I married a gay man | SELF

Contents:

• I MARRIED A GAY MAN
• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY
• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND
• STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS
• ONE OF N.L.'S FIRST MARRIED GAY UPL LOOK BACK WH PRI

I MARRIED A GAY MAN

"It's nobody that I knew� was mostly oral sex� jt happened� At gay bars, there are back rooms wh hol the walls�" A wave of nsea swept over me as I listened to his agonized nfsn. At that moment, I felt as if I were standg alone the world, stripped of all digny, wh a big sign on me that read movie Brokeback Mounta turned a spotlight on gay men who lead double liv, havg sex wh other men while they are married to women. That means there are a large number of women who have no ia what their hband do perdilly see stori about married men public life who are gay or have been implited homosexual behavr—such as Senator Larry Craig (R—Idaho), who was arrted last summer for allegedly solicg a male police officer an airport bathroom, and former New Jersey ernor Jam McGreevey, who proclaimed that he was a "gay Amerin" when he announced his rignatn om office.

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY

Bee I've lived are so many obv qutns for a wife like me: Didn't I realize he was gay? Early our relatnship, Chris told me he'd had homosexual experienc as a teenager but assured me was youthful cursy.

I didn't thk there was anythg wrong wh beg gay—I have an openly gay . But I also didn't believe that a gay man would ever be attracted to a straight woman, and I was naive—too naive to see why a homosexual man would marry and spend years lyg to his wife, his iends, his fay and begngI was a 19-year-old llege hman Kentucky when I met Chris. Chris's father was a Southern Baptist mister who preached fire and brimstone, and Chris was tght that beg gay was the ultimate s—an absolute sentence to unual thgs happened on our first date.

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

Then, after he kissed me good-night, he shocked me aga, sayg, "No matter what you hear, I'm not gay.

STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS

" In fact, I had heard other stunts say that everyone his aterny was gay. But the world we lived , people often claimed a guy was gay if he wasn't a jock or really macho, so I didn't want to judge someone bee of who his iends were and what he did.

ONE OF N.L.'S FIRST MARRIED GAY UPL LOOK BACK WH PRI

Bis, he'd taken a girl—me—out on a date, so how uld he be gay? At a party wh his work iends, I got to an argument wh a woman who'd been drkg, and she said, out of the blue, "Well, at least my hband's not gay.

Later that eveng, when I told Chris what happened, he remd me that he'd always been teased about beg gay, but he assured me, "It's not te. He beme fensive and announced, "I haven't gone to bed wh anybody, but I've been gog to gay bars. If anyone found out that Chris was gay, he uld be fired.