because that email software is not my default it took me a while to get into it, so have c&p'd for people
SUN 09 JUL 2006, Page 087
The ultimate betrayal - My husband sleeps around ... with men - When love takes a new direction
By: KERRIE DAVIES
Responses vary widely for a straight partner who finds out his or her `other half' is gay, reports Kerrie Davies
A year after their wedding, Rebecca's husband came to bed and broke down in tears. ``I've broken our wedding vows,'' he confessed.
Sleepy and in shock, Rebecca listened as he detailed a one-night stand with a stranger he'd met on the Internet. Nine years later, Rebecca, 31, and her husband are still together -- and he is still having an affair.
Rebecca isn't jealous of his extramarital life: she feels she simply can't compete, because she is a woman and her husband's lover is a man.
Angelina Jolie boasts of it, Madonna has flaunted it and Portia de Rossi embraced it. Bisexuality has never been sexier but, in reality, can a marriage survive a partner's attraction to the same sex?
Sydney still relishes the infamous aborted wedding of Pitty Pat (aka Primrose Dunlop) and Lorenzo Montesini, who ran off with his best man before their wedding in Venice.
The marriage of former Australian Medical Association president Dr Kerryn Phelps ended when she told her husband of her affair with a woman. Phelps later found her ``soul mate'' in Jackie Stricker.
Elton John also flirted with marriage when he tied the knot with Renate Blauel.
The couple wed in Sydney on Valentine's Day, 1984 but divorced in 1988. He recently married David Furnish.
Sha*, who co-ordinates the website
www.biguyswives com.au for women with bisexual partners, says research has shown that 85 per cent of women leave as soon as their partner admits they are bisexual.
Of the 15 per cent who stay, only seven per cent do not eventually divorce.
``Most women discover the truth by accident or they are tipped off by friends,'' Sha says. ``One woman found out by walking in on her husband with a man. I can't begin to imagine how tough it would be to find out that way.''
Sha discovered her partner's bisexuality after seven years of marriage.
``My husband's best man told me I should look on his computer, and I found some material,'' Sha says.
``A lot of women get angry, but I was intensely sad, shocked and devastated. I told him we needed to talk.
``I put the children to bed, turned off the TV, shut the lounge-room door and exploded: `When were you going to tell me?' I thought I'd have to leave him, and my friends were adamant that was what I had to do.
``But my mother, who is an incredible person, asked: `Do you love him for more than his sexuality?' I realised I did, so I stayed.''
After 12 months, Sha and her husband agreed that he could have a lover. ``When he found a boyfriend, he was like a giggly teenager. It was very painful for me to see him like that,'' Sha says. ``I tried to have a lover, too, but I found it too difficult. I was in love with my husband, and I am a loyal person.
``It was heartbreaking.''
Sha finally ended her 15-year marriage in April this year. ``I still love him, but I need to find me again and I couldn't handle the lack of intimacy and affection any more. I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain because it's too close to home.''
Rebecca insists that marriage to a bisexual partner can work. ``But honesty, love and attraction for each other are crucial,'' she says.
``The hardest part was I thought I knew him, and now he was telling me something I'd had no idea about.''
Rebecca decided to stay because of her husband's honesty and because it was a same-sex affair.
``Perhaps if I'd found out by accident I would have reacted differently,'' she admits. ``Or if he'd said he didn't love or want me anymore, or if I felt jealous.
``But I didn't feel threatened, which I would have if it had been with a woman.
``I always felt quite confident, too, that he would stay with me and not leave me for a male partner because I believed a man couldn't give him emotionally what I could.
``What most shocked me, I think, was that he'd had sex with a stranger. The randomness of it worried me and it seemed meaningless.
``I told him the parameters were that I wanted him to find a regular lover and that he would have safe sex.''
Her husband found a lover through a bisexuals support group. Rebecca subsequently met him and she gave her approval.
Academics Maria Pallotta Chiarolli and Sara Lubowitz recently researched women with bisexual partners.
``We interviewed more than 60 women, including a 70-year-old who had been in a relationship with her bisexual husband for 48 years,'' Chiarolli says.
``There are women who believe bisexual men make for `better' relationships, but some women are angry, disgusted and grieving.''
And for the men who have the courage to reveal their secret to their wives, the experience is incredibly traumatic.
When Alan* told his wife that he was gay, she instantly went into denial.
``I'd known for a long time, but thought marriage and a child would change me,'' he says. ``It didn't and, when I met a man and my wife wanted another child, I knew I had to tell her.
``I had a searingly vivid anxiety dream that I had infected her and an unborn child with HIV, even though I had practised safe sex. I woke up that morning and knew it had to be that day, but it took me three hours to tell her.
``I was vomiting, and I found myself praying she wouldn't come home so I wouldn't have to confront it. When I did get the words out, she rang my father and said: `Your son has just said he's gay. Can you come over and sort him out?'''.
Alan agreed to marriage counselling, but the counsellors told his wife what she didn't want to hear: that Alan wanted to be with a man, not with her.
Alan is now in a live-in, committed relationship with his lover and, after years of pain and conflict with his ex-wife, is trying to rebuild a friendship with her and his teenage daughter.
Women also find it extremely difficult to tell their husbands.
Michelle, who was married for 10 years and recently had a commitment ceremony with her female partner, didn't discover her bisexuality until after her marriage had ended.
Her new partner left her male fiance to be with her.
``My partner's fiance was understandably very emotional and upset,'' Michelle says.
``It was an intense time, but they've always remained in touch and haven't let it ruin the memory of their relationship.
``When I told my ex-husband, he asked if I'd been with women during our marriage, which was a fairly natural question.
``You could see the relief on his face when I assured him I had not.
``I think men can take it two ways: they can regard it as an affront to their masculinity, or they take the view, `It's her, not me,' and move on.''
Rebecca, too, asked herself if she was bisexual, but instead took a male lover. ``We tell each other we love each other every day and we continue to have a sexual relationship, too,'' she says.
``My husband is much happier now than he used to be and more balanced. The only thing that would break us up is a bomb.''
* Real names have been changed
Graham McKay from the Sydney Bi Network
estimates there are 2000 email members subscribing to the group and many attend social functions.
"We welcome partners of bisexuals and the bi-curious. It is great when the partners come along because there is a lot of stereotyping of the bi-community, and after seeing that we are a group of people at the pub or club like any other group, they usually feel happier about their partner attending our events" said Mckay.
"How partners react is really unpredictable. It can be handled like a wife choosing to accept her husband's mistress or the partner allows it but doesn't want to know about it. Sometimes for them, it isn't acceptable at all and then there's the guy who has agonised for years only to finally come out and have his partner say 'I'm bi too!'. I've heard them all."
It seems to be more acceptable for a woman to be bisexual than a man and that is probably why there are more support groups for men, and partners of men, than for women or for partners of women. A lot of people, whether they are the bi person or the partner, feel very alone, because they think they are the only one."
