When Your Spouse Comes Out: A Straight Mate's Recovery Manual is a guide that offers solid therapeutic techniques for self-help and presents poignant true stories that examine the various reactions to the coming-out event, the personal challenges and obstacles often experienced, and shares lessons learned and some of the secrets of transformation.

Effective therapeutic self-help techniques for a straight mate’s recovery One of the most traumatic events that can happen in a marriage is discovering your mate is gay. When Your Spouse Comes Out: A Straight Mate’s Recovery Manual is a comprehensive exploration of the trauma that provides practical steps that successful individuals have taken to keep this event from ruining their future. This guide offers solid therapeutic techniques for self-help and presents poignant true stories that illustrate that the damage is not irreparable. The book examines the various reactions to the coming-out event, the personal challenges and obstacles often experienced, and shares lessons learned and some of the secrets of transformation. When this crisis hits home, isolation, depression, anger, grief, and self-recrimination take root. When Your Spouse Comes Out: A Straight Mate’s Recovery Manual presents role models, analysis, practices, and activities promoting long-term emotional recovery for heterosexual men and women whose intimate partners are gay. The text includes integrated exercises helpful for class work and student discussion and case studies of people who recount their stories and explain their recovery. Topics in When Your Spouse Comes Out: A Straight Mate’s Recovery Manual include: different straight spouse responses to the coming out event diverse ways gay mates approach coming out typical stages of coping by straight spouses health risks how to tell the children helping children with the resulting challenges paths toward healing recreating family and more When Your Spouse Comes Out: A Straight Mate’s Recovery Manual offers a self-directed path to recovery which can be used individually or in the context of a support group. This guide is invaluable for straight spouses working alone or in groups, therapists, counselors, group facilitators, librarians, families of gays/lesbians, and their mates.

Brimming with helpful information and tips, The Everything Great Marriage Book can help bring harmony to any relationship.

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When presumably heterosexual spouses turn out to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, the unexpected revelation overshadows its devastating impact on their straight wives and husbands. Unseen-Unheard opens the window on their remarkable journeys from trauma to transformation. What would you do if your husband said he'd fallen in love with a man or thinks he might be gay or bisexual, or you discovered your wife's texts, photos, or emails indicating she has a female lover and wonders if she might be lesbian or bisexual? Well, this happens, a shattering reality that at least two million men and women have faced and tried to understand and accept, even as we were unseen and our voices unheard. Who are we? We are husbands and wives left behind when our spouses came out or after we discovered they were gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Shocked and paralyzed, swirling in the devastating wake of our beloveds' revelation, we had to pick up unrecognizable pieces of our former lives and try to reconfigure them without much outside support, recognition, or understanding of the depth of the crisis. Yes, straight spouses typically cope alone with unique issues of sexuality, betrayal, and broken belief systems. Slowly, we redefine ourselves, create new lives, affirm the joy of living, and reap life's infinite possibilities. We invite you to walk with us and experience our journey from the first desperate cries of discovery or disclosure to insights and wisdom gained as we resolve our issues and transform our lives. As you observe and listen, we hope you will embrace the courage, creativity, and resilience of our strength, which we didn't know we had, yet was so powerful that lifelong habits were broken and we uniquely and marvelously became who we were meant to be. About the Authors: Amity Pierce Buxton, her Ph.D. from Columbia University, has taught grades pre-school through graduate school. Member of the American Psychological Association, she serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Bisexuality and the Journal of GLBT Family Studies and on the board of the Catholic Association for Gay and Lesbian Ministry. She wrote The Other Side of the Closet: the Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families and founded the worldwide Straight Spouse Network. Currently, she counsels spouses and couples, conducts research, writes articles and chapters, lectures, and gives workshops on all aspects of the impact of a spouse's coming out in a mixed-orientation or transgender/non-transgender marriage. R. L. Pinely writes, "Collaborating with Amity to write this book has been an amazing journey. Absorbing her expertise has been a rare privilege as we lived vicariously through the lives of others and walked in their shoes. As owner of an online support group, I'm so thankful that I have the opportunity every day to pass along her wisdom, insight, experience, and understanding to nearly 3,000 women." Visit the Straight Spouse Network website: www.straightspouse.org

Dr. Loren A. Olson has frequently been asked two questions: How could you not know that you were gay until the age of forty? Wasn't your marriage just a sham to protect yourself at your wife's expense? In Finally Out, Dr. Olson answers these questions by telling the inspiring story of his evolving sexuality, into which he intelligently weaves psychological concepts and gay history. This book is a powerful exploration of human sexuality, particularly the sexuality of mature men who, like Dr. Olson, lived a large part of their lives as straight men--sometimes long after becoming aware of their same-sex attractions. Readers will come to understand: - That there is no universal model for coming out - Why many older LGBTQ men came out late, do not come out at all, or come out to varying degrees in different environments - How stigma has created mental health problems for isolated and closeted men who have sex with men, particularly in geographical areas and cultures where there is little or no acceptance of homosexuality - How sexual function changes but perhaps even improves for older men - That aging creates opportunities that one has never had and may never have again, e.g., freedom from the tyranny of ambition - That some people consistently prefer an older sexual partner and this can lead to stable, intergenerational relationships - How same-sex sexual activity was considered prior to the Stonewall uprising in 1969 contrasted with the way it is perceived after Stonewall - How age, culture, geographical location, heterosexual marriage, and children impact a person's decision to come out - Why "conversion therapy" does not work and may be harmful - The difference between homophobia and homonaïveté - The archetypes of self-identified straight men who seek occasional or regular sex with other men - How to overcome the shame and guilt experienced by men who are sexually attracted to other men

“These women demonstrate the will to survive intact . . . Their passage to wholeness exemplifies forgiveness, growth, healing, hope, and sometimes reconciliation.”—from MY HUSBAND IS GAY Carol and Jim were high school sweethearts who married in their early twenties. Thirty years and two children later, Jim announced to his wife that he was homosexual. A fundamentalist Christian, he had been leading a double life for years. In an effort to sort out her pain and confusion, Carol Grever sought out other heterosexual women, of all ages, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds, who were married to gay men. The stories she uncovered examine their coping strategies and form the basis of this manual for healing.