What happens next?  After disclosure, after discovery, after divorce – what happens after the drama of a marriage ending because one of the partners is gay or lesbian?  What happens to the forgotten partner, the straight spouse?

Well, life happens, with everything that it brings. As the straight spouse recovers, the challenges of raising a family, keeping a job, making a home, staying healthy, and meeting new people keep happening.  For many, it is the first time in a long while that they can focus on these challenges for themselves, instead of having everything about them tied up with a spouse who has some serious issues of their own.  For others, there’s a deep loneliness that occurs at the end of a marriage, a feeling that no one will ever want them again.

The challenges of raising a family and adapting to the changes in their former spouse can be daunting.  If you have children, you remain connected as long as the former spouse is (or should be) a part of their lives in some way, even if it is only financial.

You meet new people.  You make new friends.  You lose a job, get a job, move to a different house.  You make good or bad decisions.  But you do go forward.

Some of us actually meet new loves, and some of those are other straight spouses.  This is the beauty of attending face to face meetings and gatherings; getting to know other people who have experience similiar upheaval.  We’ve had a few weddings here within the Straight Spouse Network.  They are always cause for great rejoicing.  We’re not EHarmony, and our primary purpose is not dating, but it does happen.  The experience of shattered trust in our own sexuality that is brought about when a spouse is gay is part of who we are, and who we remain; but we can and do go forward, rebuilding, renewing.  Some of us are fortunate enough to meet someone who understands this.  Sometimes that person has had the same experience, sometimes not.

Regardless of whether or not we ever date, the advantage for many in the Straight Spouse Network of having both men and women be part of the support network is that we learn from each other. It’s very affirming for women to learn that straight men find women attractive and express it; they don’t need to seek the sexual contact with other men because a wife is inadequate.  If anything, straight men are tempted to seek sexual contact with other women when a wife is sexually unavailable!  It’s also affirming for men to learn that their masculinity and strength is actually attractive to women, and not a shortcoming.

The Straight Spouse Network’s focus on healing and building bridges is not just about getting over a gay spouse or reaching out to the gay community.  It is about finding those strengths in ourselves, healing, moving forward, and building bridges to the rest of our lives.

So when are you getting married?  Find a nice girl and settle down.  You know, have a FAMILY.  Have children.  Don’t keep us waiting.

Sound familiar?  Welcome to China, home to a possible 25 million wives of gay men.  In this nation of over a billion people, about 90 percent of homosexual men marry women.  Seems that the name for childless families is juehu, which means “a house that is severed”.  So despite being gay, despite the fact that they know they are gay, despite the fact that their parents know they are gay, they marry. The women are known as tongqi.  This combines the words “tongzhi” which means comrade and is slang for gay, and “qizi” which means wife in Mandarin.

Yes, there’s a support group for that.

In China, many tongqi get support from Pink Space, a Beijing based group which offers support for sexually oppressed people.  As with the Straight Spouse Network in the west, many wives feel relief once they connect with others in the same situation, as well as immense anger at the deception.  They also have experiences of marriage common with their western sisters – husbands who do not want to look at them or touch them, or value them as women, sexless marriages, severe depression.  These are all pretty common experiences for western women who discover that they are, as many in the gay community tag them, “breeders” and not much more.  Typically in China, the wives of gay men are sexually inexperienced.  All the better to convince her that the dysfunction is her fault.

There isn’t a lot written about this, and even less about the husbands of lesbians.  However, when a woman in China discovers she is a lesbian, and wants to have a child, she can certainly do so out of wedlock – she just won’t be able to register that child for education or services unless there is a father.  So, there is enormous pressure on lesbians to marry, either to conceive a child or to get a father for a child they may have conceived artificially.

25 million women and an untold number of men.  That’s a lot of people to offer support to.  Pink Space, don’t be a stranger – let us know how we can help.  We don’t have money, but we do have resources, experience, and a whole lot in common.

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.

“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?”

OK, so by now you’ve heard the news. 62 year old actress Meredith Baxter has announced that after all this time, she now knows she is gay. She decided to go public with this before the National Enquirer beat her to it, and after Perez Hilton commented about her being seen with her lesbian lover in his blog (in the category “gay gay gay”). 

Well, better late than never. Honesty is the best policy.

In an interview on the Today Show with Matt Lauer, Baxter said “”I am  a lesbian and it was a later-in-life recognition. Some people would say, well, you’re living a lie and, you know, the truth is – not at all. This has only been for the past seven years.”

Huh?

She ‘s been dating her current girlfriend for FOUR YEARS. And yet, she didn’t know she was gay.

No, seriously, we believe that, because we straight spouses hear that kind of thing all the time.

“I’m only a little gay.” “Well, all people are a LITTLE gay you know,and you are weird and narrow minded if you don’t think so”.  “Im learning about myself”.  “I’m exploring my sexuality”.  Heck, some straight women have even had their husbands say “Honey, I admit it. I’m a pervert. I have sex with men. But I’m not gay. And I’m not sure I’m bi.”

So we think it is great that at long last, Meredith has the self awareness to recognize the truth about herself. But we don’t buy into the idea that she wasn’t living a lie. Even if she swings both ways, denying this about herself for so many years amounts to a lie, especially in the context of what she has said about her three marriages:

“I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships. I assumed I was a bad picker…I assumed there were problems with the people I chose. It never occurred to me to think, oh, [the problem is] me,” she said.

We’ve heard that too, and we’re glad Meredith actually said it. It’s refreshing. The usual pattern for many of us is to discover that our  spouse is gay, and then be blamed for all the problems in the marriage  ANYWAY, because it wouldn’t have worked ANYWAY.

No matter what a straight spouse does in a marriage, a gay spouse is seldom going to be fully satisfied, because we cannot be the people  they need to  love. They may love us, we may love them, but we just  don’t have the right physical and emotional makeup to satisfy what  they want and need. Those of us who remain married know that these  relationships require complete honesty and more than a little  communication, and give and take.

Baxter was married three times. Her first marriage in 1966 to Robert  Lewis Bush lasted five years.  Her second husband, actor David Birney is probably the best known of her exes:  They starred together in the 1972 situation comedy “Bridget Loves Bernie”, and both had successful film and television careers. She married him in 1974, and the marriage ended in 1989. She married her third husband, Michael Blodgett, in 1995 and they divorced in 2000. She has five children from the first two marriages, all adults now.

Perhaps those men have moved on with their lives, perhaps not.  For any man who is now facing a “late in life lesbian” experience with his wife, please know that there is a support group here at the Straight Spouse Network for you, and there are PLENTY of men who have experienced this seemingly new phenomenon, and who are experiencing it now. So many straight spouses find we have common experiences in our marriages, even if we are all very different people. All contact is confidential,whether on line, on the phone, or in a private face to face meeting.

Of course, Meredith will be applauded for coming out, and finally being  honest with herself and with her family. Few people will care about the effect of her closeted sexuality on her three marriages to three very different men. Here at the Straight Spouse Network, we care. We continue to care, whether the media is paying attention or not. We ACTUALLY GET IT – THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE – including the conclusions people draw about us, our  sexuality, and our alleged shortcomings. We support one another, whether the discovery/disclosure happened yesterday or 20 years ago. The mutual support is important to our own healing, and our ability to help straight  spouses of both sexes and all racial, religious, and cultural backgrounds recognize that they are not alone – far from it!

Meredith concluded her interview on the Today show by recognizing that “this is a political act” and by coming out, she’s the “lesbian you know”, and perhaps you won’t vote to take away rights from gay people. We only wish that the political dialogue included our voices as well, about the effect of living long term in marriages to gay people who are closeted, even to themselves.

Still, Meredith Baxter’s coming out is a positive step. Perhaps now, as Elyse Keaton might have said “the personal is political”.

Cindy Chupack, a writer and producer of Sex and the City, knows full well what it is to be a straight spouse.  Chupack’s first husband disclosed to her that he was “figuring out” if he was gay or not very early in their marriage. They had just moved from New York to Los Angeles, and as a young bride she faced the very real sense of being alone and isolated with this discovery.

During the two years of the marriage, Cindy saw a therapist who advised her to get in touch with her gut feelings about what she wanted to do. She looked for help from others in similiar situations.  At the time, there was no Straight Spouse Network.  In an interview published by Psychology Today, Chupack says, “The day after it happened, I went to the self-help section in this little bookstore in L.A., and there was nothing for this situation. There might be now, but there wasn’t when this happened. And I remember there was a book called Loving Someone Gay, and it was for parents and teachers. So there just was nothing. And I thought, “This is terrible, I’m totally on my own, pioneering this problem in Los Angeles.”

That was then.  This is now.

On a recent episode of Law and Order, Detectives Lupo and Bernard are protecting a witness who has had what she describes as a “down low” lesbian affair with a murder victim. The program shows them hiding in a hotel, passing the time. The witness decides she likes Lupo, and asks Bernard “Does he have a girlfriend?” Detective Bernard’s response is to look at her wide eyed and say “YOU had a girlfriend”. The witness looks surprised, but they cannot continue the conversation because they are interrupted by a knock on the door from the prosecutor.

Some of our gay and lesbian spouses do not acknowledge the label of “gay” or “lesbian”. They may even reject being called bisexual, since this is just about one person. They have affairs with someone of the same sex, but do not believe that makes them “gay”. For the straight spouse, coping with this complex situation can be frustrating, an unending riddle.

When our marriages end because of our husbands and wives have an affair with someone of the same sex, the words “honey I’m gay” can provide a sense of finality, a definite scenario. “Honey I’m bi” doesn’t seem to be said quite so often. Rather, the disclosure to a straight spouse might be “I might be a little gay”, or “I fell in love with just this one person”, or “everyone has these feelings, you’re just repressing yours”. Some men did know their wives had been involved with women – but they had no idea what that would really mean in a marriage. There may be further complications after divorce when the bisexual spouse begins to date other people of the opposite sex. If the couple is still connected through children and step parenting, the dilemma of whether or not to tell the new lover what actually happened and spare them the pain of deception is a painful one. The risk of course, is that no one will believe what they say, and attribute it to maliciousness.

For us, unresolved issues of our spouses sexuality are a part of denial in marriage. We may hear that it isn’t really cheating because they never cheated on us with the opposite sex. We may hear that since they aren’t happy in the marriage they decided to become intimate with someone of the same sex. And of course, we’ll be told in counseling and by well meaning friends and family that the unhappiness in the marriage “takes two”.  We are left to ponder the impossible task of satisfying a spouse who cannot be happy with someone of the opposite sex.

The healthy skepticism that Detective Bernard showed in the Law and Order episode is refreshing to see on television. “Everyone” does not have sex with someone of the same gender, only gay, lesbian, and bisexual people do. A straight person who becomes involved romantically with someone who has had a same sex affair needs to know what it really means – and their friends, family, and counselors should not be afraid to speak openly.

Open that closet door. Put the “down low” on the “up and up”.

The legal struggles over gay marriage continue. Defeated in Maine, New Jersey appears to be the next battleground during the lame duck session.

Isn’t that a nice way to describe what happens to our families, too?  Battleground?

After all, we straight spouses are often referred to as “Collateral Damage”.  The dehumanizing of people with this term often happens in the context of a battle.  Actually, it happens during a war – and in our families, gay marriage is just one battle front, the one that is most often publicly acknowledged.

Proponents and opponents of gay marriage all have their own arguments about what happens to our families, and how gay marriage will affect society.  Those arguments never include us, unless of course, it is necessary to present some “collateral damage” to sustain an argument. Like the rest of America, the heterosexual men and women who are or have been married to gay and lesbian people are not unified on this issue.  It seems to be one of those mine fields that many of us avoid, where we’re told how we OUGHT to think and feel.

Some people honestly feel that gay marriage should be enacted at least on a civil level, and that if it were, perhaps there would be fewer incidents of “collateral damage”.  There might even be fewer incidents of straight people having their lives torn up after many years of living with someone else’s deception.

Others feel as though gay marriage is just another thing that is forced on them.  If they disagree or question anything or have any difficulty adjusting to the family situation, they are accused of “hate”.  Some of us have seen improvements in our overall family situation after divorce and adjustment to a gay or lesbian stepparent. Others have seen the same situation tear children apart, while straight parents weather accusations of “hate”, and bear the blame for “parental alientation” tinged with “homophobia”.

The current initiatives toward repealing existing laws that permit gay marriage do nothing for straight spouses.  Rather, they raise the vitriol that we endure as we seek to heal and move forward.

There is no discernable ministry to straight spouses among the religious groups that fund campaigns on both sides of the gay marriage question.  Some churches allow chapters of the Straight Spouse Network to meet in their buildings.  Beyond that, there is little attention paid to what we need on an ongoing basis from our faith communities and clergy.  Many straight spouses find that they are welcome in the faith communities of their origin only if they share the correct beliefs about gays and gay marriage, whatever those are supposed to be.  They find that clergy and secular counselors are entirely ignorant of what our needs are in counseling.  Instead, straight spouses are directed to resolve our conflicts in light of how counseling professionals and clergy feel about homosexuality. Join the struggle for gay marriage and gay clergy, or pray away the gay. Neither is an answer to our dilemmas and questions of faith.

We strongly suggest that those who are concerned with the state of marriage pay attention to developing resources for straight spouses to move forward with our honest lives.  We also believe that greater support from counseling, teaching, and social service professionals needs to be available for mixed orientation families coping with stepfamily issues. With or without gay marriage, these needs exist NOW.

Today is National Coming Out Day.  For the straight spouses of closeted gay people, this has special meaning.

Closets stifle us and our families.  When we have to keep the secret of a gay spouse, and pretend to the world that all is well, that things are really just as they appear, it stifles us.  Some of us keep those secrets for personal reasons, others for professional reasons.  The secret has a cost to everyone who keeps it.

For the straight spouse whose husband or wife denies being gay while showing a sexual attraction to the same sex, the closet is particularly stifling – and dangerous.  Many straight spouses of such people have found that once we know the secret, either through discovery or disclosure, great efforts are directed at keeping us silent – or should we choose to emerge from the marital closet, making sure that what we say is unbelievable.

Outrage is being shown on HBO this month.  It’s an opportunity to catch a controversial film about closeted homosexual politicians who consistently vote or advocate laws and policies that are not in the best interests of homosexuals.  Such powerful policy makers not only slam the closet door on themselves and their families, they manage to crush others caught in the emergence from that same closet.

Outrage features a few minutes with Dina McGreevey, as well as her ex husband, Jim McGreevey, the former governor of New Jersey.  Their story of emerging publicly from the closet in 2004 is well documented, as is the tragedy of the public spectacle of their divorce.  For many of us, that divorce and the publicity surrounding it was a lesson in what happens to straight spouses when we depart from the script of the gay partner, and speak with our own voice. It has been reported in several blogs that McGreevey was unhappy with the inclusion of his ex wife’s perspective in the film. We hope that is untrue speculation.  For straight spouses, her testimony to her personal experience in this film confirms what many of us have also experienced.

Jim McGreevey is now out of office.  Can you imagine the agony of a straight spouse whose husband or wife is still holding public office, or an important leadership position in business, clergy, or social policy making – and the silence they must keep or else risk humiliation, denial, and devastation?  How many of those are there?  We suspect that for every Dina McGreevey who is recognized and speaks out, there are several others who are unknown and suffer anonymously and in silence.

Today, we encourage all gay people to come out to their families.  If you are married to a straight person, come out, honestly, compassionately. If you are a young person who is not out to your parents or siblings, share your secret if you feel it is safe to do so – you may find that although they grieve the loss of their expectations, they will still love you.  Remember, as you come out, there are support groups for you and for your family.  Tell your straight spouse about us.  Tell your parents about PFLAG.

Today, if you are a straight spouse married to someone who is deeply closeted, come out of isolation by contacting the Straight Spouse Network. Our services are free, and completely confidential.  Come out of that closet enough to know that you are not alone.