Roxanne McMurray - Theres Something I Have To Tell You...

Theres something I have to tell you

Australian women tell their stories

Acknowledgments

Book compiled and coordinated by Roxanne McMurray.

Interviews by Sam Wills.

Editors: Roxanne McMurray and Sam Wills.

Layout and design: www.probono.com.au

Printed by: Heroprint

With special thanks to the women who have generously shared their stories so that other women can benefit from their experience and know theyre not alone.

Dedicated to all the women partners of gay and same sex attracted men we have known and are yet to meet. Their strength and thoughtfulness inspire us every day.

Names have been changed to preserve privacy.

Copyright

Copyright text individual contributors 2018

Produced by NSW Women Partners of Bisexual Men Service, under the auspices of Leichhardt Womens Community Health Centre Inc.

PO Box 240 Leichhardt NSW 2040

www.womenpartners.org.au

facebook/womenpartners

twitter/@womenpartnersbi

Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Theres something I have to tell you: Australian women tell their stories.

ISBN 978-0-646-98827-6

1.Same sex relationships Australia

2. Mixed orientation marriage Australia

3.Gay married men Australia Family relationships

4. Coming out Australia

5.Roxanne McMurray

6. Leichhardt Womens Community Health Centre

For additional copies of this book contact:

T: +61 2 9560 3011

E:

Funded by NSW Women Partners of Bisexual Men Service

Contents

Foreword

Every year the Women Partners of Bisexual Men Service in Sydney receives scores of enquiries from around New South Wales and beyond for counselling and information. The callers are often distressed, confused or questioning. Sometimes the person on the end of the line is a husband confiding he is about to tell his wife he is gay or unsure of his sexuality and is asking about the support available for her. Other times its a close family member phoning on behalf of someone they care about. Most often the voice on the phone belongs to a woman who has found out her husband is gay, questioning his sexuality or has been leading a double life and secretly having sex with men.

The women reaching out for support are usually in straight relationships of anything from 10 to 50 years, they age from their 20s through to their 70s, come from any suburb, country town or farming district, every walk of life and cultural background. The knowledge, or belief, their partner is attracted to men is unwelcome and often traumatic, with likely life-changing consequences for her and her family.

Their male partners are in the process of coming out as gay, bisexual or identify as heterosexual but privately engaging in same sex behaviours. The women can be at risk of sexually transmitted infections including HIV, so STI screening and safe sex is paramount which can be challenging issues to negotiate in a long term straight relationship.

The build-up of pressures in their relationships can mean they often present to us with any number of serious problems including depression, anxiety, emotional distress, sleeplessness, high blood pressure, eating issues. They also have concerns for their children and how theyll adjust or fear theyll be bullied or singled out at school. They may have financial problems, domestic and family violence, be at risk of homelessness, have legal issues, or be feeling suicidal.

Despite the growing positivity in the community and the media about marriage equality and a greater respect for diversity, the women can feel isolated in their experience as the partner of a man who is same sex attracted.

Women partners of same sex attracted men talk about not knowing anyone whos experienced what theyre going through and they want to know how other women and their families have coped and what has worked for them.

Its a privilege to come to know these women during what can be a very personal and difficult time, but a time that expands into a new life whatever it may be.

Our huge thanks to the women who have shared their stories. This volume is an extension on our first book His Secret, Her Story which gave voice to womens experiences, so that women new to these family traumas feel validated and less alone. In our conversations with countless women over the years, a second but equally common thread has been women saying they wished their male partner had said to them earlier in their relationship, and up front, theres something I have to tell you.

Roxanne McMurray AM

NSW Women Partners of Bisexual Men Service

Emilys story

Nick and I met at a church youth group in 1993 when we were 19, I had known him for a while and we were friends so it just grew from there. It was a bit on-again-off-again over the years but he was a nice guy. Even when we werent together he was always at my house and we were always hanging out together. At one point I decided to go overseas for six months because he wasnt really committing and I thought it would give us a break. While I was away he was still going over to my house every weekend visiting my parents, and when I came back in 2001 he started pursuing me, so it started up again and was a bit more serious this time. We didnt sleep together before we were married, but I never noticed anything was wrong.

We got engaged a couple of years later and everything was normal, we had a good time, there were no red flags that I could see, and by 2004 we were married. We moved in together and that was the first time wed lived together apart from going on holidays. It was a big change for me, living with someone else was a bit different to what Id expected, but he loved it because he had freedom from his parents. Both of us had been living with our parents before we got married, mine are really laid back but his are much stricter and more controlling. His mother is very dominant and overpowering, shes the Queen Bee and everyone has to do what she says. When we got married his mother tried to take over the planning for our wedding but obviously it was something my Mum wanted to do, so we had to set the tone early on. I never really had problems with his mother because she knew where I stood, and I always encouraged Nick to invite them over for dinner and go and see them, but she definitely had a lot of authority over him before I came along. I tried to change it and make him stand up for himself and voice his opinions, but it was an interesting dynamic. She dominated her husband too, shes very old school Catholic and doesnt believe its ok for anyone to be gay. They were definitely homophobic.

Growing up, Nick always knew their opinion and thats why he didnt come out, because he didnt want to disappoint them or feel their disapproval. I found out later that they always knew he had tendencies, because years later when everything came out I found out hed been calling gay hotlines from their home phone. Hed been doing it for years before we were married, so they knew but never told me. When they confronted him about it he said he wasnt gay and thats what they wanted to believe so thats what they believed. I always heard his sister say Nick was teased a lot at school, and I got the impression it was because other kids thought he was gay. She would always tell him it was ok if he was gay and that he could tell her, but of course he never did.

After we were married Id come home at night after my shift work and most of the time he was home before me, but he never asked me how my day was even though I always asked him. It was little things like that I first started to notice and they were the things that started to upset me and then I started noticing other things. I had to tell him to do all these little things all the time that I shouldnt have had to chase up, and I always initiated going out. Very quickly, it started to feel more like a friendship than a marriage. When I raised it with him he just said he was being stupid and not thinking. He was affectionate sometimes but I used to say, no-one would ever be able to tell we were married . Or Id say, maybe when we go out you could hold my hand . But I never thought of leaving because I always thought they were things we could work on. I just thought marriage wasnt easy and there would always be things to deal with, it didnt faze me too much because I thought wed work on it together. But one thing that was never right from the start was money.