The Straight Spouse Network had a bit of fame this week. After quite a bit of time between interviews, the Associated Press published an article about Amity Buxton and other California Straight Spouses, and their opposition to Prop 8. You can read the widely distributed article here.
Now we are very happy to have the attention! Thanks to this article, there are now several hundred thousand more people who know two things they didn’t know before:
1 Straight people actually need help when they find they are married to a gay person.
2. Yes, there’s a support group for that.
Nevertheless, among many of our straight spouses, there is a discomfort with supporting gay marriage. Our fifteen minutes of media fame might lead some to believe that we’ve organized to support gay marriage. While many of us are supportive of marriage rights for gay people, quite a few of us are not, or are undecided about this. Our main purpose is to support straight spouses, not gay marriage. To that end, we support all straight spouses, regardless of their politics or position. Our board has taken a position, stated here, that affirms the right of all adults to marry, whether they are same gender unions or not, and opposes codifying marriage as between men and women only. The purpose of that position is to remove a source of deception and pain to many of us. It is not a call to rally the troops and join the struggle.
Of course, our moment of recognition in the national media is not caused by recognition of issues that are of importance to us. It is focused on those straight spouses who support gay marriage. There’s a perceived irony in some of us supporting gay rights – but it is no more ironic than the fact that some of the Straight Spouse Network’s most generous donors are gay.
It may surprise people, but there are gay spouses who recognize that we are a part of the rainbow family, whether we want to be or not. They know that the best hope of building a bridge and strengthening an ongoing family relationship between divorced couples with children is for the straight spouse to connect with other people in similiar situations, and move forward with our own lives. So they support us, and many of us support their desire for legal marriage to each other. Many straight spouses view this as a bridge to be built within their own family. Others want to totally separate from gay spouses and the people with whom they have sexual relationships.
It may also be a surprise that we are not a large “gay agenda” funded pro gay group with large donations and professional grant writers. We are a peer to peer support network for straight people who are picking up the pieces of their own lives and that of their families after they discover their husband or wife is gay. We operate on a shoestring and depend on volunteer support. We depend on contributions from those whom we have helped in the past, in order to be visible to those who will need our help in the present and future.
It will be a great day when we get mainstream media attention focused on our own experiences and needs, and not just as a peripheral group to gay concerns. We have so many questions that we face all at once with discovery and disclosure – questions that most people would need to face in a larger time frame, but we face it all at once. What do we tell the kids? What do we tell the family? What if we or our children don’t get along with the new gay partner, or want our children to have nothing to do with a spouse’s gay sex partner(s)? What if we have HIV? How do we adjust to all this, and cope with the stress of divorce, financial questions, and heal and move forward? Where can we find a therapist or counselor who gets our need for affirmation as we drown in a sea of self doubt, isolation, and sometimes degradation? How do we cope with the spouse who is having a same sex relationship, but insists that they are not gay?
Somehow the discussion of all matters affecting families like ours is never about us. But as long as the Straight Spouse Network maintains some visibility,even around “popular” topics like gay marriage, people who thought they were the only one facing a highly dysfunctional situation with a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered spouse will know that there is at least one safe place where someone will listen, understand, and help. You’ll find us, and we’ll help you!
Yes, our voices need to be heard, and if the issue of gay marital rights is the means by which we get some much needed attention and focus, then so be it.
I was married for 23 years to a closeted gay man. Post-divorce, he married a wonderful man who complimented him perfectly. Their union had no less meaning or validity than anyone else’s. Along with their joy came their tragedy and responsibility for each other. My ex’s husband died this past spring of cancer, and they were together til the end. Witnessing their relationship affirmed to me their right to be united spiritually as well as legally.
The situation of straight spouses is not well recognized nor understood by the general public. Who would fathom that gays and lesbians would marry str8s? I certainly did not 28 years ago. I have learned a thing or two since then. The Straight Spouse Network’s purpose is to help str8s and their families weather the storm, through mutual support and understanding. This is accomplished 1 person at a time. Our need to exist will continue, and the means to help each other take various forms and forums. A better understanding of our ex-spouses lives and struggles, may, for a few of us, help us to understand our own lives. None of this comes easily or quickly, but with time, thought and inspiration ours lives can take on deeper meaning and understanding.
“There’s a perceived irony in some of us supporting gay rights – but it is no more ironic than the fact that some of the Straight Spouse Network’s most generous donors are gay.”
I don’t think that’s ironic at all. As straight spouses, we’re part of a very small number of heterosexuals who can say they have truly loved a gay person. And I’m willing to bet that many of our former spouses did in fact love us as well, in their own incomplete, conflicted, or confused way.
My own wife had a moment of hysterical crying and panic after we separated. It was precipitated by her realizing that, during the course of divorce proceedings, she would likely have to tell someone the reason we were splitting. And that the fact of her homosexuality might be contained in some document that would then become public record. She was scared and worried that a day might come in some (admittedly farfetched) future where gay people were rounded up and persecuted, and that she would be identified by these documents as one of them.
After I got done telling her that she had been watching too many distopian movies, I got serious. I told her that I hated her, hated what she had done, and wished I had never met her. But if the day ever came when homosexuals were being rounded up for concentration camps, that I’d be right there beside her. That they’d take her away only if they could go through me. I despise even the thought of her, but I will always honor the love I held for her: by doing what is right.
Any amount of publicity is good. The more visible The Straight Spouse Network can be the more people it can help. There are so many straight spouses out there struggling in all stages of marriage and divorce. Straight spouses have very few counselors, peers or even family members able to wrap their head around how damaging these marriages can be. Generally, the first responses we hear are “Are you sure s/he’s gay?” or “Are you sure s/he can’t change?”… as if we are wrong to think that our spouse is gay or wrong to think it is adequate cause for divorce even when the gay spouse “comes out”.
I am married to a gay man who is in deep denial and may never come to terms with his orientation. In coming to my own awareness of this I conducted a great deal of research on the topic. What I found is that there is a vast amount of information and support for the LGBT spouse as they come to terms with and go public with their orientation. Unfortunately, there is little information out there for the straight spouses so severely traumatized by the reality of these marriages…and divorces. The Straight Spouse Network has been instrumental to my ongoing healing process.
I’m all for removing/alleviating any legal/social stigma that currently drives homosexuals to marry straights. Until these damaging marriages stop happening, any way the Straight Spouse Network can reach more people is a step in the right direction.
This blog is wonderfully written! It mentions many important issues facing a straight person who finds that they are married to someone who is not straight.
My ex denies being gay. But he has a same sex attraction. His time on the computer was spent looking at websites containing pictures of naked men.
His anger and denial hurt me a thousand times more than if he had confided in me (his wife who loved him). To tell your spouse the truth about your same sex attraction shows them respect ….respect for the person and for the relationship. It takes courage to tell the truth. If you are a gay person, tell your spouse the truth.
The Straight Spouse Network is a much needed resource when trying to deal with all it means to find out that your spouse has a same sex attraction. Spouses of GLBTs need to know that SSN exists and that they need not suffer alone.
I never used to have a problem with gay marriage, or civil unions as they are here in the U.K. They never affected me in the past. However, the fact that a gay relationship isn’t as ‘valid’ in law as a straight one had a direct effect on my marriage.
Because SSA (SSR) doesn’t count as adultery, I could not use that as grounds for divorce. I found that offensive. I had no desire to blame my ex wife, or to ‘cite’ her girlfriend, what upset me was that by not being able to use this as a reason (it clearly was), it somehow made it all ‘not matter’. It reduced the validity of MY straight marriage. It just added to my suffering.
If gay relationships were treated as equal to straight ones, then I would at least have had the confirmation in law that what was happening was adultery. It is cheating. No matter how it is dressed up. But part of our confusion is generated by our failure to react to it as such. If it were written down, if we could be shown, ‘YES, this is adultery’, it would help to reduce our mental conflict, and so ease our situation, which is why, ironically, I’m in favour of a level playing field for marriage.
Thanks to the support that I have recieved here at SSN, and in the UK through SPA, I’m doing reasonably well. Thank you so much.
Kev.