Divorce

Life as Straight Spouse: Living with the Scarlet G

Date: August 25, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Gay Rights, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 8 Replies
G

G (Photo credit: chrisinplymouth)

In the American classic  “The Scarlet Letter” Nathanial Hawthorne wrote about Hester Prynne, a woman who conceived a daughter through an adulterous affair with a minister.  Her community, in 17th century Massachusetts, forces her to wear a red-letter “A” upon all of her clothing as a constant reminder of her transgression, and to publicly humiliate her.

Since I left my closeted gay husband nearly three years ago, I can relate to Prynne all too well as I have felt like a giant “G” for gay follows me wherever I go.  But in my case the symbolic “G” I wear on my heart is bedazzled like a disco ball and surrounded by flashing lights.

This morning, on a dating website I get the following from a man who lives in all places Northern Illinois…I live in Brooklyn, NY so I have no idea why he wrote to me to begin with…

You seem to have a history of dating gay guys, at least that’s how your answers look to the casual observer. What’s up with that? You also said you just got divorced, is that what happened? I feel bad for you if that’s what happened… 🙁 Also, sex with the lights on should be a bit different than with them off, not exactly the same.

There is nothing on my profile that indicates that I divorced a gay man.  The questions section is a separate section that another user would have to dig deeper to read.  A few of the questions are about having sex with someone of the same gender or bisexuality, I did make some comments in that section but I never once say anything as blatant as…my ex was gay.  I write things like if you even think you might be gay, please keep looking I am not the girl for you.   The man from Illinois who sent this lovely email to me this morning…looked gay himself.  He had artificially streaked blonde hair, and a couple of modeling shots that looked straight out of a gay sporting magazine – hairless bare chest and all.

I debated if I should just delete the email and move on.  The last line about “sex with the lights on” really pushed me over the edge so I decided to write a response.  I basically told him he was projecting and that to most women he might appear gay himself.  I also encouraged him, that if he was gay that he should come out of the closet.  I even suggested he read a book about gay self-hatred called “The Velvet Rage”.   I know I should have deleted the email and not given it a second thought, but I sort of snapped.  And I wouldn’t normally try to forcibly “out” anyone but since he had done the same to me, I didn’t hold back.

I spend nearly every day of my life trying to talk myself down from the very things this stranger from Illinois put in his email.   Every day, I reinforce the sentiment that I am worthy of a normal relationship, that I am not defective or sexually inadequate.   But then something like this happens and I think to myself…

“Maybe that is why I have had such a hard time dating”

Maybe deep down that is how straight men see me, as damaged or frigid.  They may think to themselves what kind of woman would marry a gay man?

Because I have been so public and open about my situation I cannot escape my past.  A common saying in the straight spouse community is that when our spouses come out of the closet we retreat into our own.  In many mixed orientation marriages, a straight spouse is forced to keep secrets for months, sometimes years to protect their partner.  I understand why each situation is different, as there are no easy answers for many mixed orientation marriages on the right time to disclose the truth.   In my example I really didn’t see the need to continue the lies as my spouse and I had no children, and his sexual orientation would not affect his career.  When my spouse came out of the closet, I made sure the doors were open as wide as possible.

I don’t regret that decision, but there has been a cost.  By putting it out there, I can’t decide when I reveal this information to a potential new partner.  If I try to hide it and they find this blog or any of the articles I have written for the Huffington Post, I look suspicious.  Even if I wanted to delete every article that I have written about my marriage on this blog, the Huffington Post pieces remain, and I honestly don’t regret writing a single syllable.  And since I have been working on a memoir about my marriage for months, the topic dominates my thoughts anyway.

I assume that some men might think I am asexual, have a decreased sex drive or that I find them attractive because they read as gay.   I have no idea, but I know that since I have been single, I have had very little luck dating anyone.  I guess many think I must have had something seriously wrong with me to have ended up in such a marriage.

But what I have found when I have met other straight spouses is that the problem doesn’t lie with us, it lies with our spouses.  Most straight spouses are if anything, too loyal, nurturing and understanding towards their partners.  We attracted our spouses in part because they knew we were the type of people who would stand by them.  And then we get stigmatized when we did nothing more but to love another person unconditionally.  It hardly seems fair, but so much of being a straight spouse is not fair.

Since I started writing about my marriage I occasionally get insanely cruel comments from strangers who mock my circumstances.  I know I would have laid down my life for my spouse if needed, and that I put my entire heart and soul into my marriage.  I  believed that marriage was a sacred institution and did everything to keep mine intact.  But there was nothing I could do to keep a house of cards from falling over.  And now despite everything I have done to improve my life and move on, there are some that would still blame me for the lies of my former partner.  But thanks to the internet I know I am not alone and that straight spouses are some of the strongest people out there.  Eventually this will be so far in my past that I will no longer be defined by it, I will be in a loving committed relationship and won’t have to deal with random closeted men from Northern Illinois sending me hateful emails.

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Dating in NYC: The Cool Detachment

Date: August 3, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating - NYC, Depression, Divorce, New York City, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 8 Replies
Emotion

Emotion (Photo credit: rexquisite)

Since my divorce, I can’t seem to do anything right when it comes to dating.  I try to hard, I don’t try hard enough, I go out too much I stay inside my apartment for days on end, it doesn’t seem to matter.   I have read multiple books on dating, even ones on male psychology and they don’t seem to help.  I have sat down with male friends and tried to get feedback on how their brains work.  I have shared numerous stories with fellow single women all which end in a similar refrain a lot of heartache and disappointment.  I just don’t get this city.  But I think I am starting to figure out the missing element, and it isn’t something that I can grow overnight, nor do I necessarily want to develop.

It’s the cool detachment, the emotional wall, the blase manner, the cavalier treatment of other people like they are hardly worth a moment’s notice.  Detachment is the style of the many tribes in this city.  And I am like tissue paper, desperately trying to suppress emotion and play things off like I don’t care, but I desperately care.  I want what I lost, but the longer I keep looking for it the more it seems like an unattainable goal.   I push down my emotions and smother them as best I can, because the more my emotions show the more they scare everyone away from me.  And yet I still do everything wrong.  I try to play it cool, act as if I couldn’t care less, and I get away with it most of the time.  But then I start to care, not full throttle, just a hint.  I let my guard down for a moment and try to let someone new into my life and the whole thing collapses before it begins.  I don’t know what to do.  I try to do the right thing.  I don’t see the point in going out with someone who is still tortured by his ex-wife, or an ex-girlfriend, so when I meet men like this and I meet many…I politely walk away.  And I won’t go out with someone who is already married or in a relationship, I don’t need that kind of bad karma.  And I would never do to someone else what another did to me.  So I try to allow things to slowly grow and give things space and time but it never works out and I remain alone and broken.

So I hide and try to erase the past decade or so of my life.  I tell myself “Don’t talk about your divorce, don’t talk about your divorce” and it feels like not talking about everything that has completely re-built and shaped me for the past three years.  Don’t talk about your fears, don’t show weakness, don’t show that you actually care or give a damn.  Just play it cool, the others around you are doing it and they are winning.  Well they might not be winning but at least they seem to play the game better than I do.  But I am who I am and that is a fairly emotional person, so it feels like shoving myself into a vice that is pinching me on all sides.  And I see it on the faces of new men that I met, when I was younger it seemed like there was more excitement in the game, now it is everyone trying to out “cool” each other.   Everyone tells me to just be myself and it will all be OK, but when I am myself nothing works out.

How did we get like this?  How is it the only way to successfully date in New York City is to get so jaded and so burned that you just stop showing any passion.  I don’t want to turn into that person, but I honestly have no idea how I can go on like this.  Never more than a couple of dates and the whole thing implodes, and in some cases it just dies without much fanfare at all.  Men fall for the image of me, not my reality – a complicated, damaged and world-weary soul.  But I have survived so much horror and lived to tell about it.  I have nine years of a relationship that went to hell and back and didn’t give up on it until it was obviously beyond hope.  Shouldn’t my loyalty and dedication count for something?  I would be the last person to flippantly leave a relationship over something trivial or the next big thing.  I guess in a city where everyone is replaceable and there is always a newer, younger, shinier version walking down the street, none of this matters.  I sometimes think that the overwhelmingly promiscuous nature of this city comes from people who have just grown so tired of trying for something more and they give in to anything to ease the feeling of loneliness and pain.  And at least a fleeting moment of human contact can smother it, if for a second.  But like any drug used to feed a hunger that it cannot truly contain, more and more is needed until it the fix becomes insatiable and the cycle continues.

So many have called New York an emotional desert and I just keep trying to prove them wrong.  I am not going to become a deadened human being, I refuse to let that happen to me.   And I have to be true to myself, so I will keep hoping that something will change.  At this point I have very little left to keep me going besides hope, so until I meet someone who can put up with Ms. emotional over here, that is my reality.

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A Loving Couple: What Gay Marriage Really Looks Like

Date: August 3, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Gay Rights, Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Straight Spouse
Comments: 1 Reply

Any regular readers of this blog already know, I am a straight spouse.  A straight spouse is a person who married someone who they thought was straight only to find out years later that their partner was actually secretly gay.   My marriage was smoke and mirrors of lies, deception and ultimately betrayal.  From the outside my marriage appeared completely normal but we were both stuck in a miserable union.  I blame homophobia and the fear of homosexuality in part for the phenomena of gay men and women entering into these unions.  Every straight spouse knows all to well the personal hell that is a mixed orientation marriage.  Our partners, filled with so much self-loathing, bent themselves into knots to become something they weren’t and thousands of spouses and children end up as collateral damage to these sham marriages.    And then there is a marriage, like this one…

Tom & Jon

I remember when Jon first met Tom.  Jon was an actor, and Tom was a writer.  They had the same easy-going sense of humor and love of all things nerdy.   Smart, funny and supportive of their friends they were both well liked by almost everyone who knew them. Tom and Jon were one of those couples that were so cute together, they even dressed alike.  I haven’t seen either of them in years but we keep in touch thanks to Facebook and email.

Anyone terrified of same-sex marriage should watch this video.  Jon and Tom are just like any married couple.  They have a lot of the same interests, they love each other deeply and live fairly ordinary lives.   When I watch this I don’t see the end of civilization or the return of Sodom and Gomorrah, I just see a wonderful man who is very proud of his partner and his marriage.   And honestly I have been witness to some fairly dysfunctional and abusive straight marriages…haven’t we all?  Marriage is a crap shoot and if these two men can live together happily with their two cats, why should anyone care?  The whole point of a secular marriage is if one of them gets sick, the other one can visit them in the hospital, if one of them dies they can leave their estate to the other and on and on.  They should have the right to the same legal protections that any married couple have in this country.  Same sex couples aren’t storming churches demanding that the faithful accept them into their congregations.  They aren’t  pushing for legislation to ban straight marriages, or to make it legal for a gay employer to fire a straight employee based on their sexual orientation.  They aren’t promoting laws to make heterosexual sex illegal.  They aren’t designing programs to make straight people gay.   They just want to live their lives in peace.  This is NOT the end of the world, this is normal.

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Dating After Divorce: Disposable People

Date: July 23, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating - NYC, Depression, Divorce, Gay Husband, New York City, Relationships, Uncategorized
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The above pair is my favorite pair of shoes on the planet.  Shoes, clothing, perfume, makeup all make me extremely happy.  The above pair I don’t wear often, but every time I step out in these I feel quite happy when they are on my feet.  Right after I got this pair of nearly perfect footwear there was a problem.  The sole of the heel broke off, and I didn’t realize it until I got them home.  The wear and tear of walking around on them like this had begun to grind down the heel.  I took them too my best shoe repair shop and for only $12 were repaired to a condition that was better then when I bought them.  The sole that the repairman placed on the shoes was thicker and stronger than the original.   Since my divorce, subsequent meltdown, massive depression and the recovery that followed I feel a lot like my favorite pair of heels.  Surviving my crisis and the hell that followed it has actually made me stronger as a person and a better potential mate for a partner, but the rest of the world doesn’t always see it that way.

I have written about this topic before in other blog posts.  In another article I called it “The Shiny Penny Syndrome”.  The idea that no matter how nice a partner you have in front of you, there might be something just better around the corner so why bother investing in keeping the partner you already have.   We have an epidemic of this mentality in New York City.  It only gets worse as we age and the older and more world-weary a person become the most banged up and tarnished they might seem to a potential suitor.  From the email and comments I get I have to think it is a common problem throughout the US, especially single people over 35.

I have read numerous articles about men getting so fixated on porn that real women do not measure up to the glorified standard of their virtual lovers.  A porn star is always young, ready willing and able with proportions and assets that few real women posses.  Never mind the porn star cannot actually be touched or embraced, or listen to a man’s problems, comfort him while he is sick or just sit quietly next to him on a sofa watching a movie.  The porn star is always the predictable and controllable.  She won’t call him with her own problems, won’t demand that he go to a party with her friends, won’t beg him away from a game, she won’t have a moody day when she wants time on her own, and she won’t nag him to do the dishes.   A porn star is always convenient, she does everything expected of her and nothing more.

Women also do this, expecting their perfect match to not only be kind, caring, and an amazing lover but also physically fit and taller than average.  The guy has to live close and have a good job, but not one that takes him away or causes him to work 14 hours a day.  He must respond to text messages, phone calls and always be emotionally available but not a wimp or too sensitive that he comes across as feminine.  He must love her friends and all of her interests and hobbies and never even think of straying or even look at other women.  Some women are hoping that the perpetually young, financially stable, quirky but masculine lover from their favorite romantic comedy will just bump into them on the street and change their lives forever.

Of course not every man fixates on idealized porn perfection and not every female wants some wealthy living breathing Ken doll with a stock portfolio to rival Mitt Romney.  But what gives?  Dating since my divorce has just left me feeling like a disposable girlfriend, good for an amount of time, then discarded without too much fanfare.  I have difficultly bonding anyway, so this type of behavior just makes me more wary, and more emotionally distant and distrusting.  Humans are more than the sum of our parts: a nice ass, pretty eyes, a good job or a decent apartment.   Why do we treat each other like this?  Why do I keep hearing stories from friends both male and female that sound the same.  Guy meets girl, gets really excited then drops her like a hot rock because he finds too many “deal breakers”.  Or girl meets guy gets really excited and then drops him when she realizes he isn’t exactly what she was looking for in a partner.

For some people in the dating pool, other human beings are nothing more than an object.  A new person is like a new pair of shoes thrown away when they don’t quite live up to their expectations.  The shoes looked so ideal at first, but once worn the shine is gone and the shoes tossed.   Meanwhile cluttering the universe are thousands of bright, shiny, new shoes that will surely fulfill expectations.  Perhaps it is our “You can have it all” consumerist mentality that is always preaching the gospel of never-ending search for perfection.  Why have a girlfriend with cellulite when you can have one with smooth thighs, never mind that you are 45.  Why have a boyfriend who is losing his hair, or is your exact height when you can date someone who looks like a movie star and runs a hedge fund to boot!

Are we turning into spoiled children who will never be satisfied?  Does our culture run on nothing more than pushing the next big thing down our throats?  And to get us to want more, more, more we have to feel bad about what we already have?  I don’t think we are quite there yet, and I hope we never get there.  After all we are human beings with flaws, dents, hang-ups and emotional baggage…and not just a lousy pair of shoes.

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Growing up with Depression

Date: July 13, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Depression, Divorce, Gay Husband
Comments: 11 Replies

First Day of School

I guess it has always been there to some degree since childhood.  I would love to say that my childhood was happy and that everyone around me was loving and supportive.  But who has that childhood?  I have met a few who have been fortunate enough to at least have strength in their basic foundational relationships.  The lucky few who are supported by both their parents, have a secure and safe environment, and a steady predictable routine. My upbringing was relatively stable in most respects but emotionally I would describe it as volatile.

I don’t blame my parents, and at my age I would feel a bit silly putting any blame on them considering my circumstances.  I wasn’t abandoned or left to starve and I wasn’t neglected or ridiculed.  My parents got married young and had four children in five years.  We didn’t grow up with much, and money was a constant source of stress and anxiety.  Their marriage wasn’t perfect and they were not ideal parents but they always made their children their primary concern.  So with all of their faults I knew the did the best they could consider the obstacles they were up against.   I may not have had a father I could have tender moments with, but he worked overtime, marched on picket lines and lived with very little material wealth for the sake of his children.  My mother was in over her head with four babies and a husband who worked all the time but she always made us the center of the universe.   She constantly took us to trips to the library, bought us every educational toy or game we could afford and made sure we did our homework.  She may have been too obsessed, but I would rather grow up with her than an indifferent mother.

School wasn’t much of a solace as I was awkward and socially withdrawn.  I found children my age to be a bit of a mystery and found more enjoyment reading a book than playing with other kids.  There is much more I could write about, but I won’t because I cherish relationships I have with certain family members.  I don’t want to dredge up old traumas for the sake of this blog.  Some things need to remain private, for the sake of my siblings and my immediate family.   When things got bad I literally hid in a closet in our basement.  I would shut the door and wait for my world to stop spinning out of control.  To this day I don’t think anyone in my family knew I would go down there, I guess they might know now…if they read this blog.

Depression has always been there.  The dread that will sometimes wash over me that I can’t shake.  It causes me to overreact and panic and lose faith in others.   My divorce made it much more pronounced but depression has been with me for as long as I can remember.  I had no idea how bad it would get until post-divorce I became suicidal and nearly completely lost my sanity.  Clinical depression is nothing to joke about or to shrug off as just the blues.  I realize now that I suffered from a mental illness that is quite common but extremely frustrating to manage.  But I fought back with traditional therapy, medication, cognitive behavioral therapy and eventually my situation greatly improved.

Although now, I can feel the seductive pull of the dark clouds sucking me back in from time to time.  At first it feels comfortable to give in to the black moods and collapse in tears but they soon take over.  Instead of having a quick therapeutic moment of release the dread wins out and starts to devour me.  I find myself lying on my bed looking straight up trying to fight back a panic attack.  I haven’t had one in over a year, and I am so proud that I have been able to stop them but when things get bad it is a constant struggle.  At least now I know I have some control, I don’t have to huddle in a closet until it passes.   Just knowing that I have some control has been paramount to my recovery.  As a child I didn’t know what it was, I couldn’t understand why I wanted to retreat by myself, why I had difficulty dealing with other and why I constantly had crying fits that were nearly inconsolable.   I couldn’t understand why things got so black in my head, and why hope was such a hard thing to imagine.  My Catholic upbringing caused me to look for a supernatural source but now I know the real demons live inside my head.  If it is brain chemistry or some genetic defect I don’t know, or if repeated trauma caused something in my brain to develop abnormally.  The source of my depression doesn’t really matter, at least that is what therapy taught me.  What matters is management, and trying to live with and fight against this affliction.

For the most part I do alright.  I am so much better off than I was just a year ago, but I still struggle.  I know from the amazing feedback I have gotten from this blog and from fellow sufferers of depression that this disease is a tricky one.  If you are reading this and you have struggled with depression since you were a child, don’t give up hope.  You can and will beat it.  Some of us aren’t as lucky in life as others, some of us are born with more obstacles that the average person, and some of us are born with the biology that causes depression.  But it doesn’t mean that we can’t beat this disease and we can’t overcome it.

I wish I knew what I know now when I was six years old, if I could I would go back to that little girl with the ice blonde hair and the rosy cheeks and tell her that God isn’t punishing her when the gloom overtakes her mind.   Whatever is going on in her head is not pay back for any sins she committed and it is not a battle between good and evil.  The dark moods are just a slight flaw in her wiring, and that flaw is depression.  Everyone has a flaw, no little girl is born perfect.

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Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise Divorce – WTF?

Date: July 10, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 3 Replies
English: Cropped image of Tom Cruise and Katie...

English: Cropped image of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Photo taken at the White House Correspondents Dinner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I wish I had a better title for this piece, but I don’t.   I debated even writing about this, but since I write about divorce I thought I would give it a shot.  I just want to slap my forehead every time I see anything about this ridiculous divorce.  I say ridiculous because I know many of my readers are fellow divorced men and women, few of whom had divorces that even remotely resembled this farce.  I think what annoys me the most is how easy it seems for both parties to simply walk away from this marriage.  According to the press and their respective publicists, Katie acquired an apartment without Tom’s knowledge and hit him with divorce papers right before his birthday and while he was out of the country.  They both secure top counsel and work out a settlement in less than two weeks time, including child support and a custody agreement.

Who in holy hell has a divorce like this?  I don’t know of any couple, including some who are extremely wealthy who managed a feat quite like this.   The whole thing just screams either blackmail on the part of Ms. Holmes or fraud.  So either Katie Holmes has information that would incredibly embarrass Tom Cruise and that is why he is so quick to settle, or the marriage was a ruse from the start.   I don’t know and I don’t really care.   I think I have gotten so angry towards this drama because it perpetuates a myth that getting divorced is somehow easy.   For starters they aren’t divorced yet, they only reached a settlement.  Their paperwork will still have to make it through the court system and the courts don’t care how much money you make or how much you paid for your attorney.  Everyone has to get in line behind every other couple already waiting in New York state.  Rumor has it that Manhattan is quicker than Brooklyn, but it should probably take at least a couple of months before they are truly legally divorced.  Their divorce will go through more quickly thanks to no-fault divorce in New York state.  Before the changes in New York state divorce law Katie would have had to file for legal separation and waited a year before moving forward.

No divorced couple I know has ever settled this quickly.  It is especially odd since divorce attorneys of the very wealthy actually like to stretch these things out as long as possible as it increases their fees.   Also for Tom to give Katie full custody without much of a fight at all, just seems flat-out bizarre.  Most judges would have given him joint custody, he has no criminal record, no substance abuse, no domestic violence history and he lives the same chaotic lifestyle that his wife does.   Some parents get completely screwed over in child custody situations, but someone with Tom Cruise’s deep pockets and squeaky clean record would not have had a problem.  He basically got full custody of his two children with Nicole Kidman, and since he was the primary parent of two other children it would only have helped him in court.  Something tells me that she had some incriminating evidence on him and that is why he might have caved.  Or there might also be some credence to the rumors that Suri was not his biological child, and that is why he is walking away from this so quickly and easily.   He might have also seen this coming for months rather than being surprised as he claims.  Here are some reasons most of us spends months if not years in litigation over a divorce.

  • One spouse will stretch out the divorce out of spite
  • One side will stretch it out to try to get the other spouse back
  • Fighting over every stupid little possession
  • The couples engage in a full on custody war
  • The couple doesn’t have the funds to pay for a lawyer and court fees
  • The two parties cannot decide on an equitable split of assets especially property
  • One spouse refuses to cooperate and won’t go to court or get an attorney
  • One spouse leaves the state or country to avoid dealing with the divorce
  • One spouse is physically threatening the other
  • One spouse completely bankrupted the other before they could get a lawyer – clean out bank accounts, drove up credit cards, etc.

For most of us, our lawyers aren’t going to dedicate all of their time for our case.  My lawyer forgot about my case and added an extra four months of waiting.  He tried to fix the dates on the documents but he let a few slide and it was obvious my paperwork was just sitting on his desk for no apparent reason for at least two months.  He was an inexpensive lawyer with dozens of cases, these things happen.  With expensive lawyers and huge retaining fees, divorces move quickly I guess.

The lack of passion in the Holmes/Cruise divorce makes me think that the marriage never had any real passion to begin with.  If she truly blind-sided him why would he settle so quickly.  Watching this unfold is like looking at an alternate universe of how the other half lives…not like the rest of us.    And if he thought by settling so quickly he would improve his reputation or avoid scandal his plan backfired.  Now more people are even more suspicious of his religion, his sexual orientation and the validity of the marriage.  To my fellow divorced friends out there, we know it isn’t like this.  Hang in there and when in doubt reach out to someone who has been through it themselves, the 99% don’t wrap everything up so neat and tidy in less than two weeks.

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Life After Divorce: When you Lose Half your Friends

Date: July 6, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 10 Replies

Divorces are in some ways like wars between two rival factions.  Just like a city that has been carpet bombed, some closest to the impact are vaporized while others remain completely unscathed.  Who remains standing is almost random.  In-laws might also completely abandon the non-related spouse regardless of the reasons of the split.   When a couple decides to separate they usually have no idea how many other relationships they might damage or destroy in the process.

Bending Reality

For some friends who want to stay close to your spouse, they will bend, twist and invent reality in order to justify their loyalties.  In one such case I can think of a spouse who had not one but multiple affairs.  The affairs were blatant, public and included some of his spouses’ friends.  When the couple finally split, it was almost shocking to hear certain friends of the couple declare.

“That poor man, she won’t even work on the marriage”

So was it the wife who wouldn’t work on the marriage or was the husband having multiple affairs?  Maybe she had just given up at that point, it wasn’t a one time fling while on a business trip, he had full-blown affairs with other women including one that was on-going while they were working out the terms of their divorce.  I know I am picking sides here, but I would say the husband was probably more to blame in this situation than the wife.  Numerous serial affairs including people she trusted and called friends over a period of several years, and somehow the divorce was her fault?  It makes the mind spin.

The Public Relations War

When two celebrities divorce it is just a given that professional publicists are feeding stories to the press to make their clients look as good as possible  The same thing happens on a smaller scale when any couple splits.  Both parties act as their own public relations team leaving out horrible misdeeds and cruelty they have inflicted on the other.   In some cases total fabrications emerge.  One couple I know the wife has created fantastical tales of abuse even criminal behavior on the part of her ex-husband.  Her stories are not incredibly believable, in part because the stories get more and more extreme as she retells them, and she doesn’t keep her facts straight.   As I have caught her in several inconsistencies I just don’t give her much credence.

The best thing to do in these situations is to try to stay calm if your former spouse is trashing you to your social group.  The more you fight back the worse you will look, although if they are making wild accusations that might jeopardize your occupation or child custody, you should seek legal counsel and try to defend yourself.   I made every mistake possible during my divorce and made many things public that probably should have remained private.  If anything my behavior just caused people to be concerned for my well being, I was hurting myself more than my former spouse.

Then you are going to have friends who will simply project their own divorce hell or baggage onto your situation.  I had one such experience with someone I considered a close friend.  He basically hated his ex-wife.  Hated her with a passion that would be difficult to put into words.  When I was going through the worst of it, he didn’t feel I was treating my ex with enough respect.  Now mind you, our divorces were in no way shape or form similar.  My former friend was angry with his ex-wife and projected his own feelings about her onto me.  He started making cruel comments to me about my divorce right away, until it finally escalated to a point that I would not tolerate it anymore.   I do not consider this person a friend, and given the circumstances I am better off without him.

Lost Baggage

One of the more positive things about a divorce though is that you no longer have to keep up relationships with people you never liked in the first place.  Anyone married for any length of time has friends and associates that are only around them because of their spouse.  Consider your split one of the rare opportunities when you get to drop those unwanted acquaintances without any social stigma whatsoever.  No one will blame you when you stop talking to your ex-husband’s Poker buddies, or your ex-wife’s work out pals.  It’s time for a clean slate!

And of course some friends will surprise you.  They won’t pick sides, or if they do they will side with you and not your former spouse.  I was lucky to have some people in my life who have been extremely supportive and caring throughout my ordeal.  But overall I have been deeply hurt by those who basically abandoned me.  In some cases I tried to reach out to those who have cut me off and with others I simply let those connections atrophy and die.  It definitely has made me more careful about who I allow in my life now, and who I consider a true friend.   And it has strangely given me a tougher exterior, I just don’t flinch when cutting someone out now.  I don’t really like this new quality of mine, but I think it is here to stay.  When the dust settles, and it may take years for it to finally be over, you will see who stood by you when things got rough.  Those who remain are worth keeping around, those who left you don’t know what they are missing.

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Dating After Divorce: When will you be ready to date again?

Date: July 2, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating - NYC, Depression, Divorce, Gay Husband, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
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The Dating Game

The Dating Game (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So since I started this blog I have gotten amazing email from people all over the country and people all over the world about their own personal struggles of living a post-divorce life.  Most of the questions and concerns are about dating.  And I certainly don’t have all the answers as I am a bit of a mess in that department myself.  But the question I get a lot is

When will I be ready?

And all I can say is that the answer is different for every person.  It has been three years for me, and I am not even sure of the answer for myself.   One of the problems of a newly divorced person is that nearly every waking thought is about your divorce and about your ex.  Of course this isn’t the case with everyone, but I have found it is more the norm than it is the exception.  A potential partner can and will pick up on this, and it will be a huge warning sign to them that you aren’t ready.  For instance if everything the other person says on the date leads you to say in response…

  • That is just like my ex
  • I can relate because of my divorce
  • Do you know what my ex did?
  • I had the same thing with my ex

Basically the more times you bring your ex up, the crazier you are going to sound.   And you are a little crazy as divorce is an extremely traumatic event in any adults life.  So, here is a trick that my therapist gave to me, and I recently repeated to a friend that will help.

Stop referring to your ex by their first name, instead reduce them to simply…”my ex”

You don’t have to do this with people who know your ex well, or family members.  In fact doing that might read as insensitive.  But if you are meeting a potential date, mention your ex as little as possible, and if you do don’t use their first name.  You will find in time this will become effortless, and you won’t find yourself even having to think about it.   Also try like hell not to talk about your divorce, your settlement, custody agreement, or the reason why you got divorced to a new potential partner.  Again much easier said than done, as I know I still have this problem.  I am worlds away from where I was a year ago, or two years ago but my divorce is a huge part of my life.  It doesn’t help that I am currently working on my memoir.  Writing a book isn’t exactly a casual affair as it tends to take up most of my thoughts, most of the time.  So I am in an especially strange situation of working for hours on something I shouldn’t talk about when meeting someone new.  Hopefully you aren’t writing a book about your divorce!  So talk about anything and everything else!

Also try getting your feet wet without plunging into the pool.  Don’t set out to have a committed relationship right off the bat, and do NOT think of terms of replacing your ex.  Try to date multiple people casually, maybe even without much of a sexual component to the relationships.  Go on group dates with your friends instead of forcing yourself to sit across the table from a virtual stranger before you are ready.  Surround yourself with people who love and support you, rather than putting yourself out in a dating pool full of sharks.  Some men and women seem like the answer to your prayers at first, only to drop you like a hot rock when they find a less complicated mate.  Some are just player types who want to bed as many people as they can and care little about your feelings.  Others might be just as screwed up as you are after a divorce and you could find yourself in a co-dependent nightmare.  You don’t want to be a burden on someone, you want a balanced healthy relationship.  In order to have a healthy relationship you have to be able to stand on your own two feet before involving another person.

I really don’t have a definitive answer on the exact length of time post-divorce and anyone who gives you an exact time frame should be viewed as suspect.  You will know when your divorce and your ex does not consume your every thought.  You will know when you are not so desperate for a replacement for what you thought you had with your ex.  You will know when you are comfortable and happy on your own, and it could take a few months or maybe a few years before that happens.  Again I say this from experience, as a very deeply flawed person that I am myself.

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Why I Outed my Husband using Social Media, and why I would do it again! (I Didn’t Out my Husband)

Date: June 27, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Straight Spouse
Comments: 23 Replies
Truth lies

Truth lies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am writing this gem because I can tell what people type into a search engine to find this blog.  Today someone wrote the following.

Juliet Jeske – Why it was wrong of you to out your husband on Facebook

I could reply simply with….

Why it is wrong for gay men to marry straight women under false pretenses

It’s difficult to even know where to start with this.  It is true that in most circumstances a person’s sexual orientation is their own business.  I have no right to publicly declare the sexual orientation of a co-worker , neighbor, a relative, a friend or casual acquaintance.  Whatever they do in their personal life is of no concern for me, unless of course they are actively working against LGTB rights.   In nearly all circumstances, it’s just not my place to share such intimate information about another human being.

A marriage is something entirely different.  My marriage did not exist without me.  It was a shared experience between my ex and myself.  Does his right to privacy trump my own right to be honest about my life?  The only way I could have avoided “outing” my ex-husband was to create an elaborate lie.   I was robbed of an authentic union with an honest partner, I don’t know why I was supposed to create a false reality to further protect him.   I was paranoid that he would entrap another unsuspecting woman into a sham marriage, and I was not going to let that happen.

When we announced we were separating I was hit with overwhelming criticism for breaking up a “perfect” marriage.  I could continue the lies, and enable my ex-husband’s denial, or I could force him to deal with the reality that he had brought on himself.  If he was going to destroy our marriage and make my life a living hell, he was going to have to take responsibility for his actions.  He also desperately need to truly embrace his sexual identity.  A life in “the closet” is a life unfulfilled.

Most of my critics don’t know all the details of my marriage.  They don’t know that he was in the room when I said,

“You’re out and proud now, so I’m going to put this on Facebook.  Are you OK with that?”

He agreed, so I posted the status update that changed both of our lives forever.

My husband and I are getting a divorce.  I’ve just discovered that he is gay.  He is now living openly as a gay man.  I did not know this when I married him.  We are not getting back together.

To anyone who should judge me, I would urge them to see my perspective.  Try telling everyone you know that you married a gay man, not all at once but one at a time.  Imagine having that conversation 50-60 times.  Think of running into people six months, seven months, a year or two after you have left your husband and have them ask “How are you two doing?” and then have to re-live the entire saga again.  By doing it all at once, and so publicly, I helped both my ex and myself deal with our new reality.  I’ve never seen any shame in being gay.  I knew it would not hurt him professionally, and that New York City was one of the most open cities for LGTB people.  I also knew that his brother had been living as an openly gay man for over 20 years and was accepted by his family.   My ex and I had no children to consider, so it seemed like an easy solution for both of us.  We were both exhausted from the emotional turmoil disclosing this information was taking on us.  The status update was like one big emotional band-aid to rip off.

What my critics also don’t understand is that I could have been much worse.  Most of the specific details are still not publicly known and will probably never be disclosed.  All I really declared was that our marriage was over, and he was openly living as a gay man.

There is a phrase used in the straight spouse community that goes along these lines.

“Our spouses come out of the closet and we go into one”

Many straight spouses, especially those with children, find themselves having to lie for months sometimes years after disclosure. The irony is that the spouse who was loyal and honest now has to keep secrets for their ex. They have to keep track of lies and live a paranoid existence to cover up false realities their gay spouses have perpetuated.

What did the straight spouse do to deserve such a punishment?  They mistakenly married a person who in most cases lied to them from day one.   Although mixed orientation marriages run a spectrum, many closeted spouses have problems with narcissism and self-centered behavior.  They think nothing of forcing someone to act the role of a human prop.  In most mixed orientation marriages rampant infidelity, lies and betrayal are part of the fabric of these unions.  Some closeted spouses don’t cheat.  A few are open with their partners about everything.  A few marriages even survive disclosure and some figure out a way to stay together.  Good outcomes though are rare.

My critics also don’t realize there is a stigma living as a straight spouse.  People wonder if there is something wrong with me for having married a gay man in the first place.  I have to live with judgment for something I had no control over.  Some have claimed the only person suffering in a mixed orientation is the closeted homosexual.  I wonder if those people have ever been married?  If they had, then they’d know that both parties suffer greatly when they realize their marriage is over, regardless of the circumstances.  I do know of a few examples of mixed orientation marriages that are thriving and strong, but in all of those cases both parties knew what they were getting into from the beginning.  Yet even in open and transparent marriages, many cannot handle the many challenges that come with it.

If I were to turn back the clock to three years ago, I would indeed change many poor decisions I made in moments of extreme duress, stress and depression.  I made countless mistakes, but I am never going regret telling the truth.   At least now there are no more secrets and lies, and my ex and I can both live honest and authentic lives.  I also know that sharing my story helps many other straight spouses.   Sometimes the truth hurts but I would rather live an honest flawed life than be in a phony “perfect” marriage.

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Life After Divorce: The 12 Foot wall of Ice

Date: June 14, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating - NYC, Depression, Divorce, Gay Husband, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 5 Replies
English: Wall of Ice taken in an ice bar in St...

English: Wall of Ice taken in an ice bar in Stockholm, Sweden (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have said many times on this blog, when a person is over 35 and still single they tend to fall into certain general categories

  • Those who never want to settle down – some people really are more content being alone
  • Those who are too immature to have a decent relationship
  • Those who are career driven and do not make dating a priority
  • Those who are broken from a divorce, or major break up – I would put myself in this category.

Of course not everyone fits so nicely into one of those four groups, and some people really just haven’t met the right person and are over 35.

I probably shouldn’t write about this.  This blog is making my dating life hard enough, although I think I have given up on online dating completely now.  Too many men will ask me out only to not follow through, and the dates I have gone on have mostly been miserable.  I have met some nice men, who weren’t exactly compatible with me, but nice men nonetheless.  Overall I have found the process very demoralizing.  I feel reduced to a commodity.  Everything about me placed on a mental check list, and since I have some fairly odd things in my background they all amount to deal breakers.  Which is fine since I haven’t met anyone online yet that has really felt like a good fit.

I joked last night that I have no “game” when it comes to dating, and it’s true I have absolutely no game.  I’ve lost the ability to flirt successfully, volley back and forth, seal the deal, manage advances, let a guy know I am interested….etc. When I was in my twenties I could make every mistake and still find guys who were interested in me.  For most young women, the game of dating is all too easy.  But something else has changed fairly fundamentally since my divorce and subsequent rebound implosions.  My apologizes to any of the men I may have dated since my divorce who might read this, but pretty much all of my relationships have been disasters.   I don’t think any of my former lovers would read this blog, in fact I am pretty sure they don’t.  If any of them are reading this, I blame myself more than anything for those failed attempts.  I was a mess, a complete and utter disaster, and I shouldn’t have dated anyone.

The newest change I have noticed now is I am just so guarded.  I am almost like a horse who has been overworked, it takes very little to spook me and make me bolt.  A misplaced phrase, the hint of a red flag, too many comparisons to an ex, a man mentioning wanting to get re-married, it doesn’t take much…and I kick my legs up and run.  It is as if a numbness has taken over me.  A profound deadness that I can’t seem to shake.  I often feel reduced to the  sum of my many faults: gay ex-husband, clown ex-husband, weird job, low-income, crappy neighborhood, uncertain future,  losing the ability to reproduce, and general emotional damage.  When I go on dates with strangers I can see the troubled look in their eyes as hints of my past invade their own neuroses.  The minute I notice it, I just want to go home.  Thanks to google I can’t hide anything, so I figure it is best to come clean least they discover the skeletons in my closet online.

When I meet someone I actually like I self-sabotage, I make excuses, I avoid actually going out with them, I create obstacles that don’t exist.  Although I am not really happy being alone, it is at least something I can manage and control.  I can also focus on work, which is extremely necessary now as I don’t have a ton of income.   I live with an imaginary 12 foot wall of ice around me.  It really feels like that sometimes, I have had a few glimmers of hope that it might melt but then something happens and it freezes up again.

When I first left my husband it was like stumbling out of a cocoon, I had absolutely no defenses.  Every slight, every injustice, every cruel action was massively compounded in my head.  It all just cut right through me until I was a pile of ribbons on the floor.  So the ice went up, formed slowly over time.  I had no choice but to protect myself.  But ice is transparent, and I can see right through it.  There is hope on the other side, I just have no idea when I’ll be able to cut through it.  I am not kidding myself that a unique person will simply show up with a blow-torch and my life will go back to normal.  I think instead I am going to have to change myself, or at least my outlook.  And as I mend those broken pieces I also have to try to protect what is left of me.  All the while opening enough for someone new to get close to me.  It is not at all easy.

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