Tye Gamey doesn’t think he’s gay anymore. And his wife of almost 20
years believes him.
“Weeks will go by when I don’t even think homosexual thoughts or
experience temptation. I am in love with Nancy and I am sexually
attracted to her,” explains Tye. He credits his wife with the fact that their marriage survived the first nine years of secret gay encounters.
“I’m fortunate that we’re still together. Nancy is a fighter, she
doesn’t give up easily.”
For her part Nancy seems to be reconciled to the limits of being a
straight woman in love with an ex-gay man.
“I had to learn by experience that sex was not the most important sign of love,” she says. “We learned to define intimacy in an expanded way, including deepened honesty in communication.”
Tye and Nancy Gamey are so sure that their lives offer a hopeful
example for others, they’ve posted their story, “A Resurrected Marriage,” on the website of New Direction For Life, Canada’s leading ex-gay organization (www.newdirection.ca).
They founded and run its Winnipeg office. And the Gameys feel they have a special calling to help married people. They field about five calls a year from spouses, the vast majority women, whose partners have recently come out.
For the most part, these women want to stick their husbands back in the closet.
“They think their husband has a problem, he just needs to get his life in order and he won’t be gay anymore,” says Tye, who refers most of these calls to Nancy. She runs support groups for women who want to drag their spouses back from the gay abyss.
Thanks to society’s increasing acceptance of everything gay, these support groups are growing. Tye thinks this is a very good thing.
“I think it’s a positive thing that people are coming out of marriage.
Honesty and openness is what enables us to interact better with family, friends and community. Keeping secrets causes undue stress on individuals. No one should have to carry this burden alone.”
Tye’s desire to share his gay “burden” with Nancy was too much for her at times.
“When I continued to have sexual encounters after our marriage, I felt it was important to be honest,” recalls Tye on the website. “As I started to share this with her she put up her hand and said, ‘This is too much for me.'”
“I felt like my insides were being ripped to shreds,” Nancy recalls.
“All my life I had been taught that I shouldn’t have problems if I
was living a victorious Christian life. I thought there was something
wrong with me. I wasn’t a good enough wife to keep him sexually
faithful.”
Do the Gameys ever wonder if it’s all been worth it? Do either
of them regret getting married?
Despite almost leaving Tye in 1990, Nancy says she’s done the right thing. “I am convinced that God has accomplished a work in my heart through the difficulties in our marriage.”
Today the Gameys are both quick to debunk the idea that marriage can fix gays and lesbians. But neither would quibble with the idea that fixing is what gay men and lesbians need. Tye says it’s not positive homo qualities like creativity that God has an issue with, it’s only the sex.
“In a gay relationship the only thing I believe that God has an
interest in is the sexual behaviour.”
Tye says his is a lonely position. Rejected by queers as a
bigot and by Christians as a faggot, he finds himself in a
spiritual/sexual no-man’s land. But he believes that some day it will
all work out.
“Salvation is not just about sexuality,” he says. “I believe there
will be homosexuals in heaven and straight people in hell.”
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