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 ludicrous. 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 of men.
My ex-husband, Michael, 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 visits my on-line support sessions on Thursday evenings 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. .
LIVING LA VIDA LIMBO
Let’s discuss married gay men who won’t leave the marriage or for that matter, won’t leave the closet. This is a subject that can never be talked about enough because it seems to be a stumbling block for so many of us who can’t get our husbands to “come clean” with the truth about their homosexuality. I receive so many letters each month from women who are sure about their husbands but fear confronting them. But I also get letters from women who do confront their husbands with evidence in hand and get denials with distorted truths giving excuses such as “Those pictures belonged to a co-worker,” or “I have no clue how those websites got on our computer.”
For those women whose husbands eventually tell you the truth, count yourselves as lucky even though you may not feel that way at the time. No doubt hearing the word gay is devastating, but not hearing it is even worse. This month alone, I have received 32 letters from women who asked me for advice because their husbands or ex-husbands will not admit to their homosexuality. These women know the truth. They have stumbled on it one way or another. It has smacked them in the face through hidden websites, email, pornography, letters, hotel receipts, phone bills, etc. And yet, their husbands just keep lying or denying. They are not ready to be honest--and may never be ready. Some men will never be ready to accept their homosexuality because it is too painful or embarrassing.
These are the men whom I call the “Limbo Men.” Their whole lives are lived in limbo. They are emotionally straight, but physically gay. They never feel totally comfortable in either world, but they are much more comfortable “passing” in the straight world where they are accepted as part of mainstream society.
All married gay men go through “limbo” for a period of time. In other words. they are stuck in between both worlds hoping that by wanting the straight world badly enough they will be able to “cross over” into it. They keep thinking that if they play the role long enough, they will become transformed into the part, not just play the part as an actor. But the Limbo Men I place in this category are different from other gay men who eventually come to terms with themselves. They are even different than the gay men who are staying in their marriages but who acknowledge they are gay, at least on some level.
The real Limbo Men have no sense of remorse for what they are doing to their wives. In fact, they often feel as if they are the victims and strike back at their wives in an emotional or physically abusive manner. They blame their wives for their unhappiness and never have a clue about the damage they are doing to these women whom they promised to love, cherish, and respect. They place the blame of their unhappiness on their wives, when in fact, there is nothing that their wives could possibly do to make them feel happy or fulfilled. Their wives are women, and they are gay men.
These are the men who will never leave their marriages. They will stay there until the day they die, leading a painful existence and sharing that pain with their wives. More specifically, pouring that pain upon their wives. We all know that misery loves company, and these men are happy to make you as miserable as they are.
So often, these “Limbo Men” husbands luck out. They have wives who are much kinder and more understanding than average. These are the women who will keep trying every little trick in the book thinking someday they will get their husbands hooked. The women live an accepted existence, looking for the crumbs in the marriage while trying to turn those crumbs into a cake. It is truly a tragedy and waste of human life..
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Tuesday, May 1, 2001
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