When Chestnut Hill therapist Joanne Fleischer was growing up, gay issues were hidden in our culture. She didn’t know anyone who was gay, it wasn’t part of the conversation when it came to sexuality, and she went along with everyone else in being straight. “When other girls were having crushes on boys, I went along that route. Being gay wasn’t something that presented itself to me,” she explained.
In my experience, New Year’s resolutions are rarely life-changing. On the other hand, the despair of my most difficult life crisis — the decision to leave my husband of 12 years for another woman — changed my life forever, and I couldn’t have done it without some very powerful and sustaining resolutions. It was 1979, the year that Donna Summer topped the charts with “Hot Stuff,” and I had fallen in love with a close female friend, had an extramarital affair, lied about it and broken my marriage vows.
Oprah Winfrey received an email from a woman, married to a man for twenty-five years, who confessed to having a lesbian affair which lasted nearly three years. She explained that she loved her husband but was not in love with him and said she was bitter that she’d probably stay trapped in her passionless marriage for the rest of her life. Thus began the production of an episode for The Oprah Winfrey Show on “Wives Who Confess They are Gay.”
AS SHE HEADED east on the Schuylkill, Dana* couldn’t stop her hands from shaking on the wheel. I can’t afford a setback, she thought. Every step forward had been such a huge undertaking. She flipped on the car radio to calm herself. George Michael’s baritone was crooning: “I gotta have faith, faith, faith…” Thanks, God, you’re really having fun with me here. Dana hadn’t told a soul where she was going, and navigating the Expressway on a dark Friday night made it feel like a secret mission.