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By Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 8, 2009
If anyone could have talked himself out of being gay, Kimberly Brooks said, it was her husband.
He wanted to be straight; she wanted him to be straight. She once followed his gaze across the beach to another man but quickly dismissed the thought. No, he couldn't be. Then he started spending more time with one particular friend, and an unease pushed Brooks to ask the question that ultimately confirmed her fears: Was that friend gay?
"He said, 'I don't know.' And in that moment, I knew," said Brooks, who is a therapist in Falls Church. "That day, the marriage was over."
As the debate over legalizing same-sex marriage in the District grows louder and more polarized, there are people whose support for the proposal is personal but not often talked about. They are federal workers and professionals, men and women who share little except that their former spouses tried to live as heterosexuals but at some point realized they could not.
Many of these former spouses -- from those who still feel raw resentment toward their exes to those who have reached a mutual understanding -- see the legalization of same-sex marriage as a step toward protecting not only homosexuals but also heterosexuals. If homosexuality was more accepted, they say, they might have been spared doomed marriages followed by years of self-doubt.
"It's like you hit a brick wall when they come out," Brooks said. "You think everything is fine and then, boom!"
Carolyn Sega Lowengart calls it "retroactive humiliation." It's that embarrassment that washes over her when she looks back at photographs or is struck by a memory and wonders what, if anything, from that time was real. Did he ever love her?
"I'm 61 years old," said Lowengart, who lives in Chevy Chase. "Will I ever know what it's like to be loved passionately? Probably not."
Discovering the truth
She gave her husband 31 years, just a little less than she gave the State Department. Because of her job, she bought a home computer, and on that computer she got the first hints that her husband was gay. Once, she said, she glimpsed gay pornography on the screen; another time, she found a printout of an e-mail about a rendezvous.
In 2002, she said, she asked her husband for the truth. He told her. They separated that year.
"I said, 'When did you know?' " Lowengart recalled. "He said, 'When I was a teenager.' I said, 'Why did you marry me?' He said, 'Because I didn't want to be.' "
For her, devastation blended with relief. The devastation: Raised Catholic, she believed marriage was forever. The relief: For three decades, while she struggled with her weight, she thought it was her fault that they weren't intimate.
By Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 8, 2009
If anyone could have talked himself out of being gay, Kimberly Brooks said, it was her husband.
He wanted to be straight; she wanted him to be straight. She once followed his gaze across the beach to another man but quickly dismissed the thought. No, he couldn't be. Then he started spending more time with one particular friend, and an unease pushed Brooks to ask the question that ultimately confirmed her fears: Was that friend gay?
"He said, 'I don't know.' And in that moment, I knew," said Brooks, who is a therapist in Falls Church. "That day, the marriage was over."
As the debate over legalizing same-sex marriage in the District grows louder and more polarized, there are people whose support for the proposal is personal but not often talked about. They are federal workers and professionals, men and women who share little except that their former spouses tried to live as heterosexuals but at some point realized they could not.
Many of these former spouses -- from those who still feel raw resentment toward their exes to those who have reached a mutual understanding -- see the legalization of same-sex marriage as a step toward protecting not only homosexuals but also heterosexuals. If homosexuality was more accepted, they say, they might have been spared doomed marriages followed by years of self-doubt.
"It's like you hit a brick wall when they come out," Brooks said. "You think everything is fine and then, boom!"
Carolyn Sega Lowengart calls it "retroactive humiliation." It's that embarrassment that washes over her when she looks back at photographs or is struck by a memory and wonders what, if anything, from that time was real. Did he ever love her?
"I'm 61 years old," said Lowengart, who lives in Chevy Chase. "Will I ever know what it's like to be loved passionately? Probably not."
Discovering the truth
She gave her husband 31 years, just a little less than she gave the State Department. Because of her job, she bought a home computer, and on that computer she got the first hints that her husband was gay. Once, she said, she glimpsed gay pornography on the screen; another time, she found a printout of an e-mail about a rendezvous.
In 2002, she said, she asked her husband for the truth. He told her. They separated that year.
"I said, 'When did you know?' " Lowengart recalled. "He said, 'When I was a teenager.' I said, 'Why did you marry me?' He said, 'Because I didn't want to be.' "
For her, devastation blended with relief. The devastation: Raised Catholic, she believed marriage was forever. The relief: For three decades, while she struggled with her weight, she thought it was her fault that they weren't intimate.
By Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 8, 2009
If anyone could have talked himself out of being gay, Kimberly Brooks said, it was her husband.
He wanted to be straight; she wanted him to be straight. She once followed his gaze across the beach to another man but quickly dismissed the thought. No, he couldn't be. Then he started spending more time with one particular friend, and an unease pushed Brooks to ask the question that ultimately confirmed her fears: Was that friend gay?
"He said, 'I don't know.' And in that moment, I knew," said Brooks, who is a therapist in Falls Church. "That day, the marriage was over."
As the debate over legalizing same-sex marriage in the District grows louder and more polarized, there are people whose support for the proposal is personal but not often talked about. They are federal workers and professionals, men and women who share little except that their former spouses tried to live as heterosexuals but at some point realized they could not.
Many of these former spouses -- from those who still feel raw resentment toward their exes to those who have reached a mutual understanding -- see the legalization of same-sex marriage as a step toward protecting not only homosexuals but also heterosexuals. If homosexuality was more accepted, they say, they might have been spared doomed marriages followed by years of self-doubt.
"It's like you hit a brick wall when they come out," Brooks said. "You think everything is fine and then, boom!"
Carolyn Sega Lowengart calls it "retroactive humiliation." It's that embarrassment that washes over her when she looks back at photographs or is struck by a memory and wonders what, if anything, from that time was real. Did he ever love her?
"I'm 61 years old," said Lowengart, who lives in Chevy Chase. "Will I ever know what it's like to be loved passionately? Probably not."
Discovering the truth
She gave her husband 31 years, just a little less than she gave the State Department. Because of her job, she bought a home computer, and on that computer she got the first hints that her husband was gay. Once, she said, she glimpsed gay pornography on the screen; another time, she found a printout of an e-mail about a rendezvous.
In 2002, she said, she asked her husband for the truth. He told her. They separated that year.
"I said, 'When did you know?' " Lowengart recalled. "He said, 'When I was a teenager.' I said, 'Why did you marry me?' He said, 'Because I didn't want to be.' "
For her, devastation blended with relief. The devastation: Raised Catholic, she believed marriage was forever. The relief: For three decades, while she struggled with her weight, she thought it was her fault that they weren't intimate.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...53.html
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 8, 2009
If anyone could have talked himself out of being gay, Kimberly Brooks said, it was her husband.
He wanted to be straight; she wanted him to be straight. She once followed his gaze across the beach to another man but quickly dismissed the thought. No, he couldn't be. Then he started spending more time with one particular friend, and an unease pushed Brooks to ask the question that ultimately confirmed her fears: Was that friend gay?
"He said, 'I don't know.' And in that moment, I knew," said Brooks, who is a therapist in Falls Church. "That day, the marriage was over."
As the debate over legalizing same-sex marriage in the District grows louder and more polarized, there are people whose support for the proposal is personal but not often talked about. They are federal workers and professionals, men and women who share little except that their former spouses tried to live as heterosexuals but at some point realized they could not.
Many of these former spouses -- from those who still feel raw resentment toward their exes to those who have reached a mutual understanding -- see the legalization of same-sex marriage as a step toward protecting not only homosexuals but also heterosexuals. If homosexuality was more accepted, they say, they might have been spared doomed marriages followed by years of self-doubt.
"It's like you hit a brick wall when they come out," Brooks said. "You think everything is fine and then, boom!"
Carolyn Sega Lowengart calls it "retroactive humiliation." It's that embarrassment that washes over her when she looks back at photographs or is struck by a memory and wonders what, if anything, from that time was real. Did he ever love her?
"I'm 61 years old," said Lowengart, who lives in Chevy Chase. "Will I ever know what it's like to be loved passionately? Probably not."
Discovering the truth
She gave her husband 31 years, just a little less than she gave the State Department. Because of her job, she bought a home computer, and on that computer she got the first hints that her husband was gay. Once, she said, she glimpsed gay pornography on the screen; another time, she found a printout of an e-mail about a rendezvous.
In 2002, she said, she asked her husband for the truth. He told her. They separated that year.
"I said, 'When did you know?' " Lowengart recalled. "He said, 'When I was a teenager.' I said, 'Why did you marry me?' He said, 'Because I didn't want to be.' "
For her, devastation blended with relief. The devastation: Raised Catholic, she believed marriage was forever. The relief: For three decades, while she struggled with her weight, she thought it was her fault that they weren't intimate.
By Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 8, 2009
If anyone could have talked himself out of being gay, Kimberly Brooks said, it was her husband.
He wanted to be straight; she wanted him to be straight. She once followed his gaze across the beach to another man but quickly dismissed the thought. No, he couldn't be. Then he started spending more time with one particular friend, and an unease pushed Brooks to ask the question that ultimately confirmed her fears: Was that friend gay?
"He said, 'I don't know.' And in that moment, I knew," said Brooks, who is a therapist in Falls Church. "That day, the marriage was over."
As the debate over legalizing same-sex marriage in the District grows louder and more polarized, there are people whose support for the proposal is personal but not often talked about. They are federal workers and professionals, men and women who share little except that their former spouses tried to live as heterosexuals but at some point realized they could not.
Many of these former spouses -- from those who still feel raw resentment toward their exes to those who have reached a mutual understanding -- see the legalization of same-sex marriage as a step toward protecting not only homosexuals but also heterosexuals. If homosexuality was more accepted, they say, they might have been spared doomed marriages followed by years of self-doubt.
"It's like you hit a brick wall when they come out," Brooks said. "You think everything is fine and then, boom!"
Carolyn Sega Lowengart calls it "retroactive humiliation." It's that embarrassment that washes over her when she looks back at photographs or is struck by a memory and wonders what, if anything, from that time was real. Did he ever love her?
"I'm 61 years old," said Lowengart, who lives in Chevy Chase. "Will I ever know what it's like to be loved passionately? Probably not."
Discovering the truth
She gave her husband 31 years, just a little less than she gave the State Department. Because of her job, she bought a home computer, and on that computer she got the first hints that her husband was gay. Once, she said, she glimpsed gay pornography on the screen; another time, she found a printout of an e-mail about a rendezvous.
In 2002, she said, she asked her husband for the truth. He told her. They separated that year.
"I said, 'When did you know?' " Lowengart recalled. "He said, 'When I was a teenager.' I said, 'Why did you marry me?' He said, 'Because I didn't want to be.' "
For her, devastation blended with relief. The devastation: Raised Catholic, she believed marriage was forever. The relief: For three decades, while she struggled with her weight, she thought it was her fault that they weren't intimate.
By Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 8, 2009
If anyone could have talked himself out of being gay, Kimberly Brooks said, it was her husband.
He wanted to be straight; she wanted him to be straight. She once followed his gaze across the beach to another man but quickly dismissed the thought. No, he couldn't be. Then he started spending more time with one particular friend, and an unease pushed Brooks to ask the question that ultimately confirmed her fears: Was that friend gay?
"He said, 'I don't know.' And in that moment, I knew," said Brooks, who is a therapist in Falls Church. "That day, the marriage was over."
As the debate over legalizing same-sex marriage in the District grows louder and more polarized, there are people whose support for the proposal is personal but not often talked about. They are federal workers and professionals, men and women who share little except that their former spouses tried to live as heterosexuals but at some point realized they could not.
Many of these former spouses -- from those who still feel raw resentment toward their exes to those who have reached a mutual understanding -- see the legalization of same-sex marriage as a step toward protecting not only homosexuals but also heterosexuals. If homosexuality was more accepted, they say, they might have been spared doomed marriages followed by years of self-doubt.
"It's like you hit a brick wall when they come out," Brooks said. "You think everything is fine and then, boom!"
Carolyn Sega Lowengart calls it "retroactive humiliation." It's that embarrassment that washes over her when she looks back at photographs or is struck by a memory and wonders what, if anything, from that time was real. Did he ever love her?
"I'm 61 years old," said Lowengart, who lives in Chevy Chase. "Will I ever know what it's like to be loved passionately? Probably not."
Discovering the truth
She gave her husband 31 years, just a little less than she gave the State Department. Because of her job, she bought a home computer, and on that computer she got the first hints that her husband was gay. Once, she said, she glimpsed gay pornography on the screen; another time, she found a printout of an e-mail about a rendezvous.
In 2002, she said, she asked her husband for the truth. He told her. They separated that year.
"I said, 'When did you know?' " Lowengart recalled. "He said, 'When I was a teenager.' I said, 'Why did you marry me?' He said, 'Because I didn't want to be.' "
For her, devastation blended with relief. The devastation: Raised Catholic, she believed marriage was forever. The relief: For three decades, while she struggled with her weight, she thought it was her fault that they weren't intimate.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...53.html
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Sun, November 8, 2009 - 7:09 AMJumping Matilda (for heaven's sake, JM, whagt is wrong with you lately?),
you pasted this twice.
I always thought when gay men married they did it for formal reasons, like being accepted in society, having better career chances, covering up the fact that they are gay...There was this German pop star who had to go through this whole "star crossed lovers" romance with Gitte for the sake of the press, with another pop singer, just so people could rave about how romantic tis was and how lucky those two were...
20 years larter he jumped out of the window when his boyfriend rekected him or something, after he had had to sing the same songs over and over again for years.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Gildo
www.youtube.com/watch
I know one woman who is married to a gway man and she knows. But I think, she is a Lez, and also has some sort of helper's syndrome re her husband.
I also have a friend who sounds a bit like the lady in your article. Her husband has kept refusing to touch her for decades, they have two sons, and the older one seems to be gay. Strangely enough, she has given me a CD of a Japanese singer who looks and sounds like a eunuch and dresses up in white lace and stuff, and wanted to go with me to see a dancer she found "attractive and fascinating" who looked gay if I ever saw one. He also danced almosgt nude. (I declined) So I onwder: is it possible that a woman is so innocent for years that she never notices what is the matter with her husband, or are there, as has been my impression, women who are attracted to gay men in particular?
Rather than allowing gay marriage to "save women from fraud", I'd say, it takes two to tango, but nobody should be forced to live a lie their entire life, the way Rex Gildo did. The media found out he had been gay all along after died!
And by the way, has anyone here read "Forbidden colours" by Yukio Mishima? This novel is about just such scenario. About the husband coming home drunk from gay bars and gay orgies, smelling of other men's cologne, and his wife who was assigned to him by arranged marriage sniffs him of course but never realises what is going on. And he feels sorry for her but can't tell her because of society, eetc.etc. -
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Sun, November 8, 2009 - 11:45 PMI know a GAY Couple, he gay she lesbian,, but deport their marriage as a straight couple", have done so for a couple of decades.. and it works for them.. but then they are special afterall.. AS to the " supposed straight marriages",, and watching them crumble,, I have 2 couples that devolved,, with children,, it worked out that they remained good friends, and the children are happy and secure, with both parents,, but then I do live in San Francisco.. enough said..,, I do live in a very special Place,,
Sometimes it does work out well and healthy for everyone,,,, Some times,, -
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Mon, November 9, 2009 - 12:30 AMThey say, Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford were like that. -
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Mon, November 9, 2009 - 2:06 AMCanela,,I wouldn't have any substantive evidence on that,, sorry, rumors ae just that, rumors. unless you can come up something none of us know.. -
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Mon, November 9, 2009 - 2:28 AMI have only fead it in some gossip weekly mag too. But the first time I saw Richard Gere in "American gigolo" my gaydar went into bright red alarm. Dunno about Cindy though.
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Tue, November 17, 2009 - 7:07 AMI watched a DVD of Michael Jackson's Number Ones the other day, and kept thinking:"Why does he do all these dance numbers with those girls?" The girls were flouncing all around him one at a time, throwing him adoring looks and all that, and he was doing all his marvelous shimmies while looking...detached. Yeah. I could see, there was no chemistry whatsoever.
When I looked up his bio on wiki, there was info about his two wives. The first one had married him, out of compassion, apparentlly, during the first accusations of pederasty. The second one, his nurse, again out of compassion, offering to lend her body to rescue him from his worries that "he might never have children in his life". His first two children were born by her, presumably with the help of artificial insemination, I guess. The third one was born by some unnamed "surrogate mother".
Nobody has commented on that here but I just keep finding it sad that artists have to go through this whole pretense of being hetero just to cater to people's need to watch other people's "romance" to feed their own dream of "true love" even if the vehicle for that is an artist who probably could not fall in love with the woman cooperating in that staged scenario if he tried.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mich....281994.29 -
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Tue, November 17, 2009 - 7:42 AMI think the question arises in a situation like that is...
Does he/she love me for me....or is it my fame and fortune.
If I had either I'd always be wondering about that......luckily I have none.... -
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Tue, November 17, 2009 - 7:53 AMIn MJ's and P.P.'s case it seems to have been a case of mutual agreement. "I scratch your back if you scratch mine".
Of course one can enact anything on stage and call it "artistic freedom" but two artists agreeing to outwit the press and the paparazzi does not involve the question of "do we actually love each other?"
It is more of a question of morals and values if the press needs to be outwitted like this.
Another famous case is Gustav Gruendgens (the movie "Mephisto" with Brandauer is about him) who probably married to keep the nazis off his back.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gust...3%BCndgens -
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Tue, November 17, 2009 - 7:58 AMlink for the movie:
www.imdb.com/title/tt0082736/plotsummary -
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Tue, November 17, 2009 - 8:25 AMIf you wanna see something weird, watch this:
www.youtube.com/watch
And sorry, it was not P.P. (for Priscilla Presley), her name is Lisa Marie.
Take notice of the last scene where he abruptly turns away when she wants to kiss him. -
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Wed, November 18, 2009 - 1:31 AMCanela,,I don't have to watch this,, but know it ws such a staged marriage, and sadly so on both parts,, Makes them both so very needy.. -
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Re: Heterosexuals for marriage
Wed, November 18, 2009 - 1:41 AMThe movie is not about their marriage. But we would classify the clip under "rhyme yourself or I will eat you!" in Germany, such as, sexy scenes shown should always been between a man and a woman, no matter who they are. Check it out, it is fun to watch, for weirdness alone already!
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