When was that article? Was it 1998, 1999 or even the year 2000? Lemme try to piece this together. I was living at Hunters Meadow at the time. My husband excitedly told me that Essence Magazine was going to be calling to interview us. “Why?” I asked. “They are doing an article about men who use to be gay but are now married and happy.” Hummmm, I thought. On the surface, I was excited; but inside, I was a little apprehensive. It was true that by all extents and purposes one would call my marriage successful. After all, I was living in a $365,000 home, we owned our own business and worked from home, we had four cars. Yep, we were what a friend of ours called The Jeffersons.
A part of me didn’t really believe what my husband was saying, but it really happened. A writer from Essence magazine identified herself on the other end of the call and asked me a series of questions about my life. I can’t remember her exact questions but I do know that she didn’t ask anything that caused alarm. She basically asked leading questions, to which I responded with a yes or no. If I were to be completely honest, I didn’t feel quite right; it seemed too contrived.
Imagine my horror when the magazine came out and it was about men on the down low. Absolutely puzzled, I read more. It was telling women that perhaps we need to stop putting labels on love. That there are men out there who are good men. They are straight men. They really love their women. They just enjoy having sex with other men. It went on to explain how men are wired differently than women. Basically, sex is simply a drive for them and they can have sex with a man but it doesn't bond him. That bond is saved for his woman. But here’s the coup de grace (ku-de-gra): at the end it talked about Tyrone from North Carolina and how he was having a successful marriage. I just about hit the roof! It read like he was proof that one could be on the down low and have a successful marriage. I confronted my husband and asked him what in the world this was. He acted as if he was surprised too. He said he had been misled.
This is one of the myriad of ways that Straight Wives live a life in the closet. On the surface, our lives are pristine. We are model citizens. We are God-fearing. We look the part of the model family. The house, the children, the friends. Our husbands might even behave very affectionately with us and appear to be taking immaculate care of us. But ohhhhhh behind closed doors. Detached. Distant. Cold.
It wasn’t until I was sent a link to the blog radio show where I appeared as a guest that I realized a part of me was still in the closet. I haven’t told my son was my first thought. Up until now, my son and I had not fully discussed his father. Certainly, when he was around 7 years old, he asked his dad if he was gay. Unbeknownst to us, he and his cousins had discussed this while we were away burying my father. The kids had already attended the funeral and we didn’t feel they needed the added stress of going to the burial. I remember his exact words. “So dad, are you gay or not?,” he asked him outright. His dad told him that he had been gay a long time ago but God had delivered him from that. That he loved his mother and he loved him.
That was my son’s truth and my truth in that moment. Little did I know that the days, weeks, months and years following would reveal the exact opposite. Now this truth was staring me in my face. The truth that was shared on the radio show. The truth I had shielded my son from for all these years. It was now staring me in my face. Before I share the link to the radio show, I have to tell him.
You may think I was wrong to not tell him for all these years. Maybe, maybe not. Under normal circumstances, parents don’t disclose what goes on in their bedroom with their children. It has nothing to do with heterosexuality or homosexuality. We answer their questions, hopefully age-appropriately, and we add more as their maturity and understanding warrants it. I remember riding in the car with our son, now middle school age, and I casually said something about his dad’s gay past. My son’s reaction surprised me. He was so alarmed as if he was hearing it for the very first time. I asked him if he remembered the conversation we had when he was younger but he was so stunned it was to no avail. After that, I knew that this was a subject I’d have to put on the shelf.
I don’t regret my decision. I wanted for my son the privilege of discovering his own is-ness, his own orientation, and to settle into his own personhood. I wanted him to come into his own sense of self apart from me and apart from his dad. As I consider this, I realize too I needed more time. I needed to go through a cleansing process, a healing process -- from lost to found -- before I was ready to share this part of my journey.
Though the details aren't pretty, I hope that your takeway is grace. Grace to forgive. Grace to release. Grace to live. Grace to do it all again and again until you to take back your own Life and are standing in your own Light. Just because something happened to you, doesn’t mean it defines you. You choose. When you realize that, no closet can hold you.
To listen to the radio show, go to the site at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/search/straight-wives-talk-show/ and select the date of October 16, 2011.
