LIMBO WOMEN November, 2003

LIMBO WOMEN

All of you who have read either my newsletters or most recent book, “Gay Husbands/Straight Wives: A Mutation of Life,” know that I have written about a phrase I coined, “Limbo Men.” Limbo Men are those gay husbands who are caught in between two worlds—neither straight nor gay. They are psychologically straight (at least they think they are) and physically gay. They go through life lying to you, their family, their friends, and most of all, themselves. They don’t have the courage to leave the secure straight world and walk into the world that they belong in. They rather just hang out in straight man’s land passing through and pretending. Grrrrr…….rrrr. (Sound of a loud growl) It makes me angry.

The reason for my being pissed off is simple. Limbo men create a whole new category of straight wives—namely, LIMBO WOMEN. Limbo Women are the wives of Limbo Men who are stuck wasting years of their lives in unsatisfying marriages because they can never quite get the truth out of their husbands. They know that something is wrong. They know that their marriages are lacking the ingredients for success—namely communication, passion, and intimacy. They have loads of little clues that all add up to homosexuality, and yet, because they can’t get a full confession—or even a partial confession—they are trapped.

By the time a wife of a Limbo Man gives a confession, it’s usually a partial, such as:

1. I’m not gay, but I like looking at gay pornography as part of a full pornographic fantasy show.
2. I’m not gay, but when I was younger, I had an uncle who molested me on a few occasions.
3. I’m not gay, but sometimes I call gay sex lines because the way they talk stimulates me sexually.
4. I’m not gay, but when I was younger, before I met you, I had a one-time sexual encounter with a man, but I only let him perform oral sex on me.
5. I’m not gay, but there are times I think that I am bisexual because I look at guys and find them sexually appealing. I would never act on it though.
6. I’m not gay, but sometimes the thought of anal penetration turns me on.
7. I’m not gay, but when I was in college, we would all get stoned/drunk and have big orgies where everyone was having sex with everyone.
8. I’m not gay, but I have a fantasy about both of us having sex with another man.

The sad part is that each one of these partial confessions always starts the same way: I’M NOT GAY, BUT…. And now the wife is more trapped than ever. How can they break up a marriage just on their own perceptions based on partial truths?

I have wives that write to me about the extensive research they do on human sexuality. They are looking for my stamp of endorsement for their discoveries that their husbands aren’t gay, just sexually “different” or “deviant.” It seems if they can get my professional opinion that their situation is not like the thousands of others that I have worked with, they can learn to cope in their marriages and accept that life isn’t always a bowl of cherries. On the other hand, it’s not always a bowl of pits either. It’s actually a bowl of half eaten cherries with the pits still in tact—sometimes, anyway.

These women struggle more than those of us who are given our walking papers or as I like to call it, “freedom.” Those of us riding the freedom trail may be hurting for a while, but eventually we can lick our wounds and start life over. We don’t have the shackles of homosexuality tying us to a husband who just won’t be honest with us or in many cases, himself.

Limbo Women have the lowest self-esteem of all of us because they do personalize that the lack of love that their husbands can show them sexually is because of their failings. After they’ve exhausted every trick known to womankind without any success or movement, they admit defeat. Nothing they do makes it change. No diet, no breast implant, no sexy clothes, no new hair style, no new approaches to sexual satisfaction is going to move their husbands into the straight zone. Eventually, they admit defeat, but still don’t understand why everything they try is not working on anything in their relationship.

Some of these wives cope by developing their own “on-the-sides” personal lives. They meet some straight man on the Internet who can boost their self-esteem by telling them all the things their husbands should be saying but don’t say. Sometimes these Internet affairs are lifesavers when women start giving up hope on themselves. Some of these wives cope by finding real-life affairs, going outside the boundaries of their morals, religious beliefs, and vows, making them feel better on one end, but worse on the other. And still other women cope by popping pills that numb their minds and lower their libido just so they can keep living in the state of limbo.

And so life just keeps moving along, day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month, and year-by-year. Limbo Women attend family holidays, friend events like birthdays and anniversaries, and office Christmas parties of their Limbo Husbands. They stand like a trophy next to a man who needs a wife to show off to prove to the world that “I AM NOT GAY. HERE IS MY PROOF.” The Limbo Wife allays the suspicions that everyone else has about the Limbo Man. It confuses the public at large who thinks it is able to identify people of a different sexual orientation because gay men don’t get married? Right? Or even if they do, they don’t stay married, right? Wrong.

Limbo Men stay married as long as their wives stay in limbo with them. Limbo Women are willing to fine tune their brains not to think about what they don’t have. Rather, they try to focus on what the do have:

1. I have a nice home.
2. I have beautiful children.
3. I have friendly neighbors.
4. I have good in-laws who don’t find too much fault with me (namely because you’re covering up the family secret for them.)
5. I have a companion when I go on vacations.
6. I have a good friend.
7. I have a good friendship.
8. I have a husband who won’t leave.

That’s right, Limbo Woman, he won’t leave. He’s going to be by your side forever and ever because a Limbo Man doesn’t leave. If he leaves, that means he might be dealing with whom he really is and what he does on the side might become front and center. This would upset the balance in his life and throw him out of the sphere of being emotionally straight. And that’s a scary world that he just doesn’t want to have to face. Life as a Limbo Man is too easy for him. It’s also safe and secure.

Want to know something funny? Limbo Men think that their Limbo Wives know the truth—at least on some level. They think that all of the little clues that they have been confronted on prove that you know the truth somewhere in their Limbo Minds. And believe it or not, they feel that for this reason, you accept who they are. You can accept their little dalliances and dibs into that foreign world that neither of you really want to talk about. They think that your avoidance of the subject after a while is a form of acceptance. They don’t see you running anywhere, and they also see you accepting that marriage can be built on friendship. You’ve given them the biggest gift of all—the end of sexual pressure. You’ve learned how to live with them in Sexual Limbo—or abstinence. Your Limbo Libido has gone off into the distance—either with someone else or out the door or body. Whatever. He breathes a big sigh of relief. You are now the perfect wife.

Of course, you’re not really the perfect wife. He still finds fault with you because you are a woman. And he is a gay man in disguise. It’s never quite the right chemistry. He’s never really happy living in between two worlds. He’s comfortable, but never really happy. And he’ll find ways to blame you for his unhappiness. It will be little things that make you feel stupid. After all, he thinks you’re stupid. He thinks you know he’s gay and you’re willing to live with it. How smart could you be?

And so the years will pass. Your best years will pass in front of your eyes. Yes, the best years—those years where you could have been living a life without deceit, contempt, and sexual rejection. And before you know it, you’ll look around and realize that you can’t get back what you have lost. You’ll never know how far you could have gone in life because you never had a cheering team cheering you on. You will never be inspired to write poems that have love and hope, but rather your poetry talks of sadness and loneliness. I suppose there is a market out there for poetry of the forlorn. Someone may be smart enough to publish a book on “Poetry for the Limbo Woman.” It’s sure to sell a million.

And so, my dear Limbo Women, my heart does go out to you. I feel as if you are walking in the valley of No Zone. Not quite here, not quite there. But the good news is that you can move into another time zone. You can join the freedom trail and look at life as a new adventure, just waiting for you. You can make a decision that you’ve had enough of Limbo Land and want to spend whatever remaining years you have finding yourself and a new sense of enjoyment. You can learn that life can be like a romantic comedy. You can laugh and love again no matter how old you are. Romance is never an age—it’s a state of mind. And even though living with your Limbo man has dulled yours, you can still take your life back and live it the way you want to. You may not win the battle, but you can definitely win the war.

MAILBAG

Dear Bonnie,

Your most recent newsletter rang true to my situation. You may use my letter and first name if you wish.

Looking back, my 30-year relationship seemed to be lacking. I knew something was wrong but was afraid of the truth and my partner was a master at deceit. In the last 6 months, I've learned he's been having sex with men. He says it's only been during the last year but I wonder if that's true. I saw an increase in our sexual activity during the last 4-5 years and became very comfortable and contented and thought the increased frequency meant commitment. Wrong! I'm learning now that it was probably a result of his encounters with men or Internet activity. Even though he says he's bisexual, I believe he prefers men. I don't understand desiring both sexes. I've tried and end up feeling angry and inadequate. Don't let sex fool you. You could just be the "release" as my counselor suggests and this is not a happy fulfilling situation.

Faye

The next letter may help those of you who are still having trouble finding out the computer activity. Spy software can capture all activity going on with your computer from emails to websites.

THIS SITE IS THE BEST!!!!







Bonnie,

Just thought I’d let you know that I caught him! He still denies, but I know. I bought Spectorsoft, a recording program and saw what he was looking at on our computer. He says he was just curious, blah, blah, blah, but I know. Suspicions are confirmedin my eyes. You can mention to your readers that the program, while expensive ($99.00) was well worth it. If it weren’t for it, I still wouldn’t know.I appreciate your support and continue to enjoy your newsletters.While I am still in my marriage and house, I won’t be for long. It’s time to move on…Thanks!
Sandy

Hugs,
Bonnie Kaye

DISTINGUISHING THE TRUTH, Bonnie Kaye’s Straight Talk Newsletter. Jan 2003

DISTINGUISHING THE TRUTH

The word “truth” is always controversial to me. You can have two people watching the same exact event, and yet, when they report it, you receive two very different versions of the actual event. Is one being honest while the other is being dishonest? No, not at all. It’s all a matter of perception, or how people filter the information in their own minds.
Keeping that in mind, I question a gay married man’s perception when it comes to a particular issue. It is not uncommon to hear gay men say that after they leave their marriages, the relationship with their children is estranged because the ex-wife is alienating them by bad mouthing, discouraging, and turning the kids against them.
Although I know that women are angry about losing their marriages to homosexuality, I have rarely met a woman who isn’t more than willing to have her ex-husband be part of the family life. Out of thousands of women I hear from yearly, I have maybe heard one or two women who have stated they don’t want their children around the father because he is gay. They may not be happy about the gay thing, but they would never let that stand in the way of a father-child relationship.
Personally, I think a lot of gay men use this as an excuse for being irresponsible to their families. It’s much easier to blame the wife and children than to accept responsibility for their own actions. And do I think they are making up this story because they are looking to feel better about themselves? Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some men, I give the benefit of the doubt because of what I feel is their distorted perception of the “truth.”
We all have truths, but all truths aren’t the same. I hear many gay husbands say that they had no idea that they were gay when they got married, and I definitely believe that is the case for the majority of gay married men. But then somewhere in the marriage, there were episodes of infidelity while they went out and had gay sex. And yet, they still claim this isn’t “gay” or “cheating.” In their minds, they believe this to be the “truth.”
Some gay men will tell you that their wives were argumentative and difficult to please. But they are telling you this from the point of view of a gay man. When a woman feels that she is unfulfilled and missing out on life, why should she act happy? But how often do these men say, “I can certainly understand why she was unhappy. I didn’t know how to make her happy”? I only occasionally hear that from ex-husbands. It’s more often a list of complaints of where their wives fell short.
These marriages are what I call, “A Mutation of Life.” All perceptions of what is real versus untrue is a mutation. We are always reacting to our husbands based on what they “think they should do as a straight man.” They do their best to play the part, like an actor in a television series. In this case, it’s more like a long running soap opera.
It reminds me of the movie, “Imitation of Life,” which was made in the 1930’s and remade in the early 1960’s. It is one of my all time favorite movies. In this story, two very poor women, one white and one black, both single parents of young girls, meet and become instant friends. The black woman is seeking shelter for her and her daughter. Both women are almost penniless, so the white woman agrees to have her move in as her housekeeper. The white woman becomes a famous actress. The black woman runs her home and helps raise her daughter. As the girls grow into their teenage years, their friendship takes a different direction due to the racial differences. The black woman’s daughter is very light and tries to pass in the white world as a white woman. She leaves home and starts her life as a white woman. Her mother keeps finding her because she loves her so much, even though the daughter begs her to stay away lest her secret be exposed.
The ending of the story always makes me sob no matter how many times I see the movie. The mother dies and the daughter gets there too late. She is crying for her mother, but she didn’t have time to say goodbye and I love you. It’s a great movie classic. Anyway, the young woman who “passes” as white lives in constant fear of being discovered, much like our gay husbands. She can act the part of a white woman, and even believe hard enough that she is a white woman, but her background will always come back to haunt her.
I can’t imagine having to play a role as someone who I’m not for more than a day. I can’t even conceive of living a lie day in and day out for years. But gay husbands do it all the time. And guess what? Since they are living a lie, we are living their lie with them, even though we may have no idea while it is happening.
Does this mean that our marriages are lies? Well, in a big way, I think so. We are reacting in our own lives to the actions of our husbands. They are acting in their own lives based on what their perceptions of being a “straight” husband should be. So when they get annoyed or irritated, we start looking to please by changing who we are and what we want to accommodate their happiness.
This translates into us doing things that we wouldn’t normally do or ways we wouldn’t necessarily want to be if we had a husband who loved us just for who we are instead of resenting who we aren’t. That’s why so many of us feel so betrayed when we learn our husbands are gay. The feeling that hurts so much is that we remolded ourselves to be “better wives” in the hopes that our husbands would love us more. Some of us “tiptoed” through life trying not to step down too hard fearing ridicule and criticism. Some of us gave up our own hopes and wants because we were too busy working at getting our husbands to love us better.
Since our husbands’ perceptions of us will never be true ones, their perception of how we are alienating our children from them is also not usually a real one but rather a distortion or justification in their own minds. I have heard from thousands of women who wish their husbands would take a more active part in the co-parenting of the children after the marriage is over. They long for some free time to breathe and wish their husbands would take the children for a while. They feel overwhelmed by their new responsibilities and lack of time to think. And in so many cases, the financial responsibilities that now are thrown our way choke us. Gay never seems to be the issue—responsibility is.
Too often, I have women write to me that their husbands claim there are “turning the kids against them,” when in fact, they themselves are turning the children against them. Children need to feel that they are just as important to their fathers after they leave as they were before. And when they start getting ignored because their fathers are into some other world that they have no idea about, the resentment starts taking place. The children do not need to hear a discouraging word from their mothers—they are watching the actions of their fathers and reacting all on their own.
When these fathers decide to find the time to be with their children, they expect the children will be happy just to see them. If they haven’t been around or active in the children’s lives, the children can become resentful or alienated without any help from their mothers. Children have their own feelings and perceptions that no one has to influence. I have rarely seen a wonderful father who is active in his children’s lives banned or alienated because he is gay.
Instead of these men having pity parties bemoaning their “angry, bitter wives” who are brainwashing their children, let them spend the time constructively figuring out what they can do to improve their children’s lives and repair the relationship. Being a good father shouldn’t have to be a sexuality issue. It’s a parenting issue. My children would have never resented their father’s sexuality because it was different; what they did resent was being made to feel that they weren’t as important as a hot date when their father broke his promises and commitments. These are the realities that we live, not the distortions.
So, the next time you read about a gay father’s rejection by his children due to his wife, think twice. Chances are his wife was very similar to us in nature. Chances are she wanted her husband to be more involved with the children than less involved. And chances are he screwed up big enough to make it easier to blame his wife rather than take the responsibility.