The straight wife behind the story who gave away her days

Fun Home is a musical based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel,  Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, about growing up in a family with a closeted gay dad. Set in a funeral home, the story naturally has some dark elements but also manages to be somewhat cavalier, interwoven with the childish antics of three rambunctious, somewhat neglected children. In the book and musical, Alison reflects on her own coming-out process as a lesbian, and her father’s hidden homosexuality and illicit affairs. In this musical review of Fun Home, I will highlight the plight of the straight wife, even though the musical only slightly touches on the woman who spends her days trying to cope with the complexities of being married to a closeted, cheating, homosexual husband.

In 2022, I was privileged to see the Melbourne Theatre Company‘s production of the musical at the Victorian Arts Centre in Melbourne, Australia. I knew I had to see it! Having been previously married to a closeted gay man, I was intrigued to see how this family’s story would be portrayed, and in particular, how they would represent the wife and mother. 

There are some powerful, poignant moments in the musical, as adult Alison observes and reflects on two younger versions of herself: 9-year-old Alison, finding her place in the family, and 19-year old Alison, who grapples with her sexuality alongside the discovery of her father’s homosexuality and affairs with men.

I’ll share with you my reflections on the show, with a particular focus on Helen, the straight wife and mother. 

The closeted husband was there, but not “there”

The musical begins with young Alison insistently seeking her father’s attention and presence; something he was seemingly unable to give her. Alison writes:

“His absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb. He really was there all those years, a flesh-and-blood presence streaming off the wallpaper, digging up the dogwoods, polishing the finials… smelling of sawdust and sweat and designer cologne. But I ached as if he were already gone.” ― Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.

This quote powerfully highlights the tragic, ambiguous loss many straight partners feel when married to an enigma; a person who is only half-present, yet not forthcoming that something is missing, or what that something actually is.

Her father’s inability to be fully present was brought home by Alison’s comment, “Sometimes, when things were going well, I think my father actually enjoyed having a family.” 

I often hear straight spouses speak of a similar experience – a feeling that their partner was only half in the room.  It was difficult to put their finger on what was wrong, but something didn’t quite feel right.

The impact of his psychological disappearing act on his family members is woven subtly throughout the play, sometimes overtly, and other times so powerfully that it knocks the wind right out of your sails. 

A straight wife’s lament

Watching the wife’s story play out on stage was so painful. I expected as much, given my personal experience, and my counselling practice with straight partners of closeted gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. 

The impact on the wife/mother is understated in the musical, with the primary focus on the father’s hidden homosexuality juxtaposed with his daughter’s coming-out. Alison’s relationship with her mother is explored more fully in her subsequent graphic novel, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama – I wonder if her story will be turned into a musical? 

It was unsurprising that the wife/mother’s experience sat in the shadows of this musical, as the public commentary is much the same – there is almost nothing written about Alison’s mother’s story. I thought that other viewers may have been impacted by the depiction of a wife who is married to a closeted, cheating gay man, but I have been unable to find social media commentary or critical reviews that pay homage to this.

It’s difficult to understand why her pain seems to be overlooked by those who’ve seen the stage production. The lack of acknowledgement of the straight partner’s suffering is routinely overlooked by most people. 

So I’m going to shine a spotlight on Alison’s mum. 

She has a name and a story, and it matters

Let me introduce you to Helen Bechdel, an “idealistic young woman who becomes entrapped and dragged down by the negative influence of Bruce and his deceitful surface-level charms”. 

Helen dreamed of Broadway but instead married Bruce, and ended up pouring herself into community theatre while desperately trying to turn a blind eye to her husband’s gay affairs with men, teenage boys, and even the male babysitter. It’s somewhat uncanny that Helen and Bruce met at a performance of Taming the Shrew, a play in which the wife’s spirit is broken by her domineering male partner. 

She seemed to have difficulty being emotionally engaged and connected with her children. Her efforts to micromanage her confusing existence extended to forbidding the children from commenting on their father’s appearance, because of his potential meltdowns if it wasn’t as he wanted it to be. Helen loses herself in a family dynamic far from what she’d imagined and hoped for.

“He appeared to be an ideal husband and father… but would an ideal husband and father have sex with teenage boys?”

It was hard to watch Bruce’s affairs be portrayed in a somewhat ‘light-hearted’ way on stage. At one point, he was flirting promiscuously with a young man in the library, while his wife was playing the piano downstairs, and I heard a few people giggling. I was not one of those people.

The absolute highlight of the production, for me, was the moment when Helen sings her power ballad, “Days and Days.” I found myself leaning forward in my seat, tears streaming down my face and into my facemask (hello, pandemic!).  As the song ended, I (almost!) leapt up from my seat to applaud the actresses’ heart-wrenching rendition of Helen’s pain, anguish and despair. 

Hearing Helen’s distress expressed so powerfully on stage validated the experience of thousands of women with closeted gay husbands. Women, slowly dying inside of closets that were never meant to be theirs.

This song is quite late in the musical, and by this time, Helen is at her wits’ end. She’s had enough. After enduring so much in her marriage, she’s finally ready to move on with her life. This song is a powerful reckoning with what her life has become.

I am intrigued to understand Helen more. Alison recalls that her mother stopped hugging her goodnight from the age of 7. She seemed somewhat checked-out in the musical, as though something in her had shut down during the marriage, as though something in her had died.

There is an image in the Fun Home comic that is captioned: “In a passport photo taken 8 years later (after the wedding), my mother’s luminous face has gone dull.” This line from Helen’s song gives us a hint as to why:

“No one clocks the day you disappear”

The dullness… that dying of the Self in a marriage of non-desire… is something I see too often in the eyes of clients. Likewise, during my unhappy years, I saw this in my own eyes, staring back at me from the mirror.

The confusing emotions, psychological distancing and lack of true intimacy can leave the unsuspecting straight partner feeling oh, so alone, but not knowing why. The natural interpretation is: there is something wrong with me. 

Attempts to close the distance or fill the void are either rejected or ignored by the closeted partner, possibly as a way of protecting their secret, reaffirming the message that the straight partner is somehow not enough. 

Gaslighting

Bruce’s gaslighting of his wife, Helen, was unsettling. When he shouted at her, “You’re the one with the problem, you crazy b*tch!”, I was shocked and enraged. She deserved better.

It wasn’t always so overt. He would sometimes ask her opinion, yet overlook it; he would even avoid addressing her by her given name. He would pursue men in front of her face and then tell her it was her problem. 

I imagine he was quite a tortured soul in some ways, pouring himself into his house renovations instead of into the family he had chosen. The toxic self-loathing and shame underlying his gaslighting “inhabited (their) house as pervasively and invisibly as the aromatic musk of aging mahogany”. And they all paid the price.

Did Helen stay with him until the end? You’ll have to read the novel to find out the answer to that question. I can’t give everything away. 😉 

Catharsis

Alison’s cartooning was cathartic for her, but it wasn’t enough on its own. She also had years of therapy and lots of honest communication with her family. Through this process, she was able to “get him out of her head”. Reflecting on this, she says: 

“I had been haunted by my father, and I no longer was. I took him off my hard drive. He was using up all my RAM.”

Unfortunately, having this story told out loud in the book was not easy for Alison’s mother, Helen, who died before the stage show was first performed. Alison acknowledges that she probably “couldn’t have handled seeing it”, as it would have been too painful. If Helen were still alive, I would be saying to her: “Your life was not lived in vain, and you deserved better than the marriage you had. Your pain is acknowledged, and your days mattered.”

We all have our own ways of processing our painful memories so they can become catalysts for growth and transformation. For some of us, this sometimes looks like having a good ol’ cry while watching aspects of our lives lived out on the stage.