By Carol Grever

I need your help.  As straight spouses, you and I have a foundation of mutual understanding because we’ve walked similar paths.  Challenges of mixed-orientation families seem insurmountable at times, calling for outside help.  We need a supportive listener to relieve the isolation of the closet, to stave off despair and offer hope for resolution of this confusing predicament.  Sooner or later, most straight spouses seek counseling from a professional clinical psychologist, licensed social worker, or pastor.  Often this counseling brings a turning point toward deep healing.  Occasionally, it seems to do more harm than good.  What makes the difference?

I’m researching counseling techniques for a forthcoming handbook for therapists who work with gay-straight couples and their families.  Specifically, I need real-life stories–your good and bad experiences with counseling.  What worked for you?  What really helped?  What made you want to run from that office and never return?  What made you furious?  What comforted you, challenged you, helped you set a fresh, positive course?  What related advice would you offer other straight spouses and their families regarding counseling?

Will you disclose your experience for others’ benefit?  Your story would be used anonymously as convincing demonstration of best practices and those that are disastrous.  Any information that you offer will be treated with utmost care, your identity never revealed.  By sharing your experience, you can be instrumental in sensitizing new therapists to the nuances of this delicate dilemma.

If you’re willing to help with this project, send me an email at carolgrever@gmail.com .  Please detail what happened, how you felt about the counseling events at the time and later, and the eventual outcome of the experience.  If you visited more than one counselor, compare their different methods and your response to them.

I’ll be deeply grateful for any information you offer, and I promise to treat it with absolute integrity.  Well-trained, sensitive, knowledgeable counselors are essential to straight spouses and their families striving to understand their present reality and reconfigure their future.  Your shared experience will help to educate more of those effective therapists.  Thank you!

Carol Grever, Author
Blog:  http://www.straightspouseconnection.com
Website:  http://www.carolgrever.com

Editor’s note:  We’ve often said in this blog that many counselors, therapists, and clergy have no tools to learn about the special needs of counseling straight spouses or both partners in mixed orientation marriages. We are happy to spread the word for Carol, and hope that her research will result in a better informed professional counseling community where we are concerned.  If you are willing to participate in her research, please contact her directly, as this is not sponsored by the Straight Spouse Network.

Book Review:
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home
by Rhoda Janzen

Rhoda Janzen’s candid, hilarious memoir proves that you can always go home,
even when home is to your Mennonite parents. What problem can’t be cured with
a little borscht?

Rhoda is dealt two blows in a week’s time. She is in a horrific car accident and her husband leaves her for a man he met on gay.com. She decides to go home and nurse her wounds and her broken heart.

She finds comfort in the Four F’s: Family, Faith, Food and Flatulence. If you are expecting a book of self-pity, this isn’t it. Janzen’s humor and optimism shine through, even as she begins to reveal the horrors she endured before her road to recovery. After years away from her Mennonite upbringing she sees the religion through adult eyes.  It is a world she no longer fits into after higher education (Mennonites frown upon that) and 15 years of marriage to an atheist, but one she has fond memories of as well. The reader grows to love this quirky family just as she does. Don’t we all have family members who say inappropriate things at the dinner table or fart in public or cook cabbage 15 different ways? Well maybe not, but every family has their idiosyncrasies.

Janzen is sarcastic and unapologetic. She’s one woman finding her own path
after tragedy strikes. And I laughed the whole way there.

Reviewed by Cathy Wos

Happy Valentine’s Day.

That may be a very difficult thing to hear for many straight spouses, some of whom are just learning that their husband or wife is gay.  For many, the feeling of loss is compounded by the romantic reminders all around them.  It confirms that you’re nobody’s valentine because the person you married would rather have sex with someone of the same sex, and not with you or anyone who is built like you. Valentines day can be a very painful and depressing day for anyone experiencing a breakup.  It seems to throw insult on top of injury for many straight spouses, who at one point in their lives may have believed in romance.

So the question is, how does a straight spouse survive Valentine’s day?  The answer: do something for yourself.

That sounds simple enough, but it really isn’t.  Many straight spouses have become so enmeshed in the drama, that they have neglected to nurture themselves, and enjoy the things they like.  So Valentine’s day is a day to do what is good for you – and figure that out.

It may be tempting to just enjoy chocolate, alcohol, or sweets in excess, but that isn’t really treating yourself well.  Instead, meet with friends and have dinner together.  Go to a movie that you like that your spouse would never have seen with you.  Do something that you enjoy that you stopped doing because your spouse objected or was just so sour on it that it wasn’t fun anymore.  That might include phoning a friend or family, renting a video, or attending a concert.

Think baths with your favorite bath oil.  Maybe shopping for new clothing, or something that your spouse never liked that you do like.  Go shopping at your favorite store for yourself.  Go fishing.  Go running. Watch a marathon of a show that you like and your spouse never did.

Love yourself.

You will have a new appreciation of the love of others, and a new self respect.

One thing you can do for yourself if you have not done so already is to contact the Straight Spouse Network to be connected to other people who truly understand this experience, and reach out to help each other heal.

At long last, President Obama is taking action on his campaign promise to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  On Tuesday, February 2 he and Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Mike  Mullen will appear before Congress and reveal the plan they have for fully integrating homosexuals into the armed forces.  The president is expected to issue an executive order halting the dismissal of service members who are gay when they are outed by a third party.

What does this have to do with straight spouses?

It means that those of us who are married to closeted homosexuals serving in the armed forces no longer need to ignore our own needs for counseling, disclosure, or medical testing for fear of the secret being discovered.  For families of closeted service members, disclosure means losing valuable income and benefits.  It means that a straight spouse cannot be blamed for ruining their spouse’s career and the family finances if they get help for themselves.

Oh good.  After tomorrow, we can talk.  About ourselves.  About our families.
Is Congress listening?  Maybe, we’ll see.

The Straight Spouse Network is the pre-eminent support group in the entire world for heterosexual husbands,  wives, and ex spouses of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered people.  Like it or not, we are family.  We are a peer to peer support group that functions in complete confidentiality.  We also are a resource for counselors and therapists who work with families to resolve the issues that are presented when a closeted spouse comes out, or when a straight spouse discovers that their husband or wife has a same sex attraction.

In the days ahead, the straight spouses and families of closeted members of the military will be needing help to make the adjustment to life outside the closet.  The Straight Spouse Network is here to provide that direct assistance to them, and to be resource for those family services professionals who will be working with them.

The Haggards are back, and Oprah’s got ‘em!

Gayle Haggard is on a publicity tour for her new book “Why I Stayed“.   It’s an interesting perspective on remaining married after same sex infidelity and betrayal.  It is very clear that a major factor in this decision is that Gayle genuinely loves her husband, Ted Haggard – and he loves her right back!  That alone is a story that many straight spouses never get to live.  Those who remain in mixed orientation monogamous marriages know that love, trust, and communication are paramount in importance – and have to be mutual.

Gayle made an appearance on Oprah, with Ted, and carried herself very well with Oprah’s proclaimed “non judgemental”  interview.  Oprah appeared incredulous that Gayle still loves her husband!  This is not so incredible to those who remain in long term mixed orientation marriages.  Oprahs questions were probing, insightful, and brought out a lot of good points about the entire experience. It was a great interview.

However, Oprah lost us on one train of thought:

“Would this have been the same were the infidelities with women?  I wonder if yeah, I just wonder, if and I’ve interviewed other women who found out their husbands were in relationships with men, who found out their husbands were gay, for some women it’s easier if the other man is gay. ….if its another man, there’s nothing you can do about that…for some women it makes it easier because you think well no matter what I would have done, well, you know, I’m not gonna be a guy!”

In our experience, it’s unusual for a straight woman to find infidelity with a gay husband to be preferable to infidelity with another woman, or even “the same”.  The realization that “it’s not me” does not come quickly for everyone, especially when you may not be able to disclose the reason for divorce, or confide in friends and family members.  As Gayle says, “It’s different”. Women who have attended our face to face meetings across the world and right there in Oprah’s home town, Chicago, say the same thing.  In a private, confidential, peer to peer setting, they share the stories of deception, betrayal, and the unique shredding of their own sexual identity that often comes with marriage to a closeted gay husband. For many women, the rejection of their female body and passive aggressive denigration of everything about them by their closeted gay husband comes before any actual infidelity. After discovery or disclosure, there can be a sense of relief that “it’s not me”, but they are left to rebuild who “me” is after so much tearing apart.

Gayle is telling her story, and emphasizes that it is hers and no one elses.  We applaud her for that, as we all have different experiences with our spouses and families. Her story will share some common threads with many.

If Oprah were to interview other straight spouses, she would gain  an understanding for herself and to her audience of the many different experiences and perspective concerning the experience of straight spouses, from “honey I’m gay” to “no, I’m not gay, you are crazy” to “well, you just have to let me be me and tolerate my same sex relationships” to “Im not gay, I just like having sexual encounters with men”.

The Straight Spouse Network is the pre eminent peer to peer support group for the heterosexual husbands and wives of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people.  There is an active face to face support group right there in Oprah’s back yard.  We encourage her to keep on interviewing women whose husbands are in relationships with men, and men whose wives are in relationships with women.

And Oprah, the next time you interview one of us, a straight spouse like Gayle or Dina, we’d appreciate it if you would let your large audience know that yes, there’s a support group for that – a big one, which spans the globe!

Thanks to all who volunteered after seeing our last blog entry. The Straight Spouse Network is nothing without the volunteer services of those who are ready to make a difference in the lives of other straight spouses.  We are one non profit that does not want to grow, but unfortunately we do, every single day.  Approximately 5 people A DAY contact us, and are responded to within 24 hours one on one, by someone who has a similar history and is available to listen in confidence, (by email or phone) and possibly meet with the person who is asking for help or direct them to additional resources for support.

So besides support, what does the Straight Spouse Network do?  We advocate for straight spouses by educating the public, professionals, and the gay community about our experiences and perspectives.  To do this, we build bridges constantly, even though we may be at odds with the other side of the bridge!  Our founder, Amity Buxton, and some of our members are active in the professional associations of psychologists and counselors, advocating for appropriate practices when it comes to therapy for us.  Some of our members speak to gay groups to educate them about what the straight spouse is experiencing, and why it doesn’t always turn out the way the gay spouse expects.

We have members who are available for media interviews.  Often these are not really about us, but are a sideline to issues such as gay marriage.  Also, because of confidentiality, sometimes we have to be cautious with media contacts.  Our aim is not to be the stars of daytime television, but to be the resource that is mentioned after the drama is resolved.  Sadly, some of our members have had the experience of being contacted by representatives of the media, and then being discarded because their responses do not fit the story that has already been designed.  Each of us is different, and has a different perspective to share.  We welcome media contact, but they will have to respect the need of some spouses for confidentiality.

We are the pre-eminent support group for straight spouses worldwide.  We are probably the most diverse group of people in the world, some of us having little in common with each other besides the common experience of having a gay spouse or significant other.  The ways in which we help one another, and help ourselves, are powerful, strong, and very necessary.

Thanks to all who help this small but mighty group make a difference in the lives of millions of people.

This isn’t another post about how the Straight Spouse Network needs money.  Well, we do need money.  But there is one thing we need even more: people who are willing to help other people.

If you’ve learned a few things on your journey about coping, communicating, facing reality, and moving forward after disclosure or discovering a spouse is gay, we invite you to help others who are just beginning to deal with this.  If the Straight Spouse Network has helped you, we need to to help others who now are facing the same dilemma of a husband or wife who is gay.

We need you to help no matter what your experience is: divorce, staying married, male, female, old, young.  We are directly contacted by between 35-40 (5 – 7 per day) people every week from around the world who need our help.  They contact us by filling out a web form or calling us directly.  Each one has a different story.  We have people in place who help them to find someone local to them, a face to face group, or a person who they can talk to in detail.  And that is where you come in.  We’re asking you to be the next voice they hear that says “I understand.  You are not alone” and really knows what they are saying. If you have gained some wisdom, self awareness, and strength through SSN, we are asking you to volunteer.

We aren’t asking you to start a face to face support group, although if you want to that would be great!  There are many areas where these just aren’t available.  Frequently, people connect in other ways – over the phone, email, or in one of our affiliated online support groups – and make plans then to actually meet if possible.  We’re asking you to . to possibly be a contact for those looking for support especially when we have no F2F groups in the area.  To do this go to our website at www.straightspouse.org.  Click to the “How You Can Help” button and scroll to be a contact/facilitator.  Fill in the application form and you will hear from us.    The organization is always here to help you to do this with training and support.

If you don’t think you can do this, we have other jobs for you.  We need help in our local groups with organizing events.  Here are some of the other skills or services we need:

Writing skills
Media skills
Professional printing for publications.
Legal experience
Public relations
Fundraising
Development skills

The Straight Spouse Network is only as effective as the people who are an active part of it.  We’re the peer to peer support group for people who didn’t know they had peers, and thought they were alone.  Share your strength, experience, and perspective.  To volunteer, go to our website, look for that How You Can Help button at the top right of the home page,  and follow the above instructions.

One of the great things about being part of an international organization that supports straight spouses is that we get to keep up with the television and movies that aren’t available in all areas.  Straight spouses in the UK started 2010 watching an elaborate wedding staged between a closeted gay man and a clueless woman on EastEnders , one of the most watched soap operas in the entire world.  Oh, the drama.

It seems there’s been this torrid homosexual affair going on between Syed, the modern, westernized, highly educated son of a Moslem family in the catering business, and Christian, a partner in the business.  Fans of EastEnders have been treated to passionate, secretive, wall slamming kiss scenes between the two men.  And guess what?  Syed loves Amira, and wants to marry her.  Amira has a father in prison for shady financial dealings, and she appears to be the only person in the entire cast who does not know or suspect something is up.  We’re sure that will change.

On New Year’s Day, the traditional Muslim Pakistani wedding of Syed and Amira was telecast, in all its elaborate and eye popping splendor.  Amid the glamour, Christian kept popping up and glaring at Syed, who was clearly rattled.  Oh, and Christian also outed Syed to Zainab, Syed’s pregnant mom. Zainab told Christian he was a pervert and he had lost because now Syed was going to do things the right way by marrying Amira.  Zainab had pushed for the wedding to take place, not wanting the disgrace between families of the wedding being called off because of “perversion”.  Syed has admitted to his mom that he’s gay, but agreed to go ahead with the wedding.

Hmm.  Straight spouses all across the globe, doesn’t some of this sound familiar?  A bit over the top maybe, but familiar, yes?

We’re depending on the UK straights to keep us updated on these developments.  EastEnders is seen all over the world, but current episodes outside the UK are only seen on Pay Per View. (This of course costs much more than the average subscription to the BBC).  In the United States, prior seasons of EastEnders can be seen on select public television stations.

Poor Amira.  Here she is, a smart girl with what appears to be a fabulous future, the handsomest husband in London, a mother in law from hell, and she’s the last one to know he’s gay.  We’re sure she’ll find out soon, and it won’t be kind.  Perhaps Christian will confront her in a jealous rage.  Perhaps like many of her real counterparts, she won’t believe him.  Perhaps she’ll find Syed and Christian in the act.  When she does, the story can take several realistic turns.

She might become angry,and keep the secret to herself, resulting in depression and suicidal behavior.  Her mother in law might cover up her own knowledge of the affair by telling Amira that she just isn’t a good enough wife to turn this around.  Somehow, Amira will wind up taking blame for being stupid, for knowing anyway and pretending to be all innocent, or for not being a good enough wife.  Maybe Amira’s dad will order a hit on Syed from prison to spare her the disgrace of a divorce from a homosexual.  Under Islamic law, Amira is entitled to a divorce if Syed is unfaithful, whether this is with a man or woman. Many western courts have not caught up with this idea, and consider infidelity to only involve another person of the opposite sex.  Sadly, this is true in England, and most parts of the USA.

Or maybe, just MAYBE, Amira will find the support of other straight spouses in the UK.  Maybe she’ll visit the UK’s only face-to-face support service at www.straightpartnersanonymous.co.uk.  She’ll learn that she is not alone.  She’ll begin the intense journey toward healing herself and recovering from the devastation that such a deep deception inflicts on her.  We might see something like the Straight Partners group turn up in the East End.  Wow!  Then other East Enders and Londoners might start actually looking for the support they didn’t know existed!

“Well, I’m not surprised.  What, you mean you didn’t know?  Oh, of course we all knew.  Well, see, I figured you knew and it was none of my business.”

So here’s the question that goes with the above answer: “HOW COME YOU DIDN’T TELL ME I WAS MARRYING A GAY PERSON IF YOU ALREADY KNEW?????”

Several awful things happen to the straight spouse who hears this kind of unsupportive acknowledgement.  First, it is an implied accusation of stupidity.  Second, the straight spouse realizes that the dishonesty is on several levels.  The shattering of trust extends outside the marriage, to family, friends, and anyone who “all knew”.  And third, it implies that they are just not that important.  The secret, or the covered up “no, it is so wrong to out someone” is more important than their life, health, and well being.

If you know that someone you care about is going to marry someone you suspect or know is gay, please share your concerns with them.  Tell them about the Straight Spouse Network.  They might not believe you, they might be offended, but later on, they might well need your help and support.

If you know that someone is gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and about to marry a person of the opposite sex, have an honest conversation with them about the effects on the straight spouse.  Sometimes straight people think they know about a bisexual spouse’s past and that it is ok, or even “hot”.  However, they really are unprepared for the reality of marriage with someone who cannot be completely satisfied with a partner of the opposite gender, no matter how great the sex is.

If you counsel couples before marriage, PLEASE ask the question.  During the discussions you have about sexual fidelity and past relationships ask “have either one of you ever experienced a sexual attraction to someone of the same sex?”.  The more that this is expected to be discussed, the more we can be out in the open about our experiences.  Sadly, many couples get married with little or no premarital counseling.

Yes, tell the truth. Don’t participate in the cover of a double life which is destructive to both members of the couple. Don’t play the game of enabling deceit and self delusion. Speaking of games….ask yourself, in the words of the classic game show, To Tell the Truth: “Will the REAL friend of this couple please stand up?”

The new year for many straight spouses means changes: new opportunities, new routines, new family life. Not all the changes are happy ones. Some are profoundly disturbing. The key is to look at these changes in our lives as new opportunities to learn, grow, and heal.

As we go forward in the new year, many straight spouses will face challenges of divorce, child custody, and the adjustment of all family members, including children and other relatives. They’ll face tremendous difficulties while coping with their own grief, loss, and anger. Some will bear the brunt of the anger of children and relatives, or the doubts of family and friends about themselves. It is not an easy path. The support of straight spouses by their peers is critical at this time.

The Straight Spouse Network is full of people who really do get it. Whether you are separating, divorcing, or remaining married we get it. Whether your spouse came out to you or continues to live in denial of the obvious, we get it. The peer support that we give face to face, on line, and on the phone is invaluable to straight spouses who face this monumental upheaval in their lives. So often we feel as though we are the only people in the universe with this experience, and wonder if something is really wrong with us. This is often confirmed by well meaning friends and family, and even counselors who are ignorant of our issues.

In putting our best foot forward, we benefit from the company of people who acknowledge our feelings and observations, and are unafraid and unashamed to share with us. We also benefit from resources provided by the Straight Spouse Network which we can share with supportive friends and family, our spouses, and our counselors.

The new year is always about new beginnings, new paths. No straight spouse has to go forward alone.