Transcriber: Reiko Bovee Reviewer: Freakbill Huang
When I was a little girl I had a dream
that I would meet my prince charming, he would sweep me off my feet.
We'd get married and maybe practice making some babies.
And we would love happily ever after with a white picket fence.
I did meet my prince charming, he swept me right off my feet.
We had three beautiful children.
And we were living a perfect life, and I had that white picket fence.
About eight years into our marriage
I began to get this sinking feeling in my intuition
that something wasn't right.
Was it me?
Was it him?
Was that our relationship?
Something wasn't right.
So, I asked him about it.
And he laid my fears.
And I had to conclude that I was the crazy one.
One day on our bank account I found an amount that was spent
that caused me to think that he was cheating on me.
So, I confronted him about it.
And he answered me emphatically in a kind way,
"Emily, I would never cheat on you with another woman."
Of course I didn't want to think that, and I had no idea how to respond,
so I turned to my sarcastic self,
and I said, "What are you then? Gay or something?"
His silence spoke volumes that I didn't understand.
He answered me with his own question,
"So, you knew this whole time?"
Over the next year and a half I dealt with so many things.
I don't even have enough time to tell it all,
but I'm going to give you a small list of some general things
so that you get a grasp of what was going on for me.
I felt alone, and I didn't want to tell anyone
because I didn't want anyone to think I was stupid.
How could I be so naiive?
The last thing I wanted in the world was to get a divorce from my husband
because I loved him.
And there were people who absolutely said,
"Your only option is to get a divorce, clearly."
And there were others including myself struggled with both of these things.
In order to remain true
to my Christian values, my Christian faith my marriage vows and the Scripture,
I had to stay married to him.
I felt stuck.
I tried manipulating him and changing who he was.
I was in denial.
I used the kids against him.
I used the Scripture against him.
And I was desperate.
I was desperate because I didn't know who I was without him.
Who was I apart him?
My white picket fence and my perfect life crumbled.
Now I want to speak to two different people today
about this scenario.
I'll be speaking first to what I will call the straight spouse.
And then I'll be speaking to the other person in the relationship.
Sometimes I might refer to it as LGBTQ, lots of letters.
There's more than that.
Or I will say, "gay or lesbian spouse."
So just know that they are interchangeable
in this context at this point.
My hope though even if you haven't hopefully had to deal with this,
is that you will glean something from it for yourself
because there, I feel, are some good principles here.
First, to the straight spouse.
I want to tell you two things.
One: you are not alone.
Now I'm going to repeat that.
You are not alone.
There ware hundreds of thousands, some estimates up to two million of us
who would either be gone through it, or are going through it,
or just might go through it.
The interesting thing is that
there is no how-to book,
there is no black and yellow "Straight Spouse for Dummies."
Now if there was either A: I would love to write it
or B: I wouldn't even be up here, wouldn't need to be.
When you're going through something that doesn't have a step-by-step program
you've got to find people who have been where you are
and are going through it.
Finding other people helps you know you're not alone,
and it is a great step towards healing.
The second thing I want to tell the straight spouse
is to find out who you are at your core.
Now I'm going to explain that briefly.
When two people get into a relationship no matter how long you've been together
especially the longer you've been together,
you end up losing, potentially, part of your identity,
and melting it with the other person.
Now it's not necessarily a bad thing.
But whenever betrayal happens
you have to flounder
if you don't have something solid to stand on.
So once that happens if it happens and I pray that it doesn't happen to you,
find out who you are at your core, and know and love yourself
because if you're going to be making decisions that are difficult,
and you will be.
You've got to have something solid to stand on.
If you're ging to be setting a boundary that is very difficult to keep,
you have to know and love yourself at your core,
so that you have something solid
to stand on.
It's a great step for healing.
Now, to the LGBTQ, the gay or lesbian spouse
I want you to acknowledge something first.
Well,
I know that it's tough coming out.
There's nobody here in my world that's going to say
that's a bad thing.
I used to think that until my husband came out.
So I'm going to give you two pieces of advice
because I believe that it is necessary to share that.
I get contacts from people on my blog and through other websites
asking, "What can I do to help my spouse?" and thank you for wanting to help.
So here're my two pieces of advice for you.
Tell the truth.
All of it.
It's easy to think that once you tell the truth,
it feels like a light load off of you, right?
Now, you've carried this load whether you know your whole life or not,
and you take that burden off because you figure out and it feels good.
I know it does.
That's not saying it's going to be easy from there on now.
But you take that burden off of your shoulders,
and put it squarely on the shoulders of your unsuspecting spouse.
And let's just pretend you walk away because that is what it kind of feels like
"Not doing this to beat anyone up, just want you to understand."
So when we ask you for the truth, don't give us a half truth,
don't not tell us because you were afraid to hurt us more.
We have pieces missing from that moment backward
that we need to understand and the only way to understand that
is to get the full truth.
So I want to encourage you.
When your spouse asks you, you don't walk away
because you feel lighter and you don't think it matters because of this.
The second thing I want to tell the gay or lesbian spouses is:
be humble and do what you can to make amends.
Now you can't go back and change anything,
worrying about the past is not going to help you at all.
But from that moment forward I want to encourage you
to not say the words "Sorry, but..."
as in "I'm sorry I hurt you, but I couldn't help it."
You see when we make excuses
it builds up walls of bitterness and defensiveness for both parties.
What we want to hear and feel is true humility
because we know when we hear it.
And it feels like we can heal finally.
I can't tell you what to say.
I don't know what that's going to look like in your relationship,
but I do know that when I hear from other straight spouses
who had a spouse who came out,
and it truly humbled their heart before them in some way.
It is such a gateway to healing for us.
So whatever that is for you I want to encourage you to do it.
Now.
When hurt happens in a relationship
the healing can seem impossible if you feel alone;
the healing seems unattainable if you don't know all the truth.
Healing can seem unfathomable
if the one who hurt you is humble about it.
About the straight spouse and the LGBTQ spouse:
be authentic,
know and love yourself.
And above all, more humbly do what you can to help others heal.
Now, lastly to my ex-husband
whom I love and support,
I want to thank him for coming out
because if he hadn't, I wouldn't know and love who I am,
regardless of anyone or anything
including this imperfect life that I've lived.
Thank you.
(Applause)