'Did I ever really know him?': the women who married gay men | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND
• ‘HONEY, I’VE GOT A SECRET’ : WHEN GAY MEN E OUT TO THEIR WIV
• I’M A STRAIGHT WOMAN WHO MARRIED A GAY MAN
• I MARRIED A GAY MAN
• 'DID I EVER REALLY KNOW HIM?': THE WOMEN WHO MARRIED GAY MEN
• THE DOUBLE LIFE OF A GAY MAN MARRIED FOR 20 YEARS
• STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS
• WHEN GAY MEN (MIS)MARRY STRAIGHT WOMEN: BONNIE KAYE'S STORY
• HERE’S WHAT LIFE IS LIKE WHEN YOU’RE GAY BUT MARRY HETERO
• THE MOST DETAILED MAP OF GAY MARRIAGE AMERI
• MY HBAND IS GAY BUT WE’RE MARRIED WH TWO KIDS AND HAVE GREAT SEX
• SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

For stance, 45% of adults the Silent Generatn (those born between 1928 and 1945) favor allowg gays and lbians to wed, pared wh 74% of Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996). 4As wh the general public, Amerins who intify as lbian, gay, bisexual or transgenr (LGBT) are most likely to ce love as a very important reason for gettg married. Sce then, several other European untri – cludg England and Wal, France, Ireland, all of Sndavia, Spa and, most recently, Atria, Germany and Malta – have legalized gay marriage.

Sometim a woman may have been a heterosexual relatnship for years and yet feel somethg is somehow "off;" and she may fd herself askg, "Is my hband gay?

" Many women fd this qutn unthkable but acrdg to Bonnie Kaye,, an expert women married to gay men, is timated that 4 ln women have been, or are, married to gay men. Unfortunately, is timated that 50% of gay hbands hi their homosexualy om their wiv and don't reach this place of honty on their own. In many s, is the wife, who after spectg that somethg is wrong, mt nont the gay hband wh the evince, and only then n hontly be achieved.

‘HONEY, I’VE GOT A SECRET’ : WHEN GAY MEN E OUT TO THEIR WIV

As LGBT Amerins reach the age at which they want to fd a life partner, many will marry someone of the same sex, an optn not available to prr generatns of gay or lbian dividuals.

” Jim, now 62, ns a group Boston lled GAMMA – the Gay and Married Men’s Associatn – one of many siar groups which meet ci around the a month they gather for two hours to share stori. In Boston, Jim says he’s seen men outed after beg arrted cisg at gay bears, or outed by private vtigators hired by their those who are still the closet, n be paful, terrifyg, and exhstg. He knew he had been attracted to men adolcence, but was somethg he tried not to thk was the mid-70s, but spe the sexual revolutn happeng around him, he says homosexualy jt wasn’t somethg you thought loved his wife.

I’M A STRAIGHT WOMAN WHO MARRIED A GAY MAN

“Some guys believe that beg gay has lerally jt happened then, but then you dig a ltle eper and you often fd out that they’ve had [those feelgs] sce childhood, ” he both Sydney and Boston, the average age of men who e to group meetgs has been fallg.

“A lot of the younger people we see knew they were gay and realised but wanted to have the tradnal fay and kids and thought they uld ratnalise , or told themselv they were bi, ” Jim says. ”Rippg off the band-aidJim says didn’t que click for him that he was gay until he was his early 30s and accintally stumbled upon a gay beat a public bathroom.

I MARRIED A GAY MAN

I thk your hband que clearly nsirs himself gay, which is far more relevant to your marriage than my asssment of his sense of self.

The qutn of how he se his gayns relatn to his two marriag to women, specifilly his current marriage to you, is both more salient and open-end, so I’d suggt you start by askg him to share more of his thoughts on the subject wh you. That will get you a lot further than tryg to figure out if your hband is “really” bisexual (and, implicly, whether that means you n safely hope he won’t leave you for someone else) or “really” gay (and, implicly, whether you have to fear that he’s gog to break up wh you for another 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.

'DID I EVER REALLY KNOW HIM?': THE WOMEN WHO MARRIED GAY MEN

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.

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF A GAY MAN MARRIED FOR 20 YEARS

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. 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.

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. As ual, I didn't dwell on my emotns; I foced more on my fay's well-beg than on what the future might wonr why Chris uldn't accept his homosexualy, but the s factor was graed him at an early age.

STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS

Chris feared that g out would validate him as a human beg—and might even send him to therapist doubted the marriage uld survive, yet I was dited to our unn if Chris was termed not to be gay. It was the worst time of my only thg that saved my sany was the Straight Spoe Network, an ternatnal support group found by another woman who'd been married to a gay man.

WHEN GAY MEN (MIS)MARRY STRAIGHT WOMEN: BONNIE KAYE'S STORY

You n't be gay the ary, and if you're married, then of urse you're not was still livg wh (sleepg the spare room) when, through SSN, I met my ultimate soul mate, a father of three who had been married to a lbian. One night, a rage, he lled my parents and told them, "I'm gay and I've been gog out wh men, but she's screwg around wh another guy.

HERE’S WHAT LIFE IS LIKE WHEN YOU’RE GAY BUT MARRY HETERO

My mother even suggted that I try different thgs sexually to keep Chris terted and mentned that Chris uld take meditn to weaken his onI often joke about wrg a book lled The Girliend's Gui to NOT Marryg a Gay Man, bee I should have tsted my stcts om the start. I see now that many gay spo genuely believe they are dog the right thg by gettg married, bee they are lyg to themselv more than soul mate and I got married the year after our divorc beme fal, when I was 34. I have marched for gay rights and spoken about my experience to groups of gay fathers, bee I believe was tolerance and the fear of homosexualy that put me and my fay through plete hell—and I hope none of that was va.

THE MOST DETAILED MAP OF GAY MARRIAGE AMERI

Perhaps then, gay people won't feel the need to pretend they're straight and get married as a way to "prove" to everyone Cred: Plamen Petkov.

Megan Holgate uldn’t que believe where she was the height of the Aids crisis and she was the wag room of an ner-cy STI clic, equented by those most at risk of HIV: gay men, jectg dg ers, sex, as she had been, a monogamo married had felt “too ashamed” to ask her doctor for the HIV tt.

MY HBAND IS GAY BUT WE’RE MARRIED WH TWO KIDS AND HAVE GREAT SEX

A posive rult, back then, would have been a ath the clic a iendly gay unsellor asked Megan to step to his room and asked her if everythg was OK.

As her dad pulled up she opened her purse, fat wh not, and phed them all to the bewilred man’s hands before beg whisked is one of a potentially dyg breed of women: those who married closeted gay men.

SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

And many of the men, embolned by the sense of eedom and h excement afford them by disverg the gay scene, pletely scrib the impact had on her children. Her anger wasn’t at him, but at his fay and culture for not lettg him be who he should have been the first place: “It was like he didn’t know how to be gay.

He says his wife has her spicns pecially sce she often asks him why most of his phone nversatns are wh believ that she would fd difficult to nont that realy as she strongly nmns any ht of homosexualy the church.