My gay husband: why it took so long for me to leave him

My gay husband: why it took so long for me to leave him
In a 1988 article that appeared in The Times, a reader revealed her anguish at discovering that her husband was gay. She has remained in the marriage since then. Now, in an open letter to her spouse, she explains why she is ending it.

Dear Peter,
I didn’t intend sending you this letter, but to use it only as a means of catharsis and, possibly, a justification to myself for the leap in the not-so-dark I’ll take once the house is sold and we start to live totally separately.

What made me change my mind was recalling that you said you were a little “confused” about my motives and reasons for such a serious step, radically changing a relationship that has spanned 40 years. You became angry and upset; yet you have often said in the past that you wouldn’t be able to tolerate our situation, were the roles reversed. So may I plead a little confusion also?

Maybe the simplest way of looking at the separation is to think of it as part of an evolving process. First there was your revelation that you were gay (which took me many years to accept), then, later, our decision to combine your need for liberty and a degree of licence with your determination to remain at the core of the family. This led to your move away to live in London during the week and our children and friends accepted the explanation that you were under pressure at work. But the truth of course left me with all kinds of imaginings: what were you doing, who had you been with when you came home to me on a Friday night?

As time passed and you established yourself as part of the gay community, your weekends at home became a moveable feast and emotionally you withdrew from me, no longer showing the same interest in my thoughts or feelings; my internal life. That was inevitable, I now see. And yet I felt I remained on your radar from habit, guilt, or as a refuge from your frequent emotional turmoil, drawing me in whether I liked it or not.

Somehow we had to deconstruct our notion of what a marriage is and create a relationship that could accommodate who we had become. I had to convince myself that your “other life” was only a threat to me if I allowed it to be; but this turned out to be a persistently difficult exercise and one that provoked frequent fiery discussion. You are an extremely honest person; also I think I invited your confidences to seek the reassurance, which I seldom got. It was a poisoned chalice: I was afraid of these spectral figures, these men who threatened my security; yet I thought that if you had the freedom to be with them then you would be nicer to me, a happier person and easier to be with. My instinct then was for self preservation, indistinguishable from my need to preserve the family unit. I had to learn acceptance, as did our children and friends when, later, we told them the truth.

Over the years we have tried to establish boundaries – you would continue to join in family occasions and to share our social life as a couple; I would meet and enjoy the company of your gay friends – although never the ones you were emotionally involved with. At the mixed parties we attended together you would occasionally forget which persona you inhabited – comfortably married spouse or gay social butterfly – with sometimes comical results.

But, in truth, you were probably trying to reconcile the irreconcilable: your gay life and your family life. I doubt if equal weight could be given to these two elements – one has to remain in the shadows, the other can grow in the sunlight. Only so much time and energy can be devoted to the pursuit of relationships (and/or sex) without other aspects of your life suffering. It seems to me your dedication to this need determines all aspects of your life leaving me to wonder about my role and identity within the marriage.

Am I wife? Legally, yes. Partner? Probably not. Lover? Certainly not. Confidante? I doubt it. Close friend? I hope so. Now you are probably going to scold me for trying to pigeonhole what we have, but I don’t have sufficient sense of myself in this. I can’t place myself in the hierarchy of your relationships, or try to compete with a “rival” because this life of yours is something completely apart. Your homosexuality is not negotiable and it permeates everything: the films you sometimes watch, the jokes you share, the clothes you wear – the prism through which you see the world. The potential for establishing an equilibrium within the marriage, which some of our friends now enjoy, perhaps after years of tension and difficulties, isn’t available to us.
The need to walk the line between preserving our life together and respecting your separate one has eventually proved too difficult. I am tired of treading on eggshells, trying to avoid any hint of possessiveness or pressure. I might ask if you were free to accept a dinner invitation to both of us from old friends and you would not want to commit, preferring to remain open to other possibilities, finding the division of loyalties irksome. Accommodating each other comes at too high an emotional price for both of us. So, what else is there, except friendship?

Explaining my decision to our friends isn’t easy: they have become used to our idiosyncratic domestic arrangements over the years, even though understanding how we have coped at all is almost beyond their grasp. Why would I suddenly choose to live independently, after all this time? They compare us with the conventional example of a husband who has affairs but still considers his wife the most important person in his life. But, of course, in our case, the opposite is true: you are continually looking for that man who could be the most important person in your life. That usually stops them in their tracks.

The children, now well-established in their own relationships and careers, can take a more detached view, for their focus has shifted.

What impresses you and me about them is the absence of taking sides, so common in the breakdown of relationships. As they dealt with the knowledge of your sexuality all those years ago, when in their late teens, so they will respect this new shift in their parents’ lives with maturity, empathy and discretion. With what remains of my life, therefore, I’d like to remove once and for all the shackles of expectation and assumption, the huge margin for misunderstanding and misjudgment, and hope that greater independence will allow us to respect and value each other much more.

I’ll never forget what a loving father and caring husband you were – and are still. Not all wives can say that. I hope I can now tuck the past away, beat back any resentment and concentrate on forming a close friendship with you for our own sakes and for our children and grandchildren. I don’t expect you to agree with or accept what I’ve said as your perspective must be very different. Even so. I hope what I’ve expressed is viewed neither as critical of you, nor insensitive to your heroic efforts to be true to yourself and supportive of me. What has partly sustained our relationship for such a long time has been a sincere attempt to understand our respective difficulties.
Love always, Gail

I felt despair after he told me

Here is the article written by Gail Fielding and published in The Times in 1988
About eight years ago, while holding me close, my husband told me that he was gay. For days after this revelation I wrestled with its implications, trying to recall looks or observations that should have sparked more than a suspicion.

Our three children involved us, our sex life continued, and my husband seemed unaltered: no horns or cloven hoofs. But one cannot always bury a timebomb of this magnitude for ever, although I am told there are “hundreds and hundreds” of gay husbands whose wives do not know of, or will not acknowledge, their husbands’ homosexuality.

Sometimes my wall of detachment would be breached. My husband developed shingles. Blandly the doctor observed that his immune system had broken down, not realising the crushing impact of his words, for Aids had just begun to haunt the researchers. Our eyes met in fear, but we could not discuss it, my wall was still too firmly in place. After recovering, and showing great courage, he took the test for Aids, happily negative. And if at coffee mornings, dinners or during the course of my work as a market researcher in unblemished Berkshire, someone sneered at gays or made the ritual remarks, my smile would be careful, my reactions noncommittal. Despite my terror – for that is what it was – I could not betray my husband by joining in.

Together we tackled the subject of homosexuality, my husband as homosexual and the implications for our marriage and children. Our teenage children, constantly at war with each other, are united in their love and respect for their father. But they share the preconceptions of their peers at the local comprehensive school.

For a while I hated gays, the camp and the subdued alike. Across a great divide there was territory I could not invade and could not understand.

I was very frightened. Eventually my despair was total, and yet I spoke to no one. Though I felt I could count on my friends’ support, was it fair to impose such a burden. They too would experience conflict and insecurity, a discomfort felt when views are challenged and affection tested. When I did tell some of them, gently encouraged by a marriage-guidance counsellor, filtering through the astonishment and disbelief was sympathy – for both of us.
For two years we attempted to establish a modus vivendi, some way of allowing my husband to be what he is without causing me too much pain.

It did not work: the combination of concessions (my perception) and constraints (his) were very difficult to reconcile. At present he loves and is loved in return. We are looking at separation, particularly how it will involve and affect the children (to tell or not to tell?) and are terrified of gambling with their emotional welfare. Professional opinion, however, seems to indicate that the sooner they are told of their father’s homosexuality the better, on the grounds that unexplained tension between parents is worse.

I do not want a separation but despair of a working alternative. If someone were to ask me if I would marry my husband again I would probably say “no”, but with hesitation. In so many ways my marriage has been an enriching experience. Clause 28 could encourage more cross-sexual marriages (homosexual married to heterosexual) because homosexuals will feel less secure about their sexual orientation. Those involved may not be as lucky as I.
This is long but good. Tell Gail Fielding what you think by posting your comments in our blog? I’m very proud of Gail.
Be Safe-
Dennis Schleicher

Married Man Seeks Same for Discreet Play

Married Man Seeks Same for Discreet Play

He has a loving wife, a small child—and sex with men on the side. How the Internet has made it easier than ever to lead a detection-proof double life.

By David Amsden www.nymag.com/news 

The man sitting across from me would like to tell me his name, but doing so is against his rules. He could tell me a fake name, he says, though not the one he typically uses when meeting a man in the middle of the day, since he has been using the same fake name for so long that it is almost real. Revealing it now would open him up to the potential of recognition, and, frankly, just imagining a scenario like that makes him wonder why he agreed to meet in the first place. He knows how he comes across. So shifty and paranoid. But he is not apologetic. Because when you live two separate lives, as he does, and when you have been maintaining these two separate lives for twenty years, as he has, coming across as shifty and paranoid is something of an inevitability.

     I will call him William Dockett, for clarity’s sake. Over the past few weeks, William and I have been e-mailing regularly. This is what I know about him: I know that he is in his early forties and that he lives and works in Manhattan, earning around $200,000 annually in a job he wishes he was more passionate about. I know that he is a registered Democrat who grew up in a nearby suburb. I know that he has been married a decade and that he is the father of a small child. And I know—here his life gets complicated—that when he is at work, and things are slow, he goes to Craigslist and, with a familiar mixture of guilt and resignation and excitement, clicks on the “men meeting men” section of the personals.

     It is hard to fathom, the notion of a gay man living a closeted life in New York City in 2007. The life of someone like William—who responded to a posting I placed on Craigslist identifying myself as a writer trying to understand the psyche of a still-closeted man—seems at the very least anachronistic. Typically, the “closet” brings to mind small towns, intensely religious communities, and, at the most cosmopolitan level, the lives of Jim McGreevey and Mark Foley: gay men operating in a world so inherently duplicitous that their choosing to lead a shadow life follows, sadly, a certain logic. And yet the thing about desire—frustratingly, thrillingly—is that few things are so resistant to reason and categorization. “I used to think I was bi, but now I really believe that I am gay and just was not in the right situation,” William wrote to me in an early message. “I think I like a particular kind of guy and when I went out looking I never found him, so I gravitated toward women. I found what I liked on the Internet, but I was already married.”

     We are meeting at a pub in the West Village, desolate at this midday hour, a location chosen because it is far removed, geographically and psychically, from where William lives and works. He is, as he refers to himself online, “average looking,” medium height, clean shaven, a little stocky but in decent shape. He’s wearing dark tapered slacks, a well-ironed pale-blue shirt, cuff links, and a pink tie that is flashy but by no means flamboyant, knotted half-English style. For weeks he has resisted the idea of talking in person. “I’m sorry,” he wrote, “but my life is a mess right now.” And later: “Why am I even talking to you?” Once he agreed to meet, he warned me, “You’re going to be disappointed. I’ve had to become very good at revealing very little.”

     He was not exaggerating. My questions are answered curtly, almost inaudibly. No, he is not religious. No, he was not raised in a religious or bigoted household. No, he does not think being attracted to men is “wrong.” No, it’s not that simple. This much he will allow: “This is not the life I was meant to live. I don’t know what that life is, what it looks like, but I know it’s not this. But I don’t think most people are living the life they think they were meant to live, so I don’t feel that bad.” I walk away from the lunch thinking that the most telling thing about the entire exchange is how little William is willing to tell. His paranoia is palpable, clearly consuming. Whatever the reason he decided to meet me in the first place—vanity, a desire to tell a few of his secrets, maybe even a subconscious wish to be discovered—I feel certain that he will not wish to meet again. But later that afternoon he sends me an e-mail: “I think I want to keep talking to you. I don’t know why, but I do.”

To read more go to; http://nymag.com/news/features/34985 & tell us what your think by posting your comments??? Do you think your man is Gay?

-Be Safe

Dennis Schleicher

Honey, I’m gay

Honey, I’m gay
Malavika Velayanikal
Sunday, January 25, 2009 3:31 IST
Mumbai: Put it down to societal norms or personal fear of alienation or the need to earn respectability, a significant percentage of gay men are, or have been, married. In most cases the woman only finds out after the knot is tied.

Waheeda* was a bright girl, full of life, and, being the youngest, her parents’ pet. When they found her a handsome groom with a well-paying job in London, dreams sprouted wings. She did not think twice about quitting her MNC job in Chennai to fly out with
her husband after the wedding, little knowing what lay ahead.
When her husband chose to spend their first night together in London with his British friend, she was sad, confused. However, the traditional baggage she carried within stopped her from asking for reasons. When he repeated it the next day, and the day after, she forced herself to confront him. Her worst fears were confirmed: He was in love with someone else and, worse, that the ’someone else’ was a man. She felt cheated, humiliated. Alone and alien, she had no lifeline. Even her parents felt helpless and asked her to ‘adjust’.
Today, Waheeda has found a job, but is still a broken girl. Her dreams are dead. Her health fails her often. A victim of panic attacks, she is an embarrassment to her husband, whom she still lives with.
Waheeda is hardly alone though. Countless others have similar tales to tell. “When a woman learns that her husband is gay, a myriad of emotions overcomes her, ranging from devastation to repulsion,” says Bonnie Kaye, who runs the website www.gayhusbands.com.
Once married to a gay man herself, she offers counselling for straight wives and has penned two books on the subject — How I Made My Husband Gay (Myths About Straight Wives) and Doomed Grooms: Gay Husbands of Straight Wives. She calls a straight-gay marriage a ‘mis-marriage’ or a ‘mistake of a marriage’.
She feels that, in most cases, gay men marry hoping that their sexuality would change, but it can’t. “However, whether or not to stay in such a marriage is your choice,” she adds. Homosexuality, though, is not a choice for the man — he is helpless in this orientation.
“I come from a very orthodox and respectable Muslim family. They are also homophobic. I did not want to cheat my wife, but I couldn’t help it,” was Waheeda’s husband’s reply when asked why he refused to tell her the truth before marriage. In fact, it is the tag of respectability that makes many men closet gays. “Society is almost unforgiving when it comes to homosexuality,” says Bangalorean Divakar*. Apart from close friends, not many know he is gay. “Despite active groups like Alternative Law Forum in the city, I dare not come out in the open about my sexuality,” he adds.
Psychiatrist Dr B Kapur has had homosexual men asking for help in convincing their conservative families against marrying women. “Truly gay men hardly marry, but bi-sexuals do,” he says. In such relationships, he feels women merely have Hobson’s choice. “Living with a bi-sexual husband is dangerous, what with the high risk of Aids and other STDs. And a person’s sexual orientation cannot change, so the woman can only walk out,” he says.
An unscientific survey of visitors to www.marriedgay.org by The New York Times found that more than half of the married gay respondents said their wives did not know of their sexual inclinations. Of those, a slim majority considered coming clean but a third said ‘never’. Statistics on straight-gay marriages is scarce and unreliable. Studies in the 1970s and 80s, using inconsistent methodology, found anywhere from one-fifth to one-third of gay men were, or had at one time been, married. Society being a little more accepting might have lowered the percentage today.
Dennis J Schleicher, author of Forbidden Love with a Married Man; E-Mail Diaries, cites fear as the reason why people chose to go into the closet, get married, and develop a family. In his memoir, he says: “Typically, most children are brought up in a society where finding love in the opposite sex is bred into them. They are taught to start a courtship, which will lead to marriage and later on, children, a house with a white picket fence, a dog, an SUV and a double income family.”
He encourages gay husbands to be open about their sexuality and from personal
experience, assures that the consequence is almost never as bad as expected. “Leave the brain to math, science and technology when it comes to matters of relationships. Use your heart openly and without fear as best you can,” he says. He blogs at http://gayhusbands.wordpress.com/ and offers help to parents, families, friends and the straight spouse as they come to terms with finding out their loved one was gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
Most women find it frustrating to stay with husbands who refuse to confess. “I would say he is absolutely repulsed by me. Always has been, since our wedding night, when he wouldn’t touch me. It made me feel really bad about myself,” says Katie*. “Eight years of marriage that has stripped me of my self esteem. You know what it is when a gay man marries a woman? Abuse. I am now going through a separation.”
With dreams deferred, many stay shackled to their marriage; but some, like Preeti*, find escape. Preeti discovered her husband’s sexual preference after two months of living together. Though she found his lack of interest a little exasperating, she dared not wonder why. But when he confessed, she walked out. Perhaps the job security she had, helped. Also she was in her comfort zone, Bangalore. A year later, she got a legal divorce. “It was tough, no matter what. I had no way but out,” she says.
Since then, she has met him a few times when biking out on weekends. “I was indifferent and he, embarrassed,” she says.
Today, she is happily single; except for a shaken faith in men.
* Name changed on request
by Malavika Velayanikal
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1224760

Straight Spouse Support

 Straight Spouse Support  

Support for The Other man, Wives of Gay Husbands and Straight Wives was designed to help and support parents, families, friends and the straight spouse as they come to terms with finding out their loved one was gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered.

It is hard enough for a parent to learn to cope with their child telling them that they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

It is also extremely hard for a wife or husband to learn that their partner and often parent to their children is gay, lesbian, bisexual or wishing to change their gender.

This website has been receiving questions from people who are a straight spouse, or like myself “The Other Man.”

Questions that are being asked are;

What help is available?
Am I the only one this has happened to?
What about their children?
Have they done something wrong? Etc, etc.

All very important questions that need to be addressed with care and correct information.

As a straight spouse, gay husband, the parents, families, friends, or the other man we all need some kind of support or have many questions.

This is not your fault and there is help out there as you are not the only one this is happening to. You have not done anything wrong.

Yes, you will need support and guidance and so will your partner and your children if you have any. Your partner has not given you this information to hurt you (even though you are hurt).
Your partner is trying to be honest with him/herself and you.

It doesn’t mean that your partner doesn’t love you either. It is just that a heterosexual lifestyle is not right for him/her. Gay is not a choice.

I will give you the web site address to many support group called I use every day.

Straight Spouse;

This group will address the questions that you will want answered and give you the much needed support that will help you get through this.

 

http://www.straightspouse.org

 

www.gayhusbands.com

Straight Talk with Bonnie Kaye;Gay Husbands/Straight Wives – Info, help and counseling for women who discover that their husbands are gay/bisexual.The main USA one is

 

http://www.pflag.org

The Australian one is

 

http://www.pflag.org.au

 

This is so important as they understand what you are going through. And more importantly will help you get through it.

The one good thing about the net is you can be anywhere in the world and be capable of getting the appropriate help and support that is needed.

You should never feel alone!!!

Be Safe, Dennis Schleicher 

These groups are run by people who have been affected by having someone they love tell them they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.