Holidays are wonderful times for families to get together and renew relationships, celebrate traditions, and share the latest news.  For straight spouses undergoing the stresses of divorce, or the recent discovery that a spouse is gay, those same holidays can be awkward and painful.  It can hurt to see traditions discarded, or to be excluded from family gatherings, or be told that the spouse has to be excluded or included.

Some new dilemmas for straight spouses include basic things, like “whose house are we going to for dinner and who will be there” to “telling the kids mom is gay” before or after the holiday, to a lack of money to keep up all the traditions.  They can be as complicated as “will Daddy bring the boyfriend to Grandma’s this year” or taking the kids shopping to buy a present for Mom’s girlfriend.  A straight spouse might feel a rush of anger at seeing an expensive present that was lavished on a boyfriend or girlfriend, that was never considered for them, or seeing the gay couple take the trip of a lifetime that the spouse had thought would be a special second honeymoon.

Then there are always the friends and relatives who have their own opinions about things – and express them loudly.  That could mean saying negative things about the gay spouse in front of the children, or a tentative hint around the kitchen table that “you can still be married, just live together like brother and sister”.  It can be the brother in law who keeps asking “ya want me to fix his car?” or the cousin who just CANNOT believe that this is true, and YOU must be mistaken.  Add to this family stew a gay spouse who is worried that nothing will be the same “because I’m gay and nobody accepts that”,  and your happy holidays turn into an occasion of dread.

How about those friends who are determined to be fair and friendly and invite you both to a party?  You venture out, and find your spouse there with a date – and the group of friends is affirming “coming out” but ignoring how devastating this is to you.  Isn’t it funny how the rules for divorcing heterosexual couples don’t apply to us?

The best advice we have for the holidays is to view them as an opportunity for new traditions affirming you and your values. Accept that things will be different.  The first year it is a discovery process, finding what works and what doesn’t.  After that, it does get easier.

Don’t be afraid to set boundaries with friends and relatives, and establish what is appropriate and what is not.  Tell the brother in law to fix YOUR car since you need help.  Tell the cousin that believe it or not, it’s true and you’re not discussing it right now. Tell the person who wants you to stay married that you can’t.  It really is not possible to ignore a gay spouse’s sexual activity, no matter how discreet.  It is different.  And if you are staying together, you are making your own rules.  Just don’t totally alienate people who truly love you.  Remember, they are struggling to understand what has happened, and want to know how to help you.

Holidays can be a bridge that we cross from an old life to a new one.  Sometimes it is a painful bridge, but we do get there!  The important thing is to keep going.

By T.T.S.

I grew up in an interesting household.  I had a mom, a dad, a dog and a cat.  Around age seven, a friend of my mother’s moved in with us.  By eleven, I had discovered that my mother was gay and that this friend was actually her lover.  I wasn’t oblivious; I could tell that my parents were unhappy with each other.  The constant fighting was a great indicator of this fact.

My father is not a perfect man.  He’s human.  I know that he didn’t always fulfill what my mother expected in a husband and provider.  But he is still my father, a truth which my step-mother did her best to make me feel bad about.   Every time I did something that she didn’t like, she’d point it out in this way:

“You’re just like your stupid f__king father!”

It didn’t matter what it was.  It could be anything from her belief that I had no common sense to a simple personality trait.  She’d say that she didn’t want me to hate my father and then could never stop herself from proclaiming how much she despised me for being like him in any way.  The worst thing was that my mother never stopped her.  Often she’d join in on this with moans belittling me for upsetting my step-mother by not just giving into whatever she said or demanded that I do.

Funny enough, I found myself analyzing this and even sympathizing with their feelings a little.  After all, my mother’s marriage to my father had kept her and her wife apart for a number of years.  My mother had been unwilling to just take off with me without seeing if she could get the marriage to work.  In the meantime though, she was sleeping with this woman inside our house.  I woke up many a night in search of my mother to discover that she was not in bed with my father, but in bed with this woman who was supposed to be my ‘aunt.’

Before my dad left, he and I had a loving, close relationship.  He always stayed up-to-date on what I was learning in school and would make up games to try to incorporate my developing interests and knowledge of the world.  We also did a lot of arts and crafts projects together.  I remember that when I was learning about the Native Americans in school, he went out with me to find sticks, leaves, bark, and other things and we made a miniature tee-pee together.

I don’t remember the exact day that my dad left.  I think I’ve permanently blocked it from my memory, but I do remember the days and years that followed were not easy.  My step-mother has always been abusive to the point that eventually I ended up distancing myself from her completely.  I think she underestimated the bond that I had with my father.  Yes, I could be pissed to hell with him, but when it comes down to it, he’s still my father.  Nothing can change that.

I guess in some ways the separation has made my relationship with my father stronger.  I have a more open, honest adult relationship with him than I do with my mother.  I feel free to disagree with him and him with me.  We’ve come to respect each others opinions of things and perhaps best of all is that he trusts me to be okay.  He gives me a certain level of freedom that I have never gotten from my mother or her partner.  He knows that I have a good head on my shoulders and that I will do just fine in the end.

My mother’s house is a world of lies.  She used to tell me to just ‘yes’ her wife to death to keep the peace.  I couldn’t do that.  I am a terrible liar and then also, because it just doesn’t sit right with me.  I don’t believe that that is the real way to get on with people in life.  I’m not saying that this happened overnight for me.  It took many years and a lot of outside support from my husband’s family and our friends in order for me to reach this point.

I didn’t learn to tell my parents when I was unhappy with things until the middle of college.  Both had very different outcomes.  My mother and her partner had had a horrible fight which of course always ended up including me and anyone else that had the misfortune to be around at the moment.  Desperate to find a sane parent to talk to, I called up my father.  He hadn’t bothered to tell me that he had decided to go on a vacation across the country.  I tore into that phone message saying everything that I had promised myself that I would never say.  Up until that moment my father had had no idea how miserable I was living with my mother, how I had run away to the dorms to escape, and how I felt like I could never count on him for anything.

To his credit, he stood up and did something about it.  We started discussing how things were going on at my mother’s house and while he couldn’t afford for me to come and live with him, he would support any decisions that I made.  I told him that I was going to dorm at college year round and that is what I ended up doing.  It wasn’t always easy, but I think I have come out the better for it both mentally and spiritually.  Since that phone conversation, I have been able to be honest with my father.  Whenever I have tried to do this with my mother, she runs back to the idea how her and her partner and I can still be a family if I would just learn to work around her.  This is code for ‘lie to keep the peace that we all are pretending exists in the first place.’  Thankfully, life’s experiences have set me against this way of thinking.

I know that these are extreme circumstances.  Not every step-mother or step-father is so abusive or stifling to their step-children.  Some are very loving parental figures.  My advice to anyone with a step-family set up, whether that be a gay or straight household, is not to forget that the children have come from two biological parents.  To paint either parent in a totally negative way is to tell the child that half of them is no good.  It hurts, plain and simple.  It hurts the child and it will only serve to damage that child’s relationship with whoever is throwing stones in the first place.

The Straight Spouse Network invites the perspectives of various individuals who wish to share their unique experiences. We thank T.T.S. for being our Guest Blogger today and permitting us to print her article about her experience.

We’ve talked about this before on this blog, but we’ll talk about it again. One of the most difficult things for any straight spouse or mixed orientation couple to face is the question of “what do we tell the children”?and teenage children, as they worry about peer pressure, acceptance, and harrassment.

For most families, children of all ages will likely be more immediately concerned with divorce and how it will impact their lives than they will with a parent being gay.  Having a homosexual parent is an issue for middle school

Younger children want to know they are loved, cared for, safe, and provided for. If you explain to them that Daddy is gay, or Mommy is a lesbian, they may not understand what you mean.  After all, young children do not understand what sex is.  Tell them in an age appropriate way having to do with what they personally will experience if you separate or your living arrangements change.

It’s important to remember that when gay people come out after years of being in the closet, they want to move quickly into their new life.  But when you are married and have a family, coming out involves more than yourself. It involves your family.  It can take a while for a straight spouse to recover from discovery or disclosure and a breakup.  Likewise, new relationships for children have to be considered carefully.  Don’t introduce your children to everyone you are involved with – wait until you know that a new partner is going to be a stable person in your life.  Don’t expect that everyone will meet your timeline in accepting the new situation. And please, choose your partner carefully and remember, all stepfamilies have difficulties at times.

Going forward with family, out of the closet, is important.  If a gay spouse is in denial, the straight spouse should not be afraid to make the decision to tell the children if appropriate and necessary.  The important thing for the straight spouse is to refrain from telling the children in anger, or to get revenge on the gay spouse.  Tell them calmly, possibly with a counselor or clergy person present for support.

It may not be necessary to tell young children right away. School age children and teens may already have an idea that a parent is gay, and be reluctant to discuss it.  When a straight spouse keeps the secret, it can appear to teenage children that they are lying as well.

Honesty is painful, but the best way for a family to proceed.  Just be sure that when you tell the children, do so in an age appropriate way.

Many times family and friends don’t know what to say to the straight spouse when the gay husband or wife either discloses their true sexuality or is discovered and denies the obvious.  In the former situation, family and friends of the couple might not want to appear “hateful” toward LGBT people, or they might share profound anger and have no problem expressing it. In the latter situation, they may not want to accept the truth, and aid in the denial.

Very often, people mean to help – but say the wrong thing or are afraid of saying the wrong thing, so they back off, leaving the straight spouse feeling further isolated.  So, we’ve compiled this handy dandy list of what to say – and what NOT to say:

Lets start with the negative, because it is the most familiar to many straight spouses.  Here’s what NOT to say:

1.  Oh, we all knew (or suspected).  What, you didn’t know?  How could you miss this? Oh come on.  You had to know.
2.  Are you sure?  How do you know?  When did you find out?
3.  You’ve been married this long – think of the children.  Can’t you just live together like brother and sister?
4.  I know just the (counselor, clergy, doctor, best divorce lawyer in the state) who can fix this. You just leave it to me.
5.  (for straight women mostly) Ya want me to kill him?
6.  (for straight men only) – Hey you’re a lucky guy, that is SO hot.
7.  You’re not SERIOUSLY letting the children stay with him/her, are you?
8.   Just get over it. Stop wallowing.
9.   Well HE says he’s not gay, and he ought to know, so you’re just making this up to get a divorce.
10.  EVERYBODY falls somewhere in the middle of the Kinsey scale.  Someone who SAYS they are totally straight like you say you are is… well… unusual. (usually accompanied by a wise wink and all knowing nod from a poorly trained counseling professional.)

The above reinforce isolation, fear, guilt, shame, doubt, dependency, co-dependency.

Here is what to say in support of the straight spouse:
1.  I’m sorry.
2.  What can I do to help?
3.  What do you need?
4.  If you haven’t been tested yet, please take care of that for your own peace of mind. (and if they stay in the marriage, encourage them to continue to be tested regularly.)
5.   Do you have a counselor for yourself?
6.  What do YOU want? (many straight spouses can’t answer that one right away)
7.  There’s a support group called The Straight Spouse Network.  You should get in touch with them if you haven’t already.
8.  This is not your fault.
9.  I’m here for you.
10. It’s difficult, but I have faith that you will get through this and be stronger and happier than you are now.  And again, please let me know what I can do to help.

The above reinforce connectedness to the family/friends, freedom from shame, a directedness toward healing and life in the truth, honesty, and positive direction.

It’s important for family, friends, and counseling professionals to know that working through the anger, doubt and consistent negative messages of the marriage takes time for the straight spouse, sometimes years.  This isn’t just a situation where you can make nice once and expect it to be ok.  Straight spouses often need to connect with those who are helpful and supportive on a regular basis.  That is why support from family and friends, and connecting with the confidential peer to peer support of the Straight Spouse Network is so important.

We do heal – it just takes time.  Gay spouses have been wrestling with the questions of their orientation for their entire lives – we deal with it all at once and it can be overwhelming.  Allowing time to heal and continuing to offer support, friendship, and connection is very important for family and friends who want to help.