Bonnie Kaye's Straight Talk (24 page)

Now, personally, this is how I FEEL. If you are a gay man, and your marriage ends because you are gay, you should do everything humanly possible to make sure that your wife has the emotional and financial support that she needs while making this transition into singledom. And I have met a few wonderful men who do exactly this which always revives my faith in men. But the MAJORITY of men that my women are dealing with are NOT these men. They become strangers in our midst, as if an alien ship grabbed them up and reprogrammed them to destroy their wives who are their new enemy territory. I just don’t get it. As if the wife doesn’t feel depleted enough from dealing with the collapse of her life as she knew it, she now has to become a mental kung-fu fighter to block the constant attacks by her husband.

Many of these men become very mean spirited. They are angry. They plot revenge—usually financial revenge. And when they “lose” that battle, as some feel they do when the courts divide the assets equally—they are really, really mad. Then they take out their frustrations on the children by badmouthing their ex-wives, the mothers of the children. By the way, plenty of men win the financial battle leaving their wives with a pittance of what they need to survive.

What are they so mad about? I don’t understand it personally. I say if you’re a gay husband, you don’t have the right to be mad. You have taken from your wife of some of the most valuable givens in life—self esteem, sexual esteem, and the sense of trust. I’m not saying you hurt her intentionally, but you hurt her. You can’t give her back the time and territory she has lost, but you can try to make it better by being a better ex-husband.

Gay men need to understand that their marriages didn’t end because of their wives—it ended because they are homosexual and don’t belong in a straight marriage. So what if your wife is angry? She should be angry. This is the natural emotion for someone to feel when they’ve been “robbed” of what they think was theirs to keep. But if you act responsible in a meaningful way, she will get past that anger and hopefully build a road to understanding with you. Gay husbands have no choice in being gay, but they do have a choice in being honest, understanding, emotionally supportive and financially responsible.

I do feel very blessed to have a wonderful support system of wonderful gay ex-husbands who are always willing to help men who request help to move forward, giving them the advice I would give them myself. To those men, I say a great big THANK-YOU. My women need to hear more from you to restore their faith in men in general.

With this thought in mind, below is a letter from my friend, Joe, who would like to send you a message:

Dear Bonnie:

Thanks for asking me to write to your readers. First of all let me say that coming out to my wife was a real struggle. I had decided to tell her about myself after I came to grips with my own self. I was on my cell phone one day and she overheard my conversation with my friend. After I returned inside the house she confronted me as to what she had heard and at that point I had no choice than to tell her all. Since then she has been struggling with it all. She has been blaming herself for what is happening to our marriage.

Ladies, don’t blame yourself, it’s not your fault. Many of us gay husbands got married in the hopes that all would okay. Well when your born gay, you are gay. I have done extensive reading on the subject and it seems that it is a proven fact that there is an area of the brain that is different from most men that causes our homosexual tendencies. Unfortunately it is you, our wives, which after many years of dedication to us gay husbands learn of what our preferences are. It is devastating, its earth shattering, it shatters your self esteem, it shatters your emotions, it shatters your self confidence and trust in men for life.

I too have been struggling at what I have done. I really didn’t want it come out the way it did, but it did and now I have to start picking up the pieces in the hopes that my wife will understand. Understand is a very difficult term in this situation because I really don’t think that she or any other women in the same circumstance will ever “understand” the whys. I have spent many sleepless nights, many days just sitting and crying at what has transpired and at what I have done to ruin, devastate and shatter the hopes and dreams of a very wonderful woman. I have crushed what use to be a very energetic and loving woman. Her depression began worrying me and I finally spoke with our family doctor about the situation and he too was very shocked at what I told him.

We are now both seeing a psychiatrist in the hopes that the doctor can help both of us, me in overcoming the guilt, my wife in hopes of repairing her very low self esteem that she is now feeling and the blame that she is inflicting on herself. To this day I still cannot come to grips with my guilt. To compound the injury our son has started to catch on that something is different about mom and dad, the constant disagreements and our own anger being inflicted on him. What we have to realize is that even if there was no child in the mix, the sexual part of the marriage was over and would have ended eventually.

I guess the next question is why did I get married, why did I go through it when I knew 24 years ago that I was gay? I fell in love with a very wonderful woman, I fell in love with the hopes that she would change the way I was. For many years after we got married it was great, there was desire, there was pleasure and happiness. We all know that no marriage is perfect and that there are always times when disagreements will take place but they are forgiven after a calming down period. But a situation like this is not forgivable.

Many women become so dependent on their husbands for everything. This is the case with my marriage. At the start it felt great that she was depending on me for everything, from taking her grocery shopping to helping her make decisions on what color dress to buy for the occasion. She has become so dependent on me that even making the simplest of decisions like defrosting the fridge is sometimes a major ordeal. Regardless she has been a devoted wife and a wonderful mother to our son. There are so many emotions to deal with when the time comes that both parties have a great amount of struggling to contend with.

Just remember one thing ladies don’t blame yourself for what has happened; you had on way of knowing the truth, you had no way of knowing how your husbands felt or who they were. I know it’s not fair to you because you have given up so many years of your life to be with a man that you love, but a man that has been dishonest and unfaithful to you. If there are any women out there that suspect their husbands are gay or fooling around on the side, be open and confront them with the issue. You will begin to notice the patterns from loss of sexual desire to making up excuses why they are late or not at the office when they should be. Take it from the voice of experience, its difficult to come out and tell your wife that you are gay.

Again thanks to Bonnie for letting me put forth my little story about my “screwed up” life. I really hope that this has shed some insight into the male side of things and what some of your husbands may be
going through.

Joe

JULY 2007

T
HE
N
EW
“A” W
ORD

Have you noticed how the lingo keeps changing throughout life? First it was the “B” word – “Bisexual.” This was a word invented by married gay men to throw their wives off track. You see if a man says he is “Bisexual,” that gives you adequate false hope that he could choose YOU instead of a man. But over time, these men realize that the “B” word puts a lot of sexual pressure on them while their wives are living in this state of false hope. They see that their wives don’t get discouraged—in fact, they will keep loving them harder than ever in hopes of sharing a piece of the pie or in their minds, a “piece of the meat.” They’ve also discovered that the “B” word creates suspicion in their wives’ minds whenever they use the computer or go out past the expected time creating that “nagging” suspicion that bothers them so much. What’s a gay husband to do?

Not to worry—now there’s a new excuse. It’s what I refer to as the “A” word. Now men are using the excuse that they are “A-sexual,” meaning they don’t want any sex with anyone. They have no sexual drive—not for a woman or for a man. What I find surprising is that even though they have no sexual desire, it does not stop them from viewing gay porn or masturbating.

I’ve had a half-dozen letters from women in the past two months who are trying to convince me that their husbands are “A” sexual. I keep explaining to them that the “A” really means GAY. They even rhyme—
A and Gay
. Actually, I like the “A” word better than the “B” word. The “A” word is telling you, the wife right up front that you should
FORGET IT—IT’S NEVER GOING TO BE HAPPENING
. The
“B”
word keeps you dangling, telling you that maybe one day, if you’re a very, very, very good wife, you’re husband will pick YOU instead of a man. And once in a while, you actually do get “lucky” when he’s feeling guilty or obligated to put in his straight performance to keep throwing you off track.

Ladies, please trust me when I tell you that it doesn’t matter what letter the word starts with. Any word that comes before “sexual” other than “hetero” means you are in for a big disappointment. Don’t be lulled into a false security of thinking that you’re safe because your husband won’t be cheating on you with anyone. He will be—trust me. And if he’s looking at gay porno, it means he’s thinking of a man sexually, not you. And one last thought—if he doesn’t want any sex with you because by chance he is A-sexual, then you don’t need to be his wife.

DISPELLING THE MYTH ABOUT GAY MEN AND THEIR FATHERS

As of late, I am hearing more and more about the theory that gay men are gay because they have a poor relationship with their fathers when they are growing up. Recently, there has been a lot of publicity focusing on my old best friend from high school days, Richard Cohen. Some of you may have seen his antics on The Daily Show, and if you missed it, I’d be happy to send you the link if you care to watch it. Email me and let me know.

Cohen’s book “Coming Out Straight” was released one month before my first book “The Gay Husband Checklist for Women Who Wonder” in 2000. The irony was that I had written about Cohen in that book, never having a clue that he had a book coming out at the same minute.

In my book, I tell about our relationships through our high school days and post high school days. I also explain how he was a leader in a prominent cult-movement during the 1970’s which brainwashed him into becoming “straight.” It’s an old story, so I won’t re-bore you with it. But it brings to light the growing adoption of his theory by other antigay thinkers that men are gay because they didn’t have fathers who were warm and emotionally bonding. As a result, they are seeking that love in a man-to-man relationship. And guess what? For a lot of money, Cohen can “convert” these emotionally abandoned gay men back to a healthy life of being straight—just like he claims to be.

For the record, I want you to know that this is the most ridiculous theory I have ever heard. If every man who had a lack of emotional bonding with his father was gay, then at least half of the population in this world would be gay. If there is any validity to this theory, how come all sons who come from the same father aren’t gay? Does this mean that no father of a gay man ever had a close relationship with his son? And is this a condemnation of all fathers who have gay children? Are they all emotionally distant?

And if a man was truly seeking out emotional bonding from his father, how does this translate into sexual activity? Wouldn’t this imply that gay men have incestuous desires? How does wanting a father’s love end up in a sexual act?

And what about women who didn’t have close relationships with their mothers growing up? Are they lesbians? According to Cohen, they are. Now that I’m thinking about this, I’ll go one step further. My daughter, Jennifer, who died in 2002, was a lesbian. Did I make her a lesbian because of my lack of emotional bonding with her? I think not. We had a warm, caring, and loving relationship for 22 years. But then again, I guess some of us women have extra special powers. After all, if we are able to turn our husbands gay like some people think, why not our children? Hmmm….that will give us all something to think about!

The bottom line is this—gay is NOT a choice. I don’t know any gay person who would consciously choose to be gay if he could choose to be straight. We all know how these men so desperately WANT to be straight—after all, we are/were married to them. They try very hard to make the STRAIGHT choice because they are told it’s the only right choice to make. As a result, we lose years of our valuable lives trying to fix something that can’t be fixed.

Gay isn’t curable—it’s NOT a disease--and the sooner people can accept that, the easier all of our lives will be. It saddens me when my women and gay men write to me about the horrors of counseling that they go through from people taking their hard earned money to help them stay miserable living a life that is unnatural for both of them. This thinking is a sham.

We need to stop looking for reasons about WHY, and we certainly need to stop thinking about ways to CHANGE WHAT CAN’T BE CHANGED. And we also have to stop looking to place the blame for something where there is no blame. It just is. We need to accept what IS, and the sooner we can do that, the sooner life can move ahead into a place where it belongs for our straight wives and gay married men. Thinking such as Cohen’s gives you false hope that will someday come tumbling down in front of your eyes.

By the way, if you do watch the Daily segment, you’ll notice how Cohen has men lay in his arms as he holds them tightly. If you think for one minute that he’s not getting aroused by this behavior, then you are more naïve than you realize! Trust me, no straight male therapist would be holding men so closely and so tight. You can bet on that one!

Sadly, there are too many disqualified counselors in the field giving destructive advice for people in our situation. If you have had experience with bad counseling from therapists who don’t understand the straight/gay marriages, please write to me and share your story.