Empathy and Balancing Needs

Empathy works best in a marriage when it is shared.

Empathy is an important element of mixed-orientation marriage success. Empathy for others’ feelings is what friends provide, and our wives and husbands should be our best friends and partners in this journey, so of course, we need to go out of our way to be kind.

When we first come out of the closet, there is often this sense of a need to make up for all those years we repressed who we are and that we were a long-suffering victim. This attitude can result in self-centered, adolescent behavior. We feel we have suffered injustice for so long, and we believe it is our turn to make it right; it is time for us.

The problem with this thinking is we are not coming out into a vacuum. Our spouses also are impacted by our coming out. In some cases, we are way ahead of them because our coming out was preceded by an extensive contemplative stage. Our spouses end up paying the price for the millions of people who put us in this place to begin with. We need to remember it is not our spouses who forced us into the closet, yet they have to deal with the consequences, and they need our empathy as much as we need theirs.

It is imperative that, at every step of the journey, we ask ourselves how our spouse is feeling about this. Both partners need to be aware that, during a period of change, our needs may very well be at cross-purposes, especially if our respective lines in the sand are currently far apart. We might think, “Haven’t we given up on our needs long enough? How do we resolve this conflict between our respective needs?” We should recognize that the creation of a successful, mixed-orientation marriage is going to require compromise, communication, and a willingness to take the tiniest of baby steps as the new relationship dynamic evolves. It takes time to learn the components of a successful mixed-orientation marriage. In the beginning, we need to look at each other’s needs and determine whose is greater today. We then need to be willing to help or allow our partner to meet that need.

The straight spouse must find a point of strength that makes it possible to feel and show empathy for the other spouse’s need to find a way to live a happier, more fulfilling life. Empathy enables the straight spouse to understanding that suppressing the other’s identity is a form of slow death, so change does need to come. So the best possible way for positive change to happen is for each spouse to develop empathy for the other’s feelings and to learn how to communicate what is needed for a solution together.

Ride the Seesaw Balancing needs in our relationships.

In addition to empathy, we also need to learn to balance the often-conflicting needs that occur in a mixed-orientation relationship. Having a bisexual husband or wife in a marriage adds demands to the relationship, and it is easy for things to get unbalanced. My wife has given me gift because she accepts my bisexuality and is happy that I am living my life as the person I really am . It is a two-way street: In exchange for this gift, a gift I never thought I would see in a million years, I do everything in my power to make each and every day the best it can be for her. With something this amazing happening to me in my life, it is my pleasure and joy to return the favor to my wife.

A discussion about the seesaw might be in order at this point. In this analogy, we have the bisexual husband’s stuff on one side, and enough of the wife’s stuff gets piled on the other side to make it balance. I would guess it takes quite a lot on the wife’s side, such as the husband’s taking on more cooking and home care, and providing more personal care for his wife. Perhaps an extra ladies nights out with friends gets added to the list. Once a couple’s lives are brought into balance, things can really change for the better for everyone. Then, if the bisexual husband needs a gay night out with the boys, instead of resentment, he might just get a wife who is genuinely happy for him because of all the joy he brings to the marriage day in and day out.

It is very hard to be resentful when your bisexual husband or wife is the most amazing person you know, regardless of sexuality. So that is my goal, to make myself an amazing and awesome husband so that a little thing like my being bisexual isn’t even a blip on the radar. Bisexual spouses make great husbands, and wives, our mission is to prove it.

I never would have been happy doing anything related to my bisexuality if my wife hadn’t been happy for me. One of my favorite expressions is that it is not the events that cause upsets, it is our reactions to them. I did my best to honor the commitment to our marriage but subsequently, she saw how much I struggled; she saw the brooding. Through baby steps, she said, “You know what, I don’t see what’s wrong with your going out to dinner with some of your bi and gay friends.” She genuinely was happy that I was happy, and so I went. Each step of our journey has included an “I am happy you are happy” kind of moment; we each want the other to spend their days better because they are with us. And that is how our mixed-orientation marriage has evolved.

We cannot control our partners’ feelings, but we can work together to help those feelings develop positively. I struggled with what I can do to make my wife truly feel that having a bisexual husband is a good thing. As it turns out, she started seeing it for herself. I try and be an amazing husband in every other way. Why? Because I get to live my life as the person I was born as and still spend my days with my wife, best friend, and soul mate.

Readers may have seen some of the negative spouses refer to all these efforts to make our spouses day a better day "love bombing" like its some sort of manipulation. That is pure nonsense, when you love someone of course you will try and make them happy.

This whole mixed-orientation marriage thing can be like a tape recorder; press play, and “Woe is me, my life is over.” Keep playing the same tape, and it is going to be the same sad song. In our case, we learned to play a new and better tape, much better and happier all around.

Perhaps there is a way to look at the events of your own mixed-orientation marriage differently; perhaps there is a way to make a list of all the good things in your marriage, add on a few more good things you would like to see, and then, just maybe, the attitude could be, ”My husband is so amazing, I couldn’t possibly hold him back for such a little thing as his being bi/gay.” This is the seesaw effect; we need to pile so much good stuff on one end of the seesaw that it balances the nonheterosexual stuff on the other end. As my wife says it is a two-way street; if I can make her happy, then of course, she will make me happy even if it is in unconventional ways.

A successful mixed-orientation marriage is one where both the husband and wife feel they are happy and self-actualized. Success and happiness may not seem possible in the beginning, but many of us find the way, especially when we go out of our way to show empathy for each other.

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