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Woman Writes Candidly About Discovering Her Husband’s Gay Double Life
Sooner or later, it happens in every straight marriage: A wife is innocently doing some house chores, definitely not snooping, and stumbles upon a squirreled-away postcard of Australia’s Manly Beach. Buff beach bods in Speedos. The message, scribbled in an unknown hand: “Knew you would enjoy the view.”
Okay, maybe not. But that’s exactly what happened to one woman, who tells her campy, true-life story in vivid purple prose to The Telegraph.
After a decade together, and seven years married, a woman realized with a jolt that her husband was leading a double life.
“At that moment, I felt physical shock, ” she writes. “Like the floor had disappeared and I was falling. I struggled to breathe. Coupled with that was a curious sensation — as though I had put glasses on and the world was coming into sharp focus for the first time.”
That’s when all of his strange behavior as of late began to make sense. His chronic tardiness. His general flakiness among friends and family. What she’d written off as merely being “unreliable,” she now saw as her husband’s scurrilous antics with nubile young men, none of whom had the misfortune of being her.
So she waited for Peter, who she describes as not “effeminate,” to come home. She made herself some rejuvenating tea. She talked to a friend who told her to calm down, that she was merely dealing with infidelity, just with members of the same sex. She waited. “Merely infidelity.” She walked the dog. She waited some more. Drinking tea. Waiting, and waiting.
When he came home from work, she confronted him. Calmly. She didn’t smash him in the head with a vase. And he didn’t freak out or deny anything. Except for the part about being gay.
“I don’t think he wanted to come out,” she writes, “because I don’t think he wanted to be gay. Somehow, for him, it was preferable to be bisexual.”
I was happy to believe him. We had a good life, a nice home. I wanted to save our marriage. We went to counselling. We made love.
But every so often I’d have a snoop. And I’d find a ticket to a gay club, or find a receipt for a gay sex toy.
Eventually though, she grew weary of being in a sexless relationship and they agreed to split up.
I do feel he stole my adult life away. He could have told me before we got married that he felt he was bisexual and wanted an open marriage. He could have told me when I found the postcard that he was gay and given me the chance to start again. He could have told me that like many men – gay or straight – he didn’t want to be monogamous.
Still, she doesn’t hate the guy. Not at all. She doesn’t hate Peter even a little bit. They “talk of staying in close touch as friends,” as people who aren’t close friends are wont to do. “There is a lot of sadness for both of us,” she writes. Although Grindr and Scruff can help with that, in Peter’s case.
As for her?
“Next year, we will be divorced and then I will have to decide how to approach dating again. I don’t think I will be as trusting again.”
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What Were Mother Teresa’s Views On Homosexuality?
Mother Teresa at a pro-life meeting in Germany © 1986 Túrelio (via Wikimedia-Commons), 1986 / License: Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.0 de
Mother Teresa was declared a saint in a canonization Mass held by Pope Francis in the Vatican on Sunday. The iconic nun’s life and work grabbed hold of public consciousness since she began her work with the sick and dying in the 1950s and has only grown since then, culminating in her sainthood. She is seen as a symbol of peace, love and acceptance throughout the world. Yet one aspect of her personal belief system is not often discussed: her views on homosexuality.
Related: Mother Teresa’s Charity: Better Children Be Homeless Than Adopted By A Gay Person
Teresa’s view on poverty and against abortion are much more well known and have proved controversial. That is in part because she had much less to say on the topic of homosexuality, which itself is telling. In fact, she made no public statement on the issue. What little we do know can be interpreted in multiple ways, fitting for a woman whose work and life have drawn such laudatory praise and harsh criticism.
Most famously, Teresa is said to have stopped an interviewer when asked about her views on homosexuality, objecting to the word, saying they should instead be called “friends of Jesus.” Finding a primary source for this interaction proved fruitless.
If the reports are accurate, however, one could view Teresa’s reaction as a nod of support. At the same time, her objection to the term “homosexual” suggests there is something wrong with having that sexual orientation. This support seems to be of the “love the sinner, hate the sin” variety.
That reading of her supposed remarks would align her with Pope Francis, who has signaled support for gay people only so long as they don’t couple up — transgender individuals, meanwhile, don’t even get off that easy.
Related: Gay Man Fired By Catholic Diocese Files Federal Lawsuit
A former nun who worked with Mother Teresa tells a story that offers another glimpse into what she may have thought about gay people.
Mary Johnson spent 20 years as a Missionary of Charity, the order founded by Mother Teresa. Johnson, then known as Sister Donata, has written a memoir about that period in her life called An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life.
In one passage, Johnson, who reports having herself had both heterosexual and homosexual affairs during her time with Missionaries of Charity, writes about a sister who was dismissed from the order and sent home over her alleged lesbianism.
“When [Mother Teresa] took one of the sisters to her house, that sister’s mother received them and said, ‘It would have been better if you had brought a coffin to my house today than my daughter in this disgrace.’ And when Mother would tell this story she would always express great sympathy for the [sister’s] mother, as though, for her, it would have been better had she brought a coffin,” Johnson writes.
Johnson also encountered an abusive nun during her time in the order. In an interview posted to her website, Johnson talks about how Teresa gave the woman another chance, and what her motivations might have been for doing so:
Abuse should never be tolerated, and there are no real justifications. Part of the problem is that in official Catholic teaching, EVERY sin against chastity is a mortal sin – there are no gradations in seriousness of matter between indulging an inappropriate sexual thought and adultery – it will all send you to hell. There is inadequate appreciation for the fact that some sexual sins harm other people, and that those are actually worse. Plus, Catholics are taught that the Christian thing to do is to forgive. I’m sure that when Mother Teresa kept giving an abusive sister another chance, she thought it her Christian duty to forgive, the way Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery. Jesus in the Gospels was never too concerned with justice. Mother Teresa was the same. But I think a mature person has to be concerned with justice, with the consequence of our actions, and not just with our intentions.
Mother Teresa was clearly willing to work in service of those in the gay community. Among those Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity opened hospices for were AIDS patience, launching some of the first such residences in places such as New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
Related: Catholic Priest Outed For Hosting Raunchy Judas-Themed Orgies With Male Prostitutes
Mother Teresa’s decision to not make public statements against homosexuality suggests she was not particularly concerned about the issue, as compared to say abortion, which she quite clearly and loudly condemned. Still, there is evidence suggesting she viewed homosexual acts as a sin that must be avoided, but for which one can be forgiven. This would align with Catholic teachings, as Johnson suggests and as Pope Francis continues to uphold today.
So her views on the matter, like so much else about her life and times, are open to interpretation, speculation and debate. Now that she is officially a saint those debates will continue and likely intensify.
feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/b2Ebuf7X4To/mother-teresas-views-homosexuality-20160907
Troy Aikman Is Still Not Over Skip Bayless Speculating He Might Be Gay Over 20 Years Ago
Troy Aikman. Via “The Herd with Colin Cowherd,” YouTube.
Troy Aikman is holding firm to his grudge against writer-turned-talking-head Skip Bayless over decades-old speculation that Aikman might be gay.
Aikman voiced his displeasure recently to Sports Illustrated over Fox Sports hiring Bayless, officially making the two nemeses colleagues. Aikman has long been the lead Fox Sports NFL analyst at Fox.
Related: Former NFLer Dexter Manley On Troy Aikman: “He’s A Queer”
“To say I’m disappointed in the hiring of Skip Bayless would be an enormous understatement,” Aikman told the magazine. “Clearly, [Fox Sports president of national networks] Jamie Horowitz and I have a difference of opinion when it comes to building a successful organization. I believe success is achieved by acquiring and developing talented, respected and credible individuals, none of which applies to Skip Bayless.”
Meow!
In Bayless’ book, Hell-Bent, he documents rumors coming from Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer, writing:
“I didn’t spend much time pondering the Aikman rumor until October of 1995, when several members of the Switzer camp told me about new ‘incidents.’ They said the team had been informed ‘by the police’ that Aikman ‘had been in some places he shouldn’t have been.’”
The Ringer reports that Bayless then spoke with Aikman’s agent, a Dallas police source, a team source, and Aikman’s sportscaster pal Dale Hansen. They all said there was no evidence Aikman was gay, and Bayless then wonders aloud why the rumor should matter. He also writes that there were rumors that Switzer himself might be gay, that he sometimes stayed in a hotel in Dallas’s “gay district.”
Related: Some Of The NFL’s Biggest Stars Are Gay: We’re Ready When You Are
“Maybe I imagined this, but I began to feel subtle pressure from the Switzer camp to ‘tell the truth’ about what a ‘fraud’ Troy is,” Bayless writes. “In December, Switzer supporters would wonder if ‘the truth’ about Troy had made him a ‘very troubled young man’ and helped cause his slump. My response: ‘What exactly am I supposed to tell the truth about?’ I had no proof of ‘the truth.’”
Aikman has called homosexuality a “lifestyle choice,” implied he might inflict physical violence on Bayless if he ever were to see him, while also suggesting Bayless himself might be gay.
Things might get awkward around the Fox Sports water cooler.
