So I Married a Gay Man.....

Chemistry - once my favorite subject in school and my almost major turned minor in college.  I've always loved it.  But now I really hate that word. Chemistry - something my husband doesn't have with me, but apparently feels with other men on occasion.  It's not that he wants that to happen.  In fact, it makes him crazy.  And depressed.  That's why he has avoided men for most of his life.  But that didn't work out well and so we are trying something different.  And sometimes different is scary.  Truth be told, most people that have been married for over two decades probably don't feel chemistry anymore.  I can't really say that I feel that for him either.  But I used to.  He used to give me butterflies.  I just feel incredibly sad thinking that maybe he never felt butterflies with me.  Also, I don't really understand him.  After I got married, I stopped noticing other men.  Only once in our entire ma...

Recently I've been walking alongside a wife that just found out about her husband's SSA.  It is an honor and privilege to be able to be there for someone else.  It has also been fascinating to see just how similarly our reactions, emotions, and thoughts have been.  I can almost predict what she is going to say, and it's a tiny bit creepy. In reality it's predictable because we are both going through the grief cycle.  The grief cycle was first used to describe the process people went through when diagnosed with a terminal illness.  Most people went through predictable stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.  Later it was recognized that these same stages could be seen in the family members of people diagnosed with a terminal illness and eventually that it could explain any type of grief not just death.  More research has also shown that people rarely go through the cycle only once and often do so in a different order...

It's been two weeks since my husband attended a Journey into Manhood weekend.  We were both warned that there would be a low spot about a week after his return, and they were right.  There were a few difficult days of emotions and fear.  But that has passed and we are in a really good place. On the drive home from the weekend, my husband called me.  One of the first things he said was, "We have new best friends!"  I cried.  (I do that a lot; I know.)  We have never actually met another mixed-orientation couple before.  To have friends that totally get us - this is amazing!  I immediately contacted this new best friend, the wife, and told her, "My husband just told me that you and your husband are our new best friends.  Can't wait to chat with you."  Now, you have to understand I have never met or spoken to this person.  I just declared that we are now best friends.  She is probably going to think I'm a complete lunatic....

It's been exactly 24 weeks since my husband disclosed that he has unwanted same sex attraction.  It seems strange to write 24 weeks, because it feels more like 24 months.  We have traveled so far in such a short amount of time.  I no longer feel like I am on a roller coaster of emotions - life feels steady and normal again.  I don't cry very often and I don't look like a hot mess on the daily. My husband often remarks that it so strange to be known; to talk openly with me and be completely honest.  Spending his entire life with no one to talk to openly was literally killing him.  Talking about it just seems normal to me now, though occasionally one or both of us are caught off guard by the level of honesty and depth of intimacy that we now share.  He is still amazed that I love him anyway. We are still on a road of healing and wholeness.  We have read a ton of books, articles, and blogs, as well as listened to many podcasts (as you may know)....

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.  Our first day celebrating love since he told me about his same-sex attractions.  We've never been big Valentine's Day people anyway - maybe a small token of love or a nice dinner together, not the over commercialized stuff.  Thinking about Valentine's day brought to mind a card my husband once gave me.  It's wasn't a Valentine's Day card; it was a "just because" card, written in September of the first year of our marriage.  Once I thought about it, I became desperate to find it.  I remember saving it because it was so special to me and I wanted to remember why. We found it. We read it together.  We cried.  It was exactly what I needed to hear.  For the past 20 weeks I have been asking a lot of hard questions.  How did I not know? Does he really love me as a wife or am I just a friend? Can he love me and not desire me?  Can I handle that? We all have a need to be desired.  I recently listen...

One of my first blog posts was about why he married me .  It's the obvious question.  But recently I've been thinking more about why I married him.  Sure, some of the very things I mentioned in that post apply to me as well. We agreed on everything that mattered - faith, values, and goals in life. Yet, looking back there were some major red flags.  He told me he wasn't attracted to me .  He never told me I was beautiful .  He only took me home to meet his parents once before we got married.  He was very quick to go from "Let's just be friends" to "Let's get married". What I'm really starting to understand is how my own deep insecurities caused me to ignore these signs.  A confident young woman would expect to be told she looks good.  A confident young woman would have certainly asked some questions about how a man can say they aren't attracted to you and yet still want to date you.  In fact, a confident young woman may have not giv...

Our daughter is home from college for Christmas break.  We tend to have a lot of deep conversation when she's home - religion, politics, current events, you name it.  She and I were driving home yesterday and got into one of these discussions.  We ended up talking about the gay agenda, how we treat LGBT people in the church (we agreed that the church needs a lot of work in this area), and specifically a friend of hers that is a Christian and gay and trying to navigate his theology and sexuality. She has such a heart of compassion for all people, and this friend is no different.  She has no idea what side A and side B even mean, but based on our conversation she is side B.  Her friend isn't sure where he lands on the issue yet.  He's confused as to why God would make him gay knowing that he would never be happy in a relationship.  My daughter felt sad that he would be lonely.  I asked her why he thought loneliness was the only option.  After...

Attraction is a tricky word and one that comes up a lot when discussing same-sex attraction (SSA).  I mean, it's right there in the name.  What does attraction really mean and how do we use that word? My now husband told me before we ever started dating that he was not attracted to me.  What he was trying to communicate was that he wasn't attracted to women in general.  But that is not what he said and certainly not how I heard or interpreted what he said.  I heard, "I am not attracted to you ."  Long after we started dating, long after we got married, long after I knew how much he loved me, I could still hear these words.  They have been a deep hurt for me.  I heard them through my own brokenness and continued to use them against myself for years. During this time of re-framing past conversations and experiences through this new lens of my husband's SSA, I have tried to let that hurt go.  Yet, as we have discussed attraction he stands by...

I'm sure people will wonder about our sex life.  I mean, how did I NOT know that he was gay? We have always had an active sex life.  As with all married people, we have had seasons in our marriage, but we have never been celibate in any way.  Our intimacy flows out of our deep personal connection.  The more we spend time together and love one another in practical ways, the more intimate we are.  I think this is probably true in most marriages, but even more so in ours where visual physical attraction is not the focus. The painful part, for me, is that I always knew and sensed that he was not very attracted to me.  I chalked that up to my weight, my body shape, my general attractiveness - I never considered that it was a problem on HIS end, but rather it was my problem and if I could just lose weight or have bigger breasts or whatever that it would "fix it".  In this sense, knowing about his same-sex attraction is actually freeing.  My self...