We have a little members-only virtual clubhouse where fellow str8s meet to swap stories; vent frustrations; share the devastating pain of an unwanted, unplanned divorce; tell the occasional off-color joke; give and receive virtual hugs; commiserate about learning to date again; and generally just hang out and talk about the shared experience of having unknowingly married a closeted LGBT person. With a membership of over 450 people, it's certain that most of us will never meet face to face. But the bond isn't any less strong simply because of the electronic venue; in fact, our common str8 experience makes for an immediate sense of "knowing", like running into another American in Greece and suddenly that person is your new best friend. No backstory needed; I know you.
Today people posted pictures of themselves and their spouses, pre-divorce. I'm not sure who started it, but by the end of the evening there were over fifty pictures posted, including one of my favorite photos from my own wedding day. Lots of happy, smiling faces. Wedding photos, recommitment ceremonies, vacations, new babies, father-daughter dances...they could be pictures of any family, anywhere. Except for the accompanying captions:
"This was taken one week before she left me for another woman."
"At a friend's wedding. Found out later he hooked up with one of the waiters at the reception."
"He liked to take pictures with everyone; I was just another casual person to take a picture with."
"This was on our honeymoon. I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world."
"With our daughter before a dance. He had been dating his boyfriend for three months at that point, unbeknownst to me."
"Holding our baby. I found out right before I gave birth that he had been soliciting sex from men online."
"This was during a short-lived happy period. He lost a damn good woman."
"This was on my graduation day. He came out less than a month later."
"This is the picture he used to meet men online."
"I took this picture on a romantic lunch date. He used it on a gay dating site less than three weeks later."
And my own description of that favorite photo: "It's interesting...I'm kissing HIM, while his hands are not touching me at all."
I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was exactly about the photo-sharing that got to me. It's not about TGT (that's "the gay thing" in str8 shorthand). I understand the closet, I feel deep compassion for the struggle, I appreciate the desire to live the "acceptable" life and have the husband/wife, the 2.3 kids and the golden retriever. I really do get that, and work hard in both my personal and professional lives to promote equality. No one should have to pretend to be someone or something that they aren't.
That said, I found myself feeling emotionally triggered as I scrolled through the pictures again and again. As I sat here struggling to find just the right words to describe what I was feeling, another club member beat me to it with her very honest and to-the-point post:
"It is really interesting to see all the photos, but it is also sad because not one of you in those pics thought that the person you fell in love with would one day end up gay. Right now I am angry at him and all of them for the hurt and the pain that they have put us through. I am angry that so many of us are struggling financially because of their [behavior]. I am angry because so many of us are on meds because of the sh*t we have gone through. I am angry because many of us were made to feel sexually inadequate because of their inability to be honest with themselves. Lastly, I am angry because so many children have been hurt by this. We also deserve happiness and peace in our lives."
And that, for far too many members of our not-so-little club, is a pretty clear snapshot of the other side of this unhappy closet.
To schedule a face-to-face or FaceTime session with Kimberly Brooks Mazella, LPC, please go to my website at www.kimberlybrooksmazella.com.
To schedule a face-to-face or FaceTime session with Kimberly Brooks Mazella, LPC, please go to my website at www.kimberlybrooksmazella.com.
11 comments:
Thank you for posting honest comments about "their inability to be honest with themselves." So much energy is spent sympathizing with the coming out struggle of the gay spouse. Too little is spent respecting the collateral damage that they leave behind. Many gay individuals live with integrity in this world, in spite of the challenges that they face. My spouse did not. Now, my children and I pay the price.
Thanks for your comment, Jackie. I have learned so much from my fellow str8s. While I was fortunate to have had an amicable parting from my ex (accompanied by a large dose of "I-don't-want-to-know-the-details" on my part), it has been a real eye-opener to hear the stories and see the extent of the damage done to so many. I have been most surprised and disheartened by the intentional cruelty of some coming-out spouses -- the abandonment of children, the stealing of marital assets, the disappearing from the country and leaving brokenhearted families behind, the abusive text messages. That part seems less about being gay, and more about...I don't know what. As a therapist, I have my hypotheses, but as a human being, I am dumbfounded.
I remember the years of hugging my (now ex) wife every day before I left for work. Her hands never touched me either. It was like hugging a statue. I thought that given her fairly messed up family of origin, she just needed to learn how to love. I tried to show her by example, day after day after day.
It was a major epiphany when I eventually realized that she just wasn't capable of accepting any help, or love, from me or any other man.
And she kept a picture from our wedding on her night stand: I was on one side of her and her "best friend" on the other. It was her fear of being outed to our kids by that best friend (and former lover) that finally caused her to open her closet door a fraction of an inch, sixteen years later.
I am now closing in on ten years since disclosure. I am remarried to my gr8 str8 m8. We teach each other how to love every day, and it just keeps getting better...
No one seems to have sympathy for the straight spouse. We suffer in silence, after all, "my husband left me for another man", is not exactly polite dinner conversation. People look and say,"how could you not have known?". It's as if we have some disease and they don't want to get too close, because they might catch the "gay plague" in their marriage. They compare your situation to hetrosexual couples, and don't realize how devastating it is to our lives, and our self esteem. We blamed ourselves, it was our fault, he didn't seem to want us. We were too fat, too tired, when all along, they knew they didn't want us. After my husband came out of the closet, he told me, " I use to cringe when I touched you". I wondered what it would be like if you would have predeceased me? Cruel justifications for lying, stealing marital assets to keep some young boy happy. People don't understand how devastating the collateral damage they leave behind. While the world pats them on the back, for it's not politically correct to reject homosexuality. I call it the "gay credit card". It allows them to do anything that they need to do, in order to live an "authentic life", regardless of who they hurt in the process. We wear two faces, one for the world, where Prozac helps us get through the day. The other one, no one wants to be around. Your grown children, see you as weak, you should be a strong woman, and they can't understand, why you don't move on, and let go. After 32 years, you feel you knew your spouse. You thought they had your back, but find out, they were sneaking around, on the internet, in gay bars, and bringing men to your home, when you were at work. Never suspecting, having faith, after all, you have been with this man for 32 years, and he was your best friend, and you thought you had a "good marriage". My husband likes to say, He wants a emotional, and sexual relationship with a man. BUT he wants to stay married to me, and provide for me financially, because he knows, that I am his friend, and the person he can depend upon. Or should I say, when he finds that "special man", I'll probably get dumped, and he will truly have moved on. We have been separated for 2 1/2 years, and I no longer cry everyday. I say the serenity prayer several times a day. God give me the strength to accept the things that I can not change, and the wisdom to know the difference. It's one day at a time, and it's not easy to start over again, when you are over 60 years old. My lawyer says it's not in my economic best interest to get divorced, at this time in my life. Especially since he provides and pays the mortgage, health insurance, and I am the beneficiary on all of his life insurance. Still sorting out what I need for myself. Perhaps in the next year, I will have a clearer picture of what the "new me" looks like.
I agree..I don't think it's about being gay. So as a therapist, please share what your hypotheses, as to why these people, feel it's alright to do whatever they want in the name of living and authentic life?
Why does being gay, give you the right to abandon children, steal marital assets, expose us to sexual diseases, and emotional and sexual infidelity?
Tonight, I am going to post a picture. It is an oldie but goodie. It dates back to being married for only two years. It was an "almost" happy time I can only say. It was the same year that I have learned he had his first "known" affair with a man that was denied to me. It is a photo from our "first" vacation alone together and our last(btw never went on even a honeymoon). When I post it tonight, all will see . . . we appeared to be a happy couple. I thought I married a man who could quite possibly love me. It was all downhill from nearly that photo on. It became a life of despair, silence, frustration, confusion, control, lies, and mind games.
Despite it all, I still just wanted honesty, and friendship, and access to information, but all was denied. It was the most painful life I could have ever lived.
Can't wait to post the photo because I do cherish it because it was the days when I was able to be "me". I could smile, laugh, speak, and still almost trust.
No one quite understands.
Thanks for your comment, Anon. As you might imagine, writing this blog is a bit of a balancing act between straight spouse and therapist. I primarily write as a straight spouse, with the goal of validating other str8s and giving voice to a largely invisible demographic. My therapist hat allows me enough detachment from my own experience to be able to write from a largely neutral perspective, because I have to be able to understand all sides of an issue in order to do my job effectively.
Us therapist-types are always observing and thinking about human behavior, and that habit was the source of my "hypotheses" comment; however, this would not be an appropriate venue in which to speculate about possible motivations or dynamics regarding people I've never met. I was thinking out loud, and in retrospect should have kept that as a mental note.
Gr8 str8 m8 -- love it! Thank you for sharing a piece of your journey through this crazy str8 life, especially the part about coming out on the other side. So often we feel like damaged goods and wonder if we'll ever find real love, or even be able to trust again. Your story is an inspiration, and a testament that hope and joy are possible again for us all.
Anon, thank you for sharing your very difficult story. I'm glad you have a sense that there can and will be a "new you". In the meantime, please make sure you're getting plenty of support from the whole community of str8s that are out there. The Straight Spouse Network is a tremendous resource for support and education. I hope you will get connected if you're not already. It's such a gift to have a community of people who "get it" because they (we) have been through it or are going through it themselves. It makes the burden little lighter if you let others help you carry it. Please know you are not alone.
Anon, your words really touch a chord in me, as I'm sure they do with many other str8s who have felt irreparably damaged and alone with their grief. Your post makes me think of one of my favorite poems, "The Journey" by Mary Oliver. I hope you like it, too, and take comfort in the knowledge that you CAN move through the dark woods and back out into the light. Wishing you a peaceful heart.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
And one more thing, Anon...the picture is absolutely lovely. Your innocent and pure intentions shine through. Don't give him the power to take away your essence. You could not do what you do for a living if there wasn't joy in there somewhere!
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