Growth = Grace or is that Vice Versa?

Part of my realization that I rushed into my second marriage way, way too fast has also been wrapped in a great rush of grace.  And that was realizing that in many ways, I've been able to work my way through the anger and bitterness I was carrying around after finding out I'd spent most of my adult life married to a gay man.

The bottom line of my relationship with this man is that we began as friends.  And now, that friendship has been salvaged, at least to some degree.

To me, that is grace.  We've had coffee together a few times this year and talked about his struggles and mine.  He's asked for my advice.  I've asked for his.  We celebrated our children's birthdays together, including his partner, and it was fine.  In fact, it was great for our adult children. 

But in realizing what I still have in common with this man (tons of shared history -- and herstory, too) I realized that I still love him deeply.  Not as I used to, e.g., as a wife.  But as a person.  He's really my oldest friend with the exception of my former roommate.  My inklings of how incredibly daunting and difficult its been for him to come to terms with his sexuality has created a new compassion, not only for him, but for other LGBT people who struggle with some of these issues.  And that, too, is grace. 

It's also been difficult to realize that my gay ex-husband "gets" me far more than my straight second husband.  But it's the truth.  That's a rare thing when someone "gets" another person. 

More grace: this doesn't mean that I don't recognize his personality and character flaws which I won't go into here.   It doesn't mean that the betrayal I experienced is any less.  It means that forgiveness is primarily to set free the person who forgives, not necessarily the one who has been forgiven.

One of my "she-ros" is Carol Boltz.  Carol was married to Ray Boltz, an acclaimed Christian singer, for many years before Ray finally came courageously and painfully out of the closet.  Carol, with an open heart, is a compassionate woman who is supportive and loving to her ex-husband and other LGBT folks.  And she does this firmly in a Christian context, without judgment.  When I first heard about Carol and corresponded with her via Facebook and email, I wondered if I'd ever get to where she is.  I still wonder, but I think I've made some baby steps.

And that brings me back to grace.  I heard from another woman friend yesterday who was struggling with how to confront a newly out male friend of hers who was still hiding much of his truth from his wife.  We talked about ways to do so without being harsh or judgmental.  Since he's a life-long Air Force officer, I suggested that she use the words honor and integrity.  This is because he swears up and down that he never was unfaithful to his wife during their marriage -- except once. The truth is he was unfaithful much of the 20-year-plus marriage which puts him and his wife at high-risk for a whole slew of STDs.  And his wife deserves to know this so she can get tested and have some peace of mind.  Where's the grace here?  Another closeted gay man in the church who has now been ostracized and judged.  And yes, he's in his 50s.  This man has struggled with his sexual orientation for 30-some years, gone through reparative therapy to (of course!) no avail and finally compartmentalized his life by having a series of male lovers while staying married to his wife.  Where's the grace in that?  I think the grace is that he's out, that he still loves God, and that he will eventually own his own truth fully.  And so will she.  Hopefully that grace will also keep her sane and able to eventually forgive him.  And in that forgiveness, she will begin to be free.

The Anniversary Effect

No, not as in wedding anniversaries.  As in close to the time someone near to you died.

I'm walking down the road of another anniversary effect time -- November is when my grandmother died.  November is when my father had the catastrophic stroke that led to his death.  November is when I was digesting the fact that my former husband was "probably" gay.

November is also when I had my first date with my current (and new) husband.

Every year since that first date, we've commemorated by doing the same thing -- attending the final night of a local film festival.  This year, however, we didn't and I feel as if I blew it.  His father is dying, he's struggling to keep his business afloat and I said I would buy the tickets.  And I forgot, because, I, too, am working long hours and juggling lots of plates.

I was already feeling the various pangs of anniversary angst and when I remembered I'd forgotten ... well, let's just say I cried a little bit.

This morning, I got up, got dressed and went to church for the first time in several months.  I had a serious desire to partake of communion, more than anything else.  I experience more grace in Eucharist than I do in anything else at church.  It's wild, because having been brought up a Southern Baptist, I spent most of my life afraid to take communion lest I fall into judgment for neglecting to confess a particular sin.

I didn't, however, ask my husband to go with me.  I needed time to myself, to be still and be with God.  It was refreshing.

So much has changed in my life and in my heart since I've begun this little adventure in occasional blogging.  The most obvious is, of course, my new marriage.  The least visible is probably my attitude toward gays and lesbians.  Today, I realize that they are who they are and who they are is probably who they were created to be.   I believe that reparative therapy is an oxymoron and damaging.  (The people I've known in the church who were/are gay and tried not to be are now either dead or out.  And yes, many of them were once married.)  While I don't embrace the darker sides of gay culture, I've known enough genuinely devoted gay couples that I question why they can't marry.  I think that sexual promiscuity is a sin against one's own body whether you are straight, gay or some variation thereof.

Big, big differences.

One of the biggest is that my former husband and I are now on reasonably good terms.  I like his partner very much.  I invited them both to my wedding.  (They both attended, too.)  These changes have had some positive impacts on our children.

HOWEVER, those clanging, pesky anniversary effects ... yes, well, for me, Thanksgiving is probably the noisiest and most painful.  I miss having Thanksgiving at my old house.  I miss my former husband's inherited silver and china, not to mention the antique breakfront that held so much of that stuff.  It had become "ours" not his, and isn't it silly that I miss getting it out, cleaning it and making a pretty table with it?  Why is "stuff" so important all of a sudden?  Or is it the traditions and the old history of things that seemed good and stable when it really wasn't?  I don't know.

Happy Birthday Gay Ex-Husband ...

Yeah, today is his birthday. 

Examining the copious amounts of lint in my navel, I have to say that I'm not sorry he was born, just sorry that I married him.  And even then, that sounds as if I'm sorry I had my children.  I'm not.

And yet, there was my first child.

Today is also the 24th anniversary of his death.  He was less than 36 hours old when he died.  He as born with Edwards Syndrome, today known as Trisomy 18.  It was a stunning surprise, a shock, and the horror was that he died on his father's birthday.   I remember a dear friend bringing some goodies to the hospital waiting for my return from seeing my son at Children's Hospital.  We never made it.  She gave the goodies to the nurses and went home.  Another friend drove home and threw up out the car window she was so upset.  It was a horrible, horrible night, and yet one with little glimmers of grace all around. 

So forever more, I will always view July 1 through the lens of grief ... the grief of losing a child and the grief of marrying a gay man.

Martinis

James Bond famously drank them (shaken, not stirred) and it seemed manly.

Why, then, is learning that my ex gay husband now favors dirty martinis so ironically hilarious to me?

Maybe this is more amusing: Charles Dickens walks into a bar and orders a martini.
The bartender asks, “Olive or twist?”



 

Wounds

Last night I had a very healing and hilarious experience, chatting online with a group of straight wives via Bonnie Kaye's support group.  I was struck by how so many of us use humor as a coping mechanism.  Last night's chat got a little bawdy, but for me, it was filled with belly-laughs which are so very healing.

I also learned about Misti Hall's blog, Straight Spouse Coaching and was very taken by her most recent post on the wounded feminine spirit.  Misti articulated something I've intuited very deeply for years and I'd like to riff on it a little bit this morning.

Years before I truly outed my gay ex, I ran across a book by Linda Schierse Leonard called "The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship."  This was one of those books much like Alice Miller's "Drama of the Gifted Child" which was very emotional for me to read.  (In fact, I think it's time to pull out "Gifted Child" again and revisit it!)  So here it was, somewhere in the 1980s, and I finally owned that I was walking around with a gaping "father wound."  My father loved me, but he had difficulty with emotional intimacy and my mother had basically kidnapped me when I was young, taking me away from a very dangerous situation (physically and emotionally), but depriving me of any contact with my dad.  I contacted him when I was in my late teens and we then attempted to rebuild our relationship, something that was ongoing until his death in 1997.

I wonder how many of us straight wives have father wounds.  I wonder if that puts us at higher risk of getting into an unhealthy relationship with a closeted gay man.  I know for me, I didn't know what "normal" male behavior was, because I am an only child, raised by my mother and my grandmother.  I had no male role models or connections growing up except my distant daddy.

Early in my recovery process, I was an avid participant of COSA (Codependents of Sexual Addicts), basically an AlAnon program but with a different addiction going on.  And, while I no longer attend meetings, I do still cling to the philosophy of the 12 steps.  I noticed that the overwhelming majority of us in the COSA group had some sort of sexual abuse or violence in our past.  Many of us -- myself included -- are rape survivors.  That's another kind of wounding, which also creates post-traumatic stress issues.

Like moths drawn to the fire, are we drawn to these dangerous men?  I think that on some level we are.  Until we are able to really dig deep into our own woundedness, own it and begin to heal, we'll be attracted to the relationships that feel like "home."  And don't get me wrong -- a great relationship CAN and SHOULD feel like a homecoming.  But not like Dysfunctional Family Robinson kind of home -- the abnormal "normal" so many of us grew up with.

Misti talks about how during the straight/gay marriage, the straight woman begins to lose her sense of femininity.  I also lost my sense of self -- what my counselor called my "voice."  We sense on some level that our husband isn't truly attracted to us physically.  Even as a newlywed, this fed into my already huge poor self-image and my thoughts that I was too fat, too ugly, etc.  Eventually, I became anorexic.  (Hard to believe if you see me now!)  I asked my ex once why he didn't intervene with the anorexia and he said "I didn't know what to do."  Puh-leeze.  But that's another story.  If we had an argument, he'd say that I couldn't expect me to "perform" or be interested in physical intimacy after "how I had demeaned him" and "made him feel shut down."  Finally, in my late 40s, I added to the litany of my faults that I was too old.  

Interesting, isn't it, that part of this toxic tango is that we are more willing to blame ourselves and build the house of cards that is denial even higher than to admit the honest truth: he's gay.

Thoughts on Flowers and Other Things

My doorbell just rang a few minutes ago and Fed-X was there with a flower delivery.  For me.  That was a nice surprise.  I love flowers.  I love to have them in the garden, to smell them, to see them, their colors and form.  I especially love very fragrant flowers like old-fashioned roses and lilacs and phlox.

These flowers were accompanied by a very loving, lovely and thoughtful note from my significant other.  This is a man I wish I could have taken home to meet my mother.  He is not perfect, but he is a wonderful human being and the quintessential "nice guy."  He has his moments of being oblivious (his term), but he is a man of heart, of integrity, of intelligence, of patience and (best of all!) he loves me for who I am.

And yet, when the delivery came, I put it on the island in the kitchen and went about my business for a little while.  I didn't open the box for about 20 minutes.

Took me a couple of minutes of self-reflection to realize why.

It's because flowers -- like my friend, the rose -- still, at times, have a bit of a thorny memory to them.  One of the last several things my gay ex-spouse did in an attempt to mend our marriage was send me roses.  Another afternoon, he knocked on the door and handed me a single red rose.  I can tell you that both times, the flowers went straight to the garbage can -- and no, I didn't throw them away in front of him.  I was gracious, although not ebullient in the receiving, because there wasn't a sense of honesty in the giving.

Talk about way too little, too late.

On another note, I found it interesting today to learn that Christian artist Jennifer Knapp recently came out as a lesbian.  That took a lot of courage.  And it was in reading a related article about Knapp in Christianity Today that I learned that another Christian artist, Ray Boltz, recently came out, as well.  His wife, Carol, is another straight wife who has a blog, My Heart Goes Out.  This particularly touched me because my ex is musically inclined and for years was involved with or lead worship teams at the various churches we attended.

It's early Friday evening.  I'm about to pack it up and head off to the gym.  It's been cool, windy and sometimes rainy all day, which kind of suits my mood.  Good thing I have a beautiful bouquet of flowers in my living room to brighten things up.

Working Through the Shame

Part of my personal recovery process from being a "codependent" to a sex addict has been looking at patterns in my life.  Early in my recovery, I was astounded to see how many men in my life had characteristics of a sex addict.  For instance and probably most notably, the guy I was head over heels with in my early 20s is now considered a leader in the BDSM scene and has recently come out as bisexual.

What alerted me to this pattern was not so much the overt behaviors of these individuals, but instead the "toxic tango" in which they engaged with others, specifically me.  There was an overriding element of "come here/go away" that undoubtedly keyed off something within me since both my parents tended to be either emotionally unavailable or quite needy.

But I digress from the real point of this post.

Early this year I lost my job.  It had been a good job in terms of income, responsibility, autonomy and prestige.  But the truth was the office was nothing but chaos.  I could function within it because of many of the coping skills I had learned in recovery, and I remained lovingly detached from the insanity about 95% of the time. To make matters worse, it was a small business owned by a man who figured his daughter was his heir apparent.  But in that dynamic was the real insanity, because she didn't want to wear that mantle, at least on his terms.

When I took the job, I knew it was God's provision for me in the midst of my divorce and financial devastation.  And, indeed it was.  The marital debt is now paid off.  My credit rating is decent and I own my own place.  I was able to buy a car on my own.  It afforded me independence.

But, the dirty little secret is this: when I took the job, I had, only the year before, learned that the boss was also a married gay man living life on the "down low."  I learned this because a potential client took me out to lunch and at the end of the lunch, blurted out that the boss had propositioned him.  I was astounded and surprised and grossed out and devastated for the boss's wife, who I have great respect for.

That night, I told my then husband the news.  He seemed very nervous and tense.  He didn't want to talk about it and tried to change the subject very quickly.   (In retrospect, it's kind of ironically humorous ... and, also in retrospect, it was only a few weeks later that I caught him in the act of looking at some really nasty gay porn.)

So.  I took the job knowing the boss -- who I had then known for about a decade and done work for off and on all that time -- was probably living a lie.  Now, I didn't know for certain, but I couldn't imagine why this client, who I trusted, would lie to me about such a thing.  I tried to put it out of my mind.  One day, the boss's daughter and I were in the car on the way to a client and started talking about my divorce.  I decided to come clean and tell her why I had filed.  She seemed blown away.  She told me later that the entire year I was going through the divorce, she had finally gotten enough financial evidence to confront her father about his extra-curriculars and then told her mother.  At that time, she also started confiding in me -- without telling me her concerns about her dad's sexuality -- and asking about how to deal with his crazy-making behaviors.  Whenever I'd come back from counseling, if there was a particular nugget of wisdom I'd learned, I'd share it when appropriate.  So maybe all things work together for good, as St. Paul assures us in Romans 8:28. Maybe instead of parsing through the whys and wherefores of this particular situation, I should simply look at the fact that she and I were of support to one another during a very difficult time.

I should add that by the end of 2008, I was pretty sure that the boss really was on the DL.  Needless to say, that was uncomfortable at best, but I was able to work around it using my recovery tools.  I titled this post "Working Through the Shame" intentionally, because one of the biggest things for me when I learned my ex was gay was shame.  I appropriated his shame and put it on myself.  I was ashamed I had been married to a gay man.  I beat myself up about all the red flags I'd seen and ignored. I was ashamed to go to my first COSA meeting; scared silly I'd see someone I knew. But, by working my own recovery and working day by day, side by side, with another gay or bisexual man who was living a marriage of (his) convenience, I began to work through that shame and see that my ex's sexual orientation (and addictions!) wasn't about me at all.  It wasn't because I wasn't pretty enough, or young anymore, or skinny enough or whatever.  It is what it is, and it took all this time and pain to get there.

I think that for men who are over 45 or 50, it's much harder for them to be out or come out.  If they've been raised in the church, or otherwise deeply involved in it (as was my husband) it is likely that much more difficult.  (I have a gay cousin, by the way, who was raised a Baptist ... we've had some interesting talks.)  For many of them, I think they got married because they did love their wife and they thought being married would "cure" them of their attraction to men.  Guess what???  The issue I have is when the man knows what he's attracted to and can't have enough integrity to own up to it.  Is that an easy thing to do?  I cannot begin to imagine that it is.

Made Him Gay?

This blog, while titled "Musings of a Straight Wife" has a URL of madehimgay.blogspot.com.

Why on earth would this be the URL?

It's actually a bit tongue-in-cheek, reflecting some of the ignorance that's out there, probably spurred by subconscious homophobia.  Let's begin to talk about that homophobia, and the shame that women, unwittingly married to gay men, are often asked to bear.  Talk about rubbing salt in a wound ...

The same kind of poison was spewed by some when the news broke about Ted Haggard and his long-suffering wife, Gayle.  Now, why Gayle has chosen to stay with Ted is beyond me.  I'm not sure if her spiritual explanation as given in her recently-published book is really what it is, or if it's more economically expedient for her to stay with the guy (who, by the way, looks quite gay to me and always has.)  Tell me: what is it that Gayle Haggard supposedly did to drive her husband away from her arms and into the arms of a male prostitute who provided him with meth?  Likewise, what is it that I supposedly did to "make" my ex-spouse gay?  The notion that a wife hasn't been sexy enough or loving enough or fill-in-the-blank enough and so is responsible for turning her husband away from women to men is ludicrous at best.  And yet, there are some people who believe this. 

My prolifically promiscuous former spouse compartmentalized his life so very well that he had a "nice guy" identity, at least among those who didn't know his proclivities.   He was an elder in our church and the music/worship leader.  But then he had this secret gay life that involved sadomasochism, "muscle sex" and lots and lots of porn.  I liken it somewhat to the cartoons that show a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, both whispering into the cartoon character's ear.

Even though I longed to be physically intimate with him, he most often turned away.  When I asked him why (or cried or raged about it) he would tell me it was his rheumatoid arthritis, or the stress from our money problems (most created by him, but which he perennially blamed on me) or the way that I talked to him and how it made him feel like less than a man.  So 2/3rds of the time, you see, the lack of sex was "my fault"  -- just like the Spanish Inquisition, Hurricane Hugo and the Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.  (That's a joke, by the way ...)

It took some almost harsh talk from a counselor trained in sexual addiction (and codependence to sex addicts) to rouse me from my stupor.  I'm very fortunate.  I never got an overt STD, although I did contract bacterial vaginitis a couple of times.  And once, I found pubic lice on myself.  Imagine the denial of finding these little beasts, knowing you were monogamous and when asking your spouse, he tells you that it must be from the gym -- and you believe him! In fact, I believed him to the point of reporting the gym to the Board of Health.  The guy taking the report must have thought I was nuts.

I was.

(And I can tell you I didn't get the lice from having sex with him.  Nope.  It was from sharing a bed with him after he'd gotten the crabs from some nice little anonymous, equally promiscuous guy in a park or a bathhouse glory hole.  At that point, we hadn't had sex in about two years.)

Made him gay?  Are you kidding me?  That's like saying I turned my dog into a cat.

Let's be honest: sexuality is somewhat fluid.  Almost ever straight person I know who has a shred of honesty can admit that once or twice in their life (or more) they've experienced a fleeting attraction to someone of the same sex.  Does that make you gay?  No, it simply means that your sexuality is labile enough to register something biochemical with someone who is similar to you.  Now, if that's all you're attracted to, then yes: you're probably gay.

Here's what I believe: nearly every woman I've ever spoken to who was married to a gay man believes that he was her best friend and genuinely loved her when they got married.  Certain behavioralists now believe that as a man with same-sex attraction ages -- and it takes more to get them stimulated -- they begin to fantasize more about gay sex.  The fantasy, and eventually the act, gets them off in a way that they used to be able to with their wife.  Sometimes, far better.  This enhances their feelings of sexual prowess.  And, for the sex addict, arousal and the orgasm are the things.  The biochemical rush created is what they're hooked on.  So more and kinkier and ...

My ex now swears that he was never a sex addict and that I was the one who insisted that he go to therapy and a 12-step group in a feeble attempt to save the marriage. Au contraire.  I insisted that he got help.  During that process, he admitted that he became hooked on porn by the time he was 9 or 10 and stayed hooked ever since.  Are all gays sex addicts?  No.  Plenty of them are, but plenty of straight people are, too.  Saying that is as ridiculous as saying I made my husband gay.

Ripples

It's been nearly five years since I found out that my husband is gay. Well, should I say, my former husband ... my children's father. Funny, isn't it, how we deny what's right in our face? As my daughter said to me not long ago: "Mom, your gaydar has been broken for a really long time."

Like many of the several million women who discover that their spouse is gay or bisexual, I found out sort of like Chinese water torture -- drop by painful drop. That is, until the day that my entire world imploded and my random questions and online searches finally bore painful, poisonous fruit.

Within 18 months we were divorced. With the house of cards collapsed, there was no room for civility or rationale behavior. We both behaved badly at times, but his anger at being found out was immense. He realized that he had played with fire for a very long time and had deluded himself that either I was so stupid or he was so clever that he would never be caught. Unlike some former spouses, we really can't be friends. He's uncomfortable being around me and I don't particularly care for being around him.

Beside being gay, he's promiscuous. He lies. He gets off on having a double, triple or quadruple life. He's been through two long-term boyfriends that I know of and each of them broke it off with him because of his infidelity and verbal abuse. Sounds familiar. Additionally, he's narcissistic.

It's difficult for me to separate what is his sexuality and what is his pathology. In his case, they may be inexorably intertwined.

I can remember telling my children when they were young that their actions always would have an effect on other people, and to consider what they chose to do by how that choice would impact themselves and others. Now, five years later, my former spouse still considers me the "bad guy" in the relationship and blames me for his financial problems and more. It's curious to me how this could be. I've worked hard and repaired my credit and bought a townhouse. He's still overdrawing his bank account and living in a ratty $600 a month apartment in a not-so-great part of town, while earning $90K+ in his job. I know this because our son, unfortunately, lives with him right now and makes the occasional comment.

So, the ripples continue. I watch on the sidelines as my former husband -- the person I thought was my confidant, my lover and my best friend -- devolves. In the past year he's wrecked his car, been diagnosed with secondary syphillis and broken up with his boyfriend. On the plus side, he came out to our children and is living a more integrated life in terms of being truthful with them. When will the ripples stop for him? I hope they do. As for me, the ripples continue, too. I still wonder why I married him when there were red flags galore. I wonder why I didn't leave him early on when he was verbally and emotionally abusive -- forget the sexuality. All the counseling and 12-step groups I've participated in, the immense emotional growth I've experienced and still I struggle. The ripples continue.