Straight Spoe Network helps partners of gay people pe after they e out.

Contents:

• WHEN YOUR SPOE OUT AS GAY
• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND
• THE FEMALE SPOE: A PROCS OF SEPARATN WHEN A HBAND ' OUT' AS GAY
• COMG OUT GAY STEP-BY-STEP
• STRAIGHT SPOE REVERY: 9 WAYS TO REVER & MOVE ON AFTER FDG OUT YOUR SPOE IS GAY
• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY
• 'DID I EVER REALLY KNOW HIM?': THE WOMEN WHO MARRIED GAY MEN

WHEN YOUR SPOE OUT AS GAY

The landmark mastream 2018 rom- Love, Simon ma stris showg a closeted gay high schooler g out to iends and fay and gettg a even benchmarks like that don't mean all queer people feel ready to embrace their sexualy by the time they leave home. Sger-songwrer Barry Manilow was 73 when he first spoke publicly about beg gay; Osr-wng actor Joel Grey did so at g out is still generally prented as a re-of-passage for teens and twenty-somethgs. Only by discsg why some queer people take longer to embrace their sexualy n we help other late-bloomers to do the Baer, executive producer and show nner on the Netflix seri Dignated Survivor, me out as gay his fifti bee he was feelg “creasg anxiety about livg a double life.

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

Jak, a 30-year-old gay man who me out a few weeks before the COVID-19 panmic took global hold, says he’s benefed enormoly om the kdns of strangers. “Through Instagram and Twter I beme iends wh gay guys who gave me advice, helped me when I was my darkt plac and beme ‘that person’ I uld speak to, ” he says.

” Millns of queer people have already gone on this paful but potentially credibly fulfillg journey; let them help you navigate the bumps the MoreHow to Embrace Agg as a Gay Man“When you’ve spent your formative years the closet, ’s difficult to pe the feelg that you need to make up for lost time. So I was totally nial about the fact that I was gay, lerally well until our marriage and until Jsi nonted me about , " Stoddard told TODAY Parents.

That teachg was eply engraed Stoddard, and even when — six months to their marriage — Frew found a llectn of gay pornography on Stoddard's puter and asked him about his sexualy, he uldn't say the words out loud. ""And you have to remember, we were part of this relign that tght that even if you were gay, or even if you had feelgs of same-sex attractn, wasn’t somethg you need to act upon, " Stoddard add.

THE FEMALE SPOE: A PROCS OF SEPARATN WHEN A HBAND ' OUT' AS GAY

Acrdg to the CDC, "some risk factors are lked to beg gay or bisexual a hostile environment and the effects that this has on mental health. ”Now, Alan says his ex-wife, fay members, and children love the more thentic, hont versn of himself more than the person he was when he wasn’t out as a gay man. "I was so sred of what actually meant to ll yourself gay so even the first man I dated, I still thought that afterwards I was gog to eventually meet a girl and get married bee that's what men did, " he said.

COMG OUT GAY STEP-BY-STEP

"But I was steadfast that like 'I'm gay and I probably shouldn't have been talg to someone that was 20 but I'm not gog to therapy, '" he said.

"I was actually rehab when I was 16 years old and I thk a part of why I end up gog to rehab was the difficulty I had wh acceptg myself as a gay person, " Sharok said.

STRAIGHT SPOE REVERY: 9 WAYS TO REVER & MOVE ON AFTER FDG OUT YOUR SPOE IS GAY

But many people assume sexual orientatn is fairly stable—that whether you’re gay or straight, you’re “born this way, ” and that’s what you’ll be fely isn’t always the se. This is pecially te for men; while bisexualy among women is slightly more socially acceptable (albe bee ’s fetishized and often viewed as an "experiment"), men often have to ntend wh the belief that bisexualy, as Carrie once put on Sex and the Cy, is “a p stop on the way to gay town. Studi show that bisexual people are at a higher risk of prsn, anxiety, and experiencg vlence than their gay, lbian, and heterosexual unterparts.

It might seem a ltle crazy, but when you're a gay person a heterosexual marriage, you're both g out of the si: jeans, ratty T-shirts, the mandatory sport at, a few sho, and of urse the duffel bag the ever-equent trips to the si: jeans, T-shirts that go om sual to office wear, sus, skirts, cktail drs, bnch drs, Friday night drs, and of urse the sacred homage to footwear that vers an entire 8' x 10', floor-to-ceilg wall. The nial a spoe will be will often have him or her believg that upl unselg and dividual therapy will magilly make the gay disappear.

More often than you might thk, a spoe actually will nsir keepg the relatnship together and allowg the other spoe to "have your gay flgs".

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY

This is a touchy subject that often divis the uple more than the actual fact that the spoe is gay: Do we tell the kids or not tell the kids? In fact, if you haven't armed yourself wh articl and support materials for your spoe and kids to read about homosexualy, then shame on you. 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. Sarma, Conceptualizatn, Formal analysis, Invtigatn, Methodology, Project admistratn, Supervisn, Validatn, Visualizatn, Wrg – review & edg#Olalekan Uthman, EdorAbstractThis study vtigated the stori of heterosexual women who experienced a hband g out as gay and a nsequential maral separatn.

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

The importance of non-judgemental support for maral loss, rather than a foc on the gay sexual orientatn of the spoe, was highlighted.