Let’s talk about marriage equality, marriage INequality, and mismatched marriages.
In 2017, the Australian government conducted a national postal survey asking eligible voters the question: ‘Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?’ 13 million people responded. That was 80% of the eligible population.
On November 15, 2017, the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced the survey’s results: 61.6 percent of participants had voted yes. 8,008,000 people celebrated in the streets, in clubs, and in homes that day! (While others struggled to accept the news.)
On the same day, a few years earlier, my husband of 24 years had told me he was gay. I didn’t celebrate. As we sat talking on our balcony, my world stopped spinning, and the previous 24 years unravelled before my eyes. I had sometimes wondered, and asked, but had been met with assurances that it wasn’t true. But those assurances were false. And now I finally knew.
The irony is not lost on me that the two dates coincide. November 15th: the date it was decided that marriage equality would now become law, meaning that gay couples could finally “tie the knot”. November 15th: also the date my marriage, which had always been legal, was revealed to be a sham. An UNequal union. A mismatch.
Although my marriage was between a man and a woman, it did NOT tick the box for “marriage equality”. It was a mismatch between a woman and a gay man who did not feel comfortable being a gay man. Marriage equality was now going to be a legal entity in Australia and I realised that my marriage had been an unequal union.
I wonder, if marriage equality had always been acceptable in society, would my former husband have felt more comfortable in his sexuality? I wonder if he would have still stood at the altar with a woman (me) and said, “Yes, I do”? Would he have married me, or would he have had the courage to marry a man he could have loved fully, with every part of who he was? Perhaps I would have been spared the agony of a difficult marriage that never should have occurred.
Unequal Marriages
When one person withholds the truth about their sexuality or gender identity before getting married, the marriage is unequal in terms of knowledge, consent, power, and privilege.
Marriage inequality looks like:
- He was attracted to men, but married a woman.
- He knew the truth about his homosexuality, but I did not.
- He hoped I could “make the gay go away” but forgot to ask my consent for such an impossible task.
He took a gamble on the marriage, hoping that the part of him that loved me would be enough to make it work. He says he really hoped it would work, and I believe him. I just wish he hadn’t done it. I wish he hadn’t taken a gamble on my life. And I genuinely wish he’d been true to himself from the beginning, as these marriages aren’t great for either partner.
The problem is, when someone is living with internalised homophobia, hidden in a closet of deep shame, it’s difficult to truly love an “intimate partner”. There is no Narnia behind that closet door.
Do I wish I’d been let in on the secret? Yes.
Would I still have married him? No.
I wish he had felt free to live authentically and be at peace within himself.
I wish my right to make an informed choice had not been taken from me.
I wish I’d been able to marry a man who could love me fully.
And yet here we are. What’s done is done.
In the end, we set each other free. He can live authentically, and I’m no longer living with and trying to love a man who was so tormented by unwanted homosexuality.
Was I perfect in my imperfect, mismatched marriage? No, I’m human, like everyone else. But I was honest. I didn’t keep secrets. Marriages don’t require perfection, but honesty and integrity create a solid foundation for a healthy relationship.
Do I wish that my marriage had never happened? Well, I can’t say yes to that question because I have 4 beautiful living children who would not be here if it were not for my marriage. And so I celebrate that. I celebrate them! And I am deeply, utterly thankful. But I also live with deep grief about the marriage. I wish they’d been born into an equal, well-matched marriage based on love, desire, and commitment, not half-truths.
Having lived for 24 years in an unequal marriage, I have first-hand knowledge of:
- How difficult it is to work on a marriage when one partner is hiding the truth of who they are, and the other is confused about what’s wrong and unable to fix the problem they’re unaware of.
- The mismatch that exists in a marriage when sexual orientations don’t align.
- The inequality of these marriages.
Light in the Darkness
As it is with most marriages, there is light and darkness, good and bad, challenges and good times. I’m thankful for the positive aspects of the relationship, and I also wish the marriage had never happened. We both deserved better. I’ve learned to live with dual realities.
- The losses and the gains
- The dark and the light
- The grief and the joy
- The trauma and the post-traumatic growth
I’m glad that the Australian Marriage Act was amended, redefining marriage as “a union of two people”. I’m not sure that I could have said that once, as I grew up in the church, so it may have seemed wrong to me, but I can’t be sure, and so I have compassion for people who struggle with all of this.
Moving Forward
I hope he is truly happy now, living authentically as a gay man. I wish he’d been able to do this many years ago, for both of our sakes.
And I hope all people marry the person they’re most aligned with, the person they can be authentic with, the person they love the most deeply.
I’m thankful to be bringing something purposeful out of my pain through my counselling and coaching practice, working with people going through this experience. I hope mismatched marriages like mine eventually become a relic from the past and I am out of a job.
In the meantime, we can embrace the freedom people have in Australia to marry according to their orientation, and we can be frustrated that closeted homosexuals are still marrying straight partners. It is beyond time for these mismatched, unequal marriages to stop happening.
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