Friday, May 25, 2012

The Win-Win Solution for Struggling Bi-Married Men - Conclusion

There are two parts to the "win-win" solution for struggling bi-married men, one part for each possible win.

Here is a short summary of the steps necessary to obtain the first win, as outlined in this post:
  1. Recognize that your hidden bisexuality, and all the baggage that comes with it, affects your ability to have open, honest and intimate relationships with others, most especially with your wife.  The need to hide the truth causes you to be much more guarded, withdrawn and difficult to connect with than you otherwise would be.
  2. Initiate a conversion with you wife wherein you tell her that you have realized you've been more distant from her than you want to be; tell her that you are want a much more intimate connection.  Work with her to create an intimacy plan that will work for both of you.  That might include coming out to her as bisexual, but not necessarily.  It's an option that would remove a major barrier between you, however staying in the closet is viable too - you just have to work that much harder to foster intimacy without being 100% truthful.
  3. Dedicate yourself to implementing the intimacy plan.  The "win-win" will not work unless you are sincere about seeking emotional and sexual fulfillment with your wife.  Your efforts and attention should be warmly welcomed by her. As such, you should genuinely enjoy spending more time together and you should have more and better sex; intimacy is a huge turn-on for women.
  4. After an initial honeymoon phase, you may fall back into old habits.  The "win-win" is not a flip-the-switch solution.  Whenever you start to feel less connected to your wife, you need to proactively renew your intimacy pledge with her.  You won't find enduring happiness in any relationship unless you're able to easily reconnect, even when other pressures get in the way.
  5. Accept your bisexuality for what it is and enjoy who you are.  Reconnecting with your wife on a deep and intimate level should be so emotionally and sexually rewarding that your interest in men should wane somewhat.  But it will never disappear, nor should you want it to.  Denying or repressing one's bisexuality does not work.  Whenever you have the urge to fantasize about men, do it, unless you're having sex with your wife.  When you're with her do everything you can to be "in the moment" and focused on her.
  6. Give this first part of the "win-win" time to work.  A full year is ideal.  It's crucial that your determination to make this option work be unquestionable, either by you or your wife.  Time, sincere effort and raw determination are what will make this solution successful.
The purpose of the first phase of the "win-win" is to feel happy and fulfilled as a bisexual man.  That means feeling so pleased with yourself and your relationships that your sexuality is no longer an issue.  A natural by-product of being happy is that you no longer feel compelled to cheat.  Blogger Sean explains how that happened for him:
"I'm seeing things so much clearer now. I know the journey is still long, and for guys like me, always difficult. I know, BELIEVE me.  But I believe in what we have. My heart is hers, my mind is hers. I'm no longer tempted to stray."
Sean found fulfillment with his wife.  (Yeah Sean!)  But what if you try (and try and try) and it's just not happening for you?

Then it's probably time to move on to Part Two of the win-win...

The Second Win

The "win-win" solution is for struggling bi-married men.  It's for men who aren't sure whether their marriage will ever be satisfying enough for them; it's for men who often feel consumed by their attraction to other men.

The first phase of the "win-win" is a balls-to-the-wall challenge that pushes you to your limits.  Can your marriage ever be satisfying enough for you?  You must go 'all out' in order to find out.  Can you feel fulfilled without connecting with men?  The only way to be certain is to stop pursuing them and instead focus on your wife.

If you do these things with fierce determination it shouldn't take long before the fog of uncertainty lifts.  Either you'll find that successfully reconnecting with your wife is satisfying, or, you won't.

The focus of the second "win" is on turning a failure to reconnect with your wife into a permanent, positive change in how you feel about yourself and your attraction to men.  It's about moving past uncertainty and finding enduring happiness.

The first step is to acknowledge and accept that your straight monogamous marriage is never going to satisfy you.  Never.  Coming to terms with that fact should be empowering, because, instead of being bogged down by doubt and uncertainty, you will realize that one of two things must be true about you: either you are gay and not bi, OR, you are bi but you MUST have regular, intimate contact with men.

When a man realizes he is gay and not bi that is usually a watershed moment.  After years of denial, anxiety and uncertainty, he's suddenly filled with confidence and purpose.  Men in this situation tend to move quickly and decisively to change their lives because they finally know who they are and what they want.  Their struggle as a bi-married man is over.

The other outcome is just as empowering because it means you no longer wonder IF you can be happy without men in your life, but rather, HOW you can include them.  There are only two ways to satisfy that need, either you're open about it or you're not.

Asking for an Open Marriage

Normally when a marriage has an intimacy problem, there are two different explanations as to why: His Story and Her Story.  Because the couple can't agree on who's at fault, nothing ever gets resolved.  Instead, they declare an unspoken truce and thereafter avoid the subject.  With no communication, the marriage slowly becomes less and less sexual, and the less sex there is, the more distant the partners get from one another.

The first phase of the "win-win" changes this dynamic.  It forces the partners to communicate, to create a plan and to be sure that plan is being implemented.  As a result, if it is not successful, the cause is not a mystery.  There is no His Story and Her Story, there's only The Story - the tale of how one or both of you was never really able to step up to the plate.

When fault is clear and both partners understand that the marriage will never have a satisfying, intimate sexual bond, there is no better time for a struggling bi-married man to ask for an open marriage.  To understand why this is true you have to think about the situation from the wife's perspective.  Just as open communication and repeated failures to connect have convinced the struggling bi-married man that his marriage alone will never be fulfilling, those same factors have convinced his wife of the same thing.  Faced with that fact, her choices are the same as his: either divorce and hope someone better turns up, slog along and find fulfillment in other ways (often through children, work, friends and/or family), or, keep the good aspects of what they have and look for someone on the side.  When the options are presented in this way, most straight wives prefer to slog along.  However, once they witness their husband's extended struggle first-hand, and they see that he cannot find fulfillment within the marriage, an astounding number of straight wives will accept an open relationship.  Their philosophy is: as long as they get to keep the good aspects of their married life, everything else is negotiable.

I have come to this conclusion after spending the last 18 months learning as much as possible about the attitudes of straight wives.  To be clear, straight wives cannot be lumped into a single-minded group.  They have diverse opinions about their marriages, their husbands and their husbands' attraction to men.  But one quality they all seem to have in common is that they're extremely pragmatic.  When faced with a challenging situation, very few of them fall to pieces.  Armed with the facts, most straight wives are quick to see to the heart of the matter and to decide how much they're willing to compromise in order to maintain their marriage.  Money, stability and the fear of having to start a new life are all reasons why an amazing number of them will permit an open marriage. Also, just as bi-married men don't want to start all over and have to explain what's happened to their kids, family and friends, neither do straight wives.  So as crazy as it might seem, looking the other way is often a straight wife's least painful option.  No action on their part is required, and because they know the limitations of their marriage, they don't feel like they're giving anything away that they could have for themselves.  This makes the emotional cost of permitting affairs relatively low.

Other Outcomes

As I said, not all straight wives are the same.  Some of them will never, ever, under any circumstances accept an open marriage.  They don't care if their marriage will never be fulfilling, they intend to slog it out and they will only accept the same from their husband.  Some bi-married men solve this problem by secretly cheating.  Others slog it out.  And a third group slogs it out until they decide that getting a divorce is the lesser evil.

Another possible outcome is unconditional support by the straight wife when her husband comes out as bisexual.  Yes, it's true.  Some wives LOVE their bi-husband and they'll defend them and their sexuality with tremendous passion.  I think they do this because of love, but also because, once they understand that they can't meet all of their husbands needs, they can either view themselves as unworthy or unattractive women, OR, they can chalk up their imperfect marriage to their husband's struggle with bisexuality.  I should also mention that, as a general rule, the women who feel this way have pretty good marriages which is why they fight to keep them.

The "Losing" Outcome That Isn't A Loss
 
If a man pursues the "win-win" it's possible that his inability to intimately reconnect with his wife will cause her to decide to leave him.  A wife might also decide to leave because she doesn't believe her husband will stay monogamous, or, because she doesn't want to be married to a man who is sexually attracted to other men.

The fear of being rejected by their wives is the primary reason most struggling bi-married men want to stay in the closet.  Having been though the experience of being rejected by my wife, I have to say that it sucks - and not in a good way.  It really hurts to be pushed aside by someone you've been married to for a long time, even when the marriage is far from perfect.

It's taken me more than a year to adjust my new single status and I know I have more growing pains ahead.  The thing is, no matter how much being rejected hurt, the facts are: it happened, it cannot be changed, and I had no choice but to adapt.  I suppose I could remain bitter and angry for the rest of my life, but that wouldn't change anything.  So, as painful as the transition has been, I know I will be happier in the long run.  Although I continue to struggle with starting a new life, I KNOW I don't want to be with a woman who doesn't love me enough to fight to keep me.

The bottom line is, the fear of rejection should not prevent anyone from trying to make the most of their marriage by implementing the "win-win."  If it doesn't work as expected, then your marriage was obviously not what you thought it was.  Once that lesson is learned, it's better to move on sooner rather than later.

What's Special about the Win-Win and Why It Works

On the surface, the "win-win" might seem unoriginal.  Some have said it's no different than trying to pray away the gay.  Although it's true that phase one might seem that way because it's all about trying to find genuine fulfillment with your wife, phase two makes it so much more than that.

The reason some bi-married men struggle is because they're afraid of the unknown.  Some worry whether they might really be gay, and if they are, what that would mean to their families and to their existing life.  Others worry that they can never be honest with their wives because the truth would have a permanent, disastrous impact on them, their wife and their family.

What's special about the "win-win" is that it eliminates uncertainty, and it does so without triggering disaster.  For those men who fear they might be gay, the "win-win" asks them to step up to the challenge, to go all-out to woo their wives.  If they're bisexual they should be able to make a good connection.  If they're gay, they're never going to be satisfied with a woman as a life partner.  Either way, the uncertainty is gone and a happy resolution is found.

For men who fear telling their wife they are bisexual, the "win-win" does the telling for them, but it does so in a non-threatening way.  Usually, struggling bi-married men who want an open marriage fight a long battle within themselves to keep that desire hidden.  When they lose that battle they're often emotionally exhausted and that causes them to blurt out the desire to their wife.  Because they're caught off-guard and because the news feels like a personal rejection of them, straight wives almost always react with anger and hurt.  The confession makes them feel undesired, unworthy, used, lied to, and tricked, among other bad things.  When a man blurts out that he wants an open marriage, the response is almost never positive.

In comparison to the "blurt out," the win-win is a very gradual process.  The initial promise to rekindle the couple's intimate connection and the requirement that the struggling bi-husband constantly communicate provide the straight wife play-by-play coverage of her struggling husband's journey.  This means that when the promised intimate connection fails to materialize, she already has a good understanding of what's going on.  She won't necessarily know that her husband is attracted to men, but she will know that the couple's intimacy problem lies with her husband and not with herself.  That information is fundamental.  As I explain above, once straight wives know the facts, most of them are willing to negotiate just as long as they get to keep the aspects of the marriage that they like.


Two Warnings

Now that I've spent a great deal of time thinking about the win-win and writing it up, I doubt any reader will actually try it.  However, for the sake of any struggling bi-married man who might take the "win-win" seriously, I feel compelled to issue two warnings:

1.  Do not attempt the win-win if your goal is to "get" your wife to accept an open marriage.  Although trickery can sometimes work, I have found that most straight wives know bullshit when they see it.   Being lied to and tricked does not make them happy.  The only way the "win-win" works is if the first phase is pursued with vehemence, persistence, and sincerity.  Women are extremely sympathetic to men who try their hardest and fail.  They are not at all sympathetic to manipulative assholes.

2. Do not attempt the win-win without telling your wife what you're trying to do.  One of the fundamental premises of the win-win is that women will negotiate problem areas of their marriage IF they know all the facts.  If you don't tell your wife that you want a more fulfilling, intimate connection with her, and that you are going to work your ass off to make that happen, she's going be very suspicious of your sudden interest in her.  More importantly, if rekindling the intimate connection fails, she needs to know that you were doing your very best and there is no possibility that "things" will magically improve in the future.  Basically, the win-win works because it makes the husband's struggle visible to the wife without laying the blame at her feet.  In order for that happen, the effort needs to be announced and regularly discussed.

Conclusion

I'm glad to finally get this posted.

Any questions, comments or complaints?

Thanks for reading!

Friday, May 11, 2012

A "Dirty Trick" Marriage - Part Two

In my last post I shared a straight wife's frustrations with her probably-gay husband and their crumbling marriage. 

Unfortunately, I didn't know any background information about her or her husband so it was difficult to put what she said in context.  The lack of context, I think, was vexing for a number of readers too, at least judging by their comments.  Since many of us seemed to be grasping at straws I decided to contact the woman and ask her more about her situation.

Here's what she originally said:
Seven years ago, and three months after the birth of my third child, my husband told me he cheated on me with a man. Four years before that he had done the same thing, "but not all the way."  Both times, after much crying and begging on his part, I took him back.  After the second time we talked about his attraction to men and how it had been there for years.  We also saw a marriage counselor.  Within two years our sex life dwindled to nothing. By then he had quit therapy, and no matter what I did, our relationship just got worse.

Last Spring my hours at work got cut so I was making a lot less money.   Pretty soon we fell behind on our bills. In the Fall, when he realized how bad our finances were, he said he wanted a divorce. What a slap in the face! After all I had forgiven NOW he was done?!?

His mother was sure he was cheating on me. I asked him if that was true, over and over again, but he kept telling me, no, and I was over-reacting.  He still lives at home but he spends almost no time there, unless he has to watch the kids because I'm working.  Well, last Friday I found a Valentine's Day card from his "lover" along with gay porn and a bunch of condoms. I feel like the last 10 years was a dirty trick. I immediately called him on it but first I made copies of the love letter.

One thing that makes me so mad is that I have defended him to both of our families.  He says that I'm the problem because I'm bad with money.   The reality is that, if I had known what a liar and a cheat he was, we wouldn't have been married last summer anyway.  After I showed him the Valentine's card he finally admitted that he was having an affair and that it started more than 11 months ago.  He also told me that he has gone on vacation with this man and he has had sex with him in our home with our children asleep. I am so angry, I can't sleep. I am sad for my kids because they think we have a great family. The poor things don't even know about the divorce yet.  After all that he has done to me I don't even want to look at him.

C (41 yr old mother of three kids, ages 12, 9 and 8.)
Here's what "C" said in response to my questions.  As with her first post, I've done some minor editing to try to make her stream-of-conscious writing style easier to follow.
I fell in love at 20 and stayed there. He didn't want sex. That was very painful, but before he started having the high blood pressure and medication to excuse no sex, we had it. Until 6 years ago it was 2-3 times a week. I didn't bitch about that!


The first time there was a man issue, he was on a bike ride, came back and said he got a blow job in the park from a total stranger...after a great deal of talk/therapy/advise from clergy we moved on. This was about 8 yrs into our marriage, with no kids at the time. Then the next time he did anything (according to my info) was not for another 6 years.  At that time, we were open and talking about it. I believe there are people who are attracted to both sexes and I was under the impression he was one of them. After the adultery confession 6 years ago, he did probably did manipulate me a little, however, what I worried about were the three very young children we had.  The oldest was only four at the time.


I can remember thinking, "I've got to keep this together until our oldest at least is in school...for my sake as well as our kids."  Now our youngest is in 2nd grade so I guess I met that goal.


I stayed for the kids and for religious reasons.  I believe that we made a forever commitment.  However, I thought he was being more honest with me than he was.  Six years ago I thought he fell off the wagon, so to speak.  I thought it would be another one-time fling and we'd deal with it, just like the first time.  Another thing he said was the reason we didn't have sex was impotence, not because he was gay.


I will say this, I honestly think that he hates himself. I think he down deep is decent and good. In the last three years, however, I have seen changes in him.  I think something had to have happened.  I don't know what it was or think it matters at this point.  I do know that I wouldn't have been attracted to him if this was how he was when we met.


Another thing about me is that I don't make commitments lightly. I never have. I have always been loyal to a fault.  This is one doozy of an example!


Over the first 15 yrs of our marriage, he was my best friend. I would have said it until 2 yrs ago. He would say that I was his best friend until 4 yrs ago. He is the one who walked away from me.  First emotionally, then with his whole person.


I hope my husband pulls his head out of his ass.


Do you know people who don't live up to their potential? That's him. He will run out and help someone with a broken down car anytime, anywhere. I can't tell you how many times we've stopped and he's fixed someone else's flat tire. I'm the oldest of four siblings and each of them have lived with us for more than a year, at different times, to help get them on their feet. He shovels driveways for old ladies. This is why it's been easy to stay. We don't fight. We enjoy the same tv shows and we have kids in common. It has been easy to stay. It will be hard to end this marriage. Our lives have been tied together since we've been kids. I'm scared of the changes. BUT I am also excited. I wonder what kind of a person I will be able to become without the stress and the feelings of failure that have been with me for the last 14+ years.


I am a zombie mom right now...but I see there will be a better me in the future.
"C" originally caught my attention because she said her marriage was a 10 year "dirty trick."  But she also seemed to contradict herself by saying that she'd been aware of her husband's attraction to men for many years.  So which was it? Was her husband a lying, cheating scumbag?  Or, did she really the play trick on herself by making excuses for behavior that her husband was honest about?

Now that I know more about their situation, I'm convinced that this is a typical, messy mixed orientation marriage.  Both spouses know what's going on, but for a variety of reasons (like love, religious beliefs and concern for their children) they choose to ignore their underlying problems.  The marriage works (well enough) until it doesn't work any more.  Marriages like this usually end when the husband gets caught cheating or when he falls in love with another guy.

These situations are a sad, no-win mess for straight wives.  In this case, as in many others, love IS blind, but love does not conquer all.  She takes care of the kids, loves her husband with all her heart, and cherishes her family.  But the fact is, it doesn't matter what she does.  Once he emotionally withdraws from her, the marriage enters the realm of the living dead.

Those are some of my thoughts.  What are yours?  Specifically I'd like to know what closeted gay and bi men, as well as their straight wives, can learn from this situation.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Ten years of marriage: A "Dirty Trick"

I lurk on a few on-line forums that discuss mixed orientation marriages, closed loop relationships and challenges that straight spouses face.  Below is a story from one of those forums.

This quote isn't exact;  I cleaned it up to make it easier to read.
Seven years ago, and three months after the birth of my third child, my husband told me he cheated on me with a man. Four years before that he had done the same thing, "but not all the way."  Both times, after much crying and begging on his part, I took him back.  After the second time we talked about his attraction to men and how it had been there for years.  We also saw a marriage counselor.  Within two years our sex life dwindled to nothing. By then he had quit therapy, and no matter what I did, our relationship just got worse.

Last Spring my hours at work got cut so I was making a lot less money.   Pretty soon we fell behind on our bills. In the Fall, when he realized how bad our finances were, he said he wanted a divorce. What a slap in the face! After all I had forgiven NOW he was done?!?

His mother was sure he was cheating on me. I asked him if that was true, over and over again, but he kept telling me, no, and I was over-reacting.  He still lives at home but he spends almost no time there, unless he has to watch the kids because I'm working.  Well, last Friday I found a Valentine's Day card from his "lover" along with gay porn and a bunch of condoms. I feel like the last 10 years was a dirty trick. I immediately called him on it but first I made copies of the love letter.

One thing that makes me so mad is that I have defended him to both of our families.  He says that I'm the problem because I'm bad with money.   The reality is that, if I had known what a liar and a cheat he was, we wouldn't have been married last summer anyway.  After I showed him the Valentine's card he finally admitted that he was having an affair and that it started more than 11 months ago.  He also told me that he has gone on vacation with this man and he has had sex with him in our home with our children asleep. I am so angry, I can't sleep. I am sad for my kids because they think we have a great family. The poor things don't even know about the divorce yet.  After all that he has done to me I don't even want to look at him.

C (41 yr old mother of three kids, ages 12, 9 and 8.)
This woman feels like her 10 years of marriage was nothing more than a dirty trick.  When you read her side of the story, it sure seems like he continually lied to her and strung her along.  Then, once he found a boyfriend, he decided he wanted a divorce.

Stories like this are pretty common but every time I read one I am astounded by the selfishness and cruelty described.  When you 'love' someone, this is how you treat them?

On the other hand, something else that constantly amazes me is how often women will choose to overlook the obvious.  The guy cheated twice, admitted to a life-long attraction to men, and doesn't have sex with his wife.  What was she expecting??

I suppose I'm being cruel for thinking this, but...wasn't she's fooled twice and now it's shame on her?

****UPDATE****
 For those who are interested, here are a few more details about this woman's situation:
I went with a don't ask, don't tell policy. I had come to terms with no sex and having a gay husband. It wasn't what I wanted but I was working with it.  Slowly, over the last 3 years, he has gotten more and more disconnected. I see now when he started fooling around. I have a gay friend at work who said he had seen him on the gay website adam4adam and knew it was my husband because our kids' pictures are posted there...that was over 2 years ago. My co-worker would not talk about what he saw but said about 1 year ago he stopped posting.  Now I've found out that's when the boyfriend started. So go figure.
I don't know how to react to this.  Now I have many more questions than answers.