05 – Resources for Straight Partners

An interview with Bonnie Kaye, Straight Partner and author. Author: Robert Weiss Ph.D., MSW.

Betrayal is treachery, deception, and violated trust. It can appear as a broken promise, duplicity, lies, sexual affairs, and even affairs of the heart. The injury is so great that some people seem to never recover. Author: George S. Everly, Jr., Ph.D.

After Emily Fay Reese found out that her husband is gay, her journey was a long and difficult process toward healing. Nearly a decade later, she is thankful for her transparent life, which she uses to encourage straight spouses and those who come out to their husbands or wives. Her goal is to let others know that healing is possible.

Sara Schulting-Kranz shares how unexpected, life-changing events led her to self-discovery and a realization that we need a new definition of forgiveness. Sara Schulting-Kranz is a professional coach, natural energy healer, wilderness guide, represented writer, single mom of three amazing sons, and executive producer of “Walk Through This,” a documentary feature in production about her healing journey in nature. As a multiple trauma survivor herself, Sara coaches individual men and women through their own life-shifting journeys of healing and transformation. When not working with individual clients, you will find her guiding retreats in the Grand Canyon and mountains of Southern California offering coaching, hiking, adventuring, meditation and breathwork. Cool Fun Fact: Sara served as a guide for female, blind Paralympian and adventure seeker, Shawn Cheshire, as she set the world record on October 8, 2018 as the only blind woman to hike the Grand Canyon from rim to rim to rim — 42 miles in 24 hours and 15 minutes!

The Women Partners of Bisexual Men Service is the NSW (Austrailia) service that provides individual and group counseling to women partners of men who may be having sexual experiences or feeling attracted to other men.

Morgana Bailey has been hiding her true self for 16 years. In a brave talk, she utters four words that might not seem like a big deal to some, but to her have been paralyzing. Why speak up? Because she’s realized that her silence has personal, professional and societal consequences. In front of an audience of her co-workers, she reflects on what it means to fear the judgment of others, and how it makes us judge ourselves.

Today I’m sharing a personal story about how I told my then husband I’m gay. – Kelli Crux

Matt is gay, and he had known since he was 10 years old. He had pretended to be straight all those years, through marriage to a woman, his best friend, and four children, until he could no longer lie to his wife Luanne. Matt hoped to overcome his attraction to men through prayer, healing, 12-step programs, reparative therapy, determined to be straight enough, determined to make it work. Luanne hoped their love would be enough to get through it. It eventually became clear that Matt’s sexuality wasn’t going anywhere, and he still felt the guilt and shame. Luanne began to realize she would never have a husband who adored her. “I am not attracted to you. I never was, and I never will be,” he said to her in a moment of heartbreaking honesty. Matt felt guilt for not loving his wife in a way she deserved to be loved, but he couldn’t sustain the mixed orientation marriage in perpetuity. The future looked lonely, and he realized they would both be robbed of intimacy, joy and desire. At what cost? was the question that made them consider divorce. Matt acknowledges that Luanne definitely got the raw end of the deal as Matt goes through the process of “untelling” his lie. Their shifts in perspective allowed them to choose gratitude over regret. – Matt Nightingale and Luanne Nightingale

Have you or someone close to you experienced infidelity? Infidelity is not going to go away, Dr. Kevin Skinner poses the question, will we rise up as a society and help those suffering from the trauma of sexual betrayal? Dr. Kevin Skinner is a recognized leader and authority on sexually compulsive behavior, infidelity and trauma from sexual betrayal. In addition, Dr. Skinner has Co-Founded Discover and Change, an assessment platform providing assessments specifically to those struggling with sexual trauma, sexually compulsive behavior and relationships. Dr. Skinner’s treatment is based on his own research stemming from more than 250,000 assessments and over 20 years experience. He’s spent the last 15 years researching how sexual betrayal creates PTSD-like symptoms in the betrayed spouse.

Paul Moore’s vocation as an Episcopal priest took him—with his wife Jenny and a family that grew to nine children—from robber-baron wealth to work among the urban poor of postwar America, prominence as an activist bishop in Washington during the Johnson years, leadership in the civil rights and peace movements, and two decades as the bishop of New York. The Bishop’s Daughter is a daughter’s story of that complex, visionary man: a chronicle of her turbulent relationship with a father who struggled privately with his sexuality while she openly explored hers, and a searching account of the consequences of sexual secrets. With a depth of questioning that recalls James Carroll’s An American Requiem, this memoir by Honor Moore engages the reader in the great issues of American life: war, race, family, sexuality, and faith.

Abigail Garner was five years old when her parents divorced and her dad came out as gay. Like the millions of children growing up in these families today, she often found herself in the middle of the political and moral debates surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) parenting. Drawing on a decade of community organizing, and interviews with more than fifty grown sons and daughters of LGBT parents, Garner addresses such topics as coming out to children, facing homophobia at school, co-parenting with ex-partners, the impact of AIDS, and the children’s own sexuality. Both practical and deeply personal, Families Like Mine provides an invaluable insider’s perspective for LGBT parents, their families, and their allies.

For individuals and couples who are dealing with the aftermath of sexual addiction or chronic betrayal, trauma is not merely one element in the mix. Trauma permeates the experience and dynamic of these relationships such that it is inescapable — in the foreground and background, as the origin and end, as the fuel and engine, both the root and the fruit. In most cases, trauma underlies the emotional experience and behavioral tendencies for both addicted and betrayed partners, and together their individual experiences of trauma create a perfect storm of isolation, pain, fear, shame, and conflict. In this video, Dr. Jake Porter explains some of the ways that betrayed partners experience trauma neurobiologically.