BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK - JANUARY NEWSLETTER 2018

BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK

JANUARY 2018     Volume 18, Issue 188

Bonnie’s Mantra:

LIFE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE THIS COMPLICATED. PERIOD.

COMPUTER RADIO PODCASTS - www.blogtalkradio/bonnielkaye       

Live on Sunday night 8 p.m. EST or any time after the live broadcast!

ON DR. KINSEY

It's interesting. In my last newsletter, I wrote about the confusion of the Kinsey Scale of Human Sexuality. Over the years I often thought to myself, "What kind of man could possibly come up with a scale with so many ridiculous categories when it could be as simple as "straight" or "not straight?" How much thought would that have taken?

After the article last month, one of my readers was kind enough to send me some very interesting information about the famous--or shall I say infamous--Dr. Kinsey. The information was beyond interesting--it was chilling. In fact, I'll say downright frightening. After doing some serious research with lots of confirmation information, here's what I learned about this "doctor" of perversion.

This was the information she shared:

"Quote from New York Times book review of his biography: “Kinsey presented himself to the world as a scientist and a conventional husband and father -- Professor Kinsey, whom even his wife called Prok. It was an essential disguise for a man exploring controversial territory, but he was in fact far more complex. James H. Jones, a historian at the University of Houston, reveals in this rich, awkward biography that Kinsey was energetically bisexual -- Jones says ''homosexual'' despite Kinsey's continuing sexual relationship with his wife -- and a serious masochist. Kinsey also organized group sex among his senior staff, their spouses and outside volunteers, which he observed and had filmed, evidently to condition his investigators to their work and bond them together under his paternal authority as well as to record sexual behavior directly.”

Kinsey was bisexual and, as a young man, would punish himself for having homoerotic feelings. He and his wife agreed that both could have sex with other people as well as with each other. He himself had sex with other men, including his student Clyde Martin.

After receiving this information, I went online to research more about Kinsey. I never believed a man who was "straight" would ever come up with a 7-point scale of sexuality. In fact, I asked 11 of my straight male friends how they felt about the scale--and they laughed. A few if then snickered. But none of them bought it. And these were men who weren't homophobic in any way--but they were straight. I asked three of my gay male friends about their thoughts about Kinsey, and they didn't buy it either. They claimed you are or you're not--and if you're are, you can pretend you're not--but you are. They also believed that it was "yes" or "no."

But getting back to the research--there were some controversies that many of us did not know about. This information was found in a number of sources on the Internet. According to one column that quoted Kinsey expert Dr. Judith Reisman from her book Sex, Lies, and Kinsey:

          Kinsey solicited and encouraged pedophiles, at home and abroad, to sexually violate from 317 to 2,035 infants and children for his alleged data on normal “child sexuality.” Many of the crimes against children (oral and anal sodomy, genital intercourse and manual abuse) committed for Kinsey’s research are quantified in his own graphs and charts.

          “Table 34” on page 180 of Kinsey’s “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” claims to be a “scientific” record of “multiple orgasm in pre-adolescent males.” Here, infants as young as five months were timed with a stopwatch for “orgasm” by Kinsey’s “technically trained” aides, with one four-year-old tested 24 consecutive hours for an alleged 26 “orgasms.” Sex educators, pedophiles and their advocates commonly quote these child “data” to prove children’s need for homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual satisfaction via “safe-sex” education. These data are also regularly used to “prove” children are sexual from birth.

          The man heralded with enthusiasm by mainstream publications such as Time and Life Magazine was nothing less than a monstrous facilitator of child-rape. In fact, he even went so far as to record children shrieking and thrashing in pain, passing out and convulsing as the result of the hellish abuse he was putting them through, as evidence of “orgasm”—especially for children who could not yet speak.

I find this information highly disturbing--and this was the tip of the iceberg of accusations against Kinsey. To find this man a "credible" source of reason has been totally tossed off my list of any credibility after reading how his research was conducted and who it was conducted with. Of course, Kinsey had a defense for all of the accusations including that he only interviewed one pedophile for his research, and not the 9 he stated in the book. So does the information of 1 pedophile serve as credible information? Actually, does the information from 100 pedophiles make a difference when they talk about the age when a child is having an orgasm? So this sadistic pervert won't be noted in any more of my writings. And those who use his "scales" as proof need to rethink their source of "misinformation."

WHERE I STAND...AGAIN

Each month when I post my newsletter on my blog, I have a a number of responses. Most people I hear from truly appreciate my words; however, a few do not. They challenge me and question my credibility, and I try to respond honestly based on my years of experience (nearly 35 years) and the thousands of people I have worked with during that time.

Is my way the only way? Of course not. I never say I speak for everyone in the whole wide world--just for those who are experiencing the pain that I experienced from being married to a gay husband. I never tell people what they "have to do" or "should do" if they want to do something totally different than what I believe is right. In fact, I always try to find extra resources for them so they can meet others who feel as they do.

One man wanted me to post these and other challenging remarks on my blog, but I didn't accept the comments because my blog is not a dispute board. However, I did tell him I would discuss his feelings in my upcoming newsletter with my response. Here is what he had to say and my response:

Chip has left a new comment on your post "GAY MEN DON'T THINK STRAIGHT!!":

Though it may come as a shock to her, Bonnie Kaye does not have the self-righteous monopoly on this issue. I am another example of where her myopic world view misses the mark.

I was a husband, am a father, and my ex-wife's discovery of my same-sex inclinations resulted in the break up my marriage and family. It devastated my ex-wife -- as it did me. We are now trying to get on with the new "normality".

In the months following my wife's discovery of my reality (and my simultaneous discovery of a fledgling affair of her own), I felt like I was at ground zero of a bomb blast, yet somehow survived. I began searching for clarity on both my side of the situation as well as my ex-wife's.

I know I can't speak for many other men in this situation, but in my case, I am, without doubt, predominantly attracted to females in all aspects (physically, sexually, emotionally, spiritually). My same sex interest is, and always has been, fairly limited in scope due to its origins and has proven to be much better in "theory" than in "practice". According to Bonnie Kaye and her ilk, however, this is not possible. I must be deluding myself and am simply in denial. If I followed her advice, accepted "reality", and lived as a gay man, it would be an absurd disaster (but great material for a sitcom). I would make a pathetic partner for some poor gay dude. I would always be instinctively checking out the women and secretly watching female porn. It wouldn't be long before that poor soul would be accusing me of being "straight in denial" and merely using him as a "draeb" (that would be "beard" beard spelled backwards). But to Bonnie, I am a unicorn. I do not exist. I am a "GHID". Am I 100% straight? Hell no, and I'm perfectly fine with that. What I find ridiculous is being told repeatedly, by ill-informed people, that the world is binary when it simply is not. "If you ain't straight, you're GAY!" Yea, right.

I have spent hours reading the stories of women who have been in the shoes of my ex-wife and I have become increasingly sympathetic to their plight. The storied are heart-wrenching. Meanwhile, I am empathetic to the silent counterparties in these stories -- the men who made very bad choices and hurt the people in their lives. Reading much of the commentary here, and reading/listening to Bonnie Kaye and her ilk would have me believe that I am an incorrigible piece of self-delusional, "narcissistic" piece of crap beyond any hope of self-discovery and self-improvement. Certainly some of these men are very bad and abusive men, but the majority are probably guys like me: generally well-meaning, non-abusive guys who made horrible choices that they deeply regret and who are trying to find a way to put their lives back together just as their ex-wives are trying to do.

Sure, there are many guys who really would prefer to live a gay life but chose otherwise when they married a woman and these guys certainly should move on with the life suited to them. But, for those of us that move on and find a new girlfriend or wife, we are just accused of hiding behind another "beard", when in fact, being with a woman in all respects is the most natural thing we know.

I am not defending my actions of breaching the trust of my ex-wife. That was my failure. That I truly regret. That I own. I have learned some tough lessons and it will not happen with my new wife. My need to unfulfilling explore fantasies is nowhere near my need to live with integrity in the best way that I can. I have learned very painfully that it is not worth it - at least for me.

I imagine Bonnie Kaye she has helped some people and may have some valid perspectives, but the bitterness, ire, inaccuracy, and self-contradiction of her relentless invective create a cacophony of distraction when what is most needed is clarity.

          Chip, I do acknowledge your pain. I also acknowledge that you do not consider yourself gay. And Chip, I am not saying that you are gay. More importantly. what I think should have no bearing on your thinking. I respect your feelings and appreciate your story. I know there are men who struggle greatly in their lives with sexual issues, and I don't mean to minimize them in any way. I do know there are men who don't want to live a "gay life" as you call it, nor do I proclaim to have all of the answers. I do know this--there are some women who truly don't care if their husbands have had previous pr present experiences or fantasies with men because they don't feel it affects them or their relationships. But I hope you can understand that there are women--the overwhelming majority of them in situations such as this--who don't feel that way and don't want to even consider a marriage with a man in this situation--and that's okay too. The important thing in life is to find someone who can be your soulmate in every sense. Be honest with her ahead of time so it won't be an issue later on.

          As for me, my life moved on to a wonderful place. I found my soulmate 24 years ago, and I am not bitter over my marriage to my ex-husband who died in October of this past year. We made our peace long ago, and he gave me a wonderful gift before he passed away--the gift of truth including repeated sincere apologies for hurting me first on his own through our 39 year journey and then with some psychotic people who believed they could destroy me and my work. However, I do get angry for the misfortunes of so many of the people I work with--both straight wives and gay husbands--whose lives are thrown so totally off track because of this issue.

          Chip, I hope you find someone who can love you as you deserve to be loved. That's my wish for you. I won't be debating you, but I'm more than happy to have you write to me any time you need support. I will be there for you!

With hope for your happiness,

Bonnie

ADA ADVOCATE PROFESSIONAL - A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU

Dr. Karin Huffer is an amazing family therapist who is an adjunct professor at the renowned John Jay University. She conducts an online course to get people certified as an ADA Advocate that you can access from home on your computer. Dr. Huffer states that many of us suffer from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) following our marriages, and PTSD is a disability that allows you to have an advocate in court helping you through the process. Most of us do not understand how to work through the court system during our divorces. We are nervous at best, and often don't understand what is being said with legal jargon. Your lawyer may not necessarily find it important to explain everything to you making you feel more lost and confused. An advocate can be by your side before, during, and after the case.

Two weeks ago, Dr. Huffer was the guest with my co-hostess for the show, Debra Sutton. Debra had taken the course two years ago and found it wonderful as far as helping others with advocacy who are part of our network.

 Dr. Huffer explained that an advocate ensures that the functionality of a client in a legal setting is protected under the ADAAA against all harassment, retaliation, and false accusation. Advocates act on behalf of their loved ones or clients, not by practicing law, but by arranging accommodations to offset symptoms, alerting the court to deliberate abuses, and providing much-needed support to the litigant.

A Certified ADA Advocate has completed an accredited program through John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

They can then:

• Come onto a case as a consultant and expert witness

• Review each case determining accommodations

• Arrange evaluations to assess additional needs

• Prepare a confidential request submitted to the court requesting accommodations

Anyone can apply to become a certified advocate and can practice in any state. There is no pre-education requirement to do this. Professionals in both the legal and medical fields especially benefit from certification, ensuring they are in compliance with the new ADA regulations established on 10/11/2016 as well as adding a new level of competency to their practice.

To learn more information about becoming an advocate and to sign up for the course, visit Dr. Huffer's website at:

https://equalaccessadvocates.com/

To hear Dr. Huffer's show with the information of how you can start this career, here is a link to our show:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bonnielkaye/2018/01/01/bonnie-kayes-straight-wives-talk-show-with-ada-specialist-dr-karin-huffer

For those of you who are either looking to enter the workforce or add on to your professional skills, this is an excellent opportunity to make extra income for your family. There is a new online course starting in a few weeks, so visit the site now to sign up!

MAILBAG

Dear Bonnie,

          I wanted to circle back to close the loop on my 11 year journey with you.  To summarize the story I wrote as "Anne" in Straight WIves, Shattered Lives (Vol 2), I discovered images that my husband had looked at online, confirming my suspicions of many years that he had interests in men as well as women.  Although I tried to persuade you that my situation was different than any of the other 30,000 or so stories you had heard, you stood firm.  I eventually came around to realizing that I needed to end my sham of a marriage but it took 10 years to execute. 

The wisdom you generously shared through 1 on 1 emails, even a phone call, your monthly newsletters, and my participation in one of your weekend workshops have all been instrumental in my moving through divorcing a narcissist and keeping my sanity.  The stories of women finding true love the second time around kept me going all of those years.  So when I left my marriage in January 2016, I prepared myself to be miserable for two years.  In fact, I wasn't ever unhappy, although sometimes lonely.  After having given up on internet dating (not much out there for a 57 year old slightly overweight woman, right?), cupid struck!  I was out of town for a contra dancing weekend.  As I arrived and sat down to put on my dance shoes, I saw a guy from my hometown contra dance making a beeline for me from "across the crowded room." From that moment on, we've been basically inseparable.  We became intimate immediately after returning home from the dance, though the opportunities are somewhat limited as i’m a nearly full time single parent. However, last weekend, we traveled together to a dance in another city while my daughter was with her dad. 

Everything you and your readers have ever said about sex with a man who doesn’t like dicks is absolutely true. We missed half of the dance weekend because we didn’t want to leave the hotel room.  We are both crazy in love. I know this may be only a rebound for me, but time will tell. In the meantime, I’m experiencing what it feels to be truly loved vs put on a pedestal by a narcissist who sees his “loved ones” as merely means to an end.  I feel like the sexiest, most beautiful woman alive when I'm with him. 

 So to you, Bonnie, and to your community of readers, stay strong and THANKS! 

Ann

Recent radio shows:

If you haven't heard Dr. Margalis Fjelstad's program about healing after living with a narcissist, put this link in your browser:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bonnielkaye/2018/01/08/bonnie-kayes-straight-wives-talk-show-with-therapist-dr-margalis-fjelstad

Dr. Fjelstad has two wonderful books out that you can find at Amazon or BN. Members of my support network tell me that these books are LIFE SAVING!!!!

                             

Have a peaceful and loving month.

Love, Bonnie ♥

BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK - DECEMBER 2017

Dear Friends,

Over the past 18 years, I have written nearly 200 newsletters (187 actually) that have addressed every situation you can possibly think about. My earlier words were filled with insight, wisdom, and compassion. I am very proud of how helpful and comforting so many of you have found these words over the years. Therefore, over the next month or two, I'll be going back in time to reprint some of my best works. Many of you haven't seen these articles because of how far back they date, and others who have read them may not remember them due to the length of time! Either way, they are still just as relevant today as ever.

I apologize for not writing some new material, but to be honest, I am  on a strict deadline for several publications. One project is my new book called "The Gift of Truth from my Ex-Husband." In October, my gay ex-husband passed away. In return for my support to him during his final 18 months of suffering from bone cancer, he gave me one final gift at the end of my life. He loved me enough to provide me with all the written proof I need to bring federal charges against a few people who made it their mission to destroy my life and undermine my work on behalf of straight wives over the past three years. You will be quite shocked to see the length that these misguided criminals went to in order to accomplish this mission--which will never happen. So please stay tuned. I'll be talking more about this in the spring sharing some and excerpts prior to the book release.

Love, Bonnie

THAT TIME OF THE YEAR COMING UP AGAIN....

Yes, it's the holiday season here again. The season starts at Thanksgiving and will last for the next 3 months ending on Valentine's Day. In between you'll have to deal with Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. For some of you, this will be the first holiday with your life in the state of total turmoil because you are learning or have learned the truth about your husband, but you are still stuck where you are. For others, it will be the first holiday season split as a family and in some cases, you will be feeling very alone. And for others, it will be the early years in the recovery process--early enough to remind you that these holidays can really make you depressed.

I don't have a magic solution to this, or I would give it to you--I swear! Holidays are horrible for me because of the loss of my two children. They will never be the same. The loss of something you loved so much--such as your family unit--is very painful. And no matter how lighthearted I could make it sound by giving you some good "tips," some of you aren't ready for them--and guess what? That's fine.

We all deal with pain in different ways in the same way as we all heal at different paces. No two situations are the same--and no two women are expected to heal at the same rate. There are so many different variables involved here.

For those women who had wonderful marriages, the hurt is so much stronger. You feel like your life was torn away from you right in front of your eyes. There were no signs--no real problems--lots of love (even if it didn't translate into "making love")--lots of warm times filled with laughter while you were going through life with your best friend.

For those of you who are coming out of less-than-wonderful marriages, the hurt is still there. You realize that you've lost a chunk of your life that you can never get back. All the dots are finally getting connected. You feel better knowing the truth, but you still resent having lived with the lies for all of these years wondering why you could never please your husband no matter how hard you tried. You suffered from emotional and sometimes physical abuse. The scars have been deep for years as you lived in a state of depression because you didn't know the truth of why your husband didn't love you.

Some of you will reject the holiday parties and settle instead for a personal "pity party." I say enjoy yourself if you want to have one. There's nothing wrong with a pity party every now and then because it's part of the grieving process. Don't feel guilty if you want to indulge for a day or two. Just try not to get stuck for too long in one because they can be hard to give up if you let yourself linger. Set a time frame--a "one afternoon, one evening or one day" party. Buy yourself something that you really love to eat--or if you are not an eater, maybe you are a drinker. Even if you make yourself a hot fudge sundae with six scoops of ice cream, it's fine! You're entitled to a little instant gratification.

If you feel like being alone--then stay alone. Don't let people talk you into doing something you don't want to do because they think "it's not good for you to be alone." I like to be alone during these times. I don't feel like people telling me I should be thankful for all that I have or how I should feel or how I should have started 'getting over it" by now. I'd rather sit home and watch a Law and Order Marathon or play some mindless computer game. Those are luxuries for me! Find something that is a luxury for you and indulge. That's the fun of the pity party. You can be miserable--but enjoy the time alone by doing things that make you feel good momentarily.

The most important thing to realize is that life is changing or has changed. It may be a horrible time for you, and there is nothing wrong with acknowledging it. Life will get better--when you are ready to let it. And there's no time limit for healing!

REVISITING and REVISING THE KINSEY SCALE - 2012

Most of you have heard of the Kinsey Scale. Gay men use this as an argument to prove that they are not gay, but rather on some road or continuum that never seems to get to where you know they are going or have landed.

The Kinsey Scale was first devised in 1948 by Dr. Alfred Kinsey. His research broke sexuality into seven steps starting at “Totally heterosexual” to “Totally Homosexual.” There were a number of other steps in between. According to Kinsey, these are the steps:

0- Exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual

1- Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual

2- Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual

3- Equally heterosexual and homosexual

4- Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual

5- Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual

6- Exclusively homosexual

According to Kinsey, “Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.”

This scale has widely been accepted and utilized by many professionals in the field. I look at this scale as being an excuse for gay men as a way to prove that they are not gay, and I regularly see it being used to that end.

Quite frankly, I don’t understand this whole concept. For instance, what is the difference between the Number 1 and the Number 2 position on the Kinsey scale? Number 1 is: Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual. Number 2 is: Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual. What determines if someone is “incidentally” or “more than “incidentally” homosexual? For that matter, what does “incidentally” mean? An “incident” happened one day or night? And how is a man predominantly heterosexual but more than “incidentally” homosexual? Hmmm, beats me. And quite frankly, let’s skip up to Number 5 on the scale: 5- Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual. What does that mean? Very confusing, isn’t it?

I believe that there are men who are “emotionally” straight. They are unable to come to terms with the gay world. They dread the thought of being “labeled” as gay due to societal or religious pressures. They enjoy the security of living with a woman in a “heterosexual lifestyle” where they don’t have to fear the rejection of their families, religions, and communities. However, this does not deserve a space on the ladder climbing up to homosexuality on the Kinsey Scale.

I think the Kinsey Scale is an excuse for people who can’t accept their sexuality. I believe that some gay men can perform sex with heterosexual women when the emotional need is so great that they can talk themselves into it. And I believe that these men feel much better talking themselves into being a 2 or 3 on that scale rather than a 4, 5, or 6. That scale convinces many a man that he’s okay staying in a marriage because he’s not a “6.”

The Kinsey Scale is a product from 50 years ago. I believe it needs to be updated and simplified. So now, I’ve come up with a “Bonnie Kaye Scale of Sexuality.” The scale has two levels – Number 1 and Number 2. Number 1 is Heterosexual. This is a man who craves sex only with a woman because these are the only sexual feelings that arouse him. Number 2 is for all the other men who desire a penis on any level—“incidentally,” “occasionally,” “every blue moon,” “just out of curiosity,” or “in a fantasy.” Think of all of the anguish this new scale will take away from people who are intellectualizing about where they stand on the Kinsey Scale. Think of all the worry they could avoid as they inch up the ladder and move from a 2 to a 3 or a 4 to a 6. I can’t even imagine the fear a man would have who is on Number 4 and creeping up to Number 5. Does he sit and worry how long it is going to take him to get to number 6? Will he try to convince himself to have sex with a woman so he can downslide to number 3?

I like the idea of my scale so much better. Men don’t have to sit and worry about “how gay” they are or will be. They have nothing to prove if they desire sex more with men. It won’t change their number—they will still be a Number 2. Wow—wouldn’t that take the pressure off of men who are trying so hard to fight their own gay desires and behavior?

And wouldn’t it make things so much easier for our women also? Women wouldn’t have to wonder if their husbands/boyfriends are moving up or down a scale. It would be much more black or white. If you want a heterosexual man, that’s fine. If he’s anything else, well, it’s not fine—at least not fine for a marriage. We could eliminate the fallacy of “Bisexuality,” or Number 3 on the Kinsey Scale which always gives false hope to women. “Bi” implies to women that they have an equal chance to win their man as a man has--which we know is not the case. It reinforces false hope that if they “love their men enough or try harder to be better wives/girlfriends,” their men will pick them. It just ain’t happening, is it? The desire for a penis is always there. All “bi” men would automatically fall under the Number 2 category. Even men who are “just fantasizing” about other men would be in the Number 2 group. After all, if a man gets “aroused” by a penis, it’s definitely the Number 2 category.

I think the “Bonnie Kaye Scale” will help women make easier decisions. You don’t have to sit and debate anything at all. It all comes down to one question—do you want a man who wants a woman or a man who has a penis on his mind? Why does something this simple have to become so complicated?

Alexis Hall has a website for single parenting. She invited me to share this with you for the holiday season. Her contact info is below.

HOW TO OVERCOME POST-DIVORCE DEPRESSION THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

BY ALEXIS HALL

If you’ve gone through a traumatic divorce this year that’s left you anxious and depressed, the thought of the approaching holiday season may feel as challenging as climbing Mt. Everest. And, similar to such an arduous task, reaching the summit will count a great deal on how you tend to your mental health.

You’re suddenly a single parent. You’re responsible for your own financial success. Your social circle is evolving. All of this can feel overwhelming.

Take a moment to slow down, breathe, and make a plan; remembering your journey to renewed mental and physical health will be depend on your own self-administered care.

One of the most important things you can challenge yourself, and your children, to do during this time is climbing that mountain, or let’s say a smaller one. Physical activity such as hiking, indoor cycling or even a less aerobic activity like bowling can improve your mental health by stimulating positive hormones and neurochemicals.

We’ve all heard of the popular “runner’s high” that comes from releasing endorphins in exercise, but getting physical also impacts the brain’s serotonin levels. Serotonin, the chemical many anti-depressants work to increase, boosts your mood and improves your overall sense of well-being.

Your mental health will also improve when you practice good parenting techniques after the divorce. Most importantly, be there for your children. Spend quality time with them, and in doing so, seek to understand their emotional needs during this stressful period. Seeing them happy will in turn make you happy. Consider trying the following:

●      Sharing them with your ex.

●      Keeping them out of the middle of any disputes that evolve.

●      Talking positively about the other parent.

●      Always show the other parent respect when you come together.

You may notice during the dark months of winter that your depression worsens. This may be a sign of Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as SAD. Feelings associated with SAD come and go with the seasons, and it is diagnosed, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, when the following symptoms appear in addition to your traditional depression symptoms: low energy, hypersomnia, or excessive sleepiness, overeating, weight gain, carbohydrate cravings and withdrawing socially. SAD can also contribute to substance abuse in a way to manage your emotions.

If you are experiencing these symptoms, Dr. Barton Goldsmith, suggests in an article for Psychology Today, “using a full spectrum lamp for twenty minutes a day.”

Perhaps one of the most important things you can model for your children is your resilience by moving on. Put some careful thought over the holidays into making the new year about a new you. Not necessarily making lofty resolutions that make you feel more like the stressed mountain climber, but smaller goals that help move you forward in your healing.

Consider socializing more. The last thing you should be doing is turning inward, or isolating yourself. Much research has been done correlating the reduction of stress with spending time with our friends, but did you know friends can even extend your life?

A 2010 study at Brigham Young University in Utah concluded that people with, “strong social relationships increased their odds of survival over a certain time period by 50 percent.” That's on par with quitting smoking, and nearly twice as beneficial as physical activity in terms of decreasing your odds of dying early. Astonishingly, this correlation to better health is as strong as smoking cessation and exercise.

Try bringing to life the old adage “out with the old and in with the new.” Build some excitement for you and your children by co-creating new family traditions. For example, instead of going to the same old holiday vacation spot, collaborate with your children on finding and planning a new, more exciting destination this season.  Doing this allows them to build wonderful new memories and traditions with you.

Many things can be done to improve your mental health following your divorce.  Study and research ways to improve you. In doing so, you won’t be just helping yourself, but you’ll be actionably demonstrating to your children that they too can overcome life’s challenges. Teaching them to be a successful mountain climber may provide the richest mental health reward ever.

You can find more support for single parents at Alexis's website:

http://singleparent.info/

Straight Talk Newsletter October, 2017

BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK

OCTOBER 2017     Volume 18, Issue 186

Bonnie’s Mantra:

LIFE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE THIS COMPLICATED. PERIOD.

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

STRAIGHT WIVES TALK SHOW's 7th SEASON!!

The Straight Wives Talk Show is starting its new season as of  October. Some of our best experts will be returning, and we will be having some new guests including straight wives who will share their stories with you. Stay tuned for some amazing programming! You can always catch a broadcast anytime after it is aired at this link:

www.blogtalkradio/bonnielkaye                                    

THE SHAME AND THE BLAME

This month I wanted to focus on twp important issues--shame and blame that we all go through after the marriage to our gay husbands on one level or another. Because this topic is so important, I asked my literary hero, Kristin Kalbli, to share her powerful thoughts on the topic of BLAME. After her profound words, I will share my thoughts on the issue of SHAME.

Transmuting Blame After the Trauma of the Gay Thing

By Kristin Kalbli

I want to talk about blame, and responsibility, and power. Blame and responsibility are often confused, but they are not the same. One is destructive, the other constructive. But we run from responsibility when we mistake it for blame. Responsibility is needed to reclaim personal power after a trauma, and to reject blame. As straight wives, it is immensely helpful to understand the role each plays in the trauma of discovering our husbands are gay in order to recover and move forward.

 First: blame. We straight wives know all about blame. When problems cropped up in our marriages to closeted or in-denial gay men, we were often blamed for those problems by our husbands. Personally, I regularly tried to address the lack of sexual intimacy in my own marriage with my husband. He became deeply uncomfortable and would completely shut down, refusing to communicate at all. He would then become angry and resentful and blame me for confronting him, for putting pressure on him, which made him feel “even less like having sex” with me than the barely-once-a-month we already had sex. His behavior never changed; I never got answers, but I did get blamed for seeking them. We were in a maddening feedback loop of my hurt and frustration at the constant, inexplicable rejection, and his anger and blame at being asked to address it. Many of us straight wives were told our bodies were to blame for our husband’s lack of attraction to us. We were too fat, or ugly, or our genitals were repulsive or smelled bad. Our bodies were deeply shamed and blamed for a problem that never originated with us. Of course our husbands weren’t attracted to us, because they were gay, not because there was anything at all wrong with our beautifully human bodies. But we swallowed that blame, and many of us tried to make ourselves into better, prettier, more desirable versions of ourselves…to no avail. Our husbands used blame strategically. As long as they blamed us, they deflected suspicion away from themselves.  '

 When we finally learned our husbands were not straight, often it was because we stumbled upon evidence we weren’t supposed to find. Whether we went looking for that evidence or were taken by surprise when it surfaced, a few of our husbands came clean then. But those who were still deeply closeted may have flown into blind, panicked rages and blamed us for questioning them, doubting them. They blamed us for our suspicions, they blamed us for needing answers, they blamed us for snooping, they blamed us for finding out their secrets, their shame, and they blamed us for having the audacity to confront them about it. If the evidence was too blatant to deny they blamed us for shining a light on their dishonesty, their selfishness, their hypocrisy. They blamed us for unmasking them, to themselves and to the world. They blamed us for forcing them to confront themselves in the mirror, a responsibility they abdicated in favor of blaming us. They blamed us for tearing our marriages apart for no reason, because they weren’t gay! They blamed us for splitting up our families when we couldn’t tolerate any more lies, any more gaslighting, any more illicit encounters with strange men in motels or clubs or our own beds.

When our marriages disintegrated in front of our families and friends, they may have blamed us. They may have blamed us for tarnishing our husband’s or our families’ reputations. They may have blamed us for not trying to make it work and keep our families together. Ludicrous as it is, we may even have been blamed for making our husbands gay.

 And when society at large finds out we were once married to closeted gay men, we are subjected to a litany of humiliating and stigmatizing accusations. We are sneered at and blamed for not knowing our exes were gay (“Didn’t you know? Weren’t there signs?”). We are blamed for being unsupportive of our gay husbands who are seen as having overwhelming courage for coming out of the closet when the incentives for coming out finally outweighed the incentives for staying in. (How many of us have heard this accusatory query: “aren’t you glad he can finally be his true self?”). When we dared show our justifiable anger at the lies and betrayal, we were blamed for unjustified homophobia. People don’t believe us when we insist we are not angry that our husbands turned out to be gay, but because our husbands lied to us about being gay. When we insist our marriages and divorces were crazy-making and profoundly disorienting because of our husband’s hidden sexuality, we are asked, “Aren’t you relieved he didn’t leave you for another woman?” When we were enraged at the years stolen from us, enraged at being used as our husband’s closet, enraged at being used as brood mares so they could have children, we are blamed for being bitter, lonely, and pathetic ex wives. When we feel our lives were commandeered and our marriages were fraudulent, when we feel robbed of an authentic partnership with romantic love and mutual sexual pleasure and intimacy, when we feel violated because we did not consent to being in a mixed orientation marriage, when we question our entire realities, we are blamed for being crazy, for overreacting, for being angry (something women are not supposed to be in our society). In short, we are blamed for blaming our husbands. When we dare insist that our lives were not for sale, and that our husbands be held responsible for their lies of omission, we are blamed for not giving our closeted husbands a pass for lying because of societal homophobia: “How can you blame him for hiding in a marriage when society is so dangerous for gay people?” As if we should have happily volunteered to sacrifice our lives. While cultural homophobia is real and insidious, it does not entitle a persecuted human being to use another human being as a human shield. And when, years down the road, we still struggle with depression, anxiety and PTSD, when we are still in therapy or still struggling to trust men again, we are blamed for not moving on, for not getting over it, for not forgiving our exes soon enough.

 Yes, we straight wives know all about being blamed.

 But blame is not the same as responsibility. And in responsibility, lies power. Let me explain. In my own recovery, I had to work long and hard to parse through the tangled psychological web of my ruined marriage and decide what I was and was not responsible for. In therapy, I realized I was responsible for choosing my ex husband. He fit into a pattern of abusive men that was part of my own karma, a pattern that commenced with my father and that I continued for a time with heterosexual men after I was divorced. I was also responsible for waking up to that pattern, and I am now responsible for choosing better men in my life. And I was responsible for not knowing myself well enough to realize that my ex, gay or straight, was not a good match for me compatibility wise. I mistook our common interests (antiques, gardening, cooking) for compatibility. In truth, I needed to pay attention to what kind of man he was, and if his words matched his behavior, and if who he was (a conservative, risk-averse homebody) fit with who I was (an adventurous, passionate wild-child). I also had to learn to have compassion for my 21-year-old self, who didn’t know herself, who couldn’t spot his subtle misogyny and abuse, who didn’t recognize the gay red flags, and who didn’t know how to honor her instincts about him. I was also responsible for the ways in which I wasn’t a good wife, but those lapses were more the product of my youth, immaturity and superficiality, and they were minor in comparison to the “abject abuse, emasculation and neglect” my ex husband invented and blamed me for. I didn’t recognize the person he accused me of being. I knew I was no angel, but I couldn’t figure out why he thought I was such a demon by the time we divorced.

 That’s why it was equally critical for me to decide what I was not responsible for. I was not responsible for my ex husband’s sexuality. I was not responsible for his self-loathing and internalized homophobia. I never put him in the closet and I never kept him there, despite his attempts to blame me for it (when he finally came out to his second wife, he told her that he had tried to tell me that he was gay – which is a lie – but that my reaction was so rage-filled and abusive that it sent him right back into the closet and into a marriage to yet another unsuspecting woman). Those were his choices, those were his actions, those were the consequences of his decisions. Not mine.

 Not. Mine

 And not ours.

 As straight wives, it helps to get really clear about what we are and are not responsible for, and therein lies the key to taking back our own power, regardless of whether or not our ex husbands, or families, or friends, or society continue to blame us for being straight wives, and regardless of whether or not our ex husbands ever take responsibility for their own choices and lives, or for the damage they have done to ours. Responsibility is empowering, even when we do the unpleasant work of taking responsibility for our own less than perfect decisions and actions. When we own and accept those parts of our lives with compassion for ourselves, we can reject blame confidently and powerfully. When we have done our internal psychological work, and determined our core truth of what we must own, and what we simply cannot own, we have a stable piece of physiological ground to stand on. From that ground, we can better withstand the blame hurled in our direction from all directions; we can better draw our new, healthy boundaries with our exes, our families, and our friends. We can respond thoughtfully and commandingly in social situations where someone’s ignorance and prejudice lead them to misunderstand or misrepresent a straight wife’s inner experience. We can own our lives again, and we can own ourselves again. 

Thank you, Kristin, for your beautiful words that will help so many of our women. Kristin will be a guest on my radio show at the end of this month. Stay tuned!!

THE ISSUE OF SHAME

          Since working with women for 35 years who are going through the gay husband trauma, I have learned that one common feeling we all go through is that of SHAME.

This emotion comes about due to several different reasons that I will discuss. First, I'd like to share my own words on blame--which will lead to the shame. This is one of my first articles written in 2001. I think it is just as relevant today as ever.

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY –THE “IF ONLY” AND THE “BLAME” GAMES

I have worked with too many women who at first assume that the reason for their husbands’ homosexuality is due to something they did wrong. For those of us who have had time to work through this problem over a longer period, it is easy for us to react by saying that this thinking is ridiculous.  But try to remember when you first suspected or discovered your husband’s interest in men. Then it doesn’t seem quite as ridiculous.

When I reflect on my own inner feelings of shame during those early years, I remember feeling a great sense of responsibility. I used to play a game that most of us fall prey to. I call it the “If Only Game.” It goes like this. “If only I could be a better wife….if only I was more attractive…if only I was better as a lover…if only I was a better housekeeper, if only I wasn’t so demanding…if only I could lose more weight….if only I was smarter…if only, if only, if only…then maybe he could love me enough not to think about men.

My ex-husband was excellent at playing the other mind-twister game, which I call the “Blame Game.” After I questioned him for the first time about his sexuality two years into our marriage, he used this as an opening to play this game as his new weapon of mental torture. This is where he would come closest to revealing the truth by throwing in my face,  “If I were gay, who could blame me? After all, you are always making too many sexual demands…complaining about something…gaining weight…acting jealous…being possessive …much too demanding….all consuming…and the list went on.  Then he would end the conversation with the words I desperately wanted and needed to hear—“It’s a wonder that I’m not gay.” Whew, what a relief. I was a failure as a wife, but at least not failure enough to make him gay.

        

A young woman who was part of my support group recently told us that on an intellectual level she knows she didn’t make her husband gay, but emotionally she still feels that she is responsible. I often hear this in the beginning of a marriage separation. During the early stages of disclosure, it is easy to believe that we are somehow at fault for our husband’s decision to enter the gay world. Even when we can accept the news, we still can’t grasp all of the implications. We can’t figure out how our husbands were “straight enough” to marry us, make love to us (even if it wasn’t frequently or passionately), have children with us, have married lives with us but chuck it all for sex with a man. When we pass through the denial stage and accept that our husbands are gay, we still have a difficult time believing that it wasn’t something we did that drove them over the borderline and into the twilight zone of homosexuality.

What takes time for us to fully comprehend is that we had no part whatsoever in our husbands’ homosexuality. This was who they were long before we ever knew them. Some of them knew it and fought it hoping that marriage to a woman would miraculously make them straight. It can’t…and it didn’t. Others claim they honestly didn’t know it because it didn’t surface until years later. But even the late bloomers almost always felt that something was not quite right—they just didn’t think it was a sexual thing. 

Playing the “If Only Game” is a very natural part of self-questioning that all of us initially go through. The problem is that some of us keep playing, sometimes for months and even for years. This is a dangerous game if played for too long because it indicates that you have not been able to put things into perspective. It also stops you from moving ahead and trying to rebuild your life. Prolonged questioning of your failures in the marriage serve no purpose at all. If you failed at the marriage, it’s because you were in a no-win situation. You were set up for failure, not for success. Success was not an option.

If you had been in a marriage with an emotionally healthy straight man, all of your efforts of being a supportive and loving wife would have been appreciated and in fact, cherished. So don’t use your marriage with a gay husband as a map for your future relationships. If you try again with a straight man, you’ll see how different and better it can be.

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The point I from this past article is that so many of us suffer with the emotion of SHAME. When you have been told year in and year out that the failures in your marriage are your failures--you feel SHAME. When you given a laundry list of reasons why your husband doesn't want to touch you--including you're "too fat," "too thin," "you're too boring in bed," and other degrading reasons too numerous to mention including the MOST degrading comment of all--"your body has a bad odor which is why I can't make love to you," you feel SHAME. When he lashes out at you that you are too needy because "all you think about is sex all of the time," you feel SHAME. When your husband keeps telling you that you are a failure not only as a wife but also as a mother, you feel SHAME. When you are constantly reminded about all of the qualities you lack by the man who married you because he loved you, you feel ASHAMED. And in the overwhelming number of women I have worked with for 35 years, this is the overriding emotion in these marriages--SHAME.

SHAME often turns into guilt. When you are blamed enough for the problems in your marriage, you move to the next emotional stage of shame, which produces the next negative emotion you face--namely GUILT. We buy into this emotional battering and start to feel guilty about a list of lies our husbands perceive about us to deflect the truth about themselves. It is so much easier for them to find fault with us--fault that doesn't exist--rather than to take responsibility for the real issue--their homosexuality.

I am stating for the record that the longer you stay in marriage to a gay man, the longer your recovering time will take. "Rewiring" your emotional state after years of being beaten down takes time. "Unwinding" the facts from the fiction of your marriage also takes time. This is why Gay Husband Recovery is unlike divorce recovery for straight couples. In those divorces, people find fault with characteristics and traits of each other. In our marriages, the fault is that we are women. There is no therapy in the world that can ever change that fact.

It truly saddens me when I hear straight wives swear that they will never look for another relationship after their marriage to a gay man. And please understand that I love the fact that some women can find happiness on their own and lead fulfilling lives. I have single friends outside my straight wives circle who live very happily alone. But my sadness comes in when I know that choice is because of the fear of rejection from being damaged so badly from their gay husbands who put the fear of blame, shame, and guilt inside their heads no matter how much they learn to understand how they were "conditioned" this way. It means that the only love a woman will know in her lifetime is the love of a gay man--which is not the love she was intended for. She will never know the feeling of true emotional intimacy. She will never know the pleasure of sexual enjoyment or understand how "making love" is different than sex for the sake of throwing her a crumb to deflect the real truth. She will never know the appreciation or her worth as a loving partner in a relationship and how all of the loving gestures she made to her gay husband--which were rejected--would be loved and appreciated by a straight husband.

This is not to say that a marriage to a straight man would be perfect--but the problems would be problems of personalities rather than sexuality. Too many of our women end up what I call "sexually mutated" from the many years of sexual rejection and verbal sexual abuse. It's so sad knowing that something so beautiful can be turned into something so ugly when SHAME is the cause of it.

Ladies, unwinding the damage takes time. Good therapy and/or coaching is often the key to a healthy restart. If you need a good therapist or coach, I have some wonderful ones that are part of this network. You never even have to leave home. Go to my website at www.Gayhusbands.com and look for the "links" tab on my website. Or feel free to write to me and I'll provide you with information. I'm there for you--and always will be! We can get through this maze together!

BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT WIVES TALK RADIO SHOW SHOW

After taking a short break during the summer from the radio broadcast, my newest season (season 7) started off with some dynamite guests. I am sending you the links for the shows that aired this month. You can listen at any time on your computer. Next Sunday my guest will be health coach Pamela Adams Gifford. You can listen live or anytime after the show is broadcast by going to this link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bonnielkaye/2017/10/23/bonnie-kayes-straight-wives-talk-show-with-health-coach-pamela-adams-gifford

Last week. Dr. Hooper was my guest. Here's the link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bonnielkaye/2017/10/16/bonnie-kayes-straight-wives-talk-show-with-dr-brian-hooper

Donna Andersen, founder of Lovefraud, was my guest to talk about Narcissism and Sociopathy. Here's a link to her show.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bonnielkaye/2017/10/09/bonnie-kayes-straight-wives-talk-show-with-expert-donna-andersen

If you are wondering how to find evidence for your divorce case or for peace of mind, listen to Mike Garrotutte, a private investigator with wonderful tips.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bonnielkaye/2017/10/02/bonnie-kayes-straight-wives-talk-show-with-guest-mike-garrotutte-dectective

I will be posting upcoming shows on my blog at www.gayhusbands.com. Feel free to check there for programming.

Have a wonderful month, and I will be announcing our next Healing Weekend shortly. Let me know in advance in you are interested in attending this spring.

Love, Bonnie ♥

STRAIGHT TALK NEWSLETTER - SEPTEMBER 2017

BONNIE KAYE'S STRAIGHT TALK

SEPTEMBER 2017     Volume 18, Issue 186

Bonnie’s Mantra:

LIFE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE THIS COMPLICATED. PERIOD.

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

STRAIGHT WIVES TALK SHOW CONTINUING IN OCTOBER!!

The Straight Wives Talk Show will start its new season in  October. Some of our best experts will be returning, and we will be having some new guests including straight wives who will share their stories with you. Stay tuned for some amazing programming!

GAY HUSBAND RECOVERY

A topic of discussion I have with many women is about how do you work through Gay Husband Recovery, and why does it take so long? I hope my words below will explain this to you.

One problem that we all face is the pressure from family members and friends and their well meaning slogan to “get over it” when it comes to “recovery” from our marriages. Our loved ones, no matter how well meaning, can’t understand why we are having such trouble doing this. Their intentions are good. They want us to get past the nightmare and move on to a happier place.  They see straight marriages ending in divorce all of the time, and those women seem to manage to start over again and find new relationships more easily than we do.

I do get upset when I hear these stories of additional pressure from my women who are trying their best to move through the stages of anger and hurt but not at the pace that others expect of them. The end of a marriage is like the death of a loved one, and we all have to pass through the various stages of grieving before we can come to the point of acceptance. And acceptance for us is twofold—accepting the marriage is over and accepting the homosexuality of our husbands which will now be part of OUR lives forever, especially when children are involved..

What other people don’t realize is that there are numerous issues that we have to deal with after a marriage to a gay husband ends. Some of these issues are unique and unlike those that women with straight husbands face. For instance, we have to figure out what to say to the children and when to tell them; we also have to decide what to tell family, friends, and co-workers. We live in a world where many people still don’t understand about a "gay husband" married to a woman and fear the ridicule we will face from this ignorance. Even in this day and age, people say, “What did you do to make him gay? After all, he wasn’t gay when he married you.”  Yes, ignorance abounds.

We have to rebuild our own self-esteem, which has been sorely damaged through these marriages by not only feeling the failure of a marriage, but also wondering how much of a lie we were living. We have to rebuild our sense of trust within our own decision-making processes knowing that we walked blindly into a situation where we were so misled and blindsided.

Most of us have lost or never had the feeling of what real intimacy means in a relationship. We have difficulty trusting men again and trusting our own ability not to walk into this situation one more time. And this is a genuine fear that many women express—“It happened to me once. How do I know the next man I get involved with won’t be gay?” After all, why couldn’t we tell the first time around? This is confirmed by the ignorance of others who insist that we “must have known but married him anyway because we thought we could change him.”

There are other complications as well. There are those women who still feel some sense of responsibility for their husbands’ homosexuality. They are convinced that they played some part in their husbands turning to men. That’s because some gay husbands are cruel enough to say that to their wives rather than take the responsibility for the truth. 

         

          We have to deal with our own feelings of homophobia. Even if we were accepting of homosexuality in most cases, it took a whole new meaning when it entered our marriages and destroyed our futures with our husbands. We have to deal with our own feelings about our ex-husbands bringing lovers into the lives of our children and how that will affect our children emotionally. We have to fear how other people will treat our children if they find out their father is gay. And of course, we now have to consider the possibility that our children will be gay because this is a new reality.

          Certainly straight marriages that end go through emotional upset and turmoil. We have to go through those same problems including single parenthood, financial problems, selling the home, going to work, and legal tangles. But in addition, we are forced to deal with all the additional issues stated above. This is a double whammy that just doesn’t end when a marriage ends.

          What saddens me are the dozens of letters I receive each week from women who just can’t work their way through the maze of emotional complications that they are left with not only during the marriage, but also after the marriage. This is a process that takes time. But without going through a number of these steps, it will take much longer or just leave wounds that will not heal. I've adapted these ideas from other 12-step recovery groups, and I hope you will find them helpful.

         

THE TWELVE STEPS TO GAY HUSBAND RECOVERY (GHR)

1. You admit that your husband is gay, and you are powerless to change his homosexuality. You accept that you had no responsibility in “turning” your husband gay, and he has no choice in being gay.  You also accept that your marriage has become unmanageable living with homosexuality.

a. The first step in working towards recovery is to admit those words that are so difficult and painful to say—“My husband is gay.” You have to accept this as the beginning premise and not look to find excuses or lull yourself into a false state of security by saying the word “Bisexual” because he has you for a wife. 

b. Once you can accept that your husband is gay, you must understand that you are in no way responsible for this. Your husband was gay long before you met him even if he couldn’t understand this himself. You in no way brought this out in him or caused him to change into this. You had no influence one way or the other on when his need to act on his homosexuality would surface. There is nothing you could have done to stop this from occurring.

c. You realize that your marriage is in turmoil because your husband is gay, not because you failed as a wife. Even if there are numerous other problems in the marriage, they are all tied in to this basic fact.

2. You believe that once you turn for help for yourself, you can restore yourself to sanity.

You cannot change your husband, and no matter what you do to improve your beauty, intellect, or personality. it will not make a difference. You must turn to others who can lend help and support to understand how and why this happens so you can start thinking clearly and rationally. You need to rebuild your self-esteem and sense of self-worth so that you can start thinking ahead to the real solutions that are necessary. You do not need to waste time or money going for family counseling to try to make this marriage work. When you are living with a gay man, the bottom line is he will always have the physical and/or emotional need to be with men. This is not something that can change if you both go for marriage counseling together. Instead, go for counseling yourself to work on regaining the emotional strength you need to cope with in the marriage until you are able to move out of it. 

3. Make a decision to take back your own life, which has somehow been misplaced through your marriage.

Throughout your marriage, you have focused on your husband instead of yourself. This is for the most part because you have spent your time trying to please him because he doesn’t seem fulfilled. You personalize this as your failure and so you try that much harder to be a “better wife.”  It is not surprising if you have lost sight of who you are or who you were before the marriage. You have somehow misplaced your own life and aspirations while trying to make yourself into someone whom your husband can love better. It is now time to start focusing on you and what your goals were prior to the time of the marriage. You did have a life before your husband as well as dreams and hopes. It’s time to revisit that period of your life.

If you married at a young age, you may have never had time to work on personal goals. View this as an opportunity to sit down and figure out the life you want. Mentally visualize yourself in a place where there is happiness based upon trust and truth rather than chaos, confusion, and lies.

4. Make a search of personal inventory to see what it is within yourself that has allowed you to lose sight of your own identity and who you were before your marriage.

It is common to get off track while trying desperately to make your marriage succeed. Now it is time to do some personal inventory to see why you have allowed yourself to regress to the low emotional state you are in. What is it within you that keeps you hanging on to this marriage long after it should be over? What insecurities and fears are you facing? Living with a gay husband brings about a number of common emotional problems such as lowering or loss of personal self-esteem, loss of sexual self-esteem, and feelings of hopelessness.

You need to focus on a major issue that will haunt you for the rest of your life unless you deal with it upfront—namely, TRUST. You have lost the ability to trust your own judgment. You must learn to trust your own instincts again and not allow a mistake beyond your control to jade your ability to make future decisions. You must first trust that you were a worthy woman prior to your marriage. You were able to think rationally before you met your husband. But after living in an “Alice in Wonderland” existence over a period of time, you start thinking with upside down thoughts, which develop through living a lie. Once the lie is exposed, it is time for you to start examining how that lie impacted on your important decisions or fear of making important decisions.

When going through the step of taking personal inventory, start making a list of all of the qualities you have. Start recognizing your wonderful strengths and traits that have somehow been minimized in the shadow of your husband’s problem. Start thinking about how those positives would have been accentuated if you had been married to someone who could have been a real husband to you by being encouraging and supportive rather than finding fault with you because he was frustrated living his lie.  

5. Admit to yourself and to others what the real problem is in the marriage—your husband’s homosexuality—and not look to place the blame on yourself.

Until you can internally believe that your husband’s homosexuality is not your fault, it is impossible to move on. You need to understand and accept that you were not “stupid” walking into this marriage or even naïve. You were uninformed, inexperienced, and lacking the knowledge of understanding homosexuality. You thought that gay men were attracted to the same sex relationships, not relationships with straight women. Even if you knew about past gay encounters in your husband’s life or suspected there had been homosexual contact, you believed in all good faith that your husband had “chosen” to change and you accepted his explanation when he told you this. Remember, the overwhelming majority of women who marry gay men had no idea whatsoever about this prior to the marriage. Those who had any suspicion or knowledge didn’t understand that homosexuality was not just an adolescent encounter or fantasy. For the handful or women who went knowingly into the marriage with a gay husband, you believed in your heart that if your husband loved you enough, he would change. Stop punishing yourself by thinking that you didn’t see the “unobvious” signs.

6. You are ready to develop a mental plan for a positive future and believe that life can become rewarding and fulfilling after your marriage.

In order to regain hope, you must believe that there can be life after your marriage. Some women don’t believe that this is possible and view their marriages as a life sentence. This is not the case. Even if you can’t leave your marriage at this moment, you can start to plan for a positive future regardless of your age. Stop putting up negative roadblocks such as, “I can’t financially support myself,” or “I’m out of shape,” or “I’m too old to start over.” These are self-defeating messages which allow you to stay “stuck” where you are. All of the money in the world can’t buy your happiness. It doesn’t make sense to stay emotionally dead just to keep a roof over your head. You can put your life back together in time as long as you start believing in yourself. It may take you a year or five years, but the bottom line is that if you want it, it will happen. 

Part of developing a mental plan is realizing that you may be taking anti-depressants because you are depressed living in your marriage. So many women are coping in their marriages or after their marriages this way. If your depression is due to the marriage, antidepressants will numb the pain as well as other feelings. However, medication can also stop you from dealing with your feelings which is essential if you expect to move ahead to a produce and happier life. If you are taking medication as a result of your depression from your marriage, realize that you need to put limits on how long you can suppress your emotions. Medication doesn’t change the situation that your husband is gay, nor will it make you any happier living in a marriage with a gay man.

7. You are willing to accept you have your own insecurities and low self-esteem issues and need to start working to change them.

Women in these marriages are often plagued with insecurities and low self-esteem. This is because marriage to a gay man is an unnatural state of marriage to live in. Staying in a marriage void of passion and intimacy is also an unnatural state of marriage no matter how nice a partner is. If you wanted only friendship, you didn’t need to get married. You wanted a husband and a complete marriage that includes physical intimacy. Too many women end up “redefining” marriage justifying that there’s all different kinds of relationships. This thinking may make you feel better temporarily, but certainly not in the long run.

Living daily knowing that your husband desires a man over you strips away your sense of self-esteem one layer at a time. It is a slow process that erodes your mental state over time, not all at once. When you don’t know that the problem is homosexuality, the feelings of personal rejection are even worse because you believe that you are doing something wrong in the marriage. Gay husbands who won’t be honest will often say that “you” have the problem, not them. They claim they are happy because they can’t come to terms with their truth and would rather continue living their lie. They make you start believing that you are the cause of your own unhappiness because they claim to be “happy.” This is why so many women invest so much time and money going for therapy to help a problem that they don’t even know exists.

I know women who have gone to such extremes as developing eating disorders, investing in surgery including breasts implants and liposuction, and even going to sex therapists in hopes of getting their gay husbands to desire them more. They don’t understand how their husbands loved them enough to marry them but now won’t continue to desire them in the bedroom. They don’t understand that no matter what they do, they can’t make themselves attractive or more desirable to their gay husbands because they are not men.   

8. Make a list of all aspects of your life that have been altered through the marriage and look for ways to mend them.

         

          I know that having a gay husband alters the lives of most women. When you live in a state of constantly trying to please your husband, you lose sight of what you can achieve for yourself. Some women have never received the emotional support or encouragement from their husbands and have given up on their own aspirations. In our desperation to keep the “status quo,” we have put a freeze on the idea of education, employment, and social contacts.

         

          It is important to start focusing on goals that will help you build or rebuild yourself. It is time to start mapping out a game plan on how you can achieve these goals whether you are with your husband or no longer with him. When I lived with my gay husband, I became a prisoner of my own insecurities like many of you have. We are afraid to walk away from the house for fear of what will be going on in our absence. This leaves us in a state of paralyzation--afraid to make a move in any direction--including a positive direction. We stop socializing with friends and family; we put any plans of improving ourselves through education or employment on hold; we literally become locked up in our own fears of what will happen if we walk out the door.

I wasted so much valuable time not doing for me because I was afraid of what he would be doing for him if I left the home. You must accept the fact that you cannot be a 24-hour guard against his homosexuality. You cannot stop him from acting on his needs just by surrounding him every moment. He will find ways to do what he needs to do regardless of how hard you try to stop in. And in doing so, you are only stopping yourself from moving ahead. Start focusing on you because otherwise you will be wasting years of your life that could be fulfilling and productive. 

9. Make contact with other people however you have to in order to feel connected rather than isolated and alone. You must not be afraid to seek out help wherever you can even it is against the wishes of your gay husband.

You cannot put your husband’s need for privacy and discretion ahead of your need for support and help. You must understand why you keep putting his need for secrecy before your need for sanity.

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          It is amazing how ashamed so many women feel when it comes to discussing this subject with family members, friends, co-workers, or medical professionals. This is a subject that has been kept quiet for so long because we are afraid of how others will judge us. Our greatest fear is that people will believe that we are the cause of our husband’s homosexuality. On some level we still internalize that this is our fault and haven’t accepted that our husbands were gay when we married them. Some women who finally come to terms with this fact continue to blame themselves and feel that these were suppressed feelings in their husbands that they have somehow triggered by not being good enough wives.

When we seal ourselves off from others and deal with these thoughts alone, we feel an even greater sense of isolation and failure. In order to recover, you must be willing to share this news with others and seek support. Once you can say the words, “my husband is gay” to someone, it is a major step forward in finding personal independence.   

10. You are willing to confront your gay husband on any issues and not be afraid that you are going to do more damage than has already been done.

         

          When you suspect that your husband is gay, or in some cases, have proof that your husband is involved with gay activities such as porno, websites, emails, etc., it is important for you to confront him with your suspicions and findings. This is not an easy thing to do, but carrying this burden yourself is self-defeating. You need to let him know as soon as possible why you suspect there is a problem. If he denies this, or tells you that you are crazy, don’t give up. In some cases he will be very defensive and angry, but that should not be the basis of your shutting down. In some cases he may be in denial, but you must continue to tell him about your feelings in hopes that he will do the right thing.

You need to accept that this is a problem that will not go away no matter how hard both of you wish it away. In many cases, your husband fears telling you the truth because he is scared that you will have the confirmation you need to walk away or use it as ammunition against him. His fears will often keep him from admitting the truth to you. Don’t “give up,”  “shut-up,” or “shut-down.”

11. Seek answers through support and professional help so that you can ease your knowledge that will give you the courage to change your life. You will explore all avenues that will result in your personal independence.

           

            Finding out that your husband is gay is one of the worst experiences a woman can have. There is no way that you can expect to recover from this problem alone. You need help and support to help guide you through the difficult days ahead. There is no shame in going for help. In fact, now that you know that there is help and support, the shame is in not going for it. Find help that works for you in a meaningful way. Just like all therapists are not for you, not all groups claiming to be “support” groups are the right ones for you. If you are not comfortable with the support being given by various organizations, keep searching until you find the right one. In time, you will find help that is of the comfort level you need. If you need a good therapist who understands this situation, contact me for help to direct you.

12. Having a new insight and education as a result of these steps, you try to carry this message to others who need to understand what your situation is about. You also try to extend yourself to others crying out for help who are lost and confused.

         

          An excellent way to work through the healing process is to support others who are going through the same problem that you are. First, it gives comfort to others who are just starting on this path. Next, it helps you to know that there are others out there in the same situation so you don’t feel isolated or alone. This will help you in your personal journey to Gay Spouse Recovery. As a number of you tell me, "PAY FORWARD!"

         

          The important thing is to keep moving ahead. Realize that this is a process that takes time and doesn’t happen overnight. In time and with help, you will reach your goal of rebuilding your self-esteem and self-worth. Then it is time to step away from this period of your life and move on to a new part where positive self-discovery will bring you the happiness you seek and deserve.

   

Remember, as with any recovery program, you have to work these steps daily. You have to make them part of your internal belief system and look at them regularly to reassure yourself that you are on track. Any time you feel yourself slipping back instead of forward, read them over again. You can and will recover! 

Love, Bonnie ♥