Carol Grever - My Husband Is Gay: A Womans Survival Guide

As a past facilitator of Straight Spouse Network and having professional experience with women at risk, I believe Carol is throwing out a lifeline to spouses in a sea of confusion and self doubt. Her manual gives women tools to navigate a difficult relationship shift. Carols intimate story is absorbing.

M ARY E VITTS , Former Womens Health Advocate
Boulder County Health Department

At last! A book to hand to anyone dealing with having a gay spouse that will give them hope that they are not alone and that they can do more than survive! Out of the crucible of pain, in what many of us with gay family members experience as the unexpected journey, Carol Grever has created a survival kit for straight spouses that offers hope and an opportunity for enormous personal growth. My Husband is Gay is a moving testament to the human capacity to endure what initially seems like a family tragedy and to make rich personal discoveries about resiliency in the process.

I was genuinely moved by the weaving together of personal stories as a means of revealing the diverse ways each woman went through the process. I loved the book because it also gave me hope for relieving the pain I see in the straight spouses who come to PFLAG searching for understanding hearts and a road map to complete their journey.

J EAN H ODGES , President
PFLAG Boulder, Colorado Chapter

Carols willingness to face her darkest fears and choose the path of love for herself and her ex-husband provides inspiration to all of us. This guidebook is a thoughtful map of the lives of may women and an essential resource for anyone facing the difficult terrain Carol has now charted with wisdom, common sense and an open heart.

D EBORAH B OWMAN , P H .D., Clinical Psychologist
Chair of Transpersonal Counseling Psychology Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado

I am impressed with Carol Grevers ability to pack so much substance and good reading into such a sensitive subject. Discovering your spouse is gay has to be one of lifes most shocking moments. Carol not only tells her own personal story about that discovery, but also tells how she and other straight spouses dealt with the pain and struggled to find their way back to normalcy and happiness.

B ARRIE H ARMAN , Editor
Boulder, Colorado

Text copyright 2001 by Carol Grever

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except brief excerpts for the purpose of review, without written permission of the publisher.

The Crossing Press
A division of Ten Speed Press
P.O. Box 7123
Berkeley, California 94707
www.tenspeed.com

Distributed in Australia by Simon and Schuster Australia, in Canada by Ten Speed Press Canada, in New Zealand by Southern Publishers Group, in South Africa by Real Books, and in the United Kingdom and Europe by Airlift Book Company.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with publisher.

eISBN: 978-0-307-81540-8

v3.1

Dedicated to my family, who steadfastly stand by, and to Dale, who walks beside me now.

I would like to acknowledge all the women who shared their stories with me and graciously allowed me to write about their experiences. They gave generously of their time and wisdom, often reliving very painful memories in the process. In every case, they did so because they were eager to help others. Their selfless courage was my inspiration.

Powerful! Poignant! I exclaimed, putting down My Husband is Gay. This book echoes the voices of the 4,300 wives and husbands who have contacted me over the past fourteen years, weeping or incoherent as they tell me their spouses have come out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. The women presented in these pages bring to life the struggle of spouses who get through the coming out crisis in one piece.

When my former husband came out in 1983, no book on the impact of disclosure on heterosexual spouses existed. Since then, a half a dozen have appeared, including my own about wives and husbands of homosexual or bisexual partners. Carols book adds a quality work that weaves together her own experience with that of other wives. Her organization of the stories as stepping stones to survivalor beyondbrings straight spouses further into the public spotlight. Isolated, ignored, and invisible, they have remained hidden far too long in the closet their spouses left.

Coming out in marriage, first noted in the eighties, is a growing phenomenon affecting as many as two million couples in this country. Large numbers of the gay, lesbian, or bisexual spouses in these marriages have already disclosed their same-sex attractions or activities. More will do so later. Some never will. Disclosure devastates the straight spouses. Once spouses come out, the majority of marriages end, some quickly, others in time. A minority of couples stays together for three or more years.

A married persons coming out is not an individual event, but a family matter. His or her spouses and children, too, go through coming-out processes. All family members deal with the new identity of the spouse/parent, from different perspectives and at different age levels. The social context of the family adds another layer of pressures, since people hold diverse attitudes towards homosexuality. Community views about spouses who turn out to be gay or couples who remain married after disclosure, combined with concerns about family values, fidelity, or divorce, can be extreme. The same brush that stereotypes the gay spouse stigmatizes the straight spouse as well, with comments like Something must be wrong with you for marrying a gay person or Oh-oh. You must be an AIDS carrier. Often, it is easier to ignore a straight spouses predicament.

In addition, few professionals have experience working with clients in this situation, especially straight spouses. The spouses struggle to resolve disclosure concerns therefore becomes theirs alone. Such isolation intensifies their sense of being worthless, powerless, and hopeless. Feelings of sexual rejection increase as their partners coming out is celebrated by gay or gay-positive organizations.

The basic challenge is: What does it mean that one of us is heterosexual and the other homosexual or bisexual? To answer, old ways of thinking need to be changed. This is a daunting task, since we in the Western World tend to think in either/or terms, dividing the world into two easy-to-manage packages: men/women, black/white, liberal/conservative, gay/straight. Within this dualistic paradigm, it is hard to comprehend how someone can be both gay and married. If a person marries, he or she must be heterosexual, especially if children are produced. Furthermore, such thinking goes, a person is either gay or straight. And, there is no such thing as bisexuality.

The experience of mixed-orientation couples proves otherwise. Their lives are painted in both/and terms and many shades of gay. As couples try to understand those complexities, they join the first ranks of researchers currently unveiling the real world of human sexuality. They are living the discovery, as the one spouses disclosure destroys traditional concepts of sexuality and poses challenging dilemmas for both.