The sexuality issue
When a husband or wife in a presumably heterosexual marriage discloses being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, his or her straight spouse experiences singular issues. The first three issues are immediate concerns: their own sexuality, future of their marriage, and effects on their children (most have children).  The most immediate concern is their own sexuality. Many question its quality or their ignorance, some blaming themselves for their mates’ turning to the same sex, and most feeling sexually starved.  This session spells out aspects of sexuality that disturb the straight wife or husband the most, illustrated by quotations from spouses drawn from The Other Side of the Closet and Unseen-Unheard.  References to other resources for spouses dealing with the sexuality issue and references for professionals to help them are provided: the websites of the Straight Spouse Network (www.straightspouse.org) and dramitypiercebuxton.co.

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Amity Pierce Buxton Straight Spouse Network Interview 2

Issues regarding the future of straight spouses’ post-disclosure marriage and effects of the LGBT parent’s disclosure on their children.
The second and third issues confronting straight spouses soon after their partners come out relate to their marriage and their children.  They wonder if and how their marriages might it work.  Could the relationship itself endure if the couple divorced?  One third of post-disclosure couples divorce immediately.  Another third stay together for two or three years, seeking ways to make their marriages work, until they realize there is no way and divorce. Another third commit to continue their relationship under the new circumstances. After three years, half (a sixth of the total) succeed and half divorce, but with a singularly deep bond.
Dealing with marriage questions, straight spouses are concerned also about effects of their partners’ revealed sexual orientation or gender identity on their children.  Telling the children requires honesty. It is best if both parents’ together share the telling, assuring the children that they both continue to love them and, if they divorce, will provide safe and loving homes. Straight spouses and their partners also need to help their children process the new information about their LGBT parent and how to deal with anti-LGBT attitudes among their peers.  For straight spouses who lose their mates in divorce, a major issue is the contrast of that painful loss and their continued co-parent relationship with their ex-mates. 
In this session, marriage and children concerns are illustrated by quotations of spouses drawn from The Other Side of the Closet and Unseen-Unheard.  Other resources for dealing with these issues and references for professionals to help spouses deal with them constructively are found on the websites of the Straight Spouse Network (www.straightspouse.org) and dramitypiercebuxton.co.

Amity Pierce Buxton Straight Spouse Network Interview 3

Issue of the straight spouse’s own identity
As straight spouses deal with immediate concerns about their own sexuality, their marriage, and their children, they slowly become aware of three deeper and more complex issues: their own identity, integrity, and belief system.  Identity questions usually arise first. Having one’s spouse
come out raises questions in a straight spouse’s mind as to who he or she is now after living alongside someone else’s deceptive role as a heterosexual partner.  Straight spouses slowly realize that they accommodated to their mate’s LGBT-related differences unknowingly. Now they see that in that process they lost themselves.  Finding out who they really are requires rediscovering their own interests and priorities and nurturing them.
In this session, how spouses work through the issue of self-identity is illustrated by quotations from spouses drawn from The Other Side of the Closet and Unseen-Unheard.  Other resources for spouses dealing with identity questions and references for professionals to help them deal with them constructively can be found on the websites of the Straight Spouse Network (www.straightspouse.org) and dramitypiercebuxton.co.

Amity Pierce Buxton Straight Spouse Network Interview 4

The fifth and sixth issues arising from a mate’s disclosure are the shattering of a straight spouse’s integrity and belief  system.  Spouses feel betrayed by their partners’ hiding the truth, for however long they themselves did not realize or admit who they were before they came out. Once LGBT partners tell their truth, breaking the trust of their straight spouses, the straight spouses feel that their own moral compass of what is true or false, right or wrong, has been shattered.  Now, geared with the truth, they look back and ask “How could I have not known?  Why did I not read the signs?“ Many feel that they, however unwittingly, cooperated in perpetrating the lie.  They then wonder how to figure out what is true and right in the future and how they could ever trust anyone else’s word again.  Their moral compass broken, they also face the last major issue: destruction of their belief system so that they now find little or no meaning or purpose in their lives.

Amity Pierce Buxton Straight Spouse Network Interview 5

Coming out in marriage, straight spouses of LGBT mates, mixed-orientation marriages, transgender/non-trans marriages, Straight Spouse Network, effects of anti-LGBT attitudes, Amity Pierce Buxton

Amity Buxton