BRINGING OUR FEELINGS OF BETRAYAL TO THE FOREFRONT
A number of our women are excited over the
article Great Betrayals in the New York Times on October 5, 2013,
written by Dr. Anna Fels, a psychiatrist and faculty member at Weill Cornell
Medical School. The article articulates what so many of us experience
throughout our marriages and in the aftermath of healing from them.
I would like to quote Dr.
Fels on some of her key points that you can relate to coming from a
straight/gay marriage. At the end of my comments, I have the link to the entire
article for you to read. Dr. Fels starts the article by discussing people who
have been betrayed for long periods of time and then discover the betrayal. The
article discusses a married couple where the wife learns after 25 years that
she is in total debt due to her husband's secrets. She then talks about a woman who found out
her father came from a black family but passed for white throughout his life. She
continues:
Discoveries of such secrets typically bring
on tumultuous crises. Ironically, however, in my clinical experience, it is
often the person who lied or cheated who has the easier time. People who
transgressed might feel self-loathing, regret or shame. But they have the
possibility of change going forward, and their sense of their own narrative,
problematic though it may be, is intact. They knew all along what they were
doing and made their own decisions. They may have made bad choices, but at
least those were their own and under their control. Now they can make new,
better choices.
And to an astonishing extent, the social
blowback for such miscreants is often transient and relatively minor. They can
change! Our culture, in fact, wholeheartedly supports such “new beginnings” —
even celebrates them. It has a soft spot for the prodigal sons and daughters
who set about repairing their ways, for tales of people starting over: reformed
addicts, unfaithful spouses who rededicate themselves to family, convicted
felons who find redemption in religion. Talk shows thrive on these tales.
Perhaps it’s part of our powerful national belief in self-help and
self-creation. It’s never too late to start anew.
But for the people who have been lied to,
something more pervasive and disturbing occurs. They castigate themselves about
why they didn’t suspect what was going on. The emotions they feel, while seemingly
more benign than those of the perpetrator, may in the long run be more
corrosive: humiliation, embarrassment, a sense of having been naïve or blind,
alienation from those who knew the truth all along and, worst of all,
bitterness.
Insidiously,
the new information disrupts their sense of their own past, undermining the
veracity of their personal history. Like a computer file corrupted by a virus,
their life narrative has been invaded. Memories are now suspect: what was
really going on that day? Why did the spouse suddenly buy a second phone “for
work” several years ago? Did a friend know the truth even as they vacationed
together? Compulsively going over past events in light of their recently
acquired (and unwelcome) knowledge, such patients struggle to integrate the new
version of reality. For many people, this discrediting of their experience is
hard to accept. It’s as if they are constantly reviewing their past lives on a
dual screen: the life they experienced on one side and the new “true” version on
the other. But putting a story together about this kind of disjunctive past can
be arduous.
And the social response to people who have
suffered such life-transforming disclosures, well meaning as it is intended to
be, is often less than supportive. Our culture may embrace the redeemed sinner,
but the person victimized — not so much. Lack of control over their destiny
makes people queasy. Friends often unconsciously blame the victim, asking
whether the betrayed person really “knew at some level” what was going on and
had just been “in denial” about it. But the betrayed are usually as savvy as
the rest of us. When one woman I know asked her husband, a closet alcoholic who
drank secretly late at night, how he could have hidden his addiction for so
long, he replied, “It took a lot of work.”
FREQUENTLY, a year or even less after the
discovery of a longstanding lie, the victims are counseled to move on, to put
it all behind them and stay focused on the future. But it’s not so easy to move
on when there’s no solid narrative ground to stand on. Perhaps this is why many
patients conclude in their therapy that it’s not the actions or betrayal that
they most resent, it’s the lies.
As
a psychiatrist, I can tell you that it’s often a painstaking process to
reconstruct a coherent personal history piece by piece — one that acknowledges
the deception while reaffirming the actual life experience. Yet it’s work that
needs to be done. Moving forward in life is hard or even, at times, impossible,
without owning a narrative of one’s past. Isak Dinesen has been quoted as
saying “all sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story or tell a story
about them.” Perhaps robbing someone of his or her story is the greatest
betrayal of all.
I think this article has
been the most articulate in pinpointing why people don't view victims as
"sympathetic." Dr. Fels
states:
"Our culture may embrace the redeemed
sinner, but the person victimized — not so much. Lack of control over their
destiny makes people queasy. Friends often unconsciously blame the victim,
asking whether the betrayed person really “knew at some level” what was going
on and had just been “in denial” about it."
We often discuss how gay
husbands/mates who come out are viewed as "heroes." Case in point:
Jason Collins. Collins was the first NBA player to come out publically in April
of this year. A "side issue" was he was living with Carolyn Moos, a
female basketball player, for eight years. Collins was viewed by the public as
being a "hero" because he was the first major league basketball
player to admit his homosexuality. Yes, the "redeemable" are embraced
for sure. But in our cases, the more that gay men come out of the closet, the
deeper our women go into it because as the article states, "friends
unconsciously blame the victim asking whether the betrayed person really
"knew at some level" what was going on and had just been "in
denial" about it. Oh, so true for so many of our straight wives.
But I'll go one step
further with our thinking. Not only do we have to contend with the questioning
of "knowing on some level," but we also have to deal with those who
"blame" us for this transitioning from "straight to gay" on
some level. You see, people don't get it. No matter how many times you hammer
it into their heads, they don't get it. They see what they want to see. Your
husband married you. Gay men don't marry straight women. You husband fathered
your children. Gay men don't have sex with women or produce children. Your
husband lived with you for years. Gay men don't want to live with a woman. What
does this mean? He wasn't gay when he married you--he became gay "because
of you."
Does that sound ridiculous?
Maybe it does to us who have to prove ourselves over and over again. Unlike the
other victims of sociopaths or psychopaths where people state, "You must
have known on some level," we don't even get that. We are on a lower rung
than the other women standing on the chain of fools. We were so bad as wives
that we were able to take men who were sexually heterosexual and turn them into
homosexuals.
I'll repeat this story that some of you lived
through with me in 2006. When Straight Wives: Shattered Lives Volume 1 was
released in September of that year, a group of 12 of us went in a van to New
York City from Philadelphia to launch it at a book signing. We stopped on the
New Jersey Turnpike for a rest stop. As we kept getting out of the van, a man
approached us in a friendly manner. He asked us if we were going to a show in
NY--we said "no." He then asked us if we were part of a church
group--we said "no." He then asked us what kind of group we were part
of--and one of our members blurted out, "We are women who have gay
husbands." The man started chuckling and said to us, "Were your
husbands gay when you married them?" Of course we felt that need to
"defend ourselves" by explaining we didn't know they were gay when we
married them. Lesson reinforced: people
don't believe you. He was still chuckling as he walked away shaking his head.
This prompted the title of my next book - "How I Made My Husband Gay: Myths
About Straight Wives" with the picture of a magic wand on the
cover. If you haven't read that book, you should if you are having doubts about
your husband's homosexuality. It is all about the red flags our women missed
and how they caught their husbands. There are lots of good lessons and very
interesting stories you can learn from. You can find it on my website at
www.Bonniekayebooks.com.
Sorry for sidetracking.
Back to Jason Collins. At the time of
his national press announcement, his former girlfriend, Carolyn Moos, stated
that she was "hurt and embarrassed." Okay, hurt I understand. But
embarrassed? Why was she embarrassed? She didn't do anything wrong, did she?
Oh, that's right--I forgot. When you have a gay husband/mate, YOU ARE
embarrassed. We get it. We understand how people's perceptions of us are. We
live with the gazes of head shaking like, "Sure you didn't know." We
know the looks given to us that translate into, "You must have wanted
someone gay," or "You have low self-esteem so of course you would
settle for anyone--even a gay man," or "Everyone else knows he gay--so
you mean to tell us you don't know?" Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr................
By the way, Moos was
"hurt and embarrassed," when she first learned the news, but far more
forgiving than many of us are. She stated, "But this does alleviate some of the pain. … I'm so happy for him. He
deserves to live the life he wants." As the Beatles sing, "Oblade,
Obladah, Life goes on, bra..." I guess when you're young, not entrenched in
divorce proceedings and without children to complicate your situation, you can
be generous in your forgiveness. At least in public. Sadly, for most of us, it
doesn't go on quite that easily or without lots of residual pain.
The difference between straight wives married to gay men versus other women
who have been betrayed by straight men is this. Living with a liar under any
circumstances is disillusioning. But when you are married to a gay man, in
almost all cases the damage is two-fold. We have the same trauma as women who
are lied to by straight husbands, but those men are able to function as
"straight husbands" and compartmentalize their secrets. However, when
you live with a gay man, it's not a matter of a "secret" in his
life--it's a life that is kept secret. It's a life that causes your husband's
pain and frustration to be focused on you and place the blame in your lap.
Even if your husband hasn't cheated on you, he thinks you are cheating him
out of what he wants in life because you are expecting him to do things that
are not in his nature--like have sex with you. You become the reflection of his
realization every time he looks at you.
He blames society for forcing him into this situation--and guess what?
You are part of that society and perhaps the biggest offender because you are
the jail keeper holding the key to his happiness--and you're not giving it up.
If this doesn't have any true logic in your mind--well, join the rest of us.
No, it doesn't make sense, but that is what happens when you are living with a
man who is a stranger in a world that is strange to him. Remember what I teach
you--gay
men don't think straight.
One more comment about this article. It
states at that end:
Isak
Dinesen has been quoted as saying “all sorrows can be borne if you put them in
a story or tell a story about them.” Perhaps robbing someone of his or her
story is the greatest betrayal of all.
This is so true. For those
of you who are being "shut up" by your husbands/ex-husbands who make
you promise to keep this secret to yourself, they are stopping you from telling
your story. I'm not saying that you have to shout it from the rooftop, but you
are allowed to tell people who will give you support. Too many women live in
the secrecy of their husbands' demands which state, "You better not tell
anyone--or else." The "or else's" range from running away with
your children to just running away and taking everything." If you allow
him to do this, you are robbed of your voice. And as Dinesen concludes,
"Perhaps robbing someone of her story is the greatest betrayal of
all."
This article can be viewed in full at this
link:
After you read the article, read the
responses that people sent in. Some of the readers' comments address having a
gay husband.
AND ON KEEPING SECRETS FROM THE
CHILDREN....
As most of you are aware, this year I started
a support group for adult children of gay fathers. I thank my friend Barbara in
California for pursuing this with me in hopes that her adult son Jason would
receive some support. Little did I know while organizing this group how much
valuable information I would learn thanks to Jason and the other young adults
who have opened my eyes to the pain that they suffer in these situations.
I used to think that the children didn't have
to know about their gay fathers in all circumstances. I would agree with the
parents who found no need to disillusion their children's worlds at various
ages--especially during adolescence. Why dump this news on them? Why make them
question their own sexuality? Why create barriers between them and their
friends who may not want to be bothered with them when they learn the news?
Also, 28 years ago, when there was so much homophobia due to AIDS, why have
your kids put into a worse situation in school where they could be isolated by
social pressure? If you think I'm overstating this--I'm not. It happened to me
with my own son when he was in nursery school and someone saw me on a
television show. At that point, AIDS hysteria was so strong that if someone was
public about being gay, they were treated as a leper. People were scared as
this deadly epidemic was at its height and we knew so little about it. It was
so sad that people who were infected with AIDS could not even get proper
medical treatment in the hospital because some of the medical personnel feared
catching it thinking it was airborne. Anyway, the woman gathered some of the
other parents and petitioned the school to throw my son out or they would
remove their children. They said if my son had a gay father, he could be
spreading AIDS to their children. This was in 1986. You can only imagine my
horror. It was strong enough to have me walk right into a bigger closet than my
husband had ever lived in. I was terrified for my children.
But those days have passed. AIDS is now a
controllable disease with the proper medication. We know how you do catch
it--and more importantly, how you don't catch it. Also, homosexuality has come
a long, long way over the past 25 years. Does that mean we are finished with
homophobia? Of course not. It will always be with us just like discrimination
of minorities and hatred of Jews. This is the way life is. But it is far better,
and with the acceptance of gay marriage in a number of states, you can see that
people's minds are changing in many places.
It is now time for us to be honest with our
children about their fathers. It doesn't matter how old they are. After you
have time to absorb the news, it is time to tell them. And when you do tell
them, it MUST BE in a positive way regardless of how much hurt you are feeling.
And regardless of how angry you feel, the news has to be without anger. It has
to be without confusing your gay husband with homosexuality. Here are some of
the reasons why.
First, children who grow up in a home where
there is a lack of affection always wonder what a relationship should really be
like. It affects them in their own relationships in future years because they
are modeling themselves after YOUR marriage. That means that they will be
willing to settle as we did for less than they deserve.
Next, regardless of how much you would like
to think that you were hiding your feelings, you weren't. Children grow up
knowing that you are unhappy and something is wrong in the house. They have the
same sense that something is wrong that you have. Just like you don't know what
it is, they don't know what it is either--and they personalize it. What are
they doing wrong? How come their parents aren't happy? A lot of unnecessary
self-blame goes on here.
As much as we don't want to deal with this
reality, some of you will have gay children. Every mother who talks to me says
it won't matter--she will love her child regardless of his or her sexuality.
But if "gay" is a secret equating into "bad," then these
children will struggle with their homosexuality in the same way their fathers
have. Wouldn't it be better for them to understand how this happened and not
learn to hate themselves for something they had no choice in? Do you want them
to repeat the same mistakes that their fathers made and get married to some
unsuspecting woman or man? I hope not.
What are you telling your children about
homosexuality if you have to hide it from them? We give them the message that
it is "bad" because we have to keep it a secret. Isn't it better to
give your children the message that the marriage was an unintentional mistake
because your husband didn't realize he was gay and was trying to fight whatever
feelings he had because that is how people were raised back then and in many
places, even today? Tell them that you both loved each other when you got
married and conceived them out of that love. Let's not drag our own personal
feelings of betrayal into the conversations with the children. They are already
vulnerable and compromised by a marriage that wasn't real for you.
Many of the adult children who have come to
me knew that their fathers were gay before their mothers knew. They live with
the guilt that they weren't there for you to tell you. They were scared of
telling you because they didn't want to break up the marriage. They became the
"Keeper of the Secret" that could rip the family apart. This is guilt
they have to work on getting rid of or it effects their lives and relationships
with others.
Be aware if you keep attacking their father
in front of them, they are going to feel forced
in some cases to side with their father. Even if they see your point of
view, they will jump to the defense of the attacked parent to prove they love
that parent. Your children do not need to be your sounding board. Our job as
mothers is to make them feel secure and reassured that they are loved by both
parents--even if that love isn't equal on both sides.
My ex-husband lacked fathering skills when my
children were growing up. It was fathering under his terms when he felt like
it. He was too pre-occupied with himself and making himself happy. And yet, I
kept those comments and remarks for my family and friends--not for my children.
I knew that they would know the truth when they grew up. While they were young,
I created a better picture for them. Trust me--it was NOT for him--it was for
them. I knew even then that children are
made up of two parents. When you say angry words about their father, that part
of them feels bad. You may feel your child is "Mommy's little girl or
boy," and maybe they are. But they still know who their father is. This is
not about straight and gay. This is about parenting. No child likes to feel
rejected by a parent.
My point is this. Children need to love their
parents--both of them. They also need to feel that their parents love
them--both of them. This is not easy when you are dealing with some men who put
their own needs and happiness ahead of their children's. But if we love our
children, we need to do that for their mental well-being. If you tell your
children about your husband's homosexuality in a positive way, it will go a lot
further for their well being. If you talk to them in anger about it, they will
get a message that part of them is responsible for your unhappiness.
Remember--they are children. They don't have the ability to think as adults do.
I have seen mothers who think they are
protecting their children from the truth end up on the losing end of this
battle. When they find out that you knew but never told them because you were
trying to "protect" them, they will not appreciate it. They will
always wonder what other information you weren't telling the truth about. Just
like you question how much of your marriage was real, they will question how
much of their childhood was real. Look, I'm not making this stuff up. I'm just
repeating what I've learned from your children.
Your children need to know--and they need to
know from you before someone else tells them. Your husband/ex-husband has the
right to tell them with you, but if he doesn't want to tell them the truth,
then you tell them. The old theory of the "right time" or a
"good time" is no longer part of my thinking. This is news that is
never good to tell--but it needs to be told. And it should never be told in
anger no matter how angry you are. You have every right to be angry--but that
should not be passed down to the children. That's why I have support chat three
times a week--so you can vent your anger with other women who are understanding
of your struggle. Your children shouldn't have to be part of that venting.
The article on betrayal has to be applied to
our children as well. They have to grieve and mourn in the same way we do. They
may not feel comfortable discussing it with you because you are their mothers,
and they don't want you to hurt more than they already see you hurting. I
encourage you to send me your children. I will provide them a safe haven where
they can find the support and help they need to move on in their lives like you
need to in your life. Homosexuality is not the kind of secret that needs to be
kept in the closet anymore whether you husband chooses to stay there or not.
You need to have your voice heard, and your children need to hear the truth.
RECENT CI=RADIO BROADCASTS
Some women find my radio show a link to their
sanity, and for that reason, I keep it coming each and every week with my
wonderful friends who are there to give you comfort as well. If you can't
listen live to the shows, you can listen whenever you have the time. Suzette
Hinton is my co-hostess the first Sunday of every month, and Dr. Brian Hooper
is my co-host the last Sunday of every month. In between, I have some dynamic
speakers who help our women with understanding and healing.
This Sunday night, October 20, I am excited
that Mike from Linked Investigations will be joining us. Many of you have
learned so much from him over the past year when you need to learn ways to find
the truth about your husband. You can cut and paste these links into your
browser:
Mike Private Investigator -
October 20
Dr. Brian Hooper - October
13
Suzette Hinton - October 6
Wendy from Texas - September 22
HAVE A WONDERFUL MONTH! LOVE, BONNIE♥
