Grieving Your Heterosexual Life/Identity

No one ever said coming out was easy. Chances are, it will not be easy for you either.

Coming out means potentially losing a lot. It is possible to lose one’s family (both immediate and extended), friends, home, job, etc. Coming out is never done without cost. At the very least, one’s self-image must be reinvented. This reinvention requires that part of one’s self-image must be changed, and part of that process is to grieve one or more losses. Each person grieves in his own way, but the stages of grief apply to most:

Denial: I am not different. This will be easy. Nothing will change except having sex with men rather than women. A relationship is a relationship, just different parts. No one needs to know, this is private.

Anger: This is not fair. This should not be happening to me. It messes up everything. People will not like me anymore. They will only see that I am gay and I can’t handle that. Why me? I did not ask for this. I don’t want it. I won’t do it.

Bargaining: I will only tell a few people. I will only have sex or be gay when I am out of town. I will only get oral sex or be the top, because that means I am not gay. I am not like that.

Depression: I don’t see a way to be happy. I can’t be gay. I can’t come out. I can’t stand this lie anymore. It is killing me. There is no happy ending for me.

Acceptance: It won’t be easy, but I will do what I have to do. I want to be happy; I want to be who I really am. I am worth it and people who love me will love me no matter what.

The loss can include loss of social status, loss of relatives and friends, loss of jobs, loss of church/religion, and loss of money. Each loss has its own process and consequence. Some men pay higher prices to be who they really are and live in integrity. For the vast majority, the journey is worth the price and they become much better, happier people. But it is crucial that the stages of grief be felt and expressed in whatever way is appropriate for each individual.

Letting Go of Living Straight

How do you handle knowing that your own most fundamental assumptions about yourself were wrong?  How would you reinvent yourself in your forties if you began to suspect that much of your life had been built on a lie – or at least a critical misperception?  Dr. Loren A. Olson,a prominent Midwestern psychiatrist, faced this situation when he finally confronted the fact that despite almost twenty years of marriage to a woman he loved he needed to divorce her, as he realized and accepted that he  was gay.

Dr. Olson is author of Finally Out – Letting Go of Living Straight and provides insight and wisdom to others experiencing the same situation.  

Whether it be a husband or wife that finds themselves questioning their own sexuality or a family member or children dealing with accepting their new reality.  Dr. Olson help us understand the journey not just from someone who has lived it, but also as a professional psychiatrist.

Listen to the audio: Finally Out- Letting Go of Living Straight 

It is estimated that approximately four million women are married to a gay husband, here in the USA.  Plus the additional millions worldwide.   Twenty percent of gay men in the USA are married to a straight woman.  Twenty percent of all gay men in America are in a heterosexual marriage.  Fifty percent of all gay men in America have fathered children.  An estimated 6 million to 14 million children have a gay parent.   

Research shows that more than 80% of mixed-orientation marriages end in divorce. But divorce is not necessarily inevitable for these marriages.  According to Amity Buxton of the Straight Spouse Network,  "When the gay, lesbian, or bisexual spouse comes out, a third of the couples break up immediately; another third stay together for one to two years, sorting out what to do and then divorce; the remaining third try to make their marriages work. A half of these couples divorce, while half of them (17% of the total) stay together for three or more years."   Straight Spouse Network                                                                                         

We have great compassion for men who are gay and are in mixed orientation relationships or marriages.  This situation cannot be easy for you the gay spouse, because we believe almost every man entered his marriage loving his wife and hoping to spend his life with her. Most gay men believed that loving their wives would take away those "urges" to be with men because the pressure in our society not to be gay is so great.