Posted on 04/26/2002 4:40:06 AM PDT by LarryLied
What do you do when your husband of 20 years tells you he is gay and you feel you have been living a lie? How do your children cope? This 'unusual but not uncommon' situation is made all the harder because, unlike in the US, there is little support here for the straight spouses of homosexuals
Four children, 20 years of marriage and then the bombshell: "I'm gay". When Alison* heard her husband utter these words, her life and her children's lives imploded. As she describes it: "He was out of the closet, and we went in."
"You feel isolation, stigma and shame," says Alison. "You're afraid people will think there's something wrong with you. I would have no difficulty if one of my children was gay, but I do have a difficulty with a man telling me after 20 years of marriage that he is gay, that we lived a lie. If it's sad for him, it's nothing to the pain and grief it's caused to the rest of us."
Alison's reaction to her husband's admission was visceral - she felt out of control, rapidly lost weight, had difficulty sleeping and suffered panic and anxiety. "He had a new identity through his sexuality. But I was going crazy and was very depressed. I felt suicidal. I even rationalised it to myself, thinking, 'if I go, he'll have to be there for the kids'," she says.
"I've been put in the position of having lived a lie. I don't know what love is anymore. What did my marriage vows mean? I have often felt like the figure in Edvard Munch's painting, The Scream. It's a feeling of disorientation and unreality - almost madness. At first, I kept thinking I could knock some sense into him, or that I would wake up one morning and it would all have been a bad dream. Now I want to move beyond it but I don't know how," says Alison, who is still coming to terms with the trauma, two years afterwards.
The US has a strong support network for straight spouses of homosexuals and Alison searched for something similar in the Republic without success. "I feel it would help me to meet women in similar situations to mine," she says.
Feelings of disorientation, physical distress and internalised rage are common among women whose husbands come out, according to Carol Grever's book, My Husband is Gay: A Woman's Guide to Surviving the Crisis.
"Virtually all the \ women I interviewed agreed that their situation was grossly unfair. Their loss of security and isolation in the closet led most to question, 'Why me? What did I do to deserve this?'" Grever felt victimised, confused and hurt when her husband "came out" and left her after 30 years of marriage.
Alison had felt herself fighting for her marriage for several years before the revelation. Her husband's growing detachment led the couple to marriage counselling, where her husband's secret never emerged. Increasingly frustrated, Alison pushed her husband to explain why he was withdrawn.
His answer - that he was gay - was the last thing she expected and, to be honest, she would have found it easier to handle if he had admitted to a heterosexual affair. Yet she felt enormous empathy and grief for him. "At first, I thought it was a midlife crisis, as though he was saying 'I just want to be responsible for myself'. He was in utter turmoil within himself . . . in a very bad place. It became clear to me that it was important for him and the children, that he live with dignity."
So instead of throwing him out of the family home, Alison helped her husband to ease his way into his new life. He stayed in the family home for a considerable time after his admission, and when he left he did so in an organised fashion with Alison's help. Since then, she has taken all financial responsibility for the home and family, so that her husband can use his income to live in decent accommodation. She wants her children to be able to visit their father in a pleasant home.
Feeling "de-sexed" and "neutered" has made Alison re- evaluate her self-image. "I asked myself, if my only sexual partner in my life was gay, what does that make me out to be? I blamed myself, because it seemed that the only man I could attract was a gay man."
The revelations have also complicated her relationships with her teenage children, who have been unable to talk to her about their father. When they were eventually told, three of the four children had already guessed the truth. Alison worries about how her children are privately dealing with their father's sexuality, when they are not yet sure of who they are themselves.
"When my husband changed his identity, he changed ours as well," says Alison. "But it is not something that my children can talk to their friends about. I know that my husband loves our children, but he doesn't have to deal with the day-to-day impact on their lives. It's an awful nightmare - this sense of powerlessness. My husband is out there in the gay community and has friends to talk him through this. But my children and I are like an underground secret society. I would love to meet other women this has happened to."
Joan Rippingale, a counsellor who has been involved for more than a decade with a support group for parents of gay men, sees a desperate need for a support group facilitated by counsellors in which straight spouses could share their experiences.
In response to inquiries made for this article, the Marriage and Relationships Counselling Service (MRCS) has announced that it will facilitate such a group if there is sufficient demand and welcomes calls from women in Alison's situation. It also offers counselling to male/female couples in which homosexuality becomes an issue, a situation the MRCS describes as "uncommon but not unusual either".
*All names have been changed to protect the families involved
The Marriage and Relationships Counselling Service, 38 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin (tel: 01-6785256).
My Husband is Gay: A Woman's Guide to Surviving the Crisis (The Crossing Press, www.crossingpress.com).
Straight Spouse Network website: www.ssnetwk.org
So the woman who was the victim of a bisexual man who decided it was "better" to become promiscuous with his gay friends now has to support the bastard?
Sounds like they attended "counseling" with a psychologist who thinks evil is good and vice versa.
And if the guy decided instead that he needed a young girl, would the lady have to support him in his transition to living in a nice apartment with her?
The first thing would be to get an HIV test and second rule out other STDs.
He lies to her and then "lets him off the finacial hook". Like she is doing her children any good by rewarding the liar. She sounds as goofy as the liar!
I don't understand this either ---she's letting him out of financial responsibility? So he can spend his money on his new gay life instead of his kids?
Call a priest.
"He was out of the closet, and we went in.".....
"He had a new identity through his sexuality.
In the quest for "gay rights" the gay world has put their own comfort above the comfort of those who depend on them and trust them.
So instead of throwing him out of the family home, Alison helped her husband to ease his way into his new life.....
...Since then, she has taken all financial responsibility for the home and family, so that her husband can use his income to live in decent accommodation. She wants her children to be able to visit their father in a pleasant home.
Her husband has it made. Tells the wife & kids he is gay, so long, good luck & then she supports him so that he can adjust to his "new" life? Give me a break...she should throw him out on his ass. Adultery is adultery. Because he now does the tango with other men instead of a hot babe, it is something to be "understood" and worthy of emotional support? She is an idiot. Her husband has basically destroyed the world of his wife & kids & yet, she works so that he can adjust to his lifestyle change?
...But my children and I are like an underground secret society.....
It's her own damned fault for being an idiot.
She's too hard on herself when she says "attract" when she should mean "get a marriage proposal from"; the former is a given for almost any woman of certain age range; the latter is quite otherwise, and may be getting harder . . .Emotionally, the guy divorces her--and she helps him get an apartment and makes no claims on his income? I don't get it. Except for love, of course . . .
Convert to the religion of peace & go to sand land and fight a jihad.
First of all there is no such thing as being 'gay'. It is entirely a behavioral choice. Of course this choice is influenced by an underlying mental illness called Same-sex Attraction Disorder (SAD).
The question is "why, after all these years, is this guy choosing a life of perversion"?
My guess would be that prior to the detachment starting her husband became addicted to pornography. Heterosexual porn gave way to child porn gave way to homosexual porn as he became desensitized to normal desires. (That is, he got used to regular porn and needed to try something else to get his fix).
After becoming addicted he then reached out to try the behaviors he saw modelled in the porn. He probably had been molested by a man in his childhood or neglected by his father so he had an unfulfilled need for masculine attention (these two causes show up in almost all people afflicted with SAD) and his need for something new sexually combined with his need for masculine attention overwhelmed his common sense and morals.
He basically abandoned his family and everything good just to get a cheap sexual thrill.
The absolute worst thing that his wife could do is encourage and support him. She needs to practice some tough love and shut him out of her and the children's lives immediately.
Statistics show that those who succumb to SAD are also from 13 to 40 times more likely to be child molesters also. The risks just aren't worth it.
The children would be better off if their father suicided physically instead of morally as he has done.
God I pray that you will restore him to his senses, save him and deliver him from perversion.
God Save America (Please)
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