It would be very difficult to realize that you were not "compatible" with your current spouse in a very deep, profound way — e.g., in realizing (or accepting) that you're gay. No matter how you would deal with the situation, it would not be easy. Indeed, I suspect that, more than other sorts of marital breakups, it would be a lot harder, with the potential for a lot more heartbreak on all sides.
Which is where the "it would be difficult" part of the equation would encompass the other half of the relationship, the straight spouse. I can't imagine how that would feel. It would have all the "normal" trauma of a spouse leaving you, but with additional baggage of "Should I have known? Did I know? What will people say? " — perhaps combined with wanting to be happy for the ex finding a profound key to their own happiness, or feeling particularly betrayed or feeling a failure if you see homosexuality as something awful.
It's good to hear that there is an organization out there specifically dedicated to helping such spouses left behind.
Perhaps, in a world were homosexuality mustn't be kept a deep, dark, shameful secret, these sorts of breakups will be less common — and, when they happen, they won't be so uniquely traumatic. One can hope. #ddtb
Reshared post from +David Badash
Help for those who are often forgotten.
Embedded Link
On Our Radar – The Straight Spouse Network
The Straight Spouse Network helps you when your wife tells you over breakfast that she is in love with another woman, and she is moving her in and you out.
Too bad this didn’t exist in the 70s for my parents. While I feel the worst for my Mom, who loved my father to the day he died, I also feel very bad for my Dad, who was forced through the social pressures of the time (late 50s into the 60s) to completely deny who he really was.
I know my father was wounded by how much he hurt my Mom, but I don’t think continuing to pretend to be something he wasn’t would have been better.
I know a lot of folks who wonder why I don’t have a bad attitude towards gay folks, but I loved my Dad, and in the summers I spend with him after the divorce I got to see the truly spectacular gay scene in Minneapolis, and all the great people he knew. And that’s what they were to me, people.
Unfortunately that community (including my Dad) were ravaged by the AIDs epidemic of the late 80s, cutting short a lot of amazing lives, and preventing my parents from being able to trult reach peace.
Thanks for the note, Arty; I appreciate the first person history. As I thought, it’s a situation fraught with heartache, guilt, denial, and anger for all parties concerned — and a big part of it has been founded on the need to “live a lie” until it becomes intolerable. My hope is that in the future that will be much less of a problem.