I receive between seventy five to one hundred letters a week asking me for advice or comfort. I separate the calls for help and put them into different categories. Some are looking for information such as how to catch their husbands looking a gay websites on the Internet. Others need support to help them get through the most traumatizing time of their lives. But there are also three other categories of letters that I receive which sadden me because I know that I can’t respond with the answers these women want. I’d like to share these three areas with you. I’ve included a typical letter I receive for each of them:
1. Women who want for me to verify that their gay husbands are NOT gay.
Dear Bonnie,
I just read your book and the chapter about the Gay Husband Checklist. Even though my husband fits into three of the areas that you discuss, I have strong doubts that he is gay. Isn’t it possible for a man to look at gay pornography just because he thinks it’s erotic? He swears he will never act on these feelings. He just enjoys it and finds it stimulating. And, although he had several sexual encounters with men prior to marriage, they were strictly that—casual sexual encounters. There was no emotional tie. He never even kissed them. Isn’t that normal for many males to experiment when they are younger? As long as he doesn’t have sex with men now, isn’t this okay? He swears he has never cheated on me since we married and doesn’t plan to.
Isn’t it possible for him just to go through life just having those thoughts now and then without really acting on them? Everyone has fantasies.
2. Women who want a miracle and are convinced I’m the vehicle.
Dear Bonnie,
I desperately need your help. I suspect my husband might be gay or bisexual. I know there must be something I can do to make sure that he doesn’t act on these feelings. You’ve been working with this for 20 years. I’m sure you must have learned something that will work.
Women who want to debate or confront me.
Dear Bonnie,
I have been living with my husband for 10 years. He just revealed to me that he is gay. I wrote to you for help and you sent me your information. I’ve read your newsletters and think that they are very negative towards keeping marriages together. I know that you are a voice of doom, but we don’t agree with you. My husband and I love each other and we know we can work this problem through in time. You are really misleading people with your opinions.
Okay, so let’s revisit some of this stuff again. It’s part of my yearly personal inventory to see how I really do feel about these issues and if my points of view have changed.
My opinions on the issue of straight/gay marriage are based on my own personal experience first. Next, they are based on thousands of your personal experiences. Do I have the only answers? Absolutely not. Do I have the best answers? Well, I think so. But that’s to be expected. If I didn’t think I had the best answers, I’d be a fraud and untrue to my own self.
My primary goal has always been to help women understand the complexities of their marriages to their gay husbands and how to untangle all of the mysteries in their minds like blaming themselves. It has also been my secondary goal to help gay men to be honest with themselves and their wives by supporting them through their coming out process. Living in the shadows of secrecy is not a solution to this problem.
Do I want to break up families? No, not at all. I think families need to be together when there are children involved. I call it “Family Unification.” I just believe that this important aspect of life should be conducted from two different households—yours and his. You can co-parent, you can have the strongest of friendships, but chances are, you’ll never obtain this as long as you are married. Why do I feel so strongly about that last statement? Simple. It’s hard to be good friends with someone you can’t trust. It’s hard to keep loving someone who can’t love you back the way you need to be loved. And it’s most difficult to make your children happy when you can’t be happy.
People debate the issue with me whether children are more secure in a household with two parents or with parents who are in two separate households.
Some people tell me they are staying together for the sake of the children. In a perfect world, a child growing up with two loving parents is the ultimate situation. But when there is dysfunction and unhappiness in the home, this is not the ideal situation. This just doesn’t apply to straight/gay marriages, but to any marriage that has dysfunction at the core of the relationship.
Some of you may challenge me on whether a straight/gay marriage can be labeled as “dysfunction at the core of the relationship.” Of course it is. This is not marriage the way marriage was meant to be. This is a “mismarriage” as I call it. It is a mistake that happened. In most cases, there is no one at fault. I do believe that. There was no deceptive plan at the time of marriage to “screw up the woman’s life.”
I may be negative, but I am very understanding. I know that gay men married their wives in almost all cases because they loved them. I also acknowledge that most gay men who married believed they were straight or would be straight after marriage. For real. They did believe this. I have also come to believe that some gay men never acted on their homosexuality prior to marriage. Damn, I’ve even come to believe that there are a couple (maybe a handful) of guys who haven’t acted on their homosexuality at all until after they leave their marriage. See, even I can learn and change my opinions after 20 years. But that still doesn’t change my basic philosophy.
Is that to say that straight/gay marriages don’t stay together? Of course they do. A number of my support group members remain in their marriages. They are looking for support while they are in their marriages—BUT THEY ARE NOT LOOKING FOR ME TO SUPPORT THEIR MARRIAGES. They know that I can’t do that. I understand that leaving a marriage isn’t always easy or even possible. Some women are literally trapped, even if, in some cases, they are trapped by their own fears and insecurities. I never judge—I just give support. I will always be there for an encouraging word.
A few letter writers who don’t know me or choose not to understand me characterize me as an “angry, bitter woman.” Au contraire. You will NEVER hear me condemning a woman because she can’t make the steps that will free her. I know that everyone has to survive at her own pace. Who am I to judge? If my ex-husband had not walked out on me on that September day, who knows how long I would have remained in my life of misery? I wasn’t even myself any longer. I had given up my identity and become a stranger in my own body. I was a scared, lonely, isolated woman whose sense of reality had been distorted. And I was only battered for four years. How do women do it for 10, 20 or 30 years? They just sacrifice any sense of life that is left.
If I have to name what I feel my best quality is, (we all need to brag about ourselves on a semi-regular basis for reassurance!) I would say that it’s the ability to keep feeling other’s pain long after I am past it and not to make judgment. I never say, “I did it so you can do it.” That’s ridiculous. We are all different, and all of our life experiences have been different.
It reminds me of the early years after my marriage dissolved, and I turned to welfare in order to survive. At that point, I had an chronically ill infant, a high-strung two year old, and I was mentally beaten down and filled with anxiety. I was unable to hold down a job because of my son’s frequent hospitalizations and need for care. As soon as I started building myself up mentally, I went back to school so I’d never have to be on welfare again.
Several years later, I began my current full-time career working with welfare mothers to obtain self-sufficiency. When I recruited at the welfare offices to help women find free training programs, I once heard another speaker judging them. “If I can do it, you can do it,” she said in a nasty tone. She wasn’t saying it to be supportive—she was saying it to be judgmental. She made it clear that she had disdain for people who she felt were “bilking” the system. She was judging others the way she had been judged, and somehow, she lost the sensitivity. She obviously had no one sign up for her program. I, on the other hand, was able to recruit the majority of people because I told them I could appreciate the hardship they were going through because I remembered the feelings of frustration and hopelessness I had felt living through welfare dependency. I tell that to my clients today, 16 years later. I never judge any of them. Almost all of them came from family lives that were far worse than mine. They came from generational poverty. They came from years of abuse and neglect. How could I compare that with my 3 year backslide in life?
I relate this story as I relate it to my counselees. I never judge how long it takes a woman to leave her marriage. I show her compassion and understanding, because even though it was another lifetime ago, I never loose touch with my feelings during that painful period. I never judge a woman even if she stays in her marriage as long as she knows what she is facing and is honest about it.
I’ll go one better than that—I don’t judge people who are trying to make these marriages work and look to condemn me. Talk about angry and bitter as I mentioned earlier. If I were an angry or bitter woman, I would be insulting to women and couples who write about their disagreements with me. I never do that. I just refer them elsewhere. I never say my way is the only way. I wish them all the best of luck in finding the answers I can’t give them. I even tell them how to look for them. I never delete anyone’s message who disagrees with me. I respond to all messages. I believe that people can reach out to each other and find common grounds for understanding, even if we can’t agree on lifestyles. Diversity is what makes the world go around, I suppose.
There are straight/gay couples who are working at making their marriages work. If they choose to struggle in these relationships, who am I to sit and throw stones? I am not the last word on this subject. I just think that I am the best word for most of the people most of the time. Why do I think this? Probably because of the one category of letters that I receive that are my favorite category of all. Whenever I feel discouraged or disheartened, I go to my favorite file of “Thanks” letters. And I have hundreds of them. Each person who took the time to write me a personal thanks makes all of this worthwhile. It’s what keeps me moving along on a day-to-day basis. These letters keep me writing this monthly newsletter even though friends and family tell me to give it a break. Even my soulmate says write it bi-monthly or quarterly. I tell him no, people are counting on me. They are counting on me to confirm their mental health on a monthly basis. That’s because I know how important it is to have a voice of reason and confirmation there to give support regularly during a crisis. I remember how isolated and alone I felt struggling with this on my own years ago. I swore that if I had the opportunity to help others, I would always be there to do it, and I am.
Several weeks ago, a woman wrote me a beautiful thank you letter. It kind of said everything I love to hear so I asked her if I could share it with you, my readers.
Here was her response:
Hi Bonnie!
You most certainly can use any part of my letter in your newsletter! If it can help just one woman out there make the right decision it would give me great joy. I would prefer if you would use my first name only. Please feel free to use any part or even the entire letter.
Thanks, Shelley
And here is her letter:
Bonnie,
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for the great book that you have put out and the wonderful monthly newsletter. My husband came out to me approximately 2 months ago. I knew at that moment that there was no way that I would be able to deal with this situation and I told him so at that time. I love him very deeply and it is killing me to have to go through this but I know that I must. Soon after he told me the news I did what I always do when faced with a new obstacle, I started checking the internet for books on the subject and for support groups as well. I found a few books so I ordered them all.
What I found is that most were lacking or really didn't give me the direct information that I was looking for. Your book was the only one that I identified with. It seemed that everywhere I looked I found people giving me advice to "go for counseling" with my husband or to "take it slow" because I didn't want to make a decision that I would regret later. I kept thinking why should I do those things? Is he going to suddenly stop being gay? Or maybe I should try to find a way for me to accept his shortcomings and create a whole new relationship?
I joined a yahoo group for women that have a gay/bisexual husband or boyfriend and was astounded by what I read there! Many of those women had decided to stay with their gay husbands and work things out! They would constantly post about how much pain they were in and how they didn't know how long they could handle the situation. There were even some people that had made "contacts" with their husband about when he could go out with his "friends"! I couldn't believe what I was ready, I kept wanting to shake these women and scream "wake up!" in their faces. I quickly unsubscribed to that club needless to say.
Anyway, when I finally received your book (took awhile I must say) I read it within a few hours. I sighed with relief because I finally found a voice of reason. I knew what you had to say (as difficult as it was to hear) was what I was looking for and I knew that it was right. Thank you Bonnie for letting me know that I am on the right track. My husband helped me find a new townhouse and helped me move in. We remain friends and still love each other very much. It hasn't been easy but I have made it this far. I am very fortunate because we did not have any children even though we were married for 10 years (perhaps woman's intuition?) Thanks again Bonnie. I wish you all the best. Perhaps I will join your Thursday night chats soon!
Of course, most marriages do not end this easily or nicely. Maybe this is why so many of them keep dragging on —for fear of how bad the ending will really be. But when I look at the alternatives of how people live, those who are “making their way” through these marriages, it really saddens me. In my September newsletter, I’ll be discussing some of those marriages.
Next, I’d like to clarify my position on the subject of what makes a man gay for those of you who continue to dispute me or choose not to label your husbands for your own state of mental health. If you feel better thinking that your husband is “straight but bi-curious” or “straight with gay leanings” or any of the other combinations of justification you have written to me about, well, that’s okay. Or if you’re a gay man who is offended by my classification of you as being gay vs. bisexual, bi-curious, or any other name that doesn’t have the word “gay” in it, well, that’s okay too. I don’t really care what you choose to call yourself. That is your call, not mine.
The bottom line is this: If you can live with the fact that the man you love is (from the least to the most extreme order)
· fantasizing about men
· looking at gay porno
· chatting in gay/bisexual chatrooms on the computer
· calling 1-900 gay phone numbers to chat
· looking at men instead of you
· having occasional discreet sexual encounters with men
· having an actual relationship with a man
and you feel that your life with him is fulfilling in spite of this, then who am I to give you advice? I do not advocate happy couples with strong marriages splitting up. It’s just that out of the thousands and thousands of women who have come to me for help, I haven’t seen very many happy marriages. In fact, I haven’t found any happy and fulfilled ones. I have found marriages trying to struggle through this, but no one who has written to me saying that she is happy that she is married to a gay man even though she had no knowledge of it before she got married.
Of course, when I throw out that challenge to women who accuse me of being one-sided, sometimes they write me back that the only women I would hear from are women who are unhappy. Negativity just seems to gravitate towards me, they think.
And maybe that’s true. Maybe a woman who is truly happy in a marriage with her gay husband wouldn’t be looking for my help. So if you’re out there, good luck to you.
But by the time women write to me, there’s something not right going on. You may not know for sure what it is, but you suspect it’s possible that it can be the unspeakable. And for all of you who write to me for help, I will continue giving the only kind of help I can—a heaping helping of no-nonsense honesty. Yes, honesty as I see it. And I guess I’m not so far off track from all of the wonderful letters of thanks like Shelley’s that confirm that what I do makes a difference for you.
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