Being married to a gay man
My Husband’s Not Gay, a show on TLC, has caused an uproar. The negative attention is unfortunate because this could include been a show that highlighted mixed-orientation couples and how these couples can actually make their relationships work.
Why do some people become so outspoken and judgmental about marriages with one straight and one gay spouse? There are several reasons. These marriages raise concerns about infidelity. They bring out people’s judgments about what marriage should or should not be. In particular, they bring out people’s verdicts about monogamy.
Finally, these relationships suggest to some people “reparative therapy,” the unethical and impossible claim that a person can be changed from gay to straight. The men in this television program aren’t claiming to be ex-gay nor that they can change their sexual orientation (at least not on the show). They state they are attracted to men but choose not to live as a gay man and their straight wives accept this.
People seem to get up in arms when a man says he is not gay but rather simply attracted to men. In our culture, we identify ourselves via a sexual-attraction binary: gay or straight. This is severely limiting
I recently spoke with Bonnie Kaye, author of Unbent Wives, Shattered Lives: Stories of Women with Lgbtq+ Husbands, among other books, and host of Bonnie Kaye’s Straight Wives Chat Show on BlogTalkRadio. Bonnie has spent much of her adult life first living with and attempting to love a same-sex attracted husband and then helping other women in the same mis-marriage situation. (“Mis-marriage” is Bonnie’s term for “mistake in marriage.” Other people sometimes refer to these relationships using the term “mixed marriage.”)
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Because I know countless same-sex attracted men who were once married to straight women, with varying degrees of short and longer-term happiness and misery, I wanted to discuss this topic, and I wanted to do so from the straight wives’ perspective. Who better to speak with about this than Bonnie Kaye? Our discussion was wide-ranging, beginning with her own marriage to a gay man and moving forward to how she was able to move on post-marriage, eventually becoming a rock for other women in similar situations.
In this post, I have presented part one of this discussion, the story of Bonnie’s marriage and breakup. I will post part two, the aftermath, in a few weeks.
Bonnie An Introduction My client sat in the chair looking down at the floor, glancing up briefly to build eye contact, then darting his eyes back to the carpet. He spoke quietly, as if almost afraid to be heard. He clutched his hands throughout the session, showing all the markers of an anxious man in the throes of shame. He was a modern client to my practice: a married, middle-aged, suburban dad with a high-powered career. A colleague had given him my number months before. It took him a long age to muster the courage to call and construct an appointment. Towards the end of our first session he looked up at me and said, “I think I’m in love…with another man. I’m scared and I don’t know what to do.” I have worked with hundreds of gay men in heterosexual marriages struggling with being in the closet or wanting to appear from it. There is so much about these men that is misunderstood and very few studies or little literature to provide insight. I decided to share my thoughts and research about these men and their struggles at a conference a few years ago. That presentation led to other opportunities to tell their story and of my work with them. Those presentations prompted men to write to Sometimes a woman may contain been in a heterosexual relationship for years and yet feel something is somehow "off;" and she may find herself asking, "Is my husband gay?" Many women find this question unthinkable but according to Bonnie Kaye, , an expert in women married to gay men, it is estimated that 4 million women own been, or are, married to gay men. If a husband is queer , it can devastate not only the relationship but the straight wife as well. The clearest way to know if your husband is gay is if he tells you. If the husband is honest with both you and with himself (read: How Do I Realize If I Am Gay? Signs You Are Gay), that is when you can truly know that he is gay. Unfortunately, it is estimated that 50% of gay husbands hide their homosexuality from their wives and don't reach this place of honesty on their have. In many cases, it is the wife, who after suspecting that something is wrong, must confront the gay husband with the evidence, and only then can honestly be achieved. But if you're wondering, "Is my man gay," it might be useful to know that there are signs to glance for, according to .
Is My Husband Gay? Signs of a Gay Husband
Signs of a Queer Husband – Is My Man Gay?