AFRO
November 17, 2005

Group Provides Support For Spouses Of Gays, Lesbians
By Zenitha Prince, AFRO Staff Writer

This October, thousands of gays and lesbians celebrated newfound freedom to express their identities during National Coming Out Month. But for their erstwhile spouses, celebration was the last thing on their mind.

Sharon, a 39-year-old Maryland educator, was in her third year of marriage when she found out her husband was gay. She turned to family and friends but they didn't understand. She combed the Internet and looked everywhere for advice, a support group, anything to help her cope with the roiling emotions that churned within her, but there was nothing.

She is not alone. About 2 million to 3 million people share this story, according to Amity Pierce Buxton, executive director of the San Francisco Bay area¹s Straight Spouse Network (SSN), and that is why she started the initiative nearly 20 years ago.

"There was no support, no attention given to straight spouses when their husbands or wives came out as being gay or lesbian," she said. "We're here to provide support and education for the straight spouse because they become the model of how to cope effectively for the children."

The network comprises about 74 support groups and 10 online groups within the United States and other groups in 11 foreign countries, Buxton said. The network provides one-on-one and group peer support sessions via e-mail, telephone and in person.

"They provide each other validation of their feelings and concerns, and share strategies of how to cope," Buxton said.

Straight spouses of acknowledged homosexuals are often initially trapped within a pressure cooker of different emotions, including anger, hurt, self-doubt, self-recrimination and fear, Buxton said.

Sharon can testify to that turmoil.

"I was devastated. I was very angry. I was in a lot of shock," she said. "I felt like he knew this before he married me. That he knew it and he chose not to tell me. That's the part that angered me."

Sharon also represents another substratum: women whose mates choose to imitate a straight lifestyle, sleeping with wives and girlfriends, while engaging in extramarital sex with men. Twice-married former New Jersey Gov.

James McGreevey put a face on the issue when he announced he was gay in August 2004. McGreevy was both a husband and a father, yet he enjoyed a relationship with another man for years.

But for the spouses of these individuals, such a secret sexual lifestyle poses both emotional and medical risks, especially within minority communities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has attributed this behavior to the disquieting rise of HIV/AIDS in heterosexual women, especially African Americans. Black women represent 68 percent of new HIV cases, according to recent data. One out of 160 Black women carry the virus compared to one out of 3,000 White women, and the AIDS rate among African-American women is 18 times higher than White women and three times higher than Latinas.

Buxton attributes this to the social mores that exist in many Black communities.

"Many African Americans grow up in communities that taught [them] that homosexuality is wrong," Buxton said. "Our African-American members say they have a hard time because their churches don't even accept homosexuality."

Sharon said her husband was a very religious man and she only found out about his activities when he fell ill and learned, after days of silence from doctors, that he had HIV and possibly AIDS.

"I'm supposed to be your wife; I'm supposed to be someone that you love. How could you put me in danger?" Sharon said she questioned. "He had no right to take away my choice; he had no right to put a value on my life ... I didn't think the person I married was someone I should be protecting myself from."

Sharon said her husband exhibited "sociopathic" behavior, even seeming upset when tests revealed she had not contracted the HIV virus.

"Part of [his] plan was that we would be in this together so that the whole world would not know that he was gay ... If any question came up about his sexuality, he could put it on me," Sharon said. "I had to fight to get out of the marriage. He was angry that I had left, that I was no longer a shield that he could hide behind.

"I've never gotten an apology, I've never gotten 'I'm sorry,' I've never gotten anything."

Though extremely upset, Sharon used that anger to fuel her quest for more information. She perused the Internet looking for information about HIV/AIDS, but soon her research took her deeper into the sociological and other dynamics of the "down-low" lifestyle. She conducted numerous interviews in addition to other research and now maintains that while men like her husband do have the ultimate responsibility for their actions, they are often presented with little choice because of the religious and social belief systems within minority communities.

Now Sharon has found a mission. She is a national speaker, a moving force behind the creation of Spouses of Color, an SSN member and an advocate for greater acceptance of gays and lesbians within Black communities, a goal which reflects the SSN credo.

"I personally feel very focused on a goal, on a job and mission," Sharon said. "That mission is to talk to people in the Black community to create an environment where these individuals feel safe; a place where they can feel comfortable and pursue a life that is desired by them and not one that is picked out for them; so that they are not walking down the aisle with some unsuspecting person."