-“Doctor…How could I not discover it before? My husband is gay!”
Kathryn X. is a nice and attractive middle-aged lady that has devoted her life to take care of her husband and two children for the past fifteen years. When her husband decided to go to the gym three times per week after work, she accepted it as a necessary lifestyle compromise to lose excess weight. However when he returned late at night, she started to have her suspicions. She didn’t know that the cause of his tardiness was not a “she” but a “he.”
In 1929 Marguerite Yourcenar published “Alexis or the treaty of the useless combat” which basically consists of a long detailed letter from a famous musician to his wife in order to tell her that he is gay and is leaving her. The sexual desire is hardly ever a single conscious decision but a series of subjective experiences that mould our loving and erotic needs in our lives. Usually the choice of mate is aligned with the sexual desire but when there is a mismatch between the two, the individual has an emotional frustration.
Dr. Walter Ghedin said: “when the homosexual desire surfaces and settles in the emotional staple, thousands of images appear in the mind.” They are:
- What do I do?
- How do I satisfy it?
- Do I share it with someone?
- Am I homosexual or bisexual?
- How do I live with this burden?
In most young men there is an occasional brief imagery of homosexual affinity that quickly fades away without ever being put into real practice. In other men the homosexual desire appears during the adolescence and they can conceal it with an occasional transgression that does not bother them. But in a minority of them the homosexual desire becomes stronger as they age with a firm determination to share their lives with a “special someone.”
Dr. Guedin says “when the desire and the homosexual orientation appear without a comeback in a man ‘apparently’ heterosexual, the coming out of the closet is the most healthy attitude as you cannot live in the middle pulled apart by two opposing desires…The stronger sexual desire will prevail.”
The “coming out of the closet’ will provoke a disconcerting situation for the family members, especially the concerned spouse. She will ask herself:
- How could I not notice it?
- How could I live in the middle of a lie?
- Why didn’t he tell me before?
- How am I going to tell the kids?
- What will my family members say?
- Should I have done more to retain him?
- Was I too careless and distracted with the kids?
- Should I have gone to the gym with him?
Dr. Ghedin says that “men and women that go thorough the experience of trying to understand the camouflaged sexual desire of their loved ones are in fact meshing their psyches with dilemmas and assumptions that do not help. That need to understand should be replaced by a capacity to empathise.”
What do you think? Please tell us.
Don’t leave me alone.
As Mark Twain put it nicely: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
Thanks fir your excellent commentary my dear Bojana.
Welcome. Any time.
Well I believe it is more acceptable to “come out ” of the sexual preference closet in 2017.
Thankfully…..
So emotional frustration ….we wish you a fond farewell!!
Many men I encountered have been too cowardly to disclose their preferences since it would ostracize them both professional and socially.
Therefore they go through the conventional motions of marrying a decent woman and having a family etc in the hope that the spouse would understand the “all men are Hunters” or “boys will be boys” tale commonly used by some women to justify infidelity in general.
Remember, financial consequences can be dire for the woman who confronts her husband about his dalliances. It is still a man’s world when it comes to earnings.
Thankfully, lateral thinking and ( Senor Mucho Macho Bruce Jenner!!!! ) have encouraged more empathy/ tolerance/understanding for any individual’s sexual preference and emphasized LOVE and HAPPINESS above conventional norms established by society and religion.
I personally know 2 Caribbean families who handled this “situation” with grace and honesty. She was gay and preferred to be manly, so she now lives with her lesbian lover and dresses like a man. The original couple co-parent, love and support each other and the children are very well adjusted.
The second older couple stayed together and give each other “freedom” to indulge with other partners.
Consenting adults who genuinely love and care for each other need to honestly decide the terms and conditions of their relationship and keep their business to themselves.
Live and let live….
Dear Islsnd Woman: good afternoon and thanks for this honest, comprehensive comment with two real live examples of this conundrum. Yes, the truth, even a very scalding one, is always better because those emotional wounds will eventually heal and all the involved people will be better off (especially the children) Please keep reading our articles and enlightening us with your savvy wisdom. A kiss. Arrivederci!