Bonnie Kaye's Straight Talk (5 page)

And I’m okay with this. I’ll take my chances keeping my points of view. I know that there are marriages that are coping through this situation for various reasons. They are staying together because it fits whatever needs are there. They can be for financial reasons, family reasons, or emotional reasons. And I am willing to give support to anyone who is in a marriage like this as long as they understand that I am not supporting the marriage—but rather her.

The women that I work with are in all different phases of their lives. Although the majority of women are divorced, some are still in their marriages. But those who are in them have no false illusions or hopes. They are there physically because of circumstances, but they are not there mentally or emotionally. I give them support so they do not get lost in an emotional blitz of unreality and denial. Some women just can’t make the break at the moment, but they don’t delude themselves into thinking that their marriages are working. They are working the marriage because at the moment, they need to for various reasons. They are wise to the fact that their marriages will never be what they need them to be, and they don’t try to make them into something that they can’t be. They know that when the right time arises, they will be able to physically leave as well.

Chances are, if you are married and part of my support network, you know exactly what I mean. Sometimes women are stuck in relationships due to various predicaments. I have a number of you whom I correspond with regularly who are there out of obligation because your husbands are ill and you can’t walk away. You are good women who have made a conscious decision to do what you have to for the time being until the opportunity comes when you can break free and live with your own conscience. But to encourage you to stay in your marriages by telling you to forgive your husband for marrying you knowing he was gay or to understand that he later came to terms with his homosexuality and it’s not a big deal, would be ludicrous. I won’t do it. I can’t do it.

As I advised this woman, there are people you can find who can accept this way of life. The Internet affords people the opportunity to search for magical answers and solutions that fit everyone’s needs if you search long and hard enough that I don’t give. There are couples who are living with homosexuality in their marriages and somehow coping with it and even accepting it. And there are all kinds of well meaning and professional people out there who will tell them they are doing the right thing. I am sure that Dr. Laura would advise couples to make their marriages work by telling the gay husband to hold off on acting on his sexual impulses until the children are grown. After all, it’s much better for children to be raised by two parents than one, which is not the way I feel when a marriage is just a functional marriage. I don’t know how gay men put aside their feelings for twenty years or so and not act on them, but if they can, more power to them. I’m sure there are men out there who are doing this even though I haven’t met them. And in all fairness, is this right thing to do to the wife? Give her a sense of false security that the marriage is workable until the children are grown and then say, “Well honey, the kids are grown and now it’s time for me to pursue my own life?” Now that the wife has invested years of her time building a marriage, she is faced with the same nightmare only at a later time when she has to start over and it’s more difficult because years of her life have been wasted in a relationship that is ending.

And one last comment that I’d like to share with you that offended this woman:

I resent being told that “Gay men do not belong married to straight women. Period.” How can you say that with such absoluteness, without knowing individual situations? This implies ALL, every single one. That none should be married. Period. How can you make such a definite, 100% claim?”

All I can say here is that I stand by my words. Gay men do not belong in marriages to straight women. Period. 100%.

NOVEMBER 2001

WHEN THERE’S JUST NO PROOF

Every week, I receive numerous letters from women who are desperate to find “proof” that their husbands are “bisexual” or gay. On my website at
www.Gayhusbands.com
, I have a section called, “Catch Him.” It gives women the directions to check their computer’s temporary Internet files on line to see if there are any gay sites that their husbands are visiting. I also advise them to install inexpensive spyware to monitor all of their husbands’ activities. Some of these women write back to me after finding the evidence that they were so afraid of finding. At the same time, there is a great sense of relief because their suspicions were finally confirmed.

It’s interesting to see the various emotional reactions after women confront their husbands with their discoveries. Some rethink their immediate fears and write back to me saying that after questioning their husbands with the information, and they were made to secondguess their suspicions when their husbands give them a perfectly logical explanation as to how these websites appeared. Here are some of the most common explanations:

1. “He claims he has no clue how they got there. Someone else must have been using the computer.” In other words, there are gay men sneaking into your home and using your computer to go to gay pornographic websites right under your nose but you don’t notice it.

2. “A friend of his at work is having sexual identity problems. He asked my husband to do some research for him because he’s too embarrassed to do it himself.” This means that your husband must be an exceptional man if he is willing to help a gay man come to terms with his homosexuality by visiting numerous gay porno sites. Does this educate your husband so he can be an effective helper?

3. “My husband said that it is normal for men to look at all kinds of sexual sites. It doesn’t mean anything just because the sites are gay. It’s normal curiosity.” I still haven’t met the straight man yet who is sexually turned on by the site of men having sex. Curiosity may account for a one-time look, but not repeated visits.

4. “My husband said that just because he is looking at gay sites doesn’t mean that he is going to have sex with men.” So why isn’t he looking at sites where women are having sex with men? Why doesn’t that turn him on instead?”

Well, I stand by my words. Straight men don’t view gay porno sites. Consider this the confirmation you are looking for. You don’t have to look any further. You definitely have a problem, or shall I say, your husband and your marriage definitely have a problem.

As hurtful as this confirmation may be, these are the lucky women because they have something concrete to back up their suspicions. I hurt for the women who just can’t get any proof. Their husbands don’t use a home computer or have a computer at work that can’t be accessed. They are experts at covering their trails and leave no hard evidence around.

For those of you who write to me and are perplexed and confused about how to find proof about your husbands, let me say this. Some of you will never find what you are looking for no matter how hard you look. I know women who have spent countless thousands of dollars hiring private detectives to track their husbands and they still didn’t get the proof they needed. That’s because you would literally have to shadow someone day in and day out for long periods of time before you could sometimes find that proof. Some of these men are very clever and very cautious. They carefully cover their tracks so no information can be found. Unless you have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on this, it’s virtually undoable. I give a lot of credit to the ingenuity of some of the women who write to me who go to such lengths to find any slipup. This includes going through cell phone bills, putting taps on the phones at home, and carefully scrutinizing credit card bills and receipts. Sometimes there is an answer by doing all of this. But sometimes there are no answers and more often, no way to access this information.

So let me give this word of encouragement. Most often, a woman’s best proof is her own sense of intuition. I trust that more than I trust other findings. Women have a sixth sense when it comes to these matters. I often ask women who write to me why they suspect their husbands are gay as opposed to having an affair with another woman. And the reasons usually fall into line. Every blue moon I am able to comfort a woman and tell her that her suspicions don’t seem to indicate homosexuality, but that is the rarity. And believe me, I’m thrilled when I am able to relieve someone’s fears. But in almost all cases, I know there is a problem.

Most women who write to me for help are not women who are in happy marriages. I’m still at a loss to understand why people are willing to stay in a marriage that is not rewarding, lacks affection and passion, and gives little if any emotional encouragement or selfesteem building. I say this to women who are in marriages with straight men, not just gay men. I believe that life is short—unless, of course, you are saddled in a bad relationship. Then it becomes very long and grueling. I never quite understand why women are willing to throw away years of their life that could be rewarding and fulfilling to stay in a relationship that is debilitating and at best, existing. People marry with good intentions, but that doesn’t mean it is going to work out. Ironically, women married to gay men try to stick out their marriages much longer than women in unhappy straight marriages. I understand why, but it’s not a pleasant picture.

Women who are married to gay men feel this need to keep trying to make something work that is not workable. They internalize that the failure of the marriage is their failure, when in fact there is nothing they can do to make these marriages successful. It’s beyond their control, but they can’t accept that internally. They go back to the “if only” game—”if only I can be a better wife, my husband will love me more and be happy with me.” As I’ve discussed in earlier newsletters, this just doesn’t happen. We are not the cause of our husbands’ unhappiness in the marriage. Homosexuality is the cause. We just look like the cause to them because we are what are standing in the way of them acting on their needs, so we become the “whipping girls” so to speak.

So, for the record, let me say this. If your marriage is failing and you have tried every reasonable thing to make it better and it still isn’t working, cut your losses. Stop looking for proof and wasting more days, months, and years. Look for a way to get out of the marriage. Start making a plan to find a way to move on. You don’t have to feel guilty or like a failure. The longer you stay in a destructive marriage, the worse you will feel. There’s a whole world out there waiting for you. You’ll never have the chance to find out what you could have if you hold yourself back just waiting for it to happen. You have to take action. You have control of your future even if you can’t control the present.

DESTRUCTIVE COUNSELING

I get requests from women all over the country asking me if I can refer them to a counselor or psychologist for help. This is a major responsibility, and I never refer anyone if I don’t personally know a therapist.

But this raises an important issue. I want to warn you about is finding incompetent or misguided counseling. This is something that disturbs me deeply because I receive letters from women who are investing hard earned money but obviously getting very poor and counterproductive advice which leaves them more confused and doubting of themselves. Most people are not familiar with the world of therapy and depend heavily on the feedback they receive from the counselor. I have learned over the years from women who tell me about the direction of their therapy that this can only add more problems to an already problematic situation.

The majority of women who write to me don’t need therapy—they need support. And once they learn that the problems they are facing in their marriage are not their problems but rather the problems of their husbands, they are able to find resolvable solutions just through the support of others who have experienced the same problem.

Recently, I have spoken to several women whose therapists are definitely giving them destructive information. These therapists don’t understand the dynamics of a straight/gay marriage. One woman this month told me about a therapist who doesn’t believe that her husband is gay. In this case the husband is fixated on gay pornography, but the therapist is saying that he’s a sex addict and not gay. She has him attending Sexual Addiction meetings and is encouraging the wife to stay focused on the marriage and not give up. The wife feels very discouraged because her husband continues to watch these gay videos on the computer while she is there, claiming that it excites him to do so because it is like “forbidden fruit.” She also knows from her own minimal sex life that her husband has sexual problems. And yet, she has been told to hang in with him because he is not gay. This is ludicrous. Watching gay pornography does not sexually arouse straight men. Trust me on this.

There are some women are going to marriage counseling with their husbands where the counselor is treating the couple as if it were any other couple with straight-couple problems. Let me assure all of you that going for marriage counseling together is not going to be the answer to fixing the marriage. Any therapist who tells you that the problems can be worked on in these marriages is really clueless. These are not marriages that have the traditional problems that other marriages face. These are a unique set of problems that need to be viewed in their own rite. And all of the counseling in the world is not going to make your husband’s desire for men magically disappear.

Another important problem that I want to mention is about counselors who hold their own personal beliefs as the truth in their therapy approach. These are therapists who have religious convictions that cloud their objectivity. In just this month alone, I spoke with five women who went to Christian based counseling. Their therapists advised them to stay in their marriages while their husbands found their way back to heterosexuality. Their train of thought is that homosexuality is chosen, not in-born. They believe that if these husbands understand the consequences of their actions, they will “choose” to be straight if given enough time and encouragement. Obviously, these women are having doubts about this kind of help being effective because they are writing to me out of frustration and despair. Although I do understand and respect religious personal convictions, I haven’t found any happy results from people who have to spend years of time trying to make something work based on someone’s ability to change into something that is not his nature. I know that people can change behaviors when forced to do so, but it doesn’t change what someone’s sexual orientation is. It’s somewhat like what they call “dry alcoholics.” There are people who stop drinking, but inwardly, they can’t change what they are. They are never happy, and they resent those around them who have “forced” the change.