A letter to … my ex-hband, who is gay | Fay | The Guardian

Contents:

• MY EX IS GAY. HOW DO I NOT TAKE PERSONALLY?
• FDG OUT YOUR SPOE IS GAY
• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY
• HOW TO TELL IF YOUR BOYIEND IS GAY
• WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR EX COM OUT AS GAY NOW?
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?
• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND
• MY EX-GAY FRIEND
• A LETTER TO … MY EX-HBAND, WHO IS GAY
• TE STORY: AFTER DATG FOR 4 YEARS, MY BOYIEND ME OUT AS GAY
• WHAT ABOUT EX-EX-GAYS?
• MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
• I HELPED MY EX-HBAND E OUT AS GAY. 20 YEARS LATER, I'M BT IENDS WH HIM AND HIS NEW HBAND.
• WHEN YOUR SPOE OUT AS GAY
• WHEN GAY MEN (MIS)MARRY STRAIGHT WOMEN: BONNIE KAYE'S STORY
• QUIZ: HOW TO TELL IF MY BOYIEND IS GAY?

MY EX IS GAY. HOW DO I NOT TAKE PERSONALLY?

It may not help you, but certaly helped me to take the mimosa-half-full outlook: Losg a lover bee he was gay (or straight, my se) absolv you of any of the blame. Bonnie Kaye,, me to specialize helpg women face this unanticipated reason for the mise of their marriage after her own marriage llapsed by virtue of her hband beg gay.

FDG OUT YOUR SPOE IS GAY

Kaye reports that when a woman learns the reason for the problems her marriage-namely homosexualy, she go through a wi range of emotns om vastatn, shame, guilt, rponsibily, and perhaps even to repulsn.

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY

Acrdg to, there are over 4 ln women this untry who are married to, or have been married to gay men, and there are lns more throughout the world. The answers to the qutns pend on if the gay or lbian spoe knew and tried to reprs the homosexual attractns, whether he or she didn't know they were gay, or if they are bisexual (attracted to both genrs) or pansexual (attracted more to a person's spir or personaly rather than a person's anatomy) so the attractn to their spoe was real was real but not limed to one person or genr.

The seems to be no shortage of support out there on this subject matter and I also me across several books on the topic that may be of help to both the gay and straight spoe. Among the upl, when the gay, lbian, or bisexual partner out, a third of the upl break up immediately; another third stay together for one to two years and then spl; the remag third try to make their marriag work. If he’s gay, he might thrive on other men’s attentn, equently touch or hug them, or exchange flirty ments wh them (pecially about their physil appearance).

HOW TO TELL IF YOUR BOYIEND IS GAY

” Notice if he acts unfortable around gay men, regularly mak homophobic ments or jok, or liberately never talks about anythg remotely gay.

An enunter his teen or llege years is more likely to mean he’s gay or queer than an experience later life, which uld have more plex explanatns. Don’t rely on gay stereotyp like an effemate voice or walk, flashy or tight clothg, his TV and mic preferenc, or beg a neat eak to terme your boyiend’s sexualy. He might be shy to talk about how he have the Signs of a Guy Beg Gay, but enurage him to talk more so that he feels relieved to let all out.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR EX COM OUT AS GAY NOW?

Hearg the news might be some sort of shock to you but if you do the What to do when your ex out as gay now the right way, you will see the posive change both your life through the signs:. In his Royal Oaks, Michigan, practice, Joe specializ Gay Affirmative Psychotherapy and IMAGO Relatnship Therapy, often treatg men who are qutng their sexual orientatn.

And I thk ’s very important to state right here that I’m a gay man, yet here I am sayg that most of the time the men who are beg sexual wh other men aren’t gay. Wh gay clients, they say they feel the same way; wh bisexual clients, they say they’re lookg at both the men and the women; wh straight clients, they say they’re lookg only at the women. When a man is a long-term relatnship wh a woman but beg sexual wh men, eher lookg at porn or havg actual sex, he eher will or won’t be homophobic.

A lot of tim the gay men never even make to me (whout promptg om their wife, anyway) bee they’re riddled wh homophobia and I’m too gay for them. A gay guy wants to do all of that wh a man, a bisexual guy might want a man or a woman, and the straight guy wants to only be wh a woman that way. So this is a way of bondg wh men—ironilly, through sex—and happens not bee the man is gay but bee he don’t know any other way to get this need met.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

Eher they’re worried that their man will eventually ci he’s gay and end the relatnship, or they want monogamy, and his cheatg is a threat to the marriage regardls of who he’s dog wh. And I should pot out here that the men when they’re engagg this behavr (regardls of whether they’re gay, straight or bi) nearly always tell themselv that what they’re dog is not cheatg bee they’re dog wh a guy. 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?

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

" 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.

MY EX-GAY FRIEND

I hope there will be a time when no gay man or woman feels the need to live that lie, to ver thwarted sexualy wh anger, to waste their own and a partner's life wh promis that will never reach the fishg le, to e unspeakable emotnal celty agast another person they once loved and rpected. We talked and read about theKsey sle of human sexualy, and seems likely that he falls somewhere the middle – not 100% homosexual, but closer to that si of the ntuum.

The life I had built wh him, the cy I was bee of him, my plans to marry him and be part of his fay, the iends who knew as a uple for so long, the thought of tellg my parents that he was gay.

A LETTER TO … MY EX-HBAND, WHO IS GAY

" The article stated that, "Former members of anizatns that advoted therapy to 'cure' homosexualy have joed LGBT groups rejectg the ncept. Last year, John Plk, formerly a very proment ex-gay married to his ex-gay wife, Anne, went back to his gay liftyle after 15 years of marriage.

First, for every well-known ex-ex-gay, there are 10 or 100 or 1, 000 unknown ex-gays—meang people who formerly lived as homosexuals but no longer do. Send, the term "ex-gay" has lots of different meangs (some lears like the term, while others don't), rangg om, "I ed to be volved same-sex relatnships, and I am no longer am, " to, "My romantic and sexual sir have changed om homosexual to heterosexual, " along wh everythg between. I know some ex-gays who are thrilled to be ee om their old liftyl spe the fact that they have not bee heterosexual, and they are overflowg wh ntentment, livg for God as celibate sgl.

I know others who, through unselg or a ep spirual enunter wh the Lord, lerally went om homosexual to heterosexual (this is more mon than you might realize), and they have lived like this for s now. The only fully documented, book-length, longudal study of the qutn of ex-gays, entled Ex-Gays?, by Stanton Jon and Mark Yarhoe, me to very posive nclns, spe beg ridiculed by gay activists. But if we foc on changg someone om homosexualy to heterosexualy rather than om homosexualy to hols, there is the possibily of great tratn and even disappotment and backslidg.

TE STORY: AFTER DATG FOR 4 YEARS, MY BOYIEND ME OUT AS GAY

Sixth, human nature is ail and homosexual attractns are often very eply rooted, to the pot that people believe they were actually born gay.

That's why we mt jo together grace and tth when reachg out to those who intify as gay or lbian, monstratg passn and longsufferg whout promisg the tth of the gospel. The bottom le is that homosexual practice, unr all circumstanc, is sful, and nothg n possibly change that fact, but is equally te that there is liberty and new life J, and those willg to take up the cross and follow Him will never need to look back. Sce I expect gay bloggers and ex-ex-gays to rpond to this article crilly, if you are one of the many who, by God's grace, have e out of homosexualy, please take a moment to rpond here as well.

My mom is a problem solver, and the next day she hand me a stack of papers she had prted out om the Inter about reorientatn, or "ex-gay, " therapy. Joseph Nilosi, a clil psychologist California who was then print of the Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy (NARTH), the untry's largt anizatn for practners of ex-gay therapy. Nilosi's rner office had emerald-green rpet and mahogany bookshelv led wh tl like Homosexualy: A Freedom Too Far and Homosexualy and the Polics of Tth.

WHAT ABOUT EX-EX-GAYS?

" Although I might never feel a spark of excement when I saw a woman walkg down the street, as I progrsed therapy, my homosexual attractns would dimish.

MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE

The other men-four or five altogether-were their forti and fifti and talked about their years the "gay liftyle, " which had yield only unhapps.

I HELPED MY EX-HBAND E OUT AS GAY. 20 YEARS LATER, I'M BT IENDS WH HIM AND HIS NEW HBAND.

I left the office wh a py of Nilosi's most recent book, Healg Homosexualy, and a worksheet that tegorized different emotns unr the brics of "te self" and "false self. Another sheet illtrated the "triadic relatnship" that led to homosexualy: a passive, distant father, an overvolved mother, and a sensive child. My mother might not have so easily found rmatn about ex-gay therapy had the Christian right not planted this stake the culture ad appeared 23 years after the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn (APA) classified homosexualy as a mental illns.

WHEN YOUR SPOE OUT AS GAY

A small group of therapists ntued to practice talk therapy that enuraged patients to see homosexualy as a velopmental disorr, but they remaed on the ge until the Christian right took up their e. Instead of fire-and-brimstone nunciatns om the pulp, the ex-gay movement allowed the Christian right to uch s nmnatn of homosexualy a way that seemed passnate. Foc on the Fay lled s new ex-gay mistry Love Won Out and talked about healg and rg for ex-gay movement turned the rhetoric of gay rights agast self: Shouldn't ex-gays be able to pursue therapy and live the liv they want whout facg discrimatn?

Together wh the late Charl Soris, a psychiatrist who led the opposn to classifyg homosexualy as a mental illns, Nilosi formed NARTH 1992 as a "scientific anizatn that offers hope to those who stggle wh unwanted homosexualy. Nilosi remas NARTH's most visible are no reliable statistics for how many patients have received ex-gay treatment or how many therapists practice , but the late 1990s and early 2000s, ex-gay therapy enjoyed a legimacy hadn't sce the APA removed homosexualy om s diagnostic manual. Whether or not the Christian right's alliance wh the ex-gay movement had nstuted a D-Day the culture wars, had succsfully challenged the prevailg ia that the bt choice for gay people was to accept themselv.

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

I read one of Nilosi's books, Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexualy, that he tri to posn himself as a supportive father figure, typifyg the sort of relatnship that he believ his patients never had wh their own father. When I left for Yale, my mother sent me off wh a warng: Were she to disver that I had "entered the gay liftyle, " my parents would no longer pay for my tn. Based on 200 terviews wh ex-gay patients-the largt sample amassed-the study did not make any claims about the succs rate of ex-gay therapy.

What translated to the larger culture was: The father of the 1973 revolutn the classifitn and treatment of homosexualy, who uld not be seen as jt another biased ex-gay csar wh an agenda, had validated ex-gay therapy.

Participants had been referred to Spzer by ex-gay groups like NARTH and Exod, which had an tert remendg clients who would validate their work. Spzer was drawn to the topic of ex-gay therapy bee was ntroversial-"I was always attracted to ntroversy"-but was troubled by how the study was received.

QUIZ: HOW TO TELL IF MY BOYIEND IS GAY?

The need for that evince beme more prsg the early 2000s, when a dre of gay-rights bloggers began to sctize the movement, ready to expose any ht of hypocrisy. Richard Cohen, the founr of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays)-tend as the ex-gay unterpart to PFLAG (Parents, Fai, and Friends of Lbians and Gays)-was expelled om the Amerin Counselg Associatn for ethics vlatns.

Michael Johnston, the founr of "Natnal Comg Out of Homosexualy Day, " was revealed to have fected men he'd met on the Inter wh HIV through unprotected sex.

Among them were Alan Downg, the lead therapist of JONAH (Jews Offerg New Alternativ to Homosexualy), who ma his patients strip and touch themselv ont of a mirror; NARTH member Christopher At, who was nvicted of "unlawfully, tentnally and knowgly [g] peratn of" a client; and Exod-affiliated Mike Jon, who asked a patient to take off his shirt and do ph-ups for movement also suffered several high-profile fectns. John Evans, who had found the first ex-gay mistry outsi of San Francis, renounced change therapy when a iend mted suici after failg to bee heterosexual. " In 2007, Exod -founr Michael Bsee apologized for his role startg the as a rponse to the rurgence of ex-gay therapy, mastream profsnal anizatns also took a harr stance.