A Kindred Soul

I had lunch a few days ago with a kindred soul -- another straight wife I met in my town.  After I invited her to lunch, I had a bit of panic because I wasn't quite sure where to start or even what mine or her expectations were.

But once we got through the formalities of ordering and settling into a booth, it was as if she knew just the right things to say.  She's been divorced about five years and was married for about thirty years.  She shared her story briefly with me and then let me share mine.  With every statement I made, she'd nod or agree. 

She UNDERSTOOD!  She'd lived through the betrayal and hurt.  She'd been lied to and had her trust destroyed.  When I said that sometimes the situation just overtakes me out of the blue and I wonder how I ended up like this, she shared that she'd often find herself on the sofa in a sitting fetal position just staring at the television.

What a feeling of validation!  Over her objections, I'd paid for her lunch, and after our discussion, I felt like it was worth every penny because I got as much from our talk as I do from a session with my therapist.  Don't get me wrong, my therapist is terrific.  But my lunch friend has lived what I've lived.  And that's the only way anybody will understand what I've been through.  EVAH!

Have you had the opportunity to sit down and talk with another straight wife?  If not, Bonnie Kaye has an opportunity coming up in September in Philadelphia.  I can't go, but you might want to see about attending if you can.  You can email her and get more details.  Her website is on the resources page of this site, and her contact info is there.

Not Happily Divorced

I don't watch a lot of sitcoms on television because quite frankly, I find them insulting. But there's a new one on TVLand I just might have to check out. Here's TVLand's blurb about Happily Divorced:

"Happily Divorced" centers around Los Angeles florist Fran (Drescher) as she deals with dating after finding out her realtor husband of 18 years (John Michael Higgins) is gay. Fran juggles her new relationships, while still living under the same roof with her ex-husband. The cast is rounded out by Fran's best friend Judi (Tichina Arnold), her parents Dori and Glen (Rita Moreno and Robert Walden) and her flower delivery employee Cesar (Valente Rodriguez). Written by Fran Drescher and Peter Marc Jacobson ("The Nanny," "What I Like About You")

The show is inspired by real life. Several years ago, Drescher learned her husband was gay. But this show should be a drama filled with angst and anger, not an attempt to make people laugh at the situation that nearly four million women face -- being married to a gay man.

Go back a few posts and you'll see that I'm not homophobic. But I am very disturbed that a TV network would make light of such a devastating situation is a marriage and milk it for laughs.

I will watch the first episode because I've always believed you can't judge something if you don't know about it first hand. The TVLand website has video clips from upcoming episodes and just from those I'm already angry. While the lead character, who is named Fran, is upset that her husband Peter (this is the name of Drescher's gay ex-husband), everyone else is making jokes about it.

Trust me, people. It's not funny. And if those of you reading this are part of the four million, you're not laughing either.

After the first episode I plan to write TVLand and let them know my feelings. Would they air a sitcom about a family with an autistic child? A marriage where the wife is dying from breast cancer? I think not. So why is having a gay husband so funny? I'll tell them why it's not funny, right down to how my ex-husband brought his lovers into our home and had sex with them in our bed.

The TVLand website has message boards too. I plan to invade them until they block my IP address. But I will let my feelings be heard.


EDITED JUNE 6: It seems TVLand has taken down their promo videos, but if you go here, you can still see about the show at the Happily Divorced link above.

Where Were You?

I'm a great fan of country music, and last week I was listening to Alan Jackson's song "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning."  It's a tribute to the victims and heroes of the disaster on September 11, 2001.

As I listened to the first line of the song, my mind substituted some different words -- words that reflected my feelings and emotions of my own disaster.  And tonight I worked out an alternative lyric to the song that I hope you can relate to.

I'll post a video of Alan Jackson singing his terrific song and below that I'll post my altered lyrics.  Some of the last part are his exact words.  I'll put those in italics to give credit where credit is due.



Where were you when the world stopped turning when you learned he was gay?
Were you at the computer with email and Facebook
And you had no idea what to say?
Did you sit there in shock at the sight of his lies
Staring from the computer screen?
Did you shout out in anger, in fear for your family
Or did you just sit down and scream?


Did you weep for your children who would not understand it
Or pray it was all just a joke?
Did you ask why you’d suffered from such a betrayal
And sob til you thought you would choke?
Did you burst out in tears for the hurt you were feeling
And the anger that had filled you inside?
Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answer
For why this man had cheated and lied?


[Chorus:]
I'm just a woman of simple means
Who trusted with all of her heart
I thought I knew the man I was with
Now I don’t know just where to start
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us
And the greatest is love
And the greatest is love


Where were you when the world stopped turning when you learned he was gay?

Please feel free to comment about where you were and how you found out your husband is gay. Trust me when I say that talking about it helps a lot. You don't have to put your name. You can post anonymously and no one will know it was you.

I'll start. He left his email open and I saw a series of messages between him and another man. They were very sexual in nature and completely inappropriate for a married man.

Oh good grief!

In her 1969 book On Death and Dying, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross introduced the concept of the Five Stages of Grief.  She had interviewed five hundred dying patients and discerned five distinct stages through which these people processed their impending death.

These five stages have since been applied to people suffering from other forms of loss, including divorce.

The stages as identified by Dr. Kubler-Ross are

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

And this is my journey through these stages.

Three days before several Christmases ago, I had to do some work on my husband's computer, and when I closed down the program I was using, his email program was open to a long thread of messages between him and another man.  The theme of the messages was very sexual in nature, and I sat stunned as I read them.  The message was very clear:  my husband was gay.  But it was three days before Christmas, I had family coming in and I didn't have time to deal with it. 

So I began my reign as the Queen of Denial.  I had a shiny crown and a sparkly sceptre and I went right on with my Christmas plans.  Then Christmas was over, New Year's came and went, I undecked the halls and I still stayed in denial.  We had a vacation to the Caribbean planned for the first of February and in the back of my mind I knew that might be the last great vacation I ever had.  So I kept on denying until we got back home.

He left on a business trip the day after we returned, and I tried to see if I could get back into his email.  I could, and that's where I found enough evidence to bury him and to turn my world completely upside down.  There were not only emails between him and a number of men, but also information about a website called Manhunt.  It's an online gay site and he used it to connect with men both in our hometown and in towns where he travelled on business.  There's a link to Manhunt and other gay hook-up sites on the Resources page.

The information I discovered was far bigger than my ability to deny it, and I moved into the anger stage.  How DARE he do this to our family!  And how dare he lie to me, fuss at me about my household spending while he was spending money at the local sex shop and bring men home to have sex in our marital bed when I was visiting family.

I'm still very much in the anger stage because he's refused to take any responsibility for his actions.  It's all my fault.  I'm also angry because he's moved on into a relationship with a man who's ten years younger.  It's as if I never existed.  He's soooooooooooooo in love and sooooooooooooooo happy.

And I'm just collateral damage.

I did my share of bargaining too, but not with him.  I remember sitting at a stoplight on my way home from being tested for STDs and telling God if He'd let me test negative for herpes, hepatitis and HIV, He could let me have syphillis because I could cure that.

No one should ever have to bargain like that.

I've never sunk into full-blown depression, but I do have periods of extreme sadness.  I've lost the life I had and I moved out of my dream house.  The future I imagined we'd have together is gone.  My future is now just a big question mark.  Financially, I am okay, and in a perfect world, my financial situation would stay the same and I'd be okay forever.  But the world isn't perfect.  Despite an award of lifetime alimony, I expect him to take me back to court when he thinks he's ready to retire and to ask for a reduction.  I've been told by several legal specialists, that a lifetime alimony award has never been overturned in this state.  I've also been told that when I tell my side of the story at that possible alimony reduction hearing, no judge would rule against me. 

Instead of depression, I just have major stress.  It's wreaked havoc on my body, causing cortisol-related weight gain and gastro-intestinal problems.  Meditation and massage work along with prescription medications for irritable bowel syndrome help, but the worries are always there in the back of my mind.

The final stage is acceptance, and I came to that stage once I was convinced he was gay and once I learned he'd been living a secret life of one-night stands and reckless sex for years.  I knew I couldn't stay married to him (though I did express in some early emails to my best friend that I thought divorce would reward him and punish me). 

Along the way, I consulted with and ultimately hired a divorce attorney, confronted my husband about his behavior and we were divorced.  It began as an uncontested divorce but turned ugly when he realized he was going to have to pay for his misbehavior -- literally.  I moved out of the house and into an apartment and began life as a single woman -- something I'd never done before since I went from living at home with my parents to living in a college dorm to being married.

Divorce had never been in my vocabulary because I married for life.  But mine wasn't a marriage at all.  Instead, it was one person taking advantage of another's blind trust and abusing that trust in order to pursue his own selfish wants. 

I'm blessed with a supportive family and friends.  My grown children don't know the gory details of their father's behavior, but he did finally out himself to them.  As it turns out, one of my children already suspected because he'd found gay pornography hidden years ago.  I hate that he had to carry that secret with him for so many years.  Fortunately, I've always had a very strong bond with my children and that hasn't changed.  But life is awkward now.  At holidays they have to decide which days to spend with me and which with their dad since they both live out of town.  I took the high road and never bad-mouthed their father to them because he is still their father.  But the days of happy Thanksgiving dinners with all of us around the table are gone.  I can't be accepting of his partner since this man knowingly had an affair with a married man.  That speaks to his character, and as far as I'm concerned, the man has no character.

Take a look at the stages of grief.  Figure out where you stand with them and work your way through them because if you don't, or if you get stuck in a stage, you run the risk of getting into another bad relationship or never finding happiness in your life again -- whether single or married.