On the morning of his 21st wedding anniversary, Randy Spires woke up expecting kisses and a loving note from his wife, affirming their lives together. Instead he found he’d been blind-copied on an e-mail to her female lover. “It was like taking every emotion you ever had and putting it on the tumble setting in your clothes dryer,” says Spires.
Despite the initial shock of finding out that his wife was having an affair — and a same-sex one, at that — Spires hoped to salvage the marriage. “I’d just completed my military career, and she was starting to get traction in her own job. So for a year and a half we went off in different directions, working different shifts. I was giving her an opportunity to grow, just as she had given me, during my career. I loved her, I trusted her. If you’ve only been married once, you don’t know what to expect.”
Most importantly, says Spires, they had their children to consider. When he confronted his wife with the e-mail, not only did she admit to the affair, she also informed Spires that she had no desire to work through the issues of their marriage. Her reason, says Spires, was simple. “It was because I am a man.”
In hindsight, there were telltale signs. One incident occurred the previous Thanksgiving: when he asked her when she was picking up the turkey, she informed him she’d made out-of-town plans for the holiday. Though their children convinced her to stay for the meal, she left right after dessert. “Her bags were already packed. She’d left them by the door.” When the shock wore off, the anger set in. “I was angry at myself, for being played the fool. I thought, ‘How could I have been so blind?’”
Jack Drescher, M.D., a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who is the author and editor of several books dealing with psychoanalytic therapy for gay, lesbian bisexual and transgendered patients, has tremendous empathy for the plight of the straight spouse. “Feelings of betrayal are justified. The straight spouse must now adjust the perception of his, or her, life to a new reality.”
Drescher also feels that straight spouses shouldn’t blame themselves for missing any clues. “Many people don’t know if they’re gay when they get married. They think the marriage will end the confusion, or that it will make them less interested in people of the same sex. In fact, explains Drescher, some struggle for years with their identity crisis. “Even if they admit to themselves that they are gay, they ask themselves: ‘Should I do what is best for myself, or what is right for my family?’”
If they leave the closet, says Drescher, it’s because they finally realize that they are not being true to themselves. “They feel they are sacrificing something. Many don’t want to hide it anymore.”
LEARNING THE TRUTHWhen the truth finally comes out, says Spires, “The straight spouse is that chalk line on the crime scene. People don’t realize that there is actually a person there. The gay community doesn’t want to see us, and the straight community certainly doesn’t understand our situation. Everyone has had a relationship gone sour, but it was a straight relationship, so they can’t really relate. Some guys would say to me ‘Boy are you lucky!’ or ‘How did you turn her gay?’”
Which makes it even harder for straight spouses to find the support they need, to process the emotional trauma that comes with the shock of betrayal. Like many straight spouses, Spires sought information online. That was where he found the
Straight Spouse Network, a nonprofit support organization with more than 7,000 members. SSN offers 72 live support groups in the United States and seven other countries. There are another nine online groups.
The organization was founded by
Amity Pierce Buxton, Ph.D, whose book, "
The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming Out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families," was inspired by her personal experiences: her ex-husband came out after they had separated. “When I’d heard, I was relieved to find out what had been wrong, why he had been unresponsive and got depressed during our marriage.”
Her book, which offers straight spouses of both genders insightful and comprehensive advice, is a veritable crash course on the topic. According to Buxton, there may be as many as two million straight/gay marriages in the country. The recent political scandal involving the former governor from New Jersey,
Jim McGreevey, and his wife, Dina Matos, is a powerful example that divorces between gay and straight spouses are more prevalent than society may admit.
However, the number of open marriages — those in which the straight spouse is aware of the other spouse’s sexual orientation, and accepts it — is less than one-sixth of such unions. “One third will break up right away, within a year,” predicts Buxton. “Another third will stay together for a while, but then eventually separate. The last third will try to work it out, but within three years, only half of these marriages will succeed. If they do, it’s because these partners feel it’s no else’s business.”
Surprisingly, when the couple does stay together it’s usually not for children’s sake or financial reasons, but because they enjoy each other’s company, explains Buxton. Whether the straight spouse accepts this new situation or leaves, they must all go through what Buxton has identified as seven stages of emotions.
