Codependent No More: Don’t Let Some Truth Blind You To The Truth

She’s pulling up in the driveway. It’s 9:00 at night and I’ve been calling her for hours. Why didn’t she pick up? I’m not going to fuss or fight. That always ticks her off. I’m going to use a loving tone. Okay (deep sigh), I hear her turning her key in the lock.

“Hey baby”

“Heyyy sweetie”

“How was your day?" (He kisses her on the cheek)

“Babe, it was sooooo hard. Before you say anything, I saw on my phone that you were callin me; but I was in meeting after meeting.”

“I was worried though. When you didn’t pick up, I didn’t know if you had been in an accident or something.”

“Somethin? I just told you that I was in meeting after meeting. What are you insinuating?”

“I’m not insinuating. Don’t get defensive. I was just concerned. When a man can’t reach his woman, he gets a little crazy.”

“See. I knew that you would jump to conclusions. You know I have a demanding job. Why can’t you trust me? Look, I ain’t got time for this. I’m going to bed.” (She walks to the bedroom and closes the door. He stands there with his mouth opened in disbelief)

Sound familiar? For some of us, this has been the play by play of what just happened last night. Might not be that your partner, boyfriend or spouse had to work late; but it is still reminiscent of that feeling of what in the world just happened.  For me, it’s the excruciating not-returned phone call. Arggggggghhhhhhh! Sure, it’s true that a person can’t always respond to you immediately. But you do wonder if there is a bigger truth when it's the rule. Hence, today’s blog: don’t let some truth blind you to The Truth.

I’m not trying to turn you into Sherlock Holmes. That’s not my intent. For some of you, what you don’t know won’t hurt you is the way you live your life. If that works for you, I say, fabulous. For me, it hasn’t worked. Trading the truth of my intuition for some other truth has not worked for me. I'd dare say it hasn't worked for some men out there either.  They know that something isn’t right or something doesn’t add up. I’m not certain what makes them dismiss it though. For me and maybe women in general, we don’t like to be lied to.  Words have meaning to us.  If you tell us you love us but your actions say you don’t, we’ll hold on or obsess about it because of what you said.

Now, ladies, before you challenge me on this, I ask you, what is the first thing you say when you are complaining about a man to your girlfriends? You will tell them what he did that bothered you, true; but your sticking point 9 times out of 10 is “but he said.” Your confidante can say to you over and over and over (did I say over?) again that he’s playing with you or that he isn’t a good man. Yet, to all their examples, their wisdom, their feedback, what makes you take his phone call yet again is what he says.

Lest I should sound preachy or over generalizing, I will talk about myself. After all, that’s what blogs are for right? My litmus test is when I begin to complain about something. For those who know me, I’m not a complainer. I’m Suzy Sunshine. Suzy Optimistic. Suzy Social. Okay, you get me. So when I start complaining incessantly that is a blaring indicator that something's off.

I use to be a minister at a local church. It was years ago. I wasn’t the traditional minister – the one who stands in the pulpit and preaches when the pastor is taking a break – but more an altar worker. When the pastor would give the altar call and folks would come up for prayer, I was one of the people who greeted them, listened to what they wished to pray about, and prayed with them. I learned a lot during that time in my life. Though people told me they were encouraged and they were helped by me being a minister, it never rang true for me.

So what were the some truths that allowed me to do it? It seemed important to my then-husband.  That was a biggy.  People told me they were about to give up, commit suicide, at wits end but my prayer was the difference. All that appealed to my ego but it was sooo draining!  So why not just walk away?  I needed to feel that I mattered. Being a minister made me important.  At some deep level, I needed to feel accepted by the church as it were. In my previous blogs about losing my voice, I go into more detail about my upbringing and my growing up in a very rigid church culture. It’s funny to me, or should I say peculiar to me, that I wanted to fit in. Maybe that’s the deeper truth that allowed me to give consent to being a minister. 

Every step from some truth to The Truth was necessary. As time progressed, the need for validation was challenged by discontent. I remember when my aha moment came. I was listening to my then-husband talking to others over the phone about what wasn’t right. This was the umpteenth time. You know, the umpteenth time is when you’ve had or just about had enough of whatever it is that’s going on in your life. It was during this umpteenth time of hearing yet again his complaints about the church, the leadership and what he believed about it all that I heard The Truth. “You don’t belong in this.” That was the truth. It wasn’t just the truth of the moment; it was the truth from the beginning. It's not that I didn’t hear it. I did.  The message got lost in my need for validation.  The Truth got buried under my need to have my husband's approval and to be regarded as spiritual by the church's standards.

Codependence will make you do that. Resist what your gut is telling you and make you second-guess. From the beginning, I told my then-husband that the only reason I wanted to join that particular church was for us to worship together as a family. I felt it was a good place. I told him that I had no desire to serve in any capacity there. I didn’t want to become involved in leadership. I had no agenda. Welllllll, time revealed that my then-husband had other ideas. Soooo, I went along to get along as they say. I saw it as his chance to be acknowledged for the valuable man he was. I saw it as my chance to gain his favor.  Had I been standing in my truth, I would have encouraged him to go on and do what was in his heart while I remained true to myself.

Ohhhh the insidiousness of codependency. It parades around as love for someone else. Putting someone else’s needs above your own. Sacrificing from a God-fearing place. But if you peel that banana back, codependency is grounded in fear and insecurity. It was my need to belong that took center stage. Bottom line: My husband needed to be acknowledged and I needed approval.

When you realize that codependency is behind your tolerance of the intolerable, you stop blaming other people.  Insecurity is the mother of codependency. I just came up with that. Sweeeet. Seriously though, that's the culprit, not the other person.  Two insecure people propping themselves up using each other is my definition of codependency. Why did I sit by the phone until I couldn’t take it anymore and came up with a reason to call him? Insecurity. Why did I consent to being a minister when I didn’t feel a calling to do it? Insecurity. The truth had nothing to do with anybody else but me.

Over the years, I’ve learned that time passes and getting older doesn’t necessarily mean you are getting wiser. What makes us wiser isn’t just life experiences, it’s what those experiences teach us about ourselves. It is The Truth that is uncovered. Every single experience in my life has taught me to stop dismissing The Truth just because there is some truth in what people are saying. An abusive man tells his wife that he knocked her head into the wall because she burned the corn bread. In tears, she admits, “He’s right. I did burn the corn bread.” Certainly, there is some truth to what he said, but the deeper truth is he is abusive. Whether it’s corn bread or simply you breathed today, he’s abusive and that has absolutely nothing to do with you. Even more importantly, your consent has nothing to do with him; something inside of you needs to be healed.

Some truth will keep your eyes shut. I call that denial. The deeper truth will open your eyes to what is going on. I call that illumination. But it takes The Truth to heal those eyes. I call that transformation.  As the Good Book says, "and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."  Amen!!

Related articles

• Codependency and Church Ministry (drnickmazza.wordpress.com)
• Tackle Insecurities in Relationships, Find Out If You Are Codependent (personalsunitedstates.wordpress.com)
• Codependency (cherished79.wordpress.com)
• Excessive Parental Expectations and Codependency (revdlesley.net)

About Men: Do You Speak Male? | How to Start Dating Again After Divorce | Dating With Children | New Dating Relationships After Separation

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Saved But Lost?

Finding one’s voice is the need of every human being with a pulse. It’s what enables us to communicate with others, to express ourselves, our needs. It's what allows us to connect with others.  We feel understood, acknowledged by others when they get the meaning behind our words.  Entering a space is not enough.  You might not even notice me.  But if I say something, everyone becomes aware that I am in the room.  I am here.
In our home, God was everything. Every feeling, every impulse, every thought, every action was held to what we saw as His Law. It is interesting to me that people congregate around whatever aspect of God is most familiar to them. I’ve seen many a person impose their ego, their upbringing, their beliefs as they quote different passages in the Bible. For a person who grew up in a loving and welcoming environment, the thought of God not listening, not accepting, not loving them is as foreign as hearing another language. So they go to churches that are nondenominational or inclusive. Or they don't go to church at all.  They find communion in the experience of living, loving and serving outside the four walls.  But for folks like me who grew up with a consciousness deep in oppression, the message of God’s Love was seldom heard. For us, a Loving God would punish you if you didn’t obey him. “He chastens those He loves,” we were taught.

It’s no wonder my mom would tell me I didn’t hear from God. Why would God say something different from what our church super culture would think? Why would God tell me something that was no where in the doctrine, the tradition, the Bible as we understood it? After all, the Holiness church believed they were right and anybody who differed was wrong. So wrong in fact that they were going to hell.

I don’t want you to misunderstand my mom. Her goal was not to hurt me or to confuse me. She was protecting me the best way she knew. She was devout in her beliefs about God. He spoke to her. I remember when I was in college and I was having an affair with a married man. I didn’t tell my mother. She told me that God woke her up and told her that someone was taking advantage of me. She demanded that I give her his name. I wouldn’t. Who wants their mother hunting down the man they are crazy about—even if the operative word is crazy? My jaw dropped to the floor when she came back to me and said that God had given her his name. And the name was right.  That's just one of many examples.  So if this woman said that I didn’t hear God’s voice, then in my mind, she had to be right.

Sad for me, however, that was the day that I lost a significant piece of my soul. Growing up, I didn’t feel seen. I didn’t feel like I mattered. But there was the hope that if I kept on talking, if I kept on saying what I felt, if I kept showing up, they’d eventually pay attention. I just needed to get the right mix of words.  I just needed to say it right.  But the day my mom told me I didn’t hear from God, the light of hope went out. I went from feeling like God saw me, heard me and I really truly undeniably mattered to him to...nothing. I was lost.

The whole premise of salvation is that Jesus died so that we wouldn’t be lost. To accept him as your Savior was to…well…be saved. Saved from what though? As a child, saved meant saved from going to hell. It was simple. God, heaven; the devil, hell. If you didn’t get saved, you’d go to hell. For me, living saved was HARD. Everything that delighted me, excited me, everything I wanted to do was of the devil. Sin, they called it. I wanted to sin. That’s why it was so important that I get filled with the Holy Ghost. It was the spirit of God who gave us power to conquer that desire to sin. Without it, you weren’t sealed. You were vulnerable and unprotected against the devil without the protection the Holy Ghost provided. This is how I saw it and heard it as a child.

What do you do? What do you do when you try to do right but you keep comin up short? What do you do? What do you do when your innocence, your vulnerability is mishandled and the truest, most honest part of you goes into hiding because it is no longer safe? What do you do? I couldn’t imagine my life without God. It was more than the fear of going to hell. God was everything. To not have God was like dying. I soooo wanted Him to love me, to accept me, to approve of me…..to speak to me. I needed help. I wasn’t getting this saved thing right. Nothing I did worked. If I danced in church, I was wrong because it wasn’t pure praise. Pure praise was when the spirit would make you do the holy dance. If I prayed and begged God to take the sin away, it was futile. I kept wanting to sin so that meant I wasn’t getting through to Him. If I went to the altar to receive the Holy Spirit, I was denied. Had to be, cause everybody else would speak in tongues but not me. I’d just cry.

I was lost. How can you be saved but lost? Makes no sense.  It's like an oxymoron.  How can you be claimed but lost?  Singing in the choir, lost. Lifting my hands and crying as I worshipped, lost. Going to revival after revival, church meeting after church meeting, lost. Smiling, lost. Straight A student, lost. I looked the same. I acted the same. Nobody around me knew it. I was high functioning and just as animated.  Still, I was lost. I wasn't enough.  As I sit here, typing on this laptop, I know that the whole point of my journey from that point to this has been about reclaiming what was lost—me.

A Voice Lost

Do you speak your truth? Do you speak up and say what you have to say? Do people know what you think and who you are?


If someone were to ask you who Suzette is, could you tell them? Have I talked the talk and walked the walk authentic to who I am and what I believe? As I look back over my life, where I am is a far cry from where I use to be. What a journey! This morning, my sister and I revisited pivotal moments that beckoned me towards my purpose. Come to think of it, I’m not sure why she called cause I pretty much took over the conversation…lol. Oh Lord! Most folks who know me would say “yep, that’s what you do.” What can I say?

They say that what you are called to do has a lot to do with what you have had to overcome in life. For some, their purpose is revealed in conquering some fear, some trauma, some insecurity. Those vulnerable times in our lives where we were not handled correctly. Someone molested as a child may find purpose in foster parenting. They may feel called to keep other children safe. To provide a high risk child with a home, a family, and a healthy environment in which to grow and thrive.

I grew up a church child. I laughingly tell folks that I might have been born in church! Tongue-speaking, falling out in the floor, holy dancing church. I use to love to sit beside my Grandma Cannon. She’d always wear high heels and I’d love to hear those heels rhythmically tapping against the hard wood church floor synchronized with her double clapping. I’d try so hard to get my short legs to the floor and double clap with my Grandma. So much has changed. Or maybe I should say so much has been revealed. Yeah, that’s a better recollection for the beliefs of those I grew up with and the church culture I was raised in was never ever fully shared by me.

I’m sure that comes as a surprise to many who heard me and my sisters sing at YPHA’s and other church meetings. For those who I praised beside, sang in the choir with and shared a dorm room with during the Sunday School Convention or some other summer church retreat. We were considered those "sangin" Randolph Sisters--well-behaved “good girls.” We were from a Christian home. What nobody knew was that I questioned e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Nothing I was taught about God made sense. So many contradictions. Wearing earrings, makeup and pants were forbidden. When I’d ask why, I was either accused of being rebellious, stubborn or someone would turn to the Old Testament and point out that the women took off their gold earrings to make the golden calf. Orrrr that the Bible said that women weren’t to wear anything pertaining to a man. “What that got to do with now?,” I’d ask.

I was very in tune with my feelings back then. It simply didn’t ring true, so I had a hard time accepting their explanations. Like many parents whose children ask why, why, why, my mom and dad would get irritated with my persistence and pull that "because I said so" card. I was reprimanded harshly for challenging the traditions, the beliefs, the doctrine, the contradictions. If it wasn’t my mom and dad, it was in the testimonies at church or the fire and brimstone sermons.

You’d have thought I would have shut my mouth or retreated inside myself. Not me! I can’t remember a time that I stopped talking. I chuckle when I think about it. Instead of getting quieter, I would become more debating. I would come from another angle cause it just didn’t make sense! I would point things out that nobody wanted to hear. My parents believed that when grown folks were talking, children weren’t suppose to join in. It was considered disrespectful. I learned to stop doing that, but trust me when I say I’d revisit the matter when guests left and it was just us.

What folks don’t know is that there were two things constantly on my mind. Maybe it was because these two things were preached about repeatedly. I already mentioned one, wearing makeup, jewelry and pants. The other was speaking in tongues as evidence that you’ve received the Holy Spirit. I know for some of you, this is foreign. You didn’t grow up in church or the church you attended was nothing like what I am describing. You’re probably glad. Nonetheless, maybe you had a different belief. Every religious practice has some oddity, some belief or practice that you struggle with. Concerned about my two things, I asked my mom for answers. She said to me, “You saved (born again) ain’t you?” “Yes,” I said. “Then God will speak to you.”

God speaking to me? This was difficult for me to comprehend given that up until that time I had no clue what God’s voice sounded like. Folks in church would always say “God said this,” or “God said that” but he won’t sayin NOTHIN to me. “You go in your room and you pray until you hear from God. Don’t you come out until He’s spoken to you,” my mom said firmly.

What happened that day changed my life forever. I sat in the middle of the floor and matter of factly told God I was having a haaard time. I told Him how much I wanted to please Him but I was having difficulty with the dressing thing and with the Holy Ghost thing. I cried and told him that I didn’t want to be rebellious. I didn’t want to be sinful. Cleanse me. In the midst of my self-abasing, my penitent regurgitations modeled after those prayers I heard my mom and dad pray or the older people at Friday night prayer meeting, God spoke to me. I can’t explain how I knew it was Him but somehow I knew. It wasn’t an audible voice like someone was in the room with me. Rather, it was a profound realization that was so intense that it spoke to me.  It spoke to the real me and I felt validated. 

He was direct. To my concerns about pants, jewelry and makeup, He said simply, “I don’t care what you wear. I just want your heart.” What about the Holy Ghost? After all, I was told you had to tarry until you are “endued with power from on high.” God’s answer made every hair on my body stand at attention. “The Holy Ghost is my gift. I give it whatever way I want to.” I was startled. I never ever expected God to say that. It was so different from anything I had ever heard….EVER. And as if He wanted to leave no doubt, He said, “Don’t put me in a box. I’m too big for that.” For the first time in my life, it rang true inside of me. I ran out of the room with tears streaming down my face, gasping because I had actually heard from God. God, the one I had only heard could talk, actually talked to me!!!

I ran to my Mom. “What did God say?,” she asked with anticipation. I’ll never ever forget the power of that moment. It was like God had shared a secret with me, a piece of Himself that nobody else knew, and I was soooo excited to share it with my mom. Imagine my excitement in telling my mom, my spiritual giant, my spiritual authority of all things God. Imagine me telling her exactly what God said. And her response? Wait for it...wait for it.  “Baby, you need to go back. God wouldn’t have told you that.”

That was the day...the hour...the moment when I lost my voice.

Toxic Relationships: True Love Doesn’t Make You Suffer

How do you know whether a relationship is toxic or you're just going through a temporary difficulty? There is no clear-cut answer, but true love doesn't make you suffer. When you reveal your truest vulnerability, you don't want to have to teach Empathy 101 to your partner.  You want to feel okay even in your not okayness.

Who decided that not being able to sleep, losing your appetite and not being able to concentrate meant you are falling in love?  In love, out of love, nobody to love didn't matter.  When I felt like that, it meant I was anxious or obsessing about something.  Love should never make you feel bad inside.  I believe that society and the media has promoted a very unreal representation:  if you aren't suffering emotionally you aren't truly in love. Love doesn't make you lose your sensibilities.  Love does not make you accept being treated poorly.  Love doesn't make you sit by the phone for hours or make you drive to her apartment in a jealous rage to see who she's with. "Love doesn't hurt.  Love is a safe place to be."  I agree with you Oprah.

I'll be the first to admit that I've not been the most loving or the most loveable to folks I claimed to love.  I've blamed, shamed, accused and judged in anger.  Certainly, most of my reactions and behaviors were learned.  But there comes a point where you put away childish things.  It's childish to lose your temper or attack someone verbally.  Proof of maturity is one's ability to control his own tongue.  His own actions.  His own thoughts.  Love is spiritual. It is not born of Ego.

Love is perfect.  People aren't.  That's where the suffering comes to play.  People are flawed.  Think about it.  Loving someone doesn't hurt.  It's when we can't set appropriate boundaries or when we can't let go of seeking validation from that person.  It's our need for things to be different.  Perhaps even a little denial that gets us stuck.  Hurt feelings.  An unmet expectation.  An inability to move beyond the past.  The need for answers, for closure, for revenge.  All these things make us suffer.  I am not suggesting that we are robots.  All I am saying is we need to call it what it is.  Love is not what's making us suffer.  Need perhaps, but not love.  India Aire is one of my favorite Neo Soul artist; however, I don't agree with her lyrics when she sings, "Love made a fool of me.  Tell  me why."

I remember a very stressful time in my life.  My son was probably around 3 years old.  I was a single parent, living from paycheck to paycheck.  My credit card was about maxed out from taking up the slack when rent was due.  I was struggling to make ends meet.  Life was overwhelming!  I snapped at my son if he did the slightest thing.  When I did, a piece of his self esteem would fall to the floor.  I felt guilty and remorseful sometimes.  At others, I convinced myself that he was deserving of my actions because of what he did.   

This went on longer than I think it should have.  My son started saying stuff like, "I'll be good mommy so you won't get mad."  "I'm sorry, mommy, I'll be good."  He was starting to blame himself for my irritability.  Well, one day after I gave him a pretty severe verbal whipping, I heard a voice rise from within me.  It was firm.  "Don't you apologize to him not one more time if you're not gonna change."  Stopped me dead in my tracks.  I realized that I was wrong and began to ask God to help me.  That same voice said, "What can you do?"  I began to consider the resources at my disposal, one being family counseling.  I made the call. 

I understand that it's almost impossible to be in your 40's or older without baggage.  Whether you share a child with an ex, are caring for a sick parent, are still trying to dig yourself out post-divorce, have mounting medical issues, we got something that has to be managed.  A dear friend of mine and I examined and discussed this at length.  Yes, there may be external issues but there shouldn't be internal issues.  The baggage shouldn't be emotional baggage.  At some point, we have to make our peace with stuff we've been through.  

I've heard single men and women ask, "where are all the good men?"  "Where are all the good women?"  To this I say, you have to be the change you want to see in others.  How in the world do you think you are even remotely ready for a relationship when you can't get out of your own head?  "I have standards," you might argue.  I challenge this.  What most folks say is their standard is nothing more than an ideal.  Pure and simple.  Ideals are self-serving and not grounded in what really matters.  Standards, on the other hand, are substantive.  They are best expressed in our values and our character.  Values like love of family and country.  Values like respecting womanhood or honoring manhood.  Values like being a person of your word.  The ideal man may be the one who wines and dines you.  Standards however make you look at what's behind his behavior.  If he is only doing it to impress you or obligate you to have sex with him, then that's manipulative.  If she's only dating you to get her light bill paid, that's extortion.

Life is a reflection of who we are.  If we can't find a good relationship partner, then what part are we playing?  I had to ask myself that.  What was I doing that kept bringing me what I didn't want?  Many of us were taught that it was our ability to accomodate a man's needs that made us marriageable.  That might have worked back in the day, but men and women are in a different place now.  So what if you can cook, go to church, have a great job or look good.  That's not enough to experience true love and a committed partner.  Are you open and have a good spirit about you?  Are you warm and genuine to those whom you date or are you a critic?  Do you believe that a good man or good woman would want you?  What you believe about yourself and the energy that you put out is what needs your attention not another tip on how to better market yourself.  I don't know who said it, but it is true.  We attract what we believe we deserve. 

I Am Still. I Am Open. I Am Listening.

Upon awakening this morning, I decided to roll over from my side-sleeping position to laying on  my back.  Normally, I would immediately begin to talk to God:  Good morning, thank you for another day and praying in a pondering-type fashion whatever came to my mind.  This morning was different.  I remembered Kathy Freston, the author of Quantum Wellness, saying that one of the pillars to wellness is getting still.  Taking time out of your busy day--just a minute--to quiet and get centered. This unction, if you will, meshed with the mantras Iyanla Vanzant led participants in Oprah's Friday Live Webcast to repeat after they asked for help with stuck places in their lives.  Lying in bed, I tried different ones that I recalled; but something fresh rose out of me:  I am still.  I am open.  I am listening.  When I breathed in deeply and exhaled, these words lifted me out of myself. Out of my agenda.

I am still.  Rather than launching into reflection or meditating on the highs and lows of my life, I decided to still myself.  To settle into the moment of just waking.  I am alive.  I am here.  It's a blessing.

I am open.  I'll admit that it's easy to bring an agenda to praying.  Lord, help me with this. Lord I need that.  But this time, I decided to let God lead.  That Wiser part of me.  I am open.  I am not expecting something to happen.  I am not seeking relief or release.  I am just open to whatever.  I have no expectations of this moment.  No preconceptions.  I will not judge, try to legislate or even hold myself or God to any ideal or construct.

I am listening.  I am attentive to what my body is doing.  My breathing.  I am allowing my mantra to go from my mind to soaking into every part of me.  Everytime I say these words aloud or hear them in my head, I feel them sinking deeper and deeper.  Not only do I hear what's bothering me--things I have used busyness to avoid--but I am not intimidated.  I am still.  I am open.  I... am... listening.

As I moved from a posture of stillness, openness and attentiveness to embodying it, I became aware of a thought I had tried to ignore.  Nonetheless, it was persisting.  I felt my inner light dim with the negativism of that thought.  I had never noticed that before.  I also became conscious of how allowing that thought was robbing me of the joy and gratitude I felt before the thought came.  I was intrigued.  Maybe I was more sensitive due to all the Life Class work I had been doing, still I was glad that I recognized the toxic nature of that thought. When I realized it didn't fit my core values or the person I am or what I wanted my takeaway to be, I felt my breathing in and out take on a purpose.  I took in a d-e-e-p breath. "I inhale Light," said the voice of my Enlightenment. I let the breath go.  "I exhale darkness."  I breathe in what's good for me.  I breathe out what's toxic. 

I saw it for what it was.  My ego.  My ego wanting to control what other people did.  My ego trying to villify them for not meeting my expectations.  "See," it said, trying to make someone else pay for my own insecurity.  That is what the ego does.  It seeks to avoid being responsible for itself by blaming something or someone else.  I am reminded that I am in control of what I allow to affect me.  And when I say I, I am talking about the real me.  The spiritual part of me.  The conscious me.  The loving me.  In stillness, my insecurity masquerading as ego usurping itself as a persistent thought was exposed, expelled and I felt the warmth, the joy and the love, that is me, restored.  

Straight Wives: Coming Out Of The Closet

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.