Her dilemma is hardly rare. "Call it denial, but most straight spouses don't see the signs," says Amity Buxton, 75, director of the Straight Spouse Network, an international network of support groups with 7,000 participants. "I had no reason to suspect my husband was gay. And my story is a typical one."
In the following pages, other spouses, straight and gay, share their stories with PEOPLE.
Jim & Anna Marie Will
He's out, but they stayed married
Anna Marie Will has an encyclopedic recall of the significant dates in her life, especially the ones that trace the arc of her relationship with her husband, Jim. First conversation: Oct. 12, 1985. Started going steady: July 3, 1986. Day they moved in together: July 10, 1988. Wedding, of course: July 7, 1990.
Day Jim told her he's gay: Sept. 8, 2001.
"Saturday, about noon," says Anna Marie, 36, an insurance risk analyst. They were at their kitchen table in Citrus Heights, Calif. "He took my hand and said, 'You know how you always say I don't make you feel attractive as a woman? What if I told you that I'm not attracted to any women?' "
She was blindsided. Their sex life had flattened out, but she figured he just lacked passion. "I loved this man, slept with him, had a baby with him [Breanna, 11]," Anna Marie says. "I just had no idea." After the initial shock, she was actually relieved. When Jim, 36, a secretary, had begun seeing a therapist, she thought he might be having a midlife crisis and was "terrified he was going to leave me." She was also pleased when he swore he had not been unfaithful or acted on his impulses.
But soon came anger, then depression. For three months Anna Marie could barely drag herself through the day. Finally, she roused herself by starting a local chapter of Straight Spouse Network. She and Jim have stayed together—and intend to maintain their marriage. "It's not for Breanna," says Anna Marie. "We stay together because we love each other." Recently they told Breanna her father was gay. Her response, according to them? "That doesn't seem so bad." On Tuesdays Jim and Anna Marie have a standing date they refer to as the Gay Thing. "It's our time to deal with it," she says, adding that they also have a regular sexual relationship. "We have a love life."
Jim's, however, is more varied. With Anna Marie's permission, he occasionally goes out for what he calls "physical encounters" with other men. "Sometimes he gets frustrated and restless," says Anna Marie. "I know he needs to be with a man, so I'll tell him, 'It's time.' Or he'll say, 'I want to schedule a night out.' Then I'll go out with a girlfriend or take Breanna to the movies." Says Jim: "It's a fling. With Anna I have so much more." The pair are aware that what they have may not sit well with others. "Not everyone can or should stay married, but it works for us," says Anna Marie. "I feel lucky. He was courageous enough to tell the truth."
Dan Forero
Devastated, he struggled to forgive
Dan Forero was living the dream. A Wall Street computer programmer, he'd been married eight years and had three sons and a charming house in suburban Roslyn, N.Y. But in early 2002 his world began to crumble. For three months he and his wife had been arguing bitterly. Then in April, for no apparent reason, he suddenly asked her if she was cheating on him. "It came out of nowhere," he says. "She didn't answer me, so I said, 'I guess your silence is an answer.' "
The next day, shaking with sobs, his wife—who did not want to be named or quoted but verified Forero's story—handed Forero a five-page letter: She hadn't strayed. But she was gay.
His first reaction was to hug her. His next was to rip the letter to shreds. Four months later the couple split. "I felt castrated," says Forero, 36, who sank into a depression. "I was a mess and ashamed to tell my friends. It beats down your self-worth."
Looking back, he can see the signs. The pair dated for four years after meeting at Pace University but briefly split when Dan took a job in England for six months. When they reunited, she confided that she'd had a fling with a female friend. "She said it was something girls try all the time in college," Forero says. "I sat there and bought it."
In '94 they had a $50,000 wedding. The kids started coming, and she stayed home to care for them. But something was missing. "We had sex maybe once a month, but she made me feel like a sex addict," Forero says. "I had to make deals, like, she'd want me to hook up a satellite dish first."
The acrimonious breakup took its toll on Forero. He lost his job in October 2002. He began to feel suicidal. Then his wife gave him the number of the Straight Spouse Network. "I'm alive today because of them," he says. "I could see other people got through it." Divorced this past April, Forero dates a woman he met at SSN; his ex lives in their old house with her partner. The former couple share custody of the children. And they've reached rapprochement, thanks to an unlikely mediator: Mel Gibson. "I saw The Passion of the Christ, and it made me realize I needed to forgive," he says. He told her so. "A week later she called me up crying and said, 'I'm sorry for everything.' I was told by friends in the SSN that I was lucky. They'd never heard those words."
Michael & Kathy Rockel
Divorced, but friends again
Looking back, Michael and Kathy Rockel admit their 16-year marriage was a monument to denial. They had dated for years and married in their hometown of Pueblo, Colo. Childless, their sex life was desultory at best. "Like a lot of women, I thought it was my fault," says Kathy, 48. "But the fact was that he did not want to have sex."
That wasn't strictly true. Seven years into their marriage, Michael had an affair with a man. "I was shocked and angered," Kathy says. "We went to counseling and struggled for weeks. He told me it was a fluke and vowed it would never happen again." Over time, she blocked the incident out and convinced herself that "any problems were the result of our not working hard enough and that our marriage was normal."
In November 2001, however, Kathy discovered an e-mail Michael had sent, discussing a rendezvous with a gay lover. When she confronted him, he admitted he had intended to tell her on his 50th birthday of his plans to pursue an openly gay lifestyle. Despite his history, she was stunned. "I went through the cycle of pain," she says, "from anger to resentment to deep hurt, and wondered how I would make it."
A therapist, Michael, 52, had tried to repress his homosexual urges. "One important lesson in this," he says, "is that you can deeply love a person for her intellect and her looks, her friendship. But that does not change your sexuality." The Rockels divorced in 2002. Kathy moved to Greensboro, N.C., where she has a job transcribing dictation by doctors. Michael is moving to Boston with his partner, a museum curator. "I'm as happy as I've ever been," he says, "because my life is so authentic." Slowly, fences mended. Kathy is dating again. "I have come to not only heal, but to appreciate how much I've grown from the experience," she says. "And to believe that I'm a better, wiser person for it."
- Contributors:
- Maureen Harrington,
- Colleen O'Connor,
- Kate Klise,
- Barbara Sandler,
- Matt Birkbeck.
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