nose is growing but some pretend not to notice

Back again. This time with a segment of a blog found on the Straight Souse Network. SSN has been another helpful place where I go to get support. There are articles, blogs and forums with so many real words of encouragement...from those who've been there, done that, seen that, felt that, and wanna talk about,... well, that.

debbie's own words will be in parenthesis

Up a Creek Without a Paddle

December 6, 2011, 6:24 pm

There’s an old saying “Denial ain’t just a river.” How well many of us know this!  For some straight spouses, it can feel like we have been swimming upstream trying to get an admission of truth from our current or former LGBT spouses.  We know what we know, and yet when we ask “are you gay?” we are told an emphatic NO.  For many of us (me included), the lies hurt worse than the truth.

Many of us ask “are you gay?” and are told no, of course not.  Sometimes a challenge follows the denial.  How could we ask that?  What on earth would make us think that? Perhaps there are now too many ways to evade answering the question “are you gay?” when a straight spouse asks it in frustration.  After all, many counselors will look at a distraught straight spouse in couples counseling who outlines all the reasons they think their husband or wife may be gay and tell them that none of this makes them actually gay, so why do YOU think so? (Too many people demand proof, or simply choose to believe the GID, gay in denial, spouse. Many people find it easier to believe the one in denial, which of course adds them to the list of those in denial. )

Some of us will never hear the truth – and many people around us will never want to hear the truth.  Homosexuality is still a very uncomfortable subject with many people – including those who are actually homosexual and don’t want to be!  Sometimes gay and lesbian spouses in denial resort to proclaiming us to be crazy – and often many family members and friends will believe them. It’s easier for some people to believe that we are crazy than that they are gay and in denial. (Besides, if they believe that the friend, co-worker, relative, ministry leader, workout partner, etc., is gay then they may have some adjustment struggles of their own to go through. Therefore, it’s often much easier for those on the outside looking in to side with the one in denial.)

One of the most wonderful things about the Straight Spouse Network is that we are peer to peer and confidential. One of the things we affirm for each other is this: You know what you know.  We don’t demand “proof”.  We don’t tell you that you aren’t an expert on sexuality so you don’t really know.  You DO know. You are an expert on YOUR life and YOUR situation. And it is safe to share your questions, confidences, and observations with us.  Chances are, someone in our group has had a similar experience.  We won’t tell you that you are going crazy.  Instead, we might have some ideas to help you keep from going crazy!

During times that media focuses attention on high profile cases, we often find that we are contacted by straight spouses who recognize the similarities in their own lives.  If you believe you are the straight spouse or significant other of a gay person in denial, we welcome you to contact us and get free, confidential support for yourself in a safe atmosphere.  You need it – and you deserve it.

Thanks for stopping by. Would love to hear from you.
debbie

not just an ordinary marriage failure

This weekend I will finally get to meet my friend and mentor, Bonnie Kaye. I will get to meet her and a dozen other "straight wives" as we call ourselves. It is sure to be a very emotionally real and healing as we gather in Houston, TX.
I've been re-reading for the umpteenth time Bonnie Kaye's Straight Talk, a Collection of Her Best Newsletters About Gay Husbands. There's a good and a bad that come to mind every time I pick up the book. The bad is that I can relate to most of what is written in there. The good is that I can relate to most of what is in there. yes, I repeated myself. The good is good because it means I'm not alone. Yikes, but that is bad too, because it means far too many women have gone through what I've gone through.
Well it is what it is and that brings me to my reason for writing tonight. I want to copy a paragraph from Bonnie's book taken from the December 2007 Newsletter called Happy Holidays to Us. Here goes:

Many of us hear this...we should get over it. After all, half of marriages end in divorce, and life goes on. While that is true, most marriages don't come with the baggage that ours do. Our marriages are unique. We all share the same problems that straight marriages have, but we also have added issues that other divorces don't have. Other marriages may end due to a number of problems including incompatability, financial problems, growing apart, being married too young, mental health issues, or drugs and alcohol. But at least women in those marriages knew what the problems were. They weren't living someone else's lie and not understanding why they were facing the emotional turmoil and distancing.( I'm sure much of that is felt however in marriages with affairs taking place) Our marriages included a number of these common issues, but the worst issue wasn't one that we could see, but one that we couldn't see, didn't know, didn't suspect, or didn't understand. Our marriages were ruined without any ability to get better because they weren't able to be fixed. Homosexuality is not a problem that can be solved in a marriage-( and in marriage to a straight spouse) it's a problem PERIOD. It doesn't belong there lurking, hiding, and rearing it's ugly head.

Debbie again: there is so much more I could write here today and every day but I will stop here for now. Check back, especially after this weekend, for more real stuff from this straight wife.

debbie

ya gotta do what ya gotta do

more REAL stuff from Bonnie Kaye

Inserted from Bonnie Kaye's Lessons I Have Learned
Lesson#3

Although it takes two to make a marriage, when you’re married to a gay man, it only takes one to make it fall apart—namely him. Any other natural failures of straight marriages are not applicable here because your life is a distortion when your husband is gay. Whatever he objects to is through the eyes of a gay man. When he is angry with you, it is because he is frustrated being in a marriage with a straight woman and will look to find fault with YOU rather than face up to his responsibility of being honest. This is not to say you are perfect, but it wouldn’t matter if you were. He would still find fault with you because you are a woman. And a lot of you are almost perfect. That’s because the unhappier he is, the more you try to make him happy, internalizing and personalizing that his unhappiness is your fault. Untrue. He can’t be totally happy or fulfilled living with a woman no matter who the woman is. Accept it. It’s his failure, not yours. And this is not to say that he is a failure as a person. He is just a failure as a husband to a straight woman.


 Debbie's thoughts: So true and no amount of counseling can help or have any real or lasting effect on these marriages because when the husband is hiding his homosexuality from his wife and the counselor, the real issue is never addressed. So true also that they would rather let you and everyone else think that you are the one with the problems. They make you feel like you're going crazy because nothing is real and you rack your brain all the time trying to figure out why your marriage is so hard and makes no sense, then they call you crazy at any display of emotion as a result of the Twilight Zone-like life you live with him. Just a glimpe of the unreal reality of living with a closeted gay man.

Ellen being REAL about OMM...gotta see this

https://mail.risd.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=6b2077ea932a4294a4bb569f0a19f3df&URL=http%3a%2f%2fstrongmail.real.com%3a80%2ftrack%3ft%3dc%26mid%3d3358%26msgid%3d407%26did%3d1288904501%26sn%3d1244662364%26eid%3ddebra.wooding%40risd.org%26uid%3d390031%26extra%3d%26%26%262001%26%26%26http%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fwatch%3fv%3dX4xcjYQ1Jes%26feature%3dyoutu.behttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4xcjYQ1Jes&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4xcjYQ1Jes&feature=youtu.be

Crazy looking link but left click on it once and it will show you another link to click on. The link is a video of Ellen Degeneris on her show talking about the organization called OMM. Just yesterday I blogged about Ellen and how One Million Moms is trying to get JCPenney to drop her as their newly signed on spokesperson. I wrote OMM about this and never got a response from them, yet hey posted about how JCPenney was being rude by not responding to them.

OMM, there are lots of moms out there who have been hurt by closeted gay men marrying them in hopes that they won't ever have to reveal to the world that they are gay. Pressure from churches and ministries like yours perpetuate this problem. I would guess there are more of us straight wives (and husbands) out there needing support than there are people who will stop shopping at JCPenney due to your misguided campaign.
If you want to do something helpful, leave the gays and those who support them well enough ALONE and do research on the devastating affects of gays marrying straight people to avoid the condemnation from the flames of negative societal views that you are fanning.

C'mon now...let's be real here...

debbie

love and REALity

Hello again. I'm back. Glad you are too.

Last Sunday our pastor started a new series called "Love is...". He talked about what love is and what love is not. To sum it up, love is not mere words expressed, but actions that come from a heart full of a desire to do good for others. The bible says that if we have everything the world has to offer, but have not love, we are nothing. He shared a clip from the movie, The Help, where the maid and nanny, Aibileene Clark, is speaking love into the little girl whom she cares for. She looks the little girl right into her eyes and with love all over her face and voice tells her, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." Where does love like that come from?

I've been thinking about this all week. Do you remember how the supposedly Christian people in the movie thought they were so right to impose such demeaning and demoralizing judgments and rules on the black maids that loved their babies, cleaned their homes, and cooked their meals? The nannies couldn't even use the bathroom inside their employers' homes. One "do-gooder" even decided it was her duty to help pass a law stating that the homeowners needed to build a separate bathroom for their black maids so as to keep their germs away from the white family.

Today we look back at that not-so-long-ago societal mindset and cringe in disbelief.

I wonder if one day soon we will look back in disbelief on how many of us feel about homosexuals and the efforts that we condone for the pupose of keeping them "in their place". Case in point: A Christian based organization called One Million Moms is currently on a rampage against J.C.Penney because of their recent selection of well-known and popular Ellen Degeneres as their new spokesperson. OMM is calling for J.C.Penney to remove Ellen immediately because she is a lesbian and, in OMM's mind, a terrible role model for families. They think that they are right and just to speak out this way. I wish they would show some biblical love instead of what they think is biblical righteousness.

Personally, I think Ellen very wonderfully models to the world that we must be REAL. We must be real about who we are even when others think, say, and believe derogatory and demoralizing things about us. In "The Help", we see people of color standing up for their dignity and their rights and we applaud it. We should do the same when homosexuals call,  not only for equal rights, but for acceptance for who they are. Not only should we applaud it, but we should support it.

I also wonder how many of the so-called one million moms of OMM have children who will grow up thinking they are despicable sinners when they find themselves having same-sex attractions. The mothers of these children will have to decide whether to support their children or to support an organization who believes their children are abominations. My guess is that most of them will stick their head in the sand, but my hope would be that their eyes will be opened to REALity and their love for their children will win out.

I did not always think about homosexuals the way I do now. I do not believe they choose to be gay. Most, for much of their lives, hope against hope that their feelings would just disappear forever. But the feelings do not ever go away no matter how much hoping, praying, or hiding is done. Many feel that they must hide who they are from the rest of society just to be "normal"and accepted. One place some of them hide is in marriages with unsuspecting straight spouses. I don't believe their initial intent is to be harmfully deceptive or malicious because most of them truly think they can suppress their true orientation while married, thus living a life acceptable to family, friends, and society at large. BUT THIS IS SO WRONG, as I tried to show in my first blog, because deception is harmful and perpetual deception becomes malicious when the unsuspecting spouse suffers in a marriage to someone who cannot, in reality, love them in all the ways that matter most in marriage. These marriages are unREAL.

 In the past, ignorance perpetuated a mindset that we now see as sickening and cruel. Let's not help perpetuate similar ignorance today.

Instead, let's be REAL and REALize that in REALity we all just want to be loved...for who we REALly are.

debbie

let's be real

This new blog of mine is dedicated to my hero and mentor, Bonnie Kaye. She has helped me through this very confusing web of lies, truths, deceit and distortions. She has a way of keeping it real as she helps others do the same. My first entry will be one of my very favorite personal letters from Bonnie to "her women", other women who have found themselves  unknowingly married to a gay man. This letter says what I couldn't say. There's a lot I can say now so I hope you will all come back and visit my new blog.

 

Thursday, May 1, 2003

DISTORTED PERCEPTIONS, May, 2003

DISTORTED PERCEPTIONS

I’ve written about this before, and probably not too long ago. But I could never write about this enough, so I’ll talk about it again. It’s what I call “Distorted Perceptions.” It’s an important part of understanding the whole concept your marriage and why it failed.

I think I’ve gotten most of you on board with understanding that you had no influence on your husband’s homosexuality. No matter how easy it is for us to fall into the trap of believing that we were not “good enough” or “smart enough” or “pretty enough” or “sexy enough” for our husbands, I hope after reading my constant reassurances, you finally understand that your husband’s homosexuality was there long before you were.

The next concept of why your marriage failed is a little more difficult for you to understand. You are still looking at your marriage as if it takes “two to tango” as the saying goes. I often hear women say, “He made mistakes, and I made mistakes,” or “We both had faults,” Let’s acknowledge that no one is perfect. Yes, we all have faults. But it is not your “faults” that created the problems in the marriage. On the other hand, it is very possible that the problems in the marriage intensified your faults.


Now, my husband blamed me for overreacting to almost everything. And maybe in many cases I did. Bottom line: This was not who I was, but who I became because HE WAS GAY AND LIVING A LIE. And that lie infiltrated the darkest part of my soul turning me into someone whom I didn’t recognize or even like.

There were days when I woke up and didn’t want to live any more. This was NOT ME. The real me had a passion for life that had been temporarily snuffed out. I didn’t know it was temporary while I lived it because my life was now on another plane—somewhere between the Twilight Zone and death. I say death because on three different occasions I attempted suicide. It seemed like an excellent alternative during those moments that seemed so inescapable and hopeless. This was NOT ME either. Prior to my marriage, I was so high on life. I was active, sociable, surrounded by high self-esteem, and very independent. I turned into someone who was depressed, scared, insecure, co-dependant, and crying constantly from being hurt.

The decisions and the moves that I made during my marriage were based on the mutated perceptions inside my marriage. Before I suspected that homosexuality was the cause of my unhappiness, I came to believe that it was me who was causing the problems in my marriage. If I told my husband that our marriage had problems, he would reply, “We don’t have problems—YOU have the problem. I am happy in the marriage. YOU are the unhappy one.” Many of you have written to me that your husbands tell you the same thing. The problem is YOU—not him, not the “marriage.” And naturally, my husband, as well as yours, never looks beyond the fact that YOU have a problem, because it’s always all about them. I guess I was falling into a darker hole each day so it was easy for me to believe that I was the one with the problems. He wasn’t falling into a dark hole. He seemed content, and why not? He had a wife and a life outside his wife.

He was living his lie. And it was a big lie. Not a little white lie. Lying about your sexuality is a really very big lie. VERY BIG. What is a little lie? A little lie is taking money and buying something and not telling your spouse. A little lie is getting a couple of drinks at the bar with some friends while you tell your wife you are working. A little lie is not revealing that you broke your diet, smoked a cigarette after you quit, or paying more for something than you’re supposed to but keeping quiet not to start a fight because you’ve unbalanced the family budget.

It’s not like I’m condoning lying, but I certainly do understand it. I’ve lied myself when the thought of revealing something is going to result in an unnecessary argument that can be avoided and has no real effect on the state of a relationship. To lie is human. To live a lie is different. It’s not something that is inconsequential. When you live a lie, there are always consequences for someone. In our cases, it ends up being our consequence.

The basis for a relationship should be one built on give and take. When a man stops having sex with his wife because it’s too much of a burden for him because he is gay, you are giving wrong information to your wife. I don’t hear too many men take responsibility for their lack of sexual activity other than made up stories about being too tired, too overworked, too depressed, too headachy, too sore from exercising, etc. When those excuses run out, then the tables turn. Then it’s—YOU. You are too heavy, YOU are too naggy, YOU are too unsympathetic,
YOU are too demanding, and of course…..YOU ARE A NYMPHOMANIAC or something just as insulting. Because YOU now think YOU are the problem in your marriage, YOU are the one who tries to change YOURSELF. So, now you are changing yourself to become the ideal wife of a man who doesn’t want to make love to you no matter how good you look, how nice you act, how talented you are, or of course—how devoted you are to your gay husband. Ouch! That hurts.


Eventually, after your husband rejects you enough times, you stop expecting sex, and you also stop asking for it. He breathes a deep sigh of relief. Whew!! “She finally gets it. Stop asking because you’re not going to get it.” Once your wife stops asking you to have sex, she has resigned herself to living an unhappy life with you. How happy to do you think she’s going to be? And when she’s not happy, that’s her fault too, right? Wrong. It’s the husband’s fault.

Some gay husbands believe that money is the key to happiness—YOUR happiness. They will try to compensate for their sexual inadequacy by buying you gifts and trinkets, as if that will do it for you. It’s the same pattern as the physically abusive husband who beats his wife, begs for forgiveness, tells her that he loves her, and goes out to buy a present to prove it. HYPOCRITS. Like a bracelet is going to make you feel better about yourself. “I don’t think you’re good enough to make love to, but I think you’re good enough for a bracelet.” Thanks pal—but no thanks.

I know they say that the failure of a marriage is the fault of both parties, and maybe that’s the case in functional marriages. But guess what? I don’t think it’s that way when you live with a gay man. You aren’t happy. He can’t be happy. He is saying that you are making him unhappy because of your own unhappiness. But if he would have been a straight husband, maybe you would be happy. Perhaps you could have met life’s challenges as a team instead of being on different teams. And not only are you both on different teams, but you’re both playing in different ballparks. If the pitcher for the New York Yankees throws the most perfect pitch in NY, the best player in Boston standing hundreds of miles away can’t hit it—NO MATTER WHAT. You are in two different cities on two different teams. Two different places in two different spaces.

The same goes for straight wives with gay husbands. If your husband is telling you that the lack of sex in your marriage is YOUR fault, and he is a gay man, no matter what you do to make yourself more physically attractive, and some of you have gone to the extremes of breast implants and liposuction, it’s not going to change anything. You are playing in the wrong ballpark. Or shall I say, you have the wrong plumbing.

If you think I’m saying to all of you that you are perfect and without fault, well, I’m not. No one is perfect; we are all human. We all make mistakes. We all have bad days. We all have human traits, and this is fine. And no husband—straight, gay or otherwise is perfect either. I don’t think any of us are seeking perfection. We are seeking husbands who are playing in the same ballpark. And although many couples who are STRAIGHT couples grow apart, they do it in a more honest way. They don’t always look to place the blame on your lap. They take some responsibility for the marriage unraveling. And you can make sense of those marriages that don’t work without feeling that you are responsible for their failure. In a marriage with a gay husband, you don’t even know what is real and not real. You are living in a labyrinth that has only twists and turns. There is no way to ever find a way to the end of the maze. The twists and turns go nowhere except in vicious circles.

And so, when you sit back and recount the years that have passed and try to figure out what went wrong in your marriage, do yourself a favor--stop thinking about it. When you live with a gay man who is parading in disguise as a straight man, nothing can change the circumstances. Or shall I say, only you are capable of changing them—by leaving the marriage and moving on to a life that makes sense. What’s really so amazing is that life can make sense once your marriage is over. No more mazes to run through, no more Twilight Zones or Outer Limits. No more trying to solve the unsolvable, no more fighting against the unchanging tide. When you live like this, you zap your mental and physical energy because spinning gold out of hay only happens in fairytales.
Bonnie Kaye

THANKS, BONNIE
I don't know where I would be without you!
debbie