Sweet Honey Buns
Meanwhile, having encountered various opinions, widely circulated as true, it's giving this page all the more reason got the name: "Sweet honey buns..."
NOT because none of the points below would have a kernel of truth, or from one's own perspective and experience would not be authentic or grounded! But because in the broad opinion it is assumed by many that everyone SHOULD handle SSA or MOM or religion like this. Because the majority thinks...
This labels people and puts them in a box of how to deal with things like these, this is how you should be. Because that is the framework into which you have placed yourself according to our belief. Even advice is given from common arguments because that's how everyone thinks and believes it should be.
Regardless of whether it is indeed so, the people who handles differently, who has come to an equally good and credible decision through a different route, is labeled as unrealistic with an (unreliable) shaky story.
Not just about having SSA. But also the diversity that exists on how to deal with it. Not to mention (which we definitely want to mention) when it comes to people who are already married (sometimes after several years of marriage) and are facing a huge problem, because either partner has same-sex feelings.
Some of the so-called normalities we encountered
A common line of thought is that if a spouse has SSA feelings and if the straight partner loves his or her partner deeply,, it obviously means one should assist and encourage the gay to explore those feelings... Meaning the heterosexual spouse has to stand idly by and watch the gay partner go explore, like meet other lgb or datingsites, to discover if idd. feelings are positively affirmed and clarifies what exactly is going on. If it isn't done like this the spouse is denying the gay spouses feelings. (By all means, of course!! Fall in love with someone other then me!!)
Another commonly heard train of thought is for the straight partner, who is (often 'out of the blue') confronted with these facts, to expect to open the marriage (thus not to remain monogamous) giving opportunity to give space to SSA feelings. Of course it is to difficult, even impossible, to controle these feelings. But!!! You know what!!! The straight partner doesn't have to miss anything either.
Because someone cannot help having SSA, the basic principle is this person has no choice (freedom) either. In other words, to consider other things are as important has been taken way from them. The idea that one could deal differently and take a firm equivalent approach towards other distinguishing personal traits has been made like a no fly zone. "Feelings" are granted the upper hand over other (valuable) aspects like marital loyalty, promises, monogamousness. Rendering a legitimate shift and subordinating at the expense of the heterosexual partner.
Someone comes out after x number of years of marriage, fantastic! Finally, this person can be themselves and authentic; the gay does no longer has to deny themselves. Suddenly the partner is confronted with this shocking news. The heterosexual partner is supposed to welcome this. It's great that his/her partner finally found themselves.
The general tendency seems to be that you are shortchanging yourself if you remain faithful to the marriage and look for ways to sideline the SSA feelings.
There are always more sides to a story than just following the majority. However well-intentioned it may be, it unwittingly allows us to blindly follow the herd like sheep... everyone in the same direction.
That's not only not good, but even dangerous.
It's no longer about what I want, and my values and norms, beliefs, and personality, yes even my identity, which make me who I am and live and exist from. But it is about having to comply with the ideal picture of the other...
It not only puts people who have a different (also well-considered, sincerely balanced considered) motive of their own to deal with things differently in a corner, but unitary thinking becomes the norm.
Anyone who does not conform to that picture must be shamed, held accountable and seen as an oddity.
The funny thing is that while this "majority" often indicates they are very objective, they still hold very strongly to their own ways of thinking that they themselves believe to be good for everyone.
That gives objectivity a very twisted and convulsive framework, shaped by the majority's thinking.
We discovered equivalent way of thinking after participating in a broadcast about (we thought) this topic. After cutting and pasting and embellished with various voice-overs, a totally different story emerged than the one we had intended.
But they (program makers) had the opinion that they had done nothing wrong. Indeed, we ourselves were apparently not well educated about our own life story and choices. Because they had made a very good biography of us which they had shown it to several people who responded very positively.... the "overarching ideology of the majority indicating that our story MUST be like that.
On the contrary, it showed exactly what was completely contradictory to our story. We were not understood. For ourselves, it only showed that we had unwittingly contributed to the achievable and pushing effect of the unitary thinking that is constantly being presented to the entire society:
Their opinion, from their own destructive/negative/no direction, labels and frameworks thinking.
A frame of thinking that does nothing to help people, but rather sends people considering a MOM down a path with many questions and fear of the future which only increases this fear and confusion. In which red-alert signals prevail and the thinking of vulnerable people is negatively affected and overwhelmed, especially for the straight partner, but also the gay who has just come out of the closet.
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Your marriage is doomed to failure. Get out of it... it makes no sense at all. All statistics show a clear pattern.
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Your partner, despite what he/she promises, really does cheat on you! Don't believe it anyway! Don't believe your partner anyway if he or she says he or she does love you but has SSA feelings.
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The choices you make to love your straight partner is nothing more than denying yourself: appearances! You cannot be who you are it is that simple...you just cann't! Your sexuality defines your being and is your identity.... For a Christian, sincere choices become nothing more than a religious sauce. For one a willing submission (gay) and a domineering spouse claiming(straight) at the other end.
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You straight, you claim.... You want... And your gay partner is submissive and that is pitiful. Whereas actually you should respect and encourage your partner's gay feelings so they can find themselves and not has to deny them. Indeed straight: follow your gut sense! You know you are depriving your partner of something else, selling your partner short if you don't! You must accommodate yourself by not only accepting the partner's feelings but encourage it! Find the fulfillment of your search in that which your feelings tell you: knowing gay feelings and sexuality take precedence over my feelings and our marriage.
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or, thinking of accommodating the optimal practice and normalization of all the above (commonplace) ideas (if you still want to stay together): Each find a relationship outside of each other, someone who suits you! Ha... maybe one person will suit both of you! That is not only the only way to maintain your marriage, but also quite pleasant that it can and may.
The straight partner very rarely finds it wonderful that his or her partner, after years of trusting and building on each other, marriage promise, children and dreams for the future, is faced with coming out of the closet. Their just relieved the suspicion, after years of being set aside, never feeling good enough, are over.
Unfortunately, this side is all too often underexposed. Especially when it turns out that the now gay partner knew this from day 1 to have SSA feelings but never was honest and transparent about it.
At play here is enormous pain, lost years and broken dreams, rejection, anger and enormous confusion. Straight spouses who are (long-term) traumatized and can't imagine (anymore) that a MOM can also be different. Totally understandable, for sure!
A happy MOM, with mutual love, is from their point of view an impossible goal.
Broken by experiences and eventual separation.
Yet, later, they usually turn out to be the "support" for newcomers, new peers who have many questions and seek answers after the panic and turmoil, which the "coming-out" day has brought, and are completely lost and see no way out.
Not surprisingly, there is little positive experience to be found, but room for a lot of resentment and anger. Newcomers are often immediately told that an MOM never works.
And worse, the positive stories that do exist are cynically dismissed as unreliable. Generalizing and lumping everything and everyone together. At the risk that no matter how painful the situation was initially in the positive stories, not every scenario ends the same. Not every marriage and not every "gay" is the same.
How frustrating it must be not to be able to find (positive) answers to questions and struggles within a marriage that is suddenly halted by this matter, is completely clear to us. When we were confronted with these problems, there was hardly any relevant information or experience of what the right path to take was.... Each individual wheel had to be invented, and there were quite a few.
Now, years later for us, there is quite a bit to be found. But be careful... if one deviates from the norm, the prevailing cultural mindset, it has become anything but easier.
Back then, there was hardly any relevant information to be found, and actually, not much has changed.