Bonnie Kaye’s Straight Talk Newsletter June, 2001 Volume 1, Issue 4

A TRIBUTE TO VIVIEN LEIGH AND ALL OF THE OTHER
NYMPHOMANIACS OUT THERE

A few years ago, I was watching a television special on Vivien Leigh, deceased mega-movie star best known for her role as Scarlet O’Hara in the 1939 movie saga, “Gone With the Wind.” As the story went on about her life, there was mention of the word “nymphomaniac.” The story continued about the years of depression and mental illness she endured and her tragic death after losing her battle to tuberculosis.

When I heard the word “nymphomaniac,” it grabbed my attention and brought back some very troubling emotions. The word is derogatory for certain. When people call others this name, it is a name of shame, not admiration. I know this because I had heard this word too many times through my marriage to my gay husband. And yes, it took its toll on my self-confidence as a woman. No woman likes to be accused of being a sexually demanding partner. It is degrading to think that there is something wrong with you when you think that your sexual needs are normal.

Through the years, I heard many other women express their feelings of shame over this accusation. Of course, by then I knew the deal. I knew this was a way for some gay husbands to make their wives feel abnormal enough that they would stop asking for sex. This accusation usually came when they were running out of headache excuses to avoid the physical interaction that was being increasingly difficult to pull off.

When I investigated further about Vivien Leigh’s life, I learned that the love of her life was Sir Lawrence Olivier. Olivier was gay or as some men like to call themselves, “Bisexual.” Was I surprised to find this? No not at all. It was so much easier to label Leigh a “nymphomaniac than to understand the real problem—her husband’s homosexuality.

I understand this. I know what it’s like to be told that the fault for bad sex in a marriage is my fault. My husband used to say that I was too demanding or too pushy when it came to wanting sex. I remember what it feels like to be told that wanting sex as much as I wanted it was “abnormal.” I couldn’t understand why once or twice a week was “excessive” for a newly married couple. I would voice this concern only to be shot down with more insults. When my husband saw that I wasn’t backing off, he resorted to calling me the worst name of all…nymphomaniac. That quickly put to rest any thoughts for a night of passion. It belittled me enough not to ask again. So sex (not lovemaking) deteriorated quickly within that first year and I became too ashamed to suggest or approach it.

I learned through conditioning that I was much too “aggressive” in that area, so I stepped back and retreated.

Yep, it hurt like hell. I think this is one of the worst parts of being a wife of a gay man. It slowly strips away from you one of the most important parts of being a woman. You start to believe that you are inadequate as a lover. After all, if you were a good lover, your husband would want you, right? Well, we know in these cases, wrong, but while we’re living this way, it’s hard to keep it in perspective.

Getting back to Vivien Leigh, the more I researched her life, the angrier I became. It is common knowledge that she suffered from mental depression. She went through a series of shock treatments and was labeled manic/depressive.

Sir Lawrence Olivier finally left her twenty plus years into their marriage saying he could no longer deal with her mental state. It seems to fit the prototype of so many of our own marriages. Some biographers attribute her depression to her tuberculosis, as explained away by some medical practitioners. I guess back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the medical field wasn’t aware of the mentally debilitating state of straight wives married to gay men. I’m sure there weren’t any support groups around for women in this position.

It’s interesting that so many of the women I hear from and work with are also taking medication for depression. Even more interesting is the fact that none of them are suffering from tuberculosis. Rather, they are depressed because they feel like they are failures in their lives and marriages. They can’t please their husbands no matter how hard they try, and they place the blame on themselves. Even after they know the real problem in their marriage, they continue to be depressed internalizing the blame. We may rationalize intellectually it’s not our fault, but on some level, our intellect is clouded by irrational emotional feelings of responsibility.

If Vivien Leigh were alive today, no doubt she would have much greater support in her struggle to understand why her marriage failed, why she was depressed, and why she was a normal woman with normal sexual desires. The love of her life went on to marry some other love in his life after the marriage ended. How that marriage worked out is a mystery.

So the next time you see a movie with Vivien Leigh, realize that we hold a common bond with her. Let her serve as an example of what can happen to a woman when she lives her life in a maze of distortion. And let us also learn from her tragedy and seek professional help to put our lives on track lest we end up spending wasted years on medications that don’t change the source of our unhappiness.

“AND TALKING ABOUT SEXUALITY’…

I won’t tiptoe around the subject. I know that sometimes it takes
a while before women are able to discuss this sensitive issue. Eventually it comes to the forefront, but sometimes it is too painful or embarrassing an issue to discuss one on one or even in a group. Therefore, I will write this to the many of you who think about it, but are too afraid to talk about it.

In my book, “Is He Straight, A Checklist for Women Who Wonder,” I have a checklist for the prototype of woman that gay men seek. Sometimes it is a conscious search; other times it is an unconscious choice. But there does seem to be a list that most of us fit in to.

The majority of women whom I hear from fit into the category of “women with limited sexual experience.” I can usually spot these women quickly because they have similar letters. They write that they thought their sexual relationship with their gay husband was satisfactory or satisfying. Usually they add in that is fine when they have “sex”---it just doesn’t happen very often. It makes me so sad that women think that the sexual acts they have had with their gay husbands is, well, for lack of a better term, “REAL SEX.” Gay husband egos aside, it is satisfactory sex, or perhaps functionary sex. But real true passion—well, it’s just not.

Truth be told—I know the difference. Not only did I have a gay husband, I also had a couple of gay boyfriends in my younger years. We did it, but it always left something to be desired. My ex-husband Michael wasn’t bad on those occasions when we had sex. But it always seemed like he had to try so hard—almost forced—after the honeymoon was over. And there’s nothing to deflate your ego more than thinking that a man is doing you a favor by making love to you—especially a man who loves you.

I called Michael last week and asked him if he could think back to the days when we were sexually involved prior to and shortly after the marriage. I told him that I needed his honest, objective opinion about our sex life together. Did he really enjoy it? Did he look forward to it? Was it a hardship for him? He told me that in the beginning, he actually did enjoy it. Having sex with me was working toward his goal of getting married and having a family. He was hoping that I would be the solution to his fantasy of the American dream. He still did not consider himself gay at that point although he had already had numerous gay sexual encounters. But he felt that he was straight because he never had an emotional entanglement with these guys. There was no kissing, hugging or intimacy—it was just sex. I hear that from many gay men who cross over the line to the straight side for a while. They are not trying to fool us—they are trying to fool Mother Nature. Or they are hoping that Mother Nature has been playing a joke on them because they are able to perform with a woman to some degree. Michael was certainly adequate enough as a lover to fool me. It was never a great sex life, but it was a good sex life for the first few months. There was nothing that out of whack that would make me suspicious that he was gay.

Now, all these years later, I am happy to say that I could definitely tell the difference. This is due to the love of an exceptional man who entered my life seven and a half years ago. It wasn’t love at first sight on his part, but it was on mine. After chasing him for 16 months, he gave in and we began what I define as the love affair of my life. We’ve had some bumpy moments in our relationship, but this is due to the fact that he is a man and I am a woman. You know how men are from Mars, and women are from Venus. One road that has never been bumpy is our sex life. After seven and a half years, it is still top of the line. He is playful and passionate. He aims to please because he gets satisfaction out of pleasing me—and it turns him on instead of off. Every encounter is an adventure. We don’t have sex—we make love. This is perhaps the real difference. Making love to someone is an important way of expressing love. Wanting to please your partner before pleasing yourself is the most unselfish form of showing love. Making sure that your partner is satisfied shows the real nature of giving love. I have come to enjoy new aspects of lovemaking that I never dreamt existed. And I don’t have to scheme about how I can have him make love to me. He is always ready, able, and willing to go. We are a middle-aged couple whose sex life is continually peaking.

This man makes me feel as if I am the most desirable woman in the world.
He hasn’t noticed that I am fat yet because his love for me blinds him to my imperfections. I haven’t noticed that he’s not Steven Segal yet because in my eyes, that’s whom he looks like. Maybe our lives are like the movie “The Enchanted Cottage”, where two people appear physically to each other only to be what they see in each other, even if no one else can see it. But isn’t that what true love really is?

They say that sex is the part of the relationship that takes the least amount of time. Maybe that’s so. But it is such an important part of a relationship because it creates intimacy, closeness, and trust. A healthy sexual relationship builds a sense of self-esteem in a woman because the woman feels desirable. For me, it gives us an added treasure to look forward to and cherish several times a week. In between, it brings us closer with holding, touching, and caressing as a sort of after-math. This keeps our love alive and flourishing.

Am I bragging? Well, sort of. But I am not doing it to make anyone jealous—but rather to make a point. There is hope for every woman whose sexual esteem has been broken and battered much like mine was. It took me 11 years to open my heart to love or sex after my marriage. I felt so deflated as a woman and as a sex partner. I was content living in a state of celibacy and suppressing that side of my human need.

I was out there looking for a while before my soulmate came floating into my life. During that period, I was met lots of men while looking for love. I had some short-term relationships and even a few shorter encounters. I was ready to awaken the side of me that had died years before during my marriage. I was awkward at first because it had been so long. But when the right moment came, I took advantage of it. I know I wasn’t at my best at first because I was so nervous, but I certainly enjoyed the passion of a straight man. It felt so nice to have someone want to fulfill that need and do it happily instead of feeling like I was forcing him. It wasn’t perfect the first time or even the tenth time, but it kept getting better as I started gaining back my sexual confidence. Yes, it’s scary starting this side of life over again, but it is so worth it. All women are born with sexuality. Women who are married to gay men have had that side suppressed or deadened by their spouse. We just learn to give up on that part of us and to bury it thinking that this is the natural course of marriage or a relationship. Please know that it can be revived and brought back to life.

My soulmate has never called me a “nymphomaniac” That’s because I’m not. I never was. I am just a normal woman with very normal sexual needs. Over the past seven and a half years, he has cultivated my sexuality and taught me that I can reach new heights of enjoyment. It is easy to keep me sexually interested because my partner never allows our sex life to become boring or mundane. He is a straight man—a straight man who appreciates a straight woman. Let this be a lesson for all of you. Never give up the part of you that helps maintain your identity as a woman. Give yourself a chance to be loved again. Look for your soulmate because chances are, he is out there looking for you.

“GET OVER IT”

Another problem that many women write to me about is the pressure they get from family members or friends to “get over it” when it comes to recovery from their marriages. They can’t understand why they are having such trouble doing this, and they feel even more inadequate (as if we need more to feel worse about) because it just isn’t happening as quickly as other people.

I get upset when I hear this pressure expressed from women who are really trying to move past their anger and hurt but not at the pace that others expect of them. After all, marriages fall apart all of the time. In fact, almost 50% of marriages in this country end in divorce. People start over again and find new relationships. Why are you having such a hard time?

What other people don’t realize is that there are numerous issues that we have to deal with after a marriage to a gay spouse ends. Some of these issues are unique and unlike those that women with straight husbands face. We have to figure out what to say to the children and when to tell them; we also have to decide what to tell family, friends, and co-workers. We live in a world where people still don’t understand about a gay husband and fear the ridicule we will face from them. There are many very ignorant people out there. Even in this day and age, people say, “What did you do to make him gay? After all, he wasn’t gay when he married you.”
We have to rebuild our own self-esteem, which has been sorely damaged through these marriages by not only feeling the failure of a marriage, but also wondering how much of a lie we were living. We have to rebuild our sense of trust within our own decision-making processes knowing that we walked blindly into a situation where we were so misled. Most of us have lost or never had the feeling of what real intimacy means in a relationship. We have difficulty trusting men again and trusting our own ability not to walk into this situation one more time. And this is a genuine fear that many women express—“It happened to me once. How do I know the next man I get involved with won’t be gay?” After all, why couldn’t we tell the first time around? This is confirmed by the ignorance of others who insist that we “must have known but married him anyway because we thought we could change him.”

There are other complications as well. There are those women who still feel some sense of responsibility for their husbands’ homosexuality. They are convinced that they played some part in their husbands turning to men.

That’s because some gay husbands are cruel enough to say that to them rather than take the responsibility for the truth.

We have to deal with our own feelings of homophobia. Even if we were understanding of homosexuality in general terms, it took a whole new meaning when it entered our marriages and ruined our hopes and dreams for our futures with our husbands. We have to deal with our own feelings about our husbands bringing lovers into the lives of our children and how that will affect our children emotionally. We have to fear how other people will treat our children if they find out. And of course, we now have to contend with the possibility that our children will be gay because this is a new reality.

Certainly straight marriages that end go through emotional upset and turmoil. We have to go through those same problems, such as single parenthood, financial problems, selling the home, and legal tangles. But in addition, we are forced to deal with all the additional issues stated above. This is a double whammy that just doesn’t end when a marriage ends.

So, the next time someone tells you to “Get over it,” don’t feel that there’s something wrong with you. Just smile and say, “Some day I will.” Take the time that you need to rebuild your strength. Gay Spouse Recovery takes time. Sometimes it takes a lot of time. Eventually things will equal out, but some scars are bound to remain. And that’s okay. We are not machines that can just wipe away the emotional impact, nor should anyone tell you how you should feel after this disaster.

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Bonnie Kaye’s Straight Talk Newsletter May, 2001 Volume 1, Issue 3

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY –THE “IF ONLY” AND THE “BLAME” GAMES

I have worked with too many women who at first assume that the reason for their husbands’ homosexuality is due to something they did wrong. For those of us who have had time to work through this problem over a longer period, it is easy for us to react by saying that this thinking is ludicrous. But try to remember when you first suspected or discovered your husband’s interest in men. Then it doesn’t seem quite as ridiculous.

When I reflect on my own inner feelings of shame during those early years, I remember feeling a great sense of responsibility. I used to play a game that most of us fall prey to. I call it the “If Only Game.” It goes like this. “If only I could be a better wife….if only I was more attractive…if only I was better as a lover…if only I was a better housekeeper, if only I wasn’t so demanding…if only I could lose more weight….if only I was smarter…if only, if only, if only…then maybe he could love me enough not to think of men.

My ex-husband, Michael, was excellent at playing the other mind-twister game, which I call the “Blame Game.” After I questioned him for the first time about his sexuality two years into our marriage, he used this as an opening to play this game as his new weapon of mental torture. This is where he would come closest to revealing the truth by throwing in my face, “If I were gay, who could blame me? After all, you are always making too many sexual demands…complaining about something…gaining weight…acting jealous…being possessive …much too demanding….all consuming…and the list went on. Then he would end the conversation with the words I desperately wanted and needed to hear—“It’s a wonder that I’m not gay.” Whew, what a relief. I was a failure as a wife, but at least not failure enough to make him gay.

A young woman who visits my on-line support sessions on Thursday evenings recently told us that on an intellectual level she knows she didn’t make her husband gay, but emotionally she still feels that she is responsible. I often hear this in the beginning of a marriage separation. During the early stages of disclosure, it is easy to believe that we are somehow at fault for our husband’s decision to enter the gay world. Even when we can accept the news, we still can’t grasp all of the implications. We can’t figure out how our husbands were “straight enough” to marry us, make love to us (even if it wasn’t frequently or passionately), have children with us, have married lives with us but chuck it all for sex with a man. When we pass through the denial stage and accept that our husbands are gay, we still have a difficult time believing that it wasn’t something we did that drove them over the borderline and into the twilight zone of homosexuality.

What takes time for us to fully comprehend is that we had no part whatsoever in our husbands’ homosexuality. This was who they were long before we ever knew them. Some of them knew it and fought it hoping that marriage to a woman would miraculously make them straight. It can’t…and it didn’t. Others claim they honestly didn’t know it because it didn’t surface until years later. But even the late bloomers almost always felt that something was not quite right—they just didn’t think it was a sexual thing.

Playing the “If Only Game” is a very natural part of self-questioning that all of us initially go through. The problem is that some of us keep playing, sometimes for months and even for years. This is a dangerous game if played for too long because it indicates that you have not been able to put things into perspective. It also stops you from moving ahead and trying to rebuild your life. Prolonged questioning of your failures in the marriage serve no purpose at all. If you failed at the marriage, it’s because you were in a no-win situation. You were set up for failure, not for success. Success was not an option.

If you had been in a marriage with an emotionally healthy straight man, all of your efforts of being a supportive and loving wife would have been appreciated and in fact, cherished. So don’t use your marriage with a gay husband as a map for your future relationships. If you try again with a straight man, you’ll see how different and better it can be. .

LIVING LA VIDA LIMBO

Let’s discuss married gay men who won’t leave the marriage or for that matter, won’t leave the closet. This is a subject that can never be talked about enough because it seems to be a stumbling block for so many of us who can’t get our husbands to “come clean” with the truth about their homosexuality. I receive so many letters each month from women who are sure about their husbands but fear confronting them. But I also get letters from women who do confront their husbands with evidence in hand and get denials with distorted truths giving excuses such as “Those pictures belonged to a co-worker,” or “I have no clue how those websites got on our computer.”

For those women whose husbands eventually tell you the truth, count yourselves as lucky even though you may not feel that way at the time. No doubt hearing the word gay is devastating, but not hearing it is even worse. This month alone, I have received 32 letters from women who asked me for advice because their husbands or ex-husbands will not admit to their homosexuality. These women know the truth. They have stumbled on it one way or another. It has smacked them in the face through hidden websites, email, pornography, letters, hotel receipts, phone bills, etc. And yet, their husbands just keep lying or denying. They are not ready to be honest--and may never be ready. Some men will never be ready to accept their homosexuality because it is too painful or embarrassing.

These are the men whom I call the “Limbo Men.” Their whole lives are lived in limbo. They are emotionally straight, but physically gay. They never feel totally comfortable in either world, but they are much more comfortable “passing” in the straight world where they are accepted as part of mainstream society.

All married gay men go through “limbo” for a period of time. In other words. they are stuck in between both worlds hoping that by wanting the straight world badly enough they will be able to “cross over” into it. They keep thinking that if they play the role long enough, they will become transformed into the part, not just play the part as an actor. But the Limbo Men I place in this category are different from other gay men who eventually come to terms with themselves. They are even different than the gay men who are staying in their marriages but who acknowledge they are gay, at least on some level.

The real Limbo Men have no sense of remorse for what they are doing to their wives. In fact, they often feel as if they are the victims and strike back at their wives in an emotional or physically abusive manner. They blame their wives for their unhappiness and never have a clue about the damage they are doing to these women whom they promised to love, cherish, and respect. They place the blame of their unhappiness on their wives, when in fact, there is nothing that their wives could possibly do to make them feel happy or fulfilled. Their wives are women, and they are gay men.

These are the men who will never leave their marriages. They will stay there until the day they die, leading a painful existence and sharing that pain with their wives. More specifically, pouring that pain upon their wives. We all know that misery loves company, and these men are happy to make you as miserable as they are.

So often, these “Limbo Men” husbands luck out. They have wives who are much kinder and more understanding than average. These are the women who will keep trying every little trick in the book thinking someday they will get their husbands hooked. The women live an accepted existence, looking for the crumbs in the marriage while trying to turn those crumbs into a cake. It is truly a tragedy and waste of human life..

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