05 – Resources for Straight Partners

The New York Times reports on the phenomenon of “Brokeback Marriages” after the release of the film Brokeback Mountain. Author: Katy Butler.

A riveting new voice in literary memoir tells the gripping true story of a family shattered–and ultimately set free–by the revelation of a long-hidden secret. Sally Lowe Whitehead shares the deeply personal story of her own and her husband’s lifelong quest for spiritual truth–and her astonishing discovery of her husband’s homosexuality, which initially broke and then remade her vision of family, love, and Christian faith.

Sex and dating advice columnist Dan Savage tells a letter writer that his wife is a lesbian.

This book is a combination of an autobiography of a straight spouse and a self-help book for anyone dealing with sexual orientation issues. It is an inspiring book of self-reflection and self-discovery in overcoming emotional pain and finding inner peace and happiness. This book offers insight and hope for those struggling with their truths. Author: Annie Tulk.

Author Aideen T. Finnola’s life has consisted of a series of trials and obstacles. She was raised by abusive parents who joined a Christian cult when she was eight. She left the cult at twenty-three only to go straight into a twenty-year marriage with an abusive husband who, as a closeted gay man, had falsely represented himself from the start. In My Exquisite Purple Life, Finnola offers a collection of stories from her life that share the many challenges she’s faced and the wisdom she’s gained through healing her pain. She tells how, by her middle thirties, after having suffered decades of abuse, neglect, and rejection from even before she was born, she was a broken woman. Finnola was a pack-a-day smoker, a daily drinker, chronically overweight, had had two extramarital affairs, and was on a high dose of antidepressants because she seriously contemplated suicide more than once. By all rights and reasons, she never should have made it, but she did.

A Straight Partner writes about navigating her husband’s shifting sexual identity as he worked through his authentic orientation. Author: Janine Cole.

“You never, ever, have to worry about me being with another woman—that will never happen,” said Victor. “What you do have to worry about is me being with another man.” That moment is the beginning of the end of a happily-ever-after marriage. After 12 years of marriage, Victor confesses to his wife that he is tormented by same sex yearnings. Despite his revelation, she is determined to do whatever it takes to make their marriage work: candid conversations, visits with clergy, work with a therapist, search for relevant books. She struggles to keep her marriage from falling apart. The Straight Spouse: A Memoir is a love story about a woman who is married to a man who turns out to be gay—and how she deals with it in unexpected ways. This story takes place in the early 1990s, and she believes she is the only woman in the world to face this unthinkable threat to her marriage. Her journey—sometimes disturbing, sometimes uplifting—is about the importance of letting go and finding one’s own way through hard times. Author: Vivian Fransen.

This article by Carly Snyder explores some of the questions surrounding a partner’s ambiguous sexuality.

Emily Pearson’s memoir Dancing With Crazy is the true story of her personal derailment, both horrifically and humorously demonstrating what happens when mindless obedience to religious authority supersedes plain old common sense. As a young Mormon girl Emily gave up her own personal power, relinquished the ability to think for herself and allowed herself to blow with a wind that carried her from studying scriptures in the Sunday School classes of correctly clothed, righteous descendants of Mormon pioneers, to studying porn on San Francisco’s Castro Street with her gay father and half naked drag queens, to drowning in depression in a stinky apartment in Hollywood, to puking in the toilet of a courting polygamist, to marrying her very own gay man in a Mormon Temple. After nearly losing her mind several times over, Emily disentangled herself from toxic and narcissistic personalities, walked away from a crippling religion and finally learned to think, act and live for herself. Dancing With Crazy is both heartbreaking and heart warming – an inspiring story filled with religious fundamentalists, transvestites, AIDS, love, abuse, obsession, visions, sex, Satan and salvation.

Therapist Anna Fels writes about the psychological impact of “sudden material information” being uncovered in marriage.

During her sophomore year at Middlebury College, Emily meets Max—“you” as she intimately refers to him in the book. Not exactly a tomboy, but not quite a girly girl either, Emily is intent on finding a masculine boyfriend to assuage a deeply rooted fear that she may not be quite feminine enough. Max—a boisterous class clown beloved by his many straight guy friends—has recently come out as gay and is embracing his newly claimed identity. Initially, Max and Emily dislike each other, but end up growing close after a make-out dare on Halloween. Then one night, Max reveals an unexpected physical attraction that catches them both by surprise. The relationship begins, playfully and in secret, and then spirals into something more. Max and Emily’s journey takes many forms—they experiment with drugs; they travel abroad; they try sleeping with other people (together), and everything in between—all in the name of “this bizarre, beautiful thing” they call love. Author: Emily Dalton.

Blakeley, a writer for Forbes, was happily living in New York City, engaged to Aaron, the man she’d been with for a decade, when he dropped a bomb on her one afternoon: he’s pretty sure he’s gay. Blakeley is blindsided by Aaron’s announcement and suddenly finds herself thrust back into the dating world at the age of 36. Demoralized and certain that she isn’t ready to jump into another relationship, Blakeley opts for no-strings-attached hook-ups with two men she meets in bars, a charming Indian lothario named Rahil and James, a younger man whose outward shyness masks his inner player. While Rahil pines for his ex-girlfriend, and James dates a series of younger foreign women, Blakeley tries to navigate a tricky minefield: sex without love. Blakeley’s lively memoir definitely limns the emotional upheaval that comes with the dissolution of a long-term relationship, and many will relate to her attempts to get back on her feet and find her way in the often emotionally taxing dating world. Author: Kiri Blakeley.