusion on what to do, she was caught in the middle of this whole blessed mess.
Her biggest question to herself was - Did she tell me? Is it possible I could hurt more than I already was? I thought what happened between her father and I was a woman, I had no idea of the truth. She was afraid for me to know because I was so fragile in the beginning and knew the day would come when I found out (unfortunately it was her college graduation day) and you know what, she was there for me. I can still feel her arms wrapping around me from behind (she ran to me from across the street seeing the look on my face) I can feel her hands on my shoulders, embracing me and hear her whispering in my ear, how much she loves me, telling me it will be okay and we will get through this together. I felt bad I was not there for her when she found out but am grateful she had friends for support.
My daughter is the product of her father as much as I. I did not want her in the middle of this. It was not her fight, it was mine. For all the things I could say about him, I will say and will defend him, he was the best dad. He was always there for her. Her father traveled with his job but it was always around her schedule and needs, as it should be.
I do hope in time you find the answers you are seeking, we all asked them a million times over. If they do know, there is probably a reason and when the time comes, you might have your answers, like I did.
As for close friends who knew and didn't say anything, I had two. We were close almost sisters, so they knew all my doubts, all my questions, the anger I felt at times etc etc etc. Why won't he make love to me anymore? What did I do that he looks at me with such contempt in his eyes. Why does he treat me like I have an incurable disease? Why do I have to ask for a hug? Why does he tell me no when I do ask? Ya Ya Ya - The list goes on. Again, in time you get your answers. I confront them, asked them why, got their answers and have nothing to do with them. Time is too precious, they are not worth my words nor my breath. To me, they died. I told them the same thing I said to gay husband, NEVER DARKEN MY DOOR STEP AGAIN.
I hope this helps. You can contact me anytime, I will always listen.
Annie - aem1951@aol.com
Dear Bonnie
I just read your newsletter and thought I'd write to you about my experience of telling the children.
After I found out, and after I rejected his assertion that it was my fault he had an affair; after I refused to agree to his statement that it was only our business - no one else's therefore I shouldn't tell anyone; after I refused his suggestion that he stay in the house, lead his gay life and I would just be the housekeeper (this was supposedly "for the children's sake") - after all this, I did a lot of reading and internet searching, and came to the conclusion that the children should know.
Several reasons
- they already knew something was wrong
- kids really HATE being lied to (this was the biggie)
- there had been enough deceit and I wasn't willing to perpetuate it
- it just felt wrong to try and keep such a huge secret from them
This wasn't a toy for Christmas - it was something which would change their lives forever.
They were - boy aged 15 and a half approaching final year of high school, girl a month after her 13th birthday and in first year high school and boy a week after his 10th birthday whose teacher had been hit by a bus and killed, outside the school gates only a month earlier, so the timing was very poor for all of them. Still, I instinctively felt that they should know the truth, and that they would get any support they wanted from wherever I could get it for them.
After a lot of talk, GEH (gay ex-husband) and I agreed a time, place and manner of telling them. The next day he told the 2 younger ones while I was briefly out of the house (not agreed) so I insisted he tell the eldest as well that evening. We then talked to them together a few days later and I spoke with each one individually. At the time it was awful, mainly because he had told them all sorts of stories, but gradually they heard the truth. They each took it differently. The 2 older ones clammed up and it took some time, after counseling, for them to regain a sense of balance. They were both hugely angry at GEH, and spent very little time with him (not that he was available very much - too busy exploring his new candy shop). The youngest one's comment was "If it didn't matter before when you didn't know, why does it matter now?" I couldn't answer that then.
With their permission, I told a trusted staff member at each of their schools, who all agreed to look out for the children, and eventually the older ones each had regular counseling with a professional at their schools. It took a long time, and each has a relationship of sorts with their father - the youngest is rather a love/hate one (he is now 15, and has Aspergers & Tourettes syndromes so it's always going to be difficult). The older ones see through him more now, and do tend to use him a bit for their own convenience but that is between them and him. He doesn't really put himself out for them - most of what he says is for show and they realise that now.
If I were asked, I would advise telling the children the truth - of course it does depend on their ages, but I think that from about 8 or 9, a child can be told realistically what is happening. I would never ever condone keeping it from teenagers or adult children. It's hard enough for the wife as it is without having to keep his secret from their children and I don't believe that older children would thank their mothers for keeping the secret.
Anyway, just my thoughts, feel free to use any of it if necessary or to forward this to anyone who is interested.
Love
Louisa
Dear Bonnie,
I am full of rage again today. I thought that was behind me. I divorced him six months ago, went to therapy, and recreated my life here in Florida. I contributed to Bonnie’s Straight Wives, Shattered Lives, Volume 2. That contribution was also a kind of therapy. But today I am raging, because my experiences today are so typical of the stories in that book! There is a pattern to this, for all of us in that book. Dealing with a gay man, whether you are divorced or not, is the same for all of us:
First, it is never about us. It is always about his life, his needs, his pathetic childhood, the torture he endured, the torture he continues to endure. In my case, he only exited the closet to act out his fantasies a number of years ago. He said he “Had no choice but to accept the love God was pouring down upon him.” But of course, he could not tell me because he didn’t want to hurt me!!
But also, in that time of accepting God’s love, he needed to share with only those he must share with in order to keep God’s love flowing. Today, he actually believes that he should continue that charade so that he can protect his sexual partner, who lives in the same town and continues to try to keep his marriage together. He is deeply involved with yet another man, but continues to live out the “my wife left me here in this big house and moved to Florida,” routine. And now all the widows in town are thronging around him in support, and to their faces he actually says, “I will not have anyone run my wife down. She is a good woman.” What a mealy-mouthed cop-out! They naturally all conclude that he is a saintly man who runs Bible studies, prays earnestly with any number of counselees, and got the royal shaft from the woman who divorced him for no reason at all. If they only knew that he not only has a married lover, but also a lover the age of his son! We spent part of this week finalizing the monetary division after the divorce. The conversation lasted an hour, during which I was able to say almost nothing. He ranted and raved about how “generous” he was by making his will and giving me everything when he dies. Yet in the meantime he is moaning and groaning about how difficult it is going to be to maintain his lifestyle on his income, which is actually more than what I get. But because he “has to keep this big house,” he is to be pitied. At the end of the conversation he said, “This has been such a good conversation, because we both agree on everything!” That is classic narcissism! It is the common thread to all the stories in this recent book. It represents a total lack of empathy for me, and for everyone who is in his immediate family.
Second, we do not deserve the truth. My ex-husband continues to decide what I can know and what I cannot know about his personal life. He tells the children, (who I forced him to tell before the divorce) and of course his most intimate male friends, that he is now seeing a man who is younger than his oldest son, but he has decided that I “am not ready to hear this bit of information.” Let’s see, how is this different than the entire scope of secrecy in our marriage? How is it different than the years since he came out to his male friends and started an affair, while treating me like a viper who invaded his house? How is it different than the repeated lies and absurd manipulation he treated me do during our entire life together? Yet today, still, after the divorce and the craziness of forcing him into the open with our children, he still is deciding what truth I should be entitled to hear!!! It’s because he doesn’t understand that I deserve the truth! I do not believe that these men are able to comprehend this simple, direct message. They just do not get it!
Third, these men all blame someone else for the difficulties in their lives. My ex-husband will blame his mother until he dies. She was a piece of work: She was also a narcissist, pathetic in her relationships with her children, never a nurturer. But I have noticed that most people I know have had a parent or grandparent who isn’t a nurturer. Lots of people have been emotionally abandoned, abused, rejected. Heck, I experienced that as well. But do you know what? I got over it!! My life is my responsibility, period. Blaming someone else does not allow you to move forward. My ex-husband, I believe, also blames me: I wasn’t enough of a wife to have made him straight!!! He wanted more than anything to be straight, and I failed him.
Fourth, I notice a pattern in these stories about how our marriages came about. There is never a direct and simple, “I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. Here is a ring showing how much I want you in my life.” No…. In my case there was never a ring. In other cases, it was an oblique discussion that resulted in a date set. In others, it just evolved into a wedding ceremony. The book shows me how a commitment from a gay man is never really there!
Finally, these men still expect the women in their lives to make it right. My ex-husband expects the women in our small town to pity him, invite him to bridge parties, make over him. He expects our daughters to pander to him as a pathetic, misunderstood, and now gay man. He expects me to contribute financially to his lifestyle, since his life style is more demanding than mine!!!! I can live simply and don’t have as many financial demands, but of course he must have his usual eating out experiences, his sports events, his experiences with his lovers. I, on the other hand, have never had excess needs. I live close to the earth, I have a simple lifestyle, so my financial needs cannot compare to his, and in the entire scope of our marriage, he deserves to have some of my income! Today, on the phone, he made it clear: He should have half of my income in order to continue to live the kind of life he needs.
Bonnie, thanks for this book. It helps me to get perspective. If I can ever help anyone else in my geographic area, please let me know!
“Sarah”
Dear Bonnie,
As I read through this last newsletter, I could feel the emotion and pain in the betrayal and lies that these women were going through. It sure brought back some memories of just how raw and painful being in this situation is.
It brought back the year 2000 ...all the suspicion I had that 'something' was wrong... the sleuthing I did to find the truth ... the lies ... being told something was wrong with me for even thinking such a "disgusting" thing ... convincing myself I just had an overactive imagination ... the sudden sex phase probably to convince me it wasn't true ... that gnawing feeling that something just wasn't right ... being told it wasn't him, it was me ...the anger ... the pain... being lied to again ... and then, finally... getting the truth that I desperately needed ... and my world collapsing around me.
I remember that pain. I wish I could hug everyone going through it now.
When I think of all the time I spent with those images in my head of what he was doing... and thinking what a fool I was the whole time ... trying to look back in the years in my head to see what clues I had missed ... I realized I had spent years of my life dealing with the aftermath of loving someone leading a double life and giving myself the strength to "un-love" him. I had to un-love him. I couldn't love him anymore, even though part of me wanted to. It was literally killing me emotionally and physically.
Fast forward to 2011. I am whole again. I have been whole again for several years. You really DO get through it. No way to go 'around' it... you have to go right through the middle of the storm and feel the pain before you come out on the other side. And you have every right to be MAD AS HELL, - don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Anger is part of getting through it. But it does happen. There comes a day when you realize it's him, not me... and you start to find your way back.
My ex died in 2008. But, I buried the pain of what he put me through long before that. I pray that all of your readers let themselves know and accept the truth and absolve themselves from any responsibility for it. I hope they all dig deep and find the strength to get through it and find themselves again -- the person they were before this deception entered their lives. It does happen, and I wish them all well and I hope they know that they are not alone on this journey, many are walking the same road. I am so thankful for you, Bonnie. So thankful for the help and support and love you have given me over the years. I am in awe of what you do so selflessly for others.
In understanding and love,
Joanie
Dear Bonnie,
I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your support over the last three years. It has been an incredible journey, one that should have never happened and one that would have never turned out the way it did without the support over your monthly newsletters. I have felt that every one of your newsletters was speaking exactly to me and my situation. They really helped changed my thinking from being paralyzed with fear to “what am I going to do to make my life better”.
My ex-husband and I were married for 28 years. For most of it, I knew things were not right. It went to having sex once a week, to once a month, once a year and then about 9 years ago, not at all. The rejection was debilitating to me. I thought I wasn’t pretty enough, sexy enough, skinny enough. Maybe I wasn’t doing enough for him? Looking back, I can’t believe I wasted so much energy focusing on what was wrong with me.
About three years ago, I noticed that he was spending a lot of time on the computer. I bought spyware to figure it out. Sure enough, the evidence was laid out in front of me. At first I was mortified and terrified. Then it went to extremely sad and then I was angry. Angry that he heard me crying myself to sleep after another rejection and he knew the answer. Angry that I put so many years into a marriage that was doomed from the start. Angry that our kids (now 26, 22 and 14) lives would be changed forever. Angry that at 49, I had missed out on the best years of my life with a man that could never love me like I should have been loved. Angry that he wanted to stay in the closet and therefore was holding me hostage.
Today, I am happy to say that there is a bright light in my future. After keeping silent for 2 years, I started to tell a few close friends. Their reaction was so different than I thought. They were supportive, understanding and truly wanted what was best for me. I got to the point where I didn’t want to live another year, another month, and finally another day feeling the way I was feeling.
Last spring, I asked my husband to leave and he did. Although being a single mom and financially maintaining my own household has been difficult, I’ve been able to keep the house and am committed to doing so until my daughter graduates from high school in 3 years. The split was shocking to our children, and without my ex admitting the truth, there has been some blame thrown my way. However, even if my ex does not face his truth, someday I will be sharing it with them.
And, as it turns out, I am pretty enough, thin enough and loving enough. Just recently I started a relationship with a man who adores me. What a difference to be in a relationship with a totally heterosexual male! I didn’t even realize what I was missing. He can’t keep his hands off of me. He is affectionate, loving and sexual. He is totally present whenever we are together. Even after rambunctious night in bed, he can’t wait until I wake up in the morning to make love to me again. Life is grand!
So, Bonnie, thank you and all you do to support women who have gone through the experience of being in a relationship with a gay man. Even though for many years I was stuck and didn’t move forward, I was reading, re-reading and absorbing the information in your newsletters. At times I felt like nothing was ever going to change for me, but it did, and I am forever grateful.
Sue in Washington.
Thank you, my women, for sharing with others. You give so many thousands of people validation each month. If you would like to share a letter with our readership, please feel free to write one. I always ask first before printing it, and you can do it anonymously.
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