He hasn’t noticed that I am fat yet because his love for me blinds him to my imperfections. I haven’t noticed that he’s not Steven Segal yet because in my eyes, that’s whom he looks like. Maybe our lives are like the movie “The Enchanted Cottage”, where two people appear physically to each other only to be what they see in each other, even if no one else can see it. But isn’t that what true love really is?
They say that sex is the part of the relationship that takes the least amount of time. Maybe that’s so. But it is such an important part of a relationship because it creates intimacy, closeness, and trust. A healthy sexual relationship builds a sense of self-esteem in a woman because the woman feels desirable. For me, it gives us an added treasure to look forward to and cherish several times a week. In between, it brings us closer with holding, touching, and caressing as a sort of after-math. This keeps our love alive and flourishing.
Am I bragging? Well, sort of. But I am not doing it to make anyone jealous—but rather to make a point. There is hope for every woman whose sexual esteem has been broken and battered much like mine was. It took me 11 years to open my heart to love or sex after my marriage. I felt so deflated as a woman and as a sex partner. I was content living in a state of celibacy and suppressing that side of my human need.
I was out there looking for a while before my soul mate came floating into my life. During that period, I met lots of men while looking for love. I had some short-term relationships and even a few shorter encounters. I was ready to awaken the side of me that had died years before during my marriage. I was awkward at first because it had been so long. But when the right moment came, I took advantage of it. I know I wasn’t at my best at first because I was so nervous, but I certainly enjoyed the passion of a straight man. It felt so nice to have someone want to fulfill that need and do it happily instead of feeling like I was forcing him. It wasn’t perfect the first time or even the tenth time, but it kept getting better as I started gaining back my sexual confidence. Yes, it is scary starting this side of life over again, but it is so worth it. All women are born with sexuality. Women who are married to gay men have had that side suppressed or deadened by their spouse. We just learn to give up on that part of us and to bury it thinking that this is the natural course of marriage or a relationship. Please know that it can be revived and brought back to life.
My soul mate has never called me a “nymphomaniac.” That’s because I’m not. I never was. I am just a normal woman with very normal sexual needs. Over the past seven and a half years, he has cultivated my sexuality and taught me that I can reach new heights of enjoyment. It is easy to keep me sexually interested because my partner never allows our sex life to become boring or mundane. He is a straight man—a straight man who appreciates a straight woman. Let this be a lesson for all of you. Never give up the part of you that helps maintain your identity as a woman. Give yourself a chance to be loved again. Look for your soul mate because chances are, he is out there looking for you.
“GET OVER IT”
Another problem that many women write to me about is the pressure they get from family members or friends to “get over it” when it comes to recovery from their marriages. They can’t understand why they are having such trouble doing this, and they feel even more inadequate (as if we need more to feel worse about) because it just isn’t happening as quickly as other people.
I get upset when I hear this pressure expressed from women who are really trying to move past their anger and hurt but not at the pace that others expect of them. After all, marriages fall apart all of the time. In fact, almost 50% of marriages in this country end in divorce. People start over again and find new relationships. Why are you having such a hard time?
What other people don’t realize is that there are numerous issues that we have to deal with after a marriage to a gay spouse ends. Some of these issues are unique and unlike those that women with straight husbands face. We have to figure out what to say to the children and when to tell them; we also have to decide what to tell family, friends, and co-workers. We live in a world where people still don’t understand about a gay husband and fear the ridicule we will face from them. There are many very ignorant people out there. Even in this day and age, people say, “What did you do to make him gay? After all, he wasn’t gay when he married you.”
We have to rebuild our own self-esteem, which has been sorely damaged through these marriages by not only feeling the failure of a marriage, but also wondering how much of a lie we were living. We have to rebuild our sense of trust within our own decision-making processes knowing that we walked blindly into a situation where we were so misled. Most of us have lost or never had the feeling of what real intimacy means in a relationship. We have difficulty trusting men again and trusting our own ability not to walk into this situation one more time. And this is a genuine fear that many women express—”It happened to me once. How do I know the next man I get involved with won’t be gay?” After all, why couldn’t we tell the first time around? This is confirmed by the ignorance of others who insist that we “must have known but married him anyway because we thought we could change him.”
There are other complications as well. There are those women who still feel some sense of responsibility for their husbands’ homosexuality. They are convinced that they played some part in their husbands turning to men.
That’s because some gay husbands are cruel enough to say that to them rather than take the responsibility for the truth.
We have to deal with our own feelings of homophobia. Even if we understood homosexuality in general terms, it took a whole new meaning when it entered our marriages and ruined our hopes and dreams for our futures with our husbands. We have to deal with our own feelings about our husbands bringing lovers into the lives of our children and how that will affect our children emotionally. We have to fear how other people will treat our children if they find out. And of course, we now have to contend with the possibility that our children will be gay because this is a new reality.
Certainly straight marriages that end go through emotional upset and turmoil. We have to go through those same problems, such as single parenthood, financial problems, selling the home, and legal tangles. But in addition, we are forced to deal with all the additional issues stated above. This is a double whammy that just doesn’t end when a marriage ends.
So, the next time someone tells you to “Get over it,” don’t feel that there’s something wrong with you. Just smile and say, “Someday I will.” Take the time that you need to rebuild your strength. Gay Spouse Recovery takes time. Sometimes it takes a lot of time. Eventually things will equal out, but some scars are bound to remain. And that’s okay. We are not machines that can just wipe away the emotional impact, nor should anyone tell you how you should feel after this disaster.
FACING OUR FEARS OF DEALING WITH A GAY HUSBAND
In my last newsletter, I promised that I would address the most common fears women have when they are finally able to accept that they are married to a gay man. These are the same fears I had when I learned about my husband. I think that the fear of the unknown is much more difficult to deal with than the truth. These questions are painful, but they need to be discussed to alleviate some of your irrational worries and help you understand your rational ones.
Q. If my husband is gay, will my children be gay?
A. It’s possible. I was scared for years. I believe that gay is genetic, not a choice or learned behavior, and I know that genes can be passed on to children. In the 1980’s as I met a greater number of families and started calculating multiple homosexual members of the immediate or extended family, I began
