October 18, 2010
TELLING THE CHILDREN
Every few years, I have an epiphany. You know what I mean—that “Aha” moment when things you were gray about become black and white. In the past six months, this has happened to me in terms of the always present issue of WHAT TO TELL THE CHILDREN.
Okay, I admit I was on the fence for the past 25 years. And believe me when I tell you I struggled with this throughout the time of my own children growing up, as well as your children growing up. I really vacillated because I felt that every situation was so different. It depended on:
1. The age of the children
2. The location of where the family lives
3. The willingness of the father to reveal the information
4. The acceptance of the mother of her husband’s homosexuality
I used to think that if a child was younger or older, the news would be better accepted. I really did “fear” telling children in their adolescent years for fear of them questioning their own sexuality which might further complicate their teenage years.
So now, after listening to so many stories from adult survivor children of straight/gay marriages, I realize that I was wrong—the children need to know as soon as possible. So let’s discuss the two issues here: (1) why do they need to know and (2) how to tell them.
Let’s start with the question “why do they need to know?”
First, the truth may hurt some of you reading this, but it’s better to face the reality than live in the fantasy. Although our husbands may be award-winning actors as they portray their parts as “straight husbands” during your marriage, you, the straight wives, have not developed that same talent of “acting” like you are happy when you know that there is something missing and wrong in your marriage. Most of you are spending hours every week wondering what the problem is and how you can fix it, and when you find nothing is changing no matter how monumental your efforts are, you become depressed. There’s no shame in this, trust me. I was there. It’s really hard to keep laughing while your sense of self and sexual esteem is plummeting downwards daily. When the extent of your intimacy with your husband resorts to being a quick peck on the cheek, it’s hard not to feel that sense of rejection.
It doesn’t take long before you move from a state of “living” into a state of “existing.” Yes, you wake up, do your chores, go to your job, get through the days, take care of the kids and husband, but you’re on auto pilot. In most cases you have no idea what is going wrong in your marriage, but you do know it’s not what marriage was supposed to be like. And even when you suspect the worst—namely the truth—you’re doing your best to believe the lies your husbands are constantly telling you hoping beyond hope that lies will miraculously turn into truths--but they never do.
Stop deluding yourselves by thinking your children don’t know something is wrong. They do. Every child of a straight/gay marriage has written to me telling me that he or she knew something wasn’t right in the home. There was a lack of affection, caring, compassion, and loving. It didn’t mean the dad wasn’t a good dad—it just means that the marriage wasn’t a good marriage. Children know it. They can sense it. And guess what? They sense your unhappiness. They hear your crying. They see you taking “medication” in the form of antidepressants. They sense your struggle, even if they don’t know what the struggle is about.
When you do find out the truth, if you don’t leave the marriage, you are covering up the truth. Like I said, YOU are covering up the truth. By the time you find out, your husband has now let down his defenses and started to get careless. Almost all of these children found evidence of their father’s homosexuality before you did via the Internet, cell phones, or pornographic material in the home. But now you feel backed against the corner to keep HIS secret. Let me tell you as a fact—this kind of secret destroys families.
I can understand the fear that gay men have of their families finding out. I work with many gay men who are going through this process and I do hurt for them. I really do. But I also tell them they need to do the right thing and TELL THE TRUTH. Now I’m telling both our women and gay men you need to tell the truth to your children.
First of all, why are we keeping this a secret? A secret implies something bad. Are we giving the message that homosexuality is bad? By keeping this a secret, we are. Homosexuality is different—it’s not bad. We have to move away from the “secret” mentality because it only perpetuates the situation and makes it worse. Remember—children are made up of two parents, not one. If a child feels that there is something wrong with the father without knowing what the truth is, any kind of horror can be imagined far worse than the truth. This affects the self-worth of the child because half of him or her came from the father.
Next is the issue of the children knowing and feeling they now have to keep this news a “secret.” This puts them in a very dark space that they don’t want to be in. They feel they are caught in a web of deceit affecting both of their parents. They don’t want to be the cause of the breakup of a marriage. They know their fathers are cheating but they are afraid of hurting their mothers. They don’t want their fathers to be mad at them, so they keep silent seeing their mothers hurting and feeling helpless to do anything to help their mothers.
Yikes!!! What are we doing to these precious children? We are giving them all the wrong messages about love, marriage, and trust. How the heck are they supposed to find positive relationships in their future when they look at their “teachers”—namely their parents—and feel such a sense of confusion?
Yep, this secret should not be a secret—it should be discussed as soon as the wife has time to process it. And it should be told to the children by BOTH parents. However, some of the fathers refuse to do this, still thinking about protecting themselves before protecting the mental health of their children. In that case, you will have to become the teller of the news on your own. Give your husband a chance to tell it with you, but if he refuses, be firm and tell him that you will do it yourself.
I know some of you are shuddering by now. As loving, kind, compassionate women, you are often the “keeper of the secret” for your gay husbands. You continue to protect them long after they are living their gay lives because they ask you to because THEY don’t want people to know. Let’s be honest—why are you protecting them? Why aren’t you protecting your children? Why should your children live in the mystery of why a marriage ended, and in some cases, blame YOU for the end of their family life? This makes no sense.
I look at this like a domino effect. Your husband has no choice in his homosexuality. He married you with the hopes and dreams of being a good “straight” husband, but it’s not happening over time. So he’s falling and knocks you down. Now the pressure of both of you falling is knocking down the children. Who are the real victims here?
Mis-marriages (or mistakes in a marriage as I call them) happen. The issue of fault is not the issue when it comes to the children. Gay men make the mistake and most often unintentionally—but they can fix it. They don’t have to linger in your life forever making you feel more trapped than they feel being where they don’t belong. As adults, you have the power to rebuild your lives again even though many of you feel very powerless. With help, counseling, and support—it does happen all the time. But who is there to rebuild your children? Why wouldn’t you think that your marriage wouldn’t affect them? Trust me when I tell you that it does. The emotional damage that it can cause them will fill their lifetimes. That’s why you owe it to them to do the right thing and tell them the truth before they find it out some other way or from someone else. Your children won’t thank you for “protecting” them as some as you think—they’ll wonder why you couldn’t be honest with them and then wonder what else wasn’t true in their lives that you “protected” them from.
As far as how to tell them, well, that’s another story. It can’t be told with anger in your voice and venom in your heart no matter how you are feeling at the moment. Remember—this is NOT about you—it’s about YOUR CHILDREN. When you talk about their father in a derogatory way, don’t think they won’t be internalizing it because they will. Your children don’t have to be your allies—you have friends and families for that. The children need to feel a sense of security and love from both parents, even when one of them may be acting like a total jerk. And to my gay men reading this, trust me—it’s not the “gay” that makes these men jerks—it’s the lack of responsibility financially and emotionally to the families after they leave. And while I’m on that subject, I don’t really care about how gay husbands now have the chance to “find themselves” after being tormented in a mis-marriage for years. The family STILL has to come first. That’s the correct, responsible thing to do. I make NO excuses for irresponsible gay husbands who are too busy having fun in their new found freedom to remember their grieving families. NONE.
So that’s where the problem comes in. It’s not really WHEN you tell the children, but HOW you tell them that is the issue. Homosexuality CANNOT be used as the weapon in the truth. Using derogatory words about gay is NOT going to help. That’s why wives have to be able to separate their personal own antagonisms based on their hurt from this discussion. Telling your children that their daddy is a “faggot” who likes to “screw men” is totally inappropriate. This is NOT going to make your children feel better about the situation. You can’t use gay as the target of your anger when telling the children the news. This is where loving them and putting their needs for emotional stability before your need for revenge comes into play.
Children don’t have to “visualize” their father’s sex habits in order to know about homosexuality. It’s bad enough that you are smacked in the face with it—but you’re an adult. It’s hard enough for you to figure out—don’t expect them to be able to deal with those thoughts. They shouldn’t have to. They do need to know this:
1. People are born differently. Some are tall; some are short. Some are white; some are black; some have blue eyes; some have brown eyes; some are straight; some are gay.
2. People don’t “choose” to be gay. They are born that way. They don’t always know it because there’s no big “G” sign on their bodies when they are born. The homosexuality develops at different times of each person’s life. Some people know it early; some know it later. There’s no set time which is the problem. For those that develop this later, they don’t understand or know it at the time they are getting married. The marriage was brought together by love, and the children were born out of this love.
3. When a man realizes he is gay, he needs to love his wife and children enough to be honest with them because he doesn’t want his family to suffer anymore. As a gay man, he can’t be the kind of husband the wife needs, but he can still be an important part of the family.
4. A gay man can still be a wonderful father. His love for his children hasn’t changed even if the marriage does change.
Do I have all of the answers? No, not yet. But I think this is a good start. It’s an objective start. Look, when my kids were growing up and my ex-husband was acting like a jerk, I had to bite my tongue A LOT so I wouldn’t say derogatory things about him that would affect them. Sometimes, I bit it so hard that it was swelling out of my mouth. There were plenty of times I wanted to call him every horrible name in the book—but I didn’t—not to them. I saved it for my friends and family. To my children, I turned my ex into a prince. I didn’t do it for him—I did it for them. I wanted them to feel secure that their parents loved them regardless of the fact that we couldn’t live with each other. I also knew that children are created from two parents. If they believe that one of them is “defective,” they internalize that something within them is wrong. It deteriorates their own sense of self-esteem which affects their future as far as positive relationships. I see it all of the time as our children find themselves in destructive relationships as they grow older because they don’t feel worthy of anything better.
And guess what? I told my children when I felt I had no choice. My ex refused to tell them even though I repeatedly asked him to. They would be in his home and find things as children do—magazines, videos, and other things. They would see him in bed sleeping with other men. By the time they were in their early teens, I felt I had no choice. They were confused, and I felt that as they grew into their teenage years, they needed to understand what was going on. And so, with great sensitivity, I told them because their father couldn’t—or shall I say wouldn’t. My ex was leading an actively gay life, and my children were around it whenever they visited him. He thought he was “hiding” it because he wasn’t holding hands or showing public display of affection, but children are far more perceptive than that. I felt the words had to be spoken because they were asking me questions that needed to be addressed.
Once my ex knew I told them was he mad? Infuriated is putting it mildly. He told me that I had no business to tell his business. But I told him he had no right living a life that the children were seeing and pretending like it wasn’t happening. How confused were they supposed to be growing up?
We didn’t speak for nearly a year after I dropped the news, but I had no regrets. In fact, in later years when my daughter came to terms with her homosexuality, at least she understood that she didn’t have to live her life in a closet pretending to be who she wasn’t because she didn’t have to feel the shame her father felt throughout his life.
My daughter was far more accepting of her father’s homosexuality than he was of hers--ironically. My son, on the other hand, felt it was his secret to keep from his friends. And that was his choice. He loved his father dearly, but he didn’t want people to know he had a gay father. I respected that decision. My son was certainly pro-gay, but he didn’t want people to know his father was gay. You see, if your children choose to keep the secret from their friends, that’s fine. But at least give them the knowledge to make that choice.
So, yes, there are no easy answers in this most complex situation. But as I tell the men who come to me, the truth will set you free. I am now telling you that it will also set your children free. Please think about this and feel free to get back to me with your thoughts and stories. We owe this to our children.
And speaking of children, we will be launching our adult children support group in November. If you haven’t told your children about this yet—please do. They need the support as much as we do. Have them write to me at Bonkaye@aol.com.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
A GAY MAN'S ANSWERS TO STRAIGHT WIVES
Bonnie Kaye’s Straight Talk Newsletter
June 2010 Volume 9, Issue 108
A monthly newsletter for straight women and gay men in or out of marriages to each other
Please visit my website to view and purchases my books at www.BonnieKayeBooks.com. Your sales help support my website and free monthly newsletter.
FATHER’S DAY TRIBUTE
Once a year during the month of June, I like to dedicate this newsletter to the gay husbands/ex-husbands who are really doing their best to right the wrongs of their marriages. In this year’s June issue, I imposed on my male gay peer coach Doug to answer 12 of the questions that women ask me most often.
Before I give you Doug’s answers to these questions, I would like to remind our women that not all husbands/ex-husbands are irresponsible, cruel, or detached from their families. I know that many of you do have husbands who seem to have been transformed into strangers in your midst—but not all of them.
There are some wonderful gay men who found themselves caught up in their own confusion throughout their lives. When they have the courage to be honest and leave the marriage, they remain faithful to their families emotionally and financially. I have met some of these men, and you have read some of their letters throughout the years.
Doug is a hero to me. I have never met him, but I have seen the life-saving work he has done with the men I send him who want to do the right thing, as well as the women who I have sent to him to help them understand the dynamics of our situation from a gay man’s point of view. He has helped dozens and dozens of people in clarifying the reality of this situation so that they can move ahead in their lives. I am in awe of this man because he is so generous with his time and efforts to help people in our network.
Although we don’t always agree 100% of the time, we agree almost all of the time. And I guess in this situation where emotions and feelings run so high, that’s the most anyone can ask for. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Doug’s thoughts, I know you will find them honest, insightful, and heartfelt. Hopefully, you will learn some of the answers that you wonder about that have remained unanswered.
If you have questions or comments for Doug after reading this, please send them to me at Bonkaye@aol.com and I will forward them to him.
Here are Doug’s answers to the 12 most often asked questions that come my way from my straight wives.
1. Was my husband gay when he married me?
Science still has not determined why some people are gay but the research since the 1970’s has focused on genetic and/or biological factors. It appears that our sexuality is hard-wired in our brain before we are born. It occurs throughout the world in all cultures and it has been observed in over 100 species. Researchers have also identified structural differences in the brains of gay and straight men. In addition, all those old psychoanalytic theories about absentee or ineffective fathers and dominant mothers have since been disproved. Whether we are gay or straight, it appears that is determined sometime while we are developing as a fetus. Was I gay when I married my wife? Absolutely. I was gay the day I was born but no one in my family knew it or suspected it – including me.
2. Did my husband know he was gay when he married me?
The answer to that question depends on how one defines gay and straight. There is a difference between sexual orientation and sexual identity. Sexual orientation is based on our natural sexual attractions and responses toward the same or opposite gender and it does not change over time. There has never been any documented cases of anyone who changed his sexual orientation. Even the reparative ministry folks do not claim to be able to change someone’s natural attractions and desires. But sexual identity is based on how we perceive ourselves and that self-concept DOES change as we gain experience and become aware of our natural feelings and responses. For example, I knew I was attracted to other guys during my teen years and young adulthood. But the attraction was just physical. I had no interest in any kind of emotional relationship with another male. Therefore I did not define myself as being gay. My concept of the average gay man was shaped by a culture that failed to show me any positive gay relationships and treated them as perverts and felons. Remember, it was only a few years ago that the Supreme Court struck down felony offenses for consensual gay sex. And in most States in America, it still is legal to discriminate against gay people in employment and public accommodations. The only images I had of gay men were those who were gender non-conformists – males whose outward behaviors and interests were feminine and those who were shunned as outcasts in our society. That was not how I saw myself. I saw myself as an average guy who was in a heterosexual marriage. Even though I knew that I found some guys attractive and had natural sexual feelings for them, I did not view that as being homosexual. Like most husbands in these situations, I had limited sexual experience when I married and I married when I was young. I believed that those homosexual feelings and desires were probably present in most men, but the average guy was able to suppress those feelings and form a love bond with a woman, get married and have children.
Like most gay men who marry women, I didn’t define ‘gay’ in terms of sexual attractions. I defined ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ in terms of emotional attachments and/or outward masculine behavior. I couldn’t see myself ever loving another man and I wasn’t into cross dressing or other overt feminine behavior. I couldn’t even imagine it. I never met two guys who loved each other so I had no role models to compare with. The only way that I knew how to live was to love a woman and marry her and have kids. There were no other options in life.
3. Did my husband really love me when he married me or was he trying to escape who he was?
We have all read accounts about gay Hollywood stars who entered marriages of convenience. They didn’t really love their wife. It was an arrangement made by the studio execs or their managers to squash rumors of homosexuality. Being gay in Hollywood is still pretty much a career-capper. Ditto for politicians. Former Governor James McGreevey knew he was gay but got married because he needed a cover. In his book he admitted he knew he could not have a successful political career without a wife. So he married twice to protect his political career. But that’s not the case in most of the gay married guys I’ve met and coached. In fact, most of the husbands describe their marriage in terms of ‘soul mate’ and ‘best friend’. Part of the reason that these marriages are so very difficult and painful is because the relationship between the gay man and his wife is so very close. I’m not surprised. If the brain science is correct, our brain is most similar to those of straight women. We have skill sets most resembling those of women. We have the same high language skills and intuition and empathy. Why should it then be a surprise that we form very close relationships with women? In some ways, we are like the sister our wife always dreamed of having. It is much easier to end a marriage when two people have simply fallen out of love. It is far more difficult and painful to end that marriage when you still love each other but you know that it cannot work. You’re not just losing a spouse. You’re losing the best friend you ever had.
4. If my husband was gay, how was he able to have sex with me?
Men and women experience sexual desire very differently. Researchers had control groups watch porn movies. Using various instruments and brain imaging, they were able to measure sexual arousal. By tracking the retina, they were able to zero in on what the subject was watching or focusing on when they became aroused. It was determined that women tend to focus on the context of the scene – the situation and the romance and intimacy. However, gay men and straight men alike tend to focus on body parts. That probably also explains why women are twice as likely to have sex with men or women. The plumbing equipment and the visuals are not as important to them as the romance and emotional love bond. Men however, are highly visual and respond to visions of genital activity. In addition, a young man’s body is flooded with high levels of testosterone which amplifies emotions. One female researcher began taking testosterone injections equal to about 10% of what the average male her age would have in his system. She discontinued her experiment within just a few weeks. She reported that all of her emotions were heightened to the point where it was difficult to control them. That makes sense. All of our lives, boys have to deal with hyper-activity and out-of-control emotions. But it is that testosterone that pushes us to have sex. It’s the same stuff that makes us fall hopelessly in love – or lust. For most of us in our teens and early adulthood, ANY sex is good. There is no such thing as unfulfilled sex at that age. The very thought of having sex resulted in arousal.
5. Was my husband fantasizing about men when he had sex with me?
Some men do use homosexual fantasies to perform with their wife but that was not my experience nor does it seem to be the case in most that I’ve worked with. Fantasizing about a penis while you’re playing with a vagina just doesn’t work for most of us. If we start thinking about some guy we want to have sex with, and then see our wife making love to us, it usually results in a deflated penis. Most married guys separate our two realities. We live in a heterosexual world and heterosexual marriage and we try to play the role of a heterosexual husband and father. Our homosexual nature is assigned to an alter-ego and we keep that persona locked up in the closet until we can let him out in private – or with another guy. I was sexually active with my wife up until our separation. However for several years of our marriage she was aware that I was also having sex with men. When I had sex with her, I was doing it for her and trying my best to please her. I was able to bring her to orgasm and myself as well. But it felt academic. I was doing those things to please her. But when I was with a guy, whatever activity I was engaged in with them was shear lust and hunger. I wasn’t doing it to please him. I was doing it to please me because I desired it. I think that’s a significant difference that defines what sexual pleasure is. Are you doing it to please the other person, or are you doing it because it turns you on and you hunger for it? As gay married gay men grow older, the testosterone poisoning can no longer be relied upon. The levels begin to drop in the late 20s and 30s. Now he has to rely on desire to make it work.
6. Why couldn’t my husband be honest with me before he cheated with a man?
Most gay husbands married when they were young and had limited or no sexual experience with other men. We try to understand our attraction to other men but some things in life cannot be learned academically or through cognitive reasoning. Logic doesn’t teach us about our sexuality. These are complex physical and emotional responses that we have to experience. But we have no personal experience to draw from so the only way to discern whether this is just some crazy fantasy or something much deeper is through experiential learning. In that type of learning process, we experience something, then reflect on that experience, draw conclusions, and then adjust the experience and try it again. We keep repeating variations until we are able to learn from it and answer the questions about ourselves. Gay married guys are not willing to hurt their wife and family and risk destruction of the marriage over what may turn out to be some phase or ridiculous fantasy. We are not about to do that when it’s just possible that we could try it and come away with disgust and disillusionment. It’s one thing to put ourselves at risk of getting emotionally hurt but we are not willing to destroy our family without knowing the truth about ourselves. But the dilemma is that he cannot go have a full relationship with another man. He cannot experience that because he is married so he never truly gets the answers he needs. Very frequently, it sets him up in an approach-avoidance conflict where he reaches out for something but then pulls back because if he achieves what he desires it will hurt his wife and cause him more pain and guilt – which he tries to avoid. In my own life, I searched for those answers and tried to find fulfillment. But I couldn’t let myself fall in love with another guy and went to extremes to avoid it. That set up a sexual compulsion where I tried to use quantity as a substitute for what I really needed and desired. Until I understood that I was sabotaging myself in the hopes of avoiding painful situations for her, it was a constant compulsion that preoccupied me.
7. Why did he constantly blame me for his unhappiness in the marriage?
In my own marriage, I knew that we had once been sexually happy but didn’t understand why that was changing. Sex was becoming more like a duty or work for me. I saw my own struggle - working hard to try to keep romance and lust alive. However, I didn’t see her working at it at all. It felt like I was the only one working to keep the romance alive and she just took it for granted and didn’t see or appreciate what I was doing to keep it going. It was faulty reasoning. Of course she didn’t have to work at it. She loved me and I turned her on. She didn’t want anyone else. It wasn’t work, it was pleasure for her. But I was wrestling - trying to stay motivated. Yes, I loved her. But I didn’t desire her body. I desired and needed men, and I never had to work at that. It came automatically. And it wasn’t just about a penis vs. vagina. She could have sex reassignment surgery and get a penis – but she would still be a woman with a penis. I desired and needed a man. No matter what she did or how hard she tried to please me, she couldn’t be a man for me. But at the time it was happening, all I could see was that somehow I used to be motivated to have sex with her and now I was struggling and having to work at it. But I didn’t see her putting in the same amount of work/effort that I was. I remember thinking, if only she would be more aggressive in bed, or be more spontaneous and take the initiative. If only she would try to find ways to turn me on. The “if-only” kept coming up until I finally hit the truth. If only she was a man.
8. My husband said that I didn’t want to have sex enough so he turned to men. Is that true?
This is another “if-only” excuse. Quantity is sometimes used as a coping strategy to keep a guy’s mind off of sex. He figures if he keeps himself sexually satiated he won’t think about sex and won’t be driven to have sex with men. He figures it’s her job to keep his sexual energy drained and that way he won’t fantasize about guys or desire to have sex with them. But I learned that staying sexually drained might keep my mind off of sex temporarily, but it still wasn’t going to get me what I needed to be happy.
9. My husband says he is bisexual. Does that mean he can stay happy with me without having sex with a man?
For the most part, bisexuality among adult men tends to be a transitional state. When you look at the statistics by age group, those who identify themselves as being bisexual tend to be in late adolescent years or early 20’s. As we humans sexually experiment and learn about ourselves, we tend to change our ‘bisexual’ self-identity to that of heterosexual or homosexual. By the time we are in mid-life, the number of people identifying as bisexual drops dramatically. In my own case, I identified as being bisexual for several years because I loved my wife and was sexually active with her, but at the same time I was sexually attracted to men though I had no interest in a love relationship with a man. So I didn’t seem to fit in either the heterosexual column or the homosexual column. But as I learned more about me and experimented with men physically and emotionally, it became clear that I was predominately sexually and emotionally attracted to men. I had been subconsciously trying to avoid emotional bonds with men because I instinctively knew that it would be a life altering experience that would threaten my self-concept and my marriage. I could have sex with men but as long as I didn’t love them, I wasn’t gay. Inevitably however, I met a man who I fell deeply in love with. I had an emotional response that I had never known existed. Limerence, that feeling of deep love that has an obsessive-compulsive quality to it, is something I never knew existed. I had never experienced it in my life until he came along. The feelings were so deep and overwhelming that it instantly destroyed any self-concept of bisexuality. I wasn’t caught in the in-between world of loving a woman and yet being physically drawn to men. I was fully engulfed in physical and emotional desire for another man. I couldn’t possibly be any more gay – not by any stretch of the definition.
10. Now that my husband has found his new life, why does he treat me like an enemy?
As I pointed out earlier, these mixed-orientation marriages tend to be extremely close. It is easy to walk away from someone with whom we have fallen out of love. Leaving someone you love feels like pulling live flesh from your body. It’s very common for the husband and/or the wife to assign blame to each other and treat each other badly as a means of making it easier to let go. Also, he has been struggling with his sexuality for a long time. There has been an internal war going on and an identity crisis. Eventually he hates the situation he is in and it doesn’t seem that he will ever be able to be happy and fulfilled because for most of his life he stifled his own needs to maintain his dysfunctional marriage. But eventually the disdain he has for the marriage becomes personified and he begins to see his wife as a block in his path to self-actualization and happiness. Subconsciously he begins to feel as if his wife is the warden and he’s a prisoner. When it reaches that point, any attempt at showing him love is rebuffed. The experience has taught me that people can love us but if that love is not coming from someone we love, it doesn’t feel like love at all. It feels like we are being stalked.
But it need not go from a love relationship to a hate relationship. Many couples find ways to stay friends and co-parent their children. My advice is to not wait until you both become bitter and cynical. Have the courage and grace to admit that the marriage cannot work. Have the caring and love to let go and help each other find someone else who can give them the love you cannot give each other. Hold onto the good memories and hold onto the respect for each other. But let go of the impossible marriage. You are doing no favors to yourselves or to your spouse or children in clinging to a marriage that is dysfunctional and failing.
But know that this situation was not caused by the wife. It didn’t happen because you weren’t sexy enough or you weren’t aggressive enough. It happened because he is gay and despite all the years of war within himself, he cannot change it no matter how much he loves you or how much you love him.
11. My husband tells me that he is gay because he was sexually molested when he was younger. He claims this is a learned behavior that he can un-learn with therapy and support. Is this true?
This is the favorite fodder for anti-gay religious groups such as the Family Research Council or NARTH. These organizations tout statistical studies that report that gay men are more likely to have been molested by adult males as children, and therefore jump to the conclusion that childhood sexual experience with a male causes homosexuality. It begs the question: Is heterosexuality caused by sexual molestation by someone of the opposite sex??
But seriously, the statistics they cite are erroneous or taken out of context. It is true that gay men are more likely to report sexual experiences with adults when they were under the age of 16, but in the majority of those cases (one study reports it as 68%), they had already self-identified as being gay before the molestation had occurred. A closer look at those suspect statistics reveals definitions that become problematic. A boy of 15 who had a sexual experience with a boy of 18 would have fallen within the definitions of having been molested. But most of us would not view sex between a 15-year-old and 18-year-old as a predator molestation.
This is what the American Psychological Association has to say about it in May, 2000:
"No specific psychosocial or family dynamic cause for homosexuality has been identified, including histories of childhood sexual abuse.
Sexual abuse does not appear to be more prevalent in children who grow up to identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, than in children who identify as heterosexual."
The national Organization on Male Sexual Victimization stated in 2004:
"While there are different theories about how sexual orientation develops, experts in the human sexuality field do not believe that premature sexual experiences play a significant role in late adolescent or adult sexual orientation.”
Sexual abuse can interfere with a person’s sexual enjoyment and may even contribute to a condition referred to as Homosexual Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in which a person keeps checking to reassure himself that he’s not gay. But childhood sexual abuse does not create a person’s deepest passions, attractions and desires.
12. What do you suggest about telling the children?
I think the answer to that depends on the age of the children. Generally speaking, kids don’t want to hear about anything sexual associated with their parents. It conjures up images of what Mom or Dad does between the sheets. There’s a strong “yuck” factor to it. Husbands and wives divorce every day but they don’t usually share their bedroom disappointments with their children. That being said, if Dad has found a male partner, or if other situations arise that make it necessary to have that conversation with the kids, I believe it should be couched in terms of affection and love rather than complicated and ambiguous labels. Children understand love and affection. But terms such as ‘sexual orientation’ are generally beyond their level of comprehension. Unless they are in their late teens, anything about their parents that includes the word ‘sexual’ is toxic. Wherever possible, the child should be given support he/she is going to need to cope with the knowledge that they have a gay parent. If a child shares that information with friends, they can quickly become the target of mean-spirited taunts. I urge parents to work with a therapist or family counselors in discussing it with kids and I recommend they also have a conversation with the school counselor so the kids have someone supportive they can turn to at school.
Doug
Thank you, Doug, for sharing this information with us.
Mailbag
In keeping with my theme of men for the month, the letter below comes from a straight man, Jim. He would like to share his thoughts with you.
Bonnie,
I just read your May newsletter and I continue to be dismayed at the reaction of many of your readers to the discovery of a gay spouse. It seems to me that there is some “social dynamic” at work that makes women feel almost responsible for a husband’s gayness. It’s as if they feel that they have somehow “caused” it. Yet much of what I have read in your newsletters indicates that gayness was brought to the marriage, not that the marriage caused a spouse to “become gay”. The only “fault” is that the offended spouse was, for one reason or another, unable (or perhaps unwilling, but I am inclined to believe “unable”) to recognize the signs. George Bernard Shaw once observed that most men will choose a spouse in a light so dim that they would not consider buying a suit in it, much less choose a life partner. Perhaps the same is true of women! But allowing one’s self-esteem to be a function of the deceit practiced by another is a serious and dangerous mistake. The fact that society has made hiding gayness is, I’m sure, a factor in the deceit. But to take upon oneself the burden of a societal error is not a proper response.
It’s understandable that emotions run high when one is talking about what was presumed to be a lifetime commitment and children are involved. Even straight couples who divorce face trauma and feelings of guilt. I did when I first divorced. However, a marriage relationship is a two-way street. Each party brings “baggage” to the relationship and that baggage should be inspected before committing to sharing a life. Both parties have a responsibility to the relationship and if one is deceitful while the other is not, it seems to me that the burden of low self-esteem is really, or should be, with the deceiving party. We are deceived daily by news media, politicians, marketers, professional colleagues, etc.
Spousal deceit, while much more personal, is not objectively different. Any man who is attracted to pictures of other naked men has “baggage” that needs to examined. If I want to see a naked man, I can look in the mirror! If the desire of a man to see pictures of other naked men cannot be examined, and in most cases it cannot, we should not chalk up a discovery of that desire to our own failings and punish ourselves for not having seen signs that were hidden to begin with. Life is little more than a series of choices and not all of our choices result in positive outcomes.
If one of the parties to a relationship deliberately chooses to not reveal something important to the relationship, it is not reasonable for the other party to bear the burden of that choice. Simply stated, we can’t always be right! But we can always be FAIR to ourselves. We certainly should not have to bear the burdens of some other person’s choices. And we should not build our own lives around them. Forgiving oneself for a mistake is essential to moving on in life. And it is most unfair to expect our children to carry the burden of the choices of their adult parents. They have enough to worry about in their own lives!
Jim
JULY WORKSHOPS BY MY CO-THERAPIST MISTI LYNN HALL
July will be a very busy month. I will be offering a Saturday Seminar, a weekday Seminar and a Workshop! Please see the descriptions below.
Saturday Seminar: Spirituality and Healing
Being married to a gay man dissolved my Spirit and caused hurt and pain to the depths of my Soul. I was walking around in an empty shell. Hollow on the inside. My Spirit was depleted and my Soul was wounded. I had no motivation, no purpose or meaning in my life. I was barely existing. Then I discovered the importance of rebuilding myself Spiritually. Finding things that fed my SPIRIT healed me on a Soul level. On Saturday, July 10, I will share with you the things that fed my Spirit and motivated me to start the quest of living an extraordinary life. You can expect this seminar to be a mixture of lecture, guided activities, discussion (question and answer session) and a downloadable journal/workbook on Spirit Center Discovery. This topic of Spirituality has nothing to do with a specific religion. This type of Spirituality will focus on how to refill your SPIRIT and allow that zest for life to flow back to you. This life is precious. You deserve to live it fully and completely. Join in on this live Saturday Seminar Telecourse via your telephone from the comforts and privacy of your own home.
What: July Saturday Seminar Telecourse
When: July 10, 2010 at 1:00-3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time Zone
Cost: $30.00
Note: You must have access to a phone to call into the Telecourse. You will also need access to a computer for email and be able to print the Spirit Centered Discovery journal/workbook. Arrangements can be made to mail the packet if you do not have a printer.
Self-Esteem Seminar
I recently facilitated a Saturday Seminar on Self-Esteem. It was tremendously successful. I have gotten so much positive feedback and so many requests from Straight Wives that I will be offering a repeat of this seminar on a weeknight.
Often times Straight Wives have little to no Self-Esteem. Knowing that your spouse is Gay can be very damaging to your Self-Esteem. There are many things that can lead to low self-esteem. For starters, our culture already promotes the essence of a woman to be unrealistic by expecting us to be Wonder Woman. On top of that, add a Gay spouse to the stress and it spells for disaster in the Self-Esteem department. The years of being in a Gay/Straight marriage can be devastating. Little chunks of Self-Esteem are removed bit by bit, piece by piece.
Improving Self-Esteem is crucial for Straight Wives to heal. It can be repaired. It takes work, knowledge, time and effort to repair broken Self-Esteem. Join in on this Seminar to learn how to start the repair process. You can expect this Seminar to be a mixture of lecture, discussion (question and answer session), activities to help rebuild your Self-Esteem and a downloadable Self-Esteem journal.
If your Self-Esteem has been damaged due to being in a Gay/Straight marriage, join us for the Seminar. Regardless of where you are in your journey, this Self-Esteem Seminar should be helpful for you.
What: Seminar/Telecourse
When: July 21, 2010 (Wednesday) at 8:30-10:30 PM Eastern Standard Time
Cost: $30.00
Note: You must have access to a phone to call into the Seminar/Telecourse. You will also need access to a computer for email and be able to print the Self-Esteem journal. Arrangements can be made to mail the Self-Esteem journal if you do not have a printer.
Workshop: Rediscovering YOURSELF!
I am happy to announce that I have a brand new Workshop scheduled for July. This workshop is all about rediscovering yourself...redefining yourself...and becoming the new YOU. By participating in this workshop, you can expect to find where you are stuck in your grief process, identify your obstacles and learn how to remove those obstacles. The workshop will also be full of tips, guided activities, ideas and individualized suggestions on how to move forward.
If you are Straight Wife, you know how difficult it is to redefine yourself after a gay/straight marriage. Often times we wonder around feeling lost and stuck in our past. Our past has a tendency to haunt our present and future. Don't let your past define you. Realize that you deserve to have hopes and dreams. Join in on this 4 week workshop and allow this to be a time for new possibilities and new discoveries about yourself.
We will meet for 4 consecutive Mondays. The workshop will begin on July 25 and go through August 16, 2010. We will connect with each other via a conference line from 8:30-10:00PM on each Monday during the workshop.
What: 4 weeks of online/telephone workshop for Straight Spouses
Starts: July 26, 2010 @ 8:30-10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time Zone and it will meet 4 consecutive Mondays.
Cost: $150.00
Supplies Needed: Access to a telephone and to email.
Includes: Email support from the facilitator, Misti Hall, M.S.
For more information and/or to reserve your spot in any of the upcoming events contact MistiLynnHall@aol.com. The Seminars and Workshops are very easy and convenient to participate in from the privacy of your own home. The only essential equipment you need is a phone that will call a long distance number. Please note that your privacy is respected. You can register under an anonymous name.
To all of the wonderful men, gay and straight, who are part of this support network, Happy Father’s Day to you. To any women who have husbands who are struggling with the truth, hopefully you can share this newsletter with them in hopes that they will do the right thing someday soon.
With Love and Hope,
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.
June 2010 Volume 9, Issue 108
A monthly newsletter for straight women and gay men in or out of marriages to each other
Please visit my website to view and purchases my books at www.BonnieKayeBooks.com. Your sales help support my website and free monthly newsletter.
FATHER’S DAY TRIBUTE
Once a year during the month of June, I like to dedicate this newsletter to the gay husbands/ex-husbands who are really doing their best to right the wrongs of their marriages. In this year’s June issue, I imposed on my male gay peer coach Doug to answer 12 of the questions that women ask me most often.
Before I give you Doug’s answers to these questions, I would like to remind our women that not all husbands/ex-husbands are irresponsible, cruel, or detached from their families. I know that many of you do have husbands who seem to have been transformed into strangers in your midst—but not all of them.
There are some wonderful gay men who found themselves caught up in their own confusion throughout their lives. When they have the courage to be honest and leave the marriage, they remain faithful to their families emotionally and financially. I have met some of these men, and you have read some of their letters throughout the years.
Doug is a hero to me. I have never met him, but I have seen the life-saving work he has done with the men I send him who want to do the right thing, as well as the women who I have sent to him to help them understand the dynamics of our situation from a gay man’s point of view. He has helped dozens and dozens of people in clarifying the reality of this situation so that they can move ahead in their lives. I am in awe of this man because he is so generous with his time and efforts to help people in our network.
Although we don’t always agree 100% of the time, we agree almost all of the time. And I guess in this situation where emotions and feelings run so high, that’s the most anyone can ask for. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Doug’s thoughts, I know you will find them honest, insightful, and heartfelt. Hopefully, you will learn some of the answers that you wonder about that have remained unanswered.
If you have questions or comments for Doug after reading this, please send them to me at Bonkaye@aol.com and I will forward them to him.
Here are Doug’s answers to the 12 most often asked questions that come my way from my straight wives.
1. Was my husband gay when he married me?
Science still has not determined why some people are gay but the research since the 1970’s has focused on genetic and/or biological factors. It appears that our sexuality is hard-wired in our brain before we are born. It occurs throughout the world in all cultures and it has been observed in over 100 species. Researchers have also identified structural differences in the brains of gay and straight men. In addition, all those old psychoanalytic theories about absentee or ineffective fathers and dominant mothers have since been disproved. Whether we are gay or straight, it appears that is determined sometime while we are developing as a fetus. Was I gay when I married my wife? Absolutely. I was gay the day I was born but no one in my family knew it or suspected it – including me.
2. Did my husband know he was gay when he married me?
The answer to that question depends on how one defines gay and straight. There is a difference between sexual orientation and sexual identity. Sexual orientation is based on our natural sexual attractions and responses toward the same or opposite gender and it does not change over time. There has never been any documented cases of anyone who changed his sexual orientation. Even the reparative ministry folks do not claim to be able to change someone’s natural attractions and desires. But sexual identity is based on how we perceive ourselves and that self-concept DOES change as we gain experience and become aware of our natural feelings and responses. For example, I knew I was attracted to other guys during my teen years and young adulthood. But the attraction was just physical. I had no interest in any kind of emotional relationship with another male. Therefore I did not define myself as being gay. My concept of the average gay man was shaped by a culture that failed to show me any positive gay relationships and treated them as perverts and felons. Remember, it was only a few years ago that the Supreme Court struck down felony offenses for consensual gay sex. And in most States in America, it still is legal to discriminate against gay people in employment and public accommodations. The only images I had of gay men were those who were gender non-conformists – males whose outward behaviors and interests were feminine and those who were shunned as outcasts in our society. That was not how I saw myself. I saw myself as an average guy who was in a heterosexual marriage. Even though I knew that I found some guys attractive and had natural sexual feelings for them, I did not view that as being homosexual. Like most husbands in these situations, I had limited sexual experience when I married and I married when I was young. I believed that those homosexual feelings and desires were probably present in most men, but the average guy was able to suppress those feelings and form a love bond with a woman, get married and have children.
Like most gay men who marry women, I didn’t define ‘gay’ in terms of sexual attractions. I defined ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ in terms of emotional attachments and/or outward masculine behavior. I couldn’t see myself ever loving another man and I wasn’t into cross dressing or other overt feminine behavior. I couldn’t even imagine it. I never met two guys who loved each other so I had no role models to compare with. The only way that I knew how to live was to love a woman and marry her and have kids. There were no other options in life.
3. Did my husband really love me when he married me or was he trying to escape who he was?
We have all read accounts about gay Hollywood stars who entered marriages of convenience. They didn’t really love their wife. It was an arrangement made by the studio execs or their managers to squash rumors of homosexuality. Being gay in Hollywood is still pretty much a career-capper. Ditto for politicians. Former Governor James McGreevey knew he was gay but got married because he needed a cover. In his book he admitted he knew he could not have a successful political career without a wife. So he married twice to protect his political career. But that’s not the case in most of the gay married guys I’ve met and coached. In fact, most of the husbands describe their marriage in terms of ‘soul mate’ and ‘best friend’. Part of the reason that these marriages are so very difficult and painful is because the relationship between the gay man and his wife is so very close. I’m not surprised. If the brain science is correct, our brain is most similar to those of straight women. We have skill sets most resembling those of women. We have the same high language skills and intuition and empathy. Why should it then be a surprise that we form very close relationships with women? In some ways, we are like the sister our wife always dreamed of having. It is much easier to end a marriage when two people have simply fallen out of love. It is far more difficult and painful to end that marriage when you still love each other but you know that it cannot work. You’re not just losing a spouse. You’re losing the best friend you ever had.
4. If my husband was gay, how was he able to have sex with me?
Men and women experience sexual desire very differently. Researchers had control groups watch porn movies. Using various instruments and brain imaging, they were able to measure sexual arousal. By tracking the retina, they were able to zero in on what the subject was watching or focusing on when they became aroused. It was determined that women tend to focus on the context of the scene – the situation and the romance and intimacy. However, gay men and straight men alike tend to focus on body parts. That probably also explains why women are twice as likely to have sex with men or women. The plumbing equipment and the visuals are not as important to them as the romance and emotional love bond. Men however, are highly visual and respond to visions of genital activity. In addition, a young man’s body is flooded with high levels of testosterone which amplifies emotions. One female researcher began taking testosterone injections equal to about 10% of what the average male her age would have in his system. She discontinued her experiment within just a few weeks. She reported that all of her emotions were heightened to the point where it was difficult to control them. That makes sense. All of our lives, boys have to deal with hyper-activity and out-of-control emotions. But it is that testosterone that pushes us to have sex. It’s the same stuff that makes us fall hopelessly in love – or lust. For most of us in our teens and early adulthood, ANY sex is good. There is no such thing as unfulfilled sex at that age. The very thought of having sex resulted in arousal.
5. Was my husband fantasizing about men when he had sex with me?
Some men do use homosexual fantasies to perform with their wife but that was not my experience nor does it seem to be the case in most that I’ve worked with. Fantasizing about a penis while you’re playing with a vagina just doesn’t work for most of us. If we start thinking about some guy we want to have sex with, and then see our wife making love to us, it usually results in a deflated penis. Most married guys separate our two realities. We live in a heterosexual world and heterosexual marriage and we try to play the role of a heterosexual husband and father. Our homosexual nature is assigned to an alter-ego and we keep that persona locked up in the closet until we can let him out in private – or with another guy. I was sexually active with my wife up until our separation. However for several years of our marriage she was aware that I was also having sex with men. When I had sex with her, I was doing it for her and trying my best to please her. I was able to bring her to orgasm and myself as well. But it felt academic. I was doing those things to please her. But when I was with a guy, whatever activity I was engaged in with them was shear lust and hunger. I wasn’t doing it to please him. I was doing it to please me because I desired it. I think that’s a significant difference that defines what sexual pleasure is. Are you doing it to please the other person, or are you doing it because it turns you on and you hunger for it? As gay married gay men grow older, the testosterone poisoning can no longer be relied upon. The levels begin to drop in the late 20s and 30s. Now he has to rely on desire to make it work.
6. Why couldn’t my husband be honest with me before he cheated with a man?
Most gay husbands married when they were young and had limited or no sexual experience with other men. We try to understand our attraction to other men but some things in life cannot be learned academically or through cognitive reasoning. Logic doesn’t teach us about our sexuality. These are complex physical and emotional responses that we have to experience. But we have no personal experience to draw from so the only way to discern whether this is just some crazy fantasy or something much deeper is through experiential learning. In that type of learning process, we experience something, then reflect on that experience, draw conclusions, and then adjust the experience and try it again. We keep repeating variations until we are able to learn from it and answer the questions about ourselves. Gay married guys are not willing to hurt their wife and family and risk destruction of the marriage over what may turn out to be some phase or ridiculous fantasy. We are not about to do that when it’s just possible that we could try it and come away with disgust and disillusionment. It’s one thing to put ourselves at risk of getting emotionally hurt but we are not willing to destroy our family without knowing the truth about ourselves. But the dilemma is that he cannot go have a full relationship with another man. He cannot experience that because he is married so he never truly gets the answers he needs. Very frequently, it sets him up in an approach-avoidance conflict where he reaches out for something but then pulls back because if he achieves what he desires it will hurt his wife and cause him more pain and guilt – which he tries to avoid. In my own life, I searched for those answers and tried to find fulfillment. But I couldn’t let myself fall in love with another guy and went to extremes to avoid it. That set up a sexual compulsion where I tried to use quantity as a substitute for what I really needed and desired. Until I understood that I was sabotaging myself in the hopes of avoiding painful situations for her, it was a constant compulsion that preoccupied me.
7. Why did he constantly blame me for his unhappiness in the marriage?
In my own marriage, I knew that we had once been sexually happy but didn’t understand why that was changing. Sex was becoming more like a duty or work for me. I saw my own struggle - working hard to try to keep romance and lust alive. However, I didn’t see her working at it at all. It felt like I was the only one working to keep the romance alive and she just took it for granted and didn’t see or appreciate what I was doing to keep it going. It was faulty reasoning. Of course she didn’t have to work at it. She loved me and I turned her on. She didn’t want anyone else. It wasn’t work, it was pleasure for her. But I was wrestling - trying to stay motivated. Yes, I loved her. But I didn’t desire her body. I desired and needed men, and I never had to work at that. It came automatically. And it wasn’t just about a penis vs. vagina. She could have sex reassignment surgery and get a penis – but she would still be a woman with a penis. I desired and needed a man. No matter what she did or how hard she tried to please me, she couldn’t be a man for me. But at the time it was happening, all I could see was that somehow I used to be motivated to have sex with her and now I was struggling and having to work at it. But I didn’t see her putting in the same amount of work/effort that I was. I remember thinking, if only she would be more aggressive in bed, or be more spontaneous and take the initiative. If only she would try to find ways to turn me on. The “if-only” kept coming up until I finally hit the truth. If only she was a man.
8. My husband said that I didn’t want to have sex enough so he turned to men. Is that true?
This is another “if-only” excuse. Quantity is sometimes used as a coping strategy to keep a guy’s mind off of sex. He figures if he keeps himself sexually satiated he won’t think about sex and won’t be driven to have sex with men. He figures it’s her job to keep his sexual energy drained and that way he won’t fantasize about guys or desire to have sex with them. But I learned that staying sexually drained might keep my mind off of sex temporarily, but it still wasn’t going to get me what I needed to be happy.
9. My husband says he is bisexual. Does that mean he can stay happy with me without having sex with a man?
For the most part, bisexuality among adult men tends to be a transitional state. When you look at the statistics by age group, those who identify themselves as being bisexual tend to be in late adolescent years or early 20’s. As we humans sexually experiment and learn about ourselves, we tend to change our ‘bisexual’ self-identity to that of heterosexual or homosexual. By the time we are in mid-life, the number of people identifying as bisexual drops dramatically. In my own case, I identified as being bisexual for several years because I loved my wife and was sexually active with her, but at the same time I was sexually attracted to men though I had no interest in a love relationship with a man. So I didn’t seem to fit in either the heterosexual column or the homosexual column. But as I learned more about me and experimented with men physically and emotionally, it became clear that I was predominately sexually and emotionally attracted to men. I had been subconsciously trying to avoid emotional bonds with men because I instinctively knew that it would be a life altering experience that would threaten my self-concept and my marriage. I could have sex with men but as long as I didn’t love them, I wasn’t gay. Inevitably however, I met a man who I fell deeply in love with. I had an emotional response that I had never known existed. Limerence, that feeling of deep love that has an obsessive-compulsive quality to it, is something I never knew existed. I had never experienced it in my life until he came along. The feelings were so deep and overwhelming that it instantly destroyed any self-concept of bisexuality. I wasn’t caught in the in-between world of loving a woman and yet being physically drawn to men. I was fully engulfed in physical and emotional desire for another man. I couldn’t possibly be any more gay – not by any stretch of the definition.
10. Now that my husband has found his new life, why does he treat me like an enemy?
As I pointed out earlier, these mixed-orientation marriages tend to be extremely close. It is easy to walk away from someone with whom we have fallen out of love. Leaving someone you love feels like pulling live flesh from your body. It’s very common for the husband and/or the wife to assign blame to each other and treat each other badly as a means of making it easier to let go. Also, he has been struggling with his sexuality for a long time. There has been an internal war going on and an identity crisis. Eventually he hates the situation he is in and it doesn’t seem that he will ever be able to be happy and fulfilled because for most of his life he stifled his own needs to maintain his dysfunctional marriage. But eventually the disdain he has for the marriage becomes personified and he begins to see his wife as a block in his path to self-actualization and happiness. Subconsciously he begins to feel as if his wife is the warden and he’s a prisoner. When it reaches that point, any attempt at showing him love is rebuffed. The experience has taught me that people can love us but if that love is not coming from someone we love, it doesn’t feel like love at all. It feels like we are being stalked.
But it need not go from a love relationship to a hate relationship. Many couples find ways to stay friends and co-parent their children. My advice is to not wait until you both become bitter and cynical. Have the courage and grace to admit that the marriage cannot work. Have the caring and love to let go and help each other find someone else who can give them the love you cannot give each other. Hold onto the good memories and hold onto the respect for each other. But let go of the impossible marriage. You are doing no favors to yourselves or to your spouse or children in clinging to a marriage that is dysfunctional and failing.
But know that this situation was not caused by the wife. It didn’t happen because you weren’t sexy enough or you weren’t aggressive enough. It happened because he is gay and despite all the years of war within himself, he cannot change it no matter how much he loves you or how much you love him.
11. My husband tells me that he is gay because he was sexually molested when he was younger. He claims this is a learned behavior that he can un-learn with therapy and support. Is this true?
This is the favorite fodder for anti-gay religious groups such as the Family Research Council or NARTH. These organizations tout statistical studies that report that gay men are more likely to have been molested by adult males as children, and therefore jump to the conclusion that childhood sexual experience with a male causes homosexuality. It begs the question: Is heterosexuality caused by sexual molestation by someone of the opposite sex??
But seriously, the statistics they cite are erroneous or taken out of context. It is true that gay men are more likely to report sexual experiences with adults when they were under the age of 16, but in the majority of those cases (one study reports it as 68%), they had already self-identified as being gay before the molestation had occurred. A closer look at those suspect statistics reveals definitions that become problematic. A boy of 15 who had a sexual experience with a boy of 18 would have fallen within the definitions of having been molested. But most of us would not view sex between a 15-year-old and 18-year-old as a predator molestation.
This is what the American Psychological Association has to say about it in May, 2000:
"No specific psychosocial or family dynamic cause for homosexuality has been identified, including histories of childhood sexual abuse.
Sexual abuse does not appear to be more prevalent in children who grow up to identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, than in children who identify as heterosexual."
The national Organization on Male Sexual Victimization stated in 2004:
"While there are different theories about how sexual orientation develops, experts in the human sexuality field do not believe that premature sexual experiences play a significant role in late adolescent or adult sexual orientation.”
Sexual abuse can interfere with a person’s sexual enjoyment and may even contribute to a condition referred to as Homosexual Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in which a person keeps checking to reassure himself that he’s not gay. But childhood sexual abuse does not create a person’s deepest passions, attractions and desires.
12. What do you suggest about telling the children?
I think the answer to that depends on the age of the children. Generally speaking, kids don’t want to hear about anything sexual associated with their parents. It conjures up images of what Mom or Dad does between the sheets. There’s a strong “yuck” factor to it. Husbands and wives divorce every day but they don’t usually share their bedroom disappointments with their children. That being said, if Dad has found a male partner, or if other situations arise that make it necessary to have that conversation with the kids, I believe it should be couched in terms of affection and love rather than complicated and ambiguous labels. Children understand love and affection. But terms such as ‘sexual orientation’ are generally beyond their level of comprehension. Unless they are in their late teens, anything about their parents that includes the word ‘sexual’ is toxic. Wherever possible, the child should be given support he/she is going to need to cope with the knowledge that they have a gay parent. If a child shares that information with friends, they can quickly become the target of mean-spirited taunts. I urge parents to work with a therapist or family counselors in discussing it with kids and I recommend they also have a conversation with the school counselor so the kids have someone supportive they can turn to at school.
Doug
Thank you, Doug, for sharing this information with us.
Mailbag
In keeping with my theme of men for the month, the letter below comes from a straight man, Jim. He would like to share his thoughts with you.
Bonnie,
I just read your May newsletter and I continue to be dismayed at the reaction of many of your readers to the discovery of a gay spouse. It seems to me that there is some “social dynamic” at work that makes women feel almost responsible for a husband’s gayness. It’s as if they feel that they have somehow “caused” it. Yet much of what I have read in your newsletters indicates that gayness was brought to the marriage, not that the marriage caused a spouse to “become gay”. The only “fault” is that the offended spouse was, for one reason or another, unable (or perhaps unwilling, but I am inclined to believe “unable”) to recognize the signs. George Bernard Shaw once observed that most men will choose a spouse in a light so dim that they would not consider buying a suit in it, much less choose a life partner. Perhaps the same is true of women! But allowing one’s self-esteem to be a function of the deceit practiced by another is a serious and dangerous mistake. The fact that society has made hiding gayness is, I’m sure, a factor in the deceit. But to take upon oneself the burden of a societal error is not a proper response.
It’s understandable that emotions run high when one is talking about what was presumed to be a lifetime commitment and children are involved. Even straight couples who divorce face trauma and feelings of guilt. I did when I first divorced. However, a marriage relationship is a two-way street. Each party brings “baggage” to the relationship and that baggage should be inspected before committing to sharing a life. Both parties have a responsibility to the relationship and if one is deceitful while the other is not, it seems to me that the burden of low self-esteem is really, or should be, with the deceiving party. We are deceived daily by news media, politicians, marketers, professional colleagues, etc.
Spousal deceit, while much more personal, is not objectively different. Any man who is attracted to pictures of other naked men has “baggage” that needs to examined. If I want to see a naked man, I can look in the mirror! If the desire of a man to see pictures of other naked men cannot be examined, and in most cases it cannot, we should not chalk up a discovery of that desire to our own failings and punish ourselves for not having seen signs that were hidden to begin with. Life is little more than a series of choices and not all of our choices result in positive outcomes.
If one of the parties to a relationship deliberately chooses to not reveal something important to the relationship, it is not reasonable for the other party to bear the burden of that choice. Simply stated, we can’t always be right! But we can always be FAIR to ourselves. We certainly should not have to bear the burdens of some other person’s choices. And we should not build our own lives around them. Forgiving oneself for a mistake is essential to moving on in life. And it is most unfair to expect our children to carry the burden of the choices of their adult parents. They have enough to worry about in their own lives!
Jim
JULY WORKSHOPS BY MY CO-THERAPIST MISTI LYNN HALL
July will be a very busy month. I will be offering a Saturday Seminar, a weekday Seminar and a Workshop! Please see the descriptions below.
Saturday Seminar: Spirituality and Healing
Being married to a gay man dissolved my Spirit and caused hurt and pain to the depths of my Soul. I was walking around in an empty shell. Hollow on the inside. My Spirit was depleted and my Soul was wounded. I had no motivation, no purpose or meaning in my life. I was barely existing. Then I discovered the importance of rebuilding myself Spiritually. Finding things that fed my SPIRIT healed me on a Soul level. On Saturday, July 10, I will share with you the things that fed my Spirit and motivated me to start the quest of living an extraordinary life. You can expect this seminar to be a mixture of lecture, guided activities, discussion (question and answer session) and a downloadable journal/workbook on Spirit Center Discovery. This topic of Spirituality has nothing to do with a specific religion. This type of Spirituality will focus on how to refill your SPIRIT and allow that zest for life to flow back to you. This life is precious. You deserve to live it fully and completely. Join in on this live Saturday Seminar Telecourse via your telephone from the comforts and privacy of your own home.
What: July Saturday Seminar Telecourse
When: July 10, 2010 at 1:00-3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time Zone
Cost: $30.00
Note: You must have access to a phone to call into the Telecourse. You will also need access to a computer for email and be able to print the Spirit Centered Discovery journal/workbook. Arrangements can be made to mail the packet if you do not have a printer.
Self-Esteem Seminar
I recently facilitated a Saturday Seminar on Self-Esteem. It was tremendously successful. I have gotten so much positive feedback and so many requests from Straight Wives that I will be offering a repeat of this seminar on a weeknight.
Often times Straight Wives have little to no Self-Esteem. Knowing that your spouse is Gay can be very damaging to your Self-Esteem. There are many things that can lead to low self-esteem. For starters, our culture already promotes the essence of a woman to be unrealistic by expecting us to be Wonder Woman. On top of that, add a Gay spouse to the stress and it spells for disaster in the Self-Esteem department. The years of being in a Gay/Straight marriage can be devastating. Little chunks of Self-Esteem are removed bit by bit, piece by piece.
Improving Self-Esteem is crucial for Straight Wives to heal. It can be repaired. It takes work, knowledge, time and effort to repair broken Self-Esteem. Join in on this Seminar to learn how to start the repair process. You can expect this Seminar to be a mixture of lecture, discussion (question and answer session), activities to help rebuild your Self-Esteem and a downloadable Self-Esteem journal.
If your Self-Esteem has been damaged due to being in a Gay/Straight marriage, join us for the Seminar. Regardless of where you are in your journey, this Self-Esteem Seminar should be helpful for you.
What: Seminar/Telecourse
When: July 21, 2010 (Wednesday) at 8:30-10:30 PM Eastern Standard Time
Cost: $30.00
Note: You must have access to a phone to call into the Seminar/Telecourse. You will also need access to a computer for email and be able to print the Self-Esteem journal. Arrangements can be made to mail the Self-Esteem journal if you do not have a printer.
Workshop: Rediscovering YOURSELF!
I am happy to announce that I have a brand new Workshop scheduled for July. This workshop is all about rediscovering yourself...redefining yourself...and becoming the new YOU. By participating in this workshop, you can expect to find where you are stuck in your grief process, identify your obstacles and learn how to remove those obstacles. The workshop will also be full of tips, guided activities, ideas and individualized suggestions on how to move forward.
If you are Straight Wife, you know how difficult it is to redefine yourself after a gay/straight marriage. Often times we wonder around feeling lost and stuck in our past. Our past has a tendency to haunt our present and future. Don't let your past define you. Realize that you deserve to have hopes and dreams. Join in on this 4 week workshop and allow this to be a time for new possibilities and new discoveries about yourself.
We will meet for 4 consecutive Mondays. The workshop will begin on July 25 and go through August 16, 2010. We will connect with each other via a conference line from 8:30-10:00PM on each Monday during the workshop.
What: 4 weeks of online/telephone workshop for Straight Spouses
Starts: July 26, 2010 @ 8:30-10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time Zone and it will meet 4 consecutive Mondays.
Cost: $150.00
Supplies Needed: Access to a telephone and to email.
Includes: Email support from the facilitator, Misti Hall, M.S.
For more information and/or to reserve your spot in any of the upcoming events contact MistiLynnHall@aol.com. The Seminars and Workshops are very easy and convenient to participate in from the privacy of your own home. The only essential equipment you need is a phone that will call a long distance number. Please note that your privacy is respected. You can register under an anonymous name.
To all of the wonderful men, gay and straight, who are part of this support network, Happy Father’s Day to you. To any women who have husbands who are struggling with the truth, hopefully you can share this newsletter with them in hopes that they will do the right thing someday soon.
With Love and Hope,
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.
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