S3 Ep 18: How Gender Transition Impacts a Couple

Author Ann Anderson Evans shares her story of loss and healing after she discovered her husband’s body the morning after he took his own life. After a decades long struggle with his gender identity and her husband's suicide, Ann has worked to make sense of her life, the man she married, and the hidden pain he carried. Ann's story is nuanced, complicated, and defies expectations from every angle. 

Website: www.annandersonevans.com

Book: https://annandersonevans.com/the-sweet-pain-of-being-alive/

Author and Coach Sally Srok shares her experience of losing herself in a 20-year mixed orientation marriage, learning her husband was gay, and how she rebuilt her life after divorce. After a birthday trip on a cattle drive reawakened her sense of self, Sally found the strength to confront her unhappy marriage, pursue a divorce, and keep her children's lives as stable as possible through it all. But it wasn't until she reexamined a draft of her book, Bonus Round, that she realized she still had to face her anger.

Website: www.sallysrok.com

Book: Amazon.com: Bonus Round: A Gay Ex-Husband, a Divorce, and a Life Reimagined eBook : Srok, Sally

Today we talk to Licensed Professional Counselor and expert in treating sexual betrayal Michelle Mays. She is the author of The Betrayal Bind: How to Heal When the Person You Love the Most Hurts you the Worst. We discuss the emotional and psychological impact of sexual betrayal on betrayed partners, the four types of gaslighting and their effects, how shame operates in both partners in the relationships, and how to heal.

Website: www.michellemays.com

Book: The Betrayal Bind: How to Heal When the Person You Love the Most Hurts You the Worst: Mays LPC CSAT-S, Michelle: 9781949481778: Amazon.com: Books

In part 2 of our deep dive into forgiveness, we seek a spiritual perspective with Methodist Pastor Carter Cortelyou. We talk about why it can be so hard to let go of the identity of being a straight spouse, what lies on the other side of forgiveness, and why forgiveness can make us feel vulnerable. 

Carter Cortelyou is a United Methodist clergy person who has been serving congregations in Michigan since 1990. He currently pastors Novi (long “I”) United Methodist Church in the suburbs of Detroit. His ex-wife came out to him in October 2009 after 24 years of marriage. He married his wife Andrea In September 2013. Carter is a past Board President of OurPath and serves as the Metro Detroit support contact.

It's no secret that people who have been betrayed often have a hard time forgiving the person who betrayed them. Resistance to "letting them off the hook" is understandable. In this illuminative conversation with Professor Everette Worthington, we learn the science and research behind forgiveness - what it is, how to do it, and why it matters for our health and wellbeing. 

Everett Worthington is Commonwealth Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University. Ev (which he prefers to be called) notes that his salary is retired but he isn't. He still maintains a license as a Clinical Psychologist in Virginia, and he has published over 45 books and 500 scholarly publications. Currently, he is completing a couple of books (self-forgiveness and couple therapy), and he usually publishes about 20 articles a year, mostly related to forgiveness, humility, and other positive psychology topics. He says that his life mission is "to do all I can to promote forgiveness in every willing heart, home, and homeland."

Website: evworthington-forgiveness.com

Free workbooks: reach.discoverforgiveness.org

Michael Slepian is the leading expert on the psychology of secrets and author of The Secret Life of Secrets. Slepian has authored more than fifty articles on secrecy, truth, and deception. We talk about why people keep their sexual orientation and gender identity secret (among other secrets), how secrets impact both the secret keeper and those that secrets are kept from, and whether or not it’s ethical to keep a secret from someone who has a stake in knowing the truth (such as a spouse or partner).

Website: https://www.columbia.edu/~ms4992/

Dr. Gary Bischof is a professor and coordinator of the Marriage, Couple and Family Counseling Program in the Dept of Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology at Western Michigan University. He is a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in the treatment of couples navigating the gender transition of one of the partners. In this episode, he discusses the pitfalls for couples negotiating gender transition, the factors that can lead to couples staying together, and what competent couples therapy looks like for couples in this situation.

In our most raw and vulnerable interview yet, guest Arti O’Brien shares what it was like to discover only a year ago that her soulmate, best friend and husband of 30+ years had been cheating on her with men for the entirety of their marriage. They were the perfect couple: compatible in multiple ways, mutually affectionate confidants, and looking toward a happy retirement. It all changed when Arti noticed a romantic text on her husband's phone that wasn't from her... 

After discovering that her husband was regularly dialing "Manhunt," one of the most iconic telephone dating services for gay men, Suzanne knew her marriage was not what she thought. After she left the marriage she endured two decades of post separation abuse and coercive control. Her experience has lead her to become a certified high conflict divorce coach and write her memoir: Cover Wife: Escaping the Wrath of a Closeted (Gay) Narcissist. 

When our guest Phil Illy found out he had a sexual orientation that he’d never heard of, he set out to understand it. Following an extensive review of nearly a century of research from clinical sexology, Phil describes and demystifies autoheterosexuality, and how this much misunderstood sexual orientation can set someone on a path to becoming transgender. He helps spouses and partners of trans people learn how the course of autoheterosexuality progresses, how to better understand the ones they love, how to contextualize what is happening during transition, and have the best information to make decisions for their lives. 

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HOW TO FIND PHIL:
autoheterosexual.com

twitter.com/autogynephilic

autoheterosexual@gmail.com

SUPPORT THE PUBLICATION OF PHIL'S BOOK: AUTOHETEROSEXUAL:
paypal.me/phililly