One Spouse is Gay; Now What? Mixed-Orientation Couple Face Unique Complications, But Now Find There is Help Available from The Omaha World-Herald's "Living" section Saturday, August 28, 2004 story by Angie Brunkow; photos by Kent Sievers The Burgdorfs no longer wear their wedding rings. Instead, Lydia Joy Burgdorf wears the interlocking bands of a puzzle ring, something she laughingly calls symbolic of her life. Her husband, Darryl, wears a silver band with a rainbow-colored stone for gay pride. The couple have been married for 12 years, but Darryl said he discovered a few years ago that he is gay. "Every married couple has challenges," said Lydia, who wanted to keep the marriage intact even after her husband told her he was homosexual. "Ours are a little different." The story of a gay spouse coming out to his straight wife played out publicly this month when James McGreevey, New Jersey's governor, announced he was gay. With his wife standing by, the father of two admitted to an affair with a man and resigned from public office. He said circumstances had compromised his ability to govern. "At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world," McGreevey told a national television audience. "And so my truth is that I am a gay American." An estimated 2 million married couples in the United States include a gay spouse, researcher Amity Pierce Buxton said. "They fall in love and they want to get married, and society says this is the pattern of life," said Buxton, who wrote The Other Side of the Closet. "They just do it thinking (homosexuality) will go away or they can overcome it."   Darryl and Lydia Joy Burgdorf, shown here with children from left to right, Carl, 8, Deirdre, 7, and Cassandra, 10, are happily married despite the fact that Darryl announced two years ago that he is gay.   Their marriage is as nontraditional as their rings. Darryl wears a gay pride ring, and Lydia Joy wears a puzzle ring Darryl gave her, because as they both say, "love is a puzzle." Darryl said he had no idea he was homosexual. It didn't fit with his upbringing in a conservative, God-fearing family in Nashville, Tenn. "Being gay was wrong, so I wasn't gay," Darryl said. After a stint in the Air Force, he moved to California and began wondering whether he might be bisexual. Then he moved to Omaha, met Lydia and put the question out of his mind. "We clicked," Darryl said. Lydia echoed: "If people believe in love at first sight, that is what it was." Three kids later, the couple believed they had a strong marriage. Darryl started a technology business. Lydia took classes so she could move up in her job and, on her own time, create custom needlework patterns and kits to sell. They watched their kids blossom and grow. Then the economy tanked. Darryl's business dried up. The couple said they faced financial troubles that sent Darryl into a mild depression. For Darryl, the wondering and questioning he experienced in California returned. At first, he sought out gay bars. Sometimes, he sat in the parking lot working up the nerve to go inside. He eventually met another man over the Internet and had a brief affair. "I expected to settle the question of whether I was straight or bisexual," he said. "The result was something I had never contemplated." Six months passed, and Darryl told his wife he was gay. Buxton, the author, said that for the straight spouse, it can take up to six years to come to terms with finding out his or her partner is gay. It can be worse than divorce, she said, and involve similar emotions: denial, anger and grief. "The first thing is utter shock," said Buxton, whose husband told her he was gay. "They're living in a nightmare of someone else's creation, but it affects them just as much. That's the irony." A third of the couples who go through this usually break up quickly, she said. Another third try to stay together to sort things out but soon separate. Yet another third are determined to make it work, but only half of those couples are still together three years or more later, Buxton said. It took Lydia a year to face her husband's homosexuality. Her husband came out of the closet, but Lydia felt like she was being stuffed into one. The couple stayed together, but Lydia became fidgety and anxious. She cried herself to sleep and lost her job. She felt she had to hide a terrible secret. She reached out to a priest, who advised her to tell her husband that she had forgiven his infidelity. She reached out to a mental health professional, who suggested a marriage counselor. "I'm thinking there is no help," Lydia said. "No one else had dealt with this. You withdraw. You hunker down. You think there's no hope and no help." A newspaper headline put Lydia on the path to healing. The story was a self-help column about a woman who just learned her husband was gay. The columnist directed the woman to the Straight Spouse Network headed by Buxton. Through the network, Lydia found online support groups. She finally could talk to her husband about their relationship and the path their family should forge. "We had spent a year dancing around the elephant in our living room," she said. Lydia and Darryl remain married. They have traded in their queen-sized mattress for two twins and created an open marriage with ground rules. Lydia and Darryl say they remain best friends. They know that their solution is not one which would fit everyone and that some criticize the arrangement. But they wanted their three children to have a mom and dad who live together and share parenting responsibilities in a loving, though untraditional, home. Darryl said he is grateful to explore his homosexuality and newfound identity without losing his family, especially his children. "If I had known 20 years ago I was gay, it would have been so much easier," he said. "But I wouldn't be a parent, either." Lydia said she is at peace. They have told friends and family about Darryl's sexual orientation and their changed relationship. The children know about the change, though only one is old enough to understand. Ten-year-old Cassandra said she's glad her parents are staying together. She's had to put up with some teasing at school, but she ignores it -- she said she knows her parents are good people. "At least for me, life hasn't been that different," she said. "My dad still loves me very, very much." The family believes it's important to tell their story so that other couples in the same situation know they're not alone and that help is available, whether or not the couple stay together. That kind of help allowed Lydia to take her wedding ring off and confront the changes. "The elephant is still there," Lydia said, "but he's really tiny." From the September 1 "Public Pulse": A Dilemma for Gays The Aug. 28 World-Herald article about the Darryl and Lydia Joy Burgdorf family and New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey's recent press conference have brought to the public's attention the dilemma surrounding a family in which one spouse is gay. I surely feel much empathy for all members of these families. Some 40 years ago, I faced the possibility of a similar dilemma. At the urging of my psychiatrist, I had been dating a woman with the objective of getting married. By the grace of God, I finally found the courage to tell her that I am gay. She wanted nothing to do with a gay-straight relationship, and we stopped dating. To me, the dilemmas faced by these families are additional illustrations of the necessity that one follow William Shakespeare's admonition: "To thine own self be true." The fear of being exposed as gay can force gay persons into denial of their orientation and to falsely assume a straight role. "Living a lie" has long-term consequences such as those facing these two families. I believe that our society should share some of the responsibility for forcing gays to "live a lie." Society's condemnation and rejection of homosexuals and its suppression of knowledge about human sexuality has surely established a climate of fear around homosexuality. -- Forrest D. Christensen, Omaha Also from the September 1 "Public Pulse": Bravery Merits Thanks I commend The World-Herald and Darryl and Lydia Joy Burgdorf before they are condemned for coming out as a couple working through a not-quite-so-normal relationship. He is gay and she is straight, and they have three children. As executive director of Citizens for Equal Protection, I have had contact with the Burgdorf family on many occasions and find them to be a functional, loving, caring family. To come to terms with their relationship in such a positive and caring way is a good example for all those couples who are in the same situation and cannot tell their stories publicly because they fear for their safety and their jobs. I hope the conservative readers don't condemn the Burgdorfs for their actions and will open their minds to the idea that there are always positive, alternative answers to unusual situations. Thanks for your bravery, Darryl and Lydia. -- Michael Gordon, Omaha From the September 7 "Public Pulse": He Betrayed His Spouse I am writing about an Aug. 28 news article, "He's gay, spouse isn't; now what?" I do not hate or fear homosexuals. Politically correct though the article was, however, it was nothing more than an issue of immorality and betrayal. Let's say, for comparison's sake, the husband had gone to his wife and said, "Honey, it is time for me to be honest. I am a womanizer. I just need many women in my life to satisfy my sexual needs. I'm sorry if this hurts you and the children, but after all, it's all about me and my needs. I must be honest with who I am. "I would still like to live here and have a relationship with the children and keep my family, but I also need to go out and explore my new sexual identity with other women. And honestly, if I had been brave enough to do this a long time ago, and if I had it to do over, I wouldn't have married you and had our children." We should be broad-minded and tolerant of such irresponsibility and even champion his bravery in being so honest? No. Let's look honestly at breaking the marital vows and immorality, whether those involved are heterosexual or homosexual. -- Elaine Bylund, Omaha