Florida Agenda

Editor’s note: In this unusual advice column a personal problem will be described and then Dr. Yakerty, a trained counselor and psychologist, will give his professional advice, followed by a counter view offered either by another psychologist, a reader like yourself, or just a blunt friend.

by Dr. Dalton A. Yakerty

The Predicament

“Don’t think my partner is cheating on me physically, but I think she’s doing it emotionally all the time.  Is there such a thing as emotional adultery?  She has a male best pal who’s straight, and they’ve been ‘like brother and sister’ since childhood.  They speak almost in a code and share a history I can never compete with.  If she was straight, they’d be a couple in a nanosecond, so I’m left feeling like the other woman even though she and I are supposedly the couple.”

My View

There’s no more self-serving argument among gays than the one over what constitutes “cheating.”

Some of us clock ourselves in righteous liberation, when we just want to get our rocks off with whoever we please, while others who are merely obsessive and controlling wave high the flag of fidelity.  In both cases, one suspects the primary concern isn’t for the other, but rather our own wishes and wants.

I’ll leave the theological and moral arguments to your priest, rabbi or trendy shaman, but ask instead if there’s not a strong psychological basis for some type of  faithfulness and exclusivity in a relationship, some common-sense approach that may be overlooked by many in the LGBT community.

Research and my own experience as a counselor demonstrate that those relationships work best, and last the longest, where there’s some zone of intimacy that’s exclusive to you and your partner.

That zone of intimacy has different aspects to it, i.e., being able to divulge your innermost fears, disappointments and dreams, sharing the most complete history of your family and inner actions of your workplace, being free to show your weaknesses and quirks, expressing your need for affection and sexual pleasure, and finally finding within a particular person your greatest fulfillment to love and be loved.

I knew two professional football players whose wives divorced them because they said that outside of sex, these two straight men found in each other all the other aspects of that zone of intimacy, reducing their wives to little more than sexual surrogates.

What the person describes in this week’s predicament is a little similar, because the zone of intimacy with her partner is reduced to only a portion of  what she wants it to be.  Are there people for whom a highly reduced zone is enough?  Yes, but not likely for her and to this degree.

Emotional adultery is real and with the growth of social networks, chat rooms, and porn sites,  the opportunity and temptation for it is only a mouse click away.  The effect can be exceedingly corrosive because in the beginning it can seem so innocent and trivial.  And that’s how most relationships end, not with a bang, but bit by bit.

Counter-View from a Reader

“I really connect with what this person wrote.  So-called friends have messed more with my relationships than anything else.  Rather than supporting your relationships, they can create tension.  Jealousy comes more often from friends than from anyone I’m dating.  If they’re single, they want you to stay single, and their advice is frequently built on self-interest.  This male friend of your partner wishes you no good and as sure as hell you should worry what he’s telling her behind your back.”

Would YOU like to give advice in our next column?

Read the predicament below and send your reaction to DrYakerty@aol.com.

“There’s a big problem in the gay community that no one talks about, and that’s domestic violence or abuse, and it doesn’t just happen with male couples, but also with lesbians. Not sure why this gets hidden, maybe we turn away from anything that might give ammunition to the right-wing homophobes, but the result is that some of our gay brothers and sisters are left in abusive relationships with no one to turn to.  Have you ever known anyone in this situation?  What advice did you give him or her?”

Editor’s note: In this unusual advice column a personal problem will be described and then Dr. Yakerty, a trained counselor and psychologist, will give his professional advice, followed by a counter view offered either by another psychologist, a reader like yourself, or just a blunt friend.

By Dr. Dalton A. Yakerty

The Predicament
“My lover doesn’t accept he’s gay.  He absolutely HATES being gay, but he won’t get any counseling for this.  Says his feelings are perfectly normal.  That it’s us who accept homosexuality who are the abnormal ones.  Sometimes right in the middle of sex he gets disgusted with himself for being ‘that way’ and jumps outta bed as if I have the plague.  I love him but think I’m just begging for heartbreak if I get deeper involved.  Is there any hope?”

My View
There are at least two big questions raised by this predicament and the counter view.

First, is it possible for someone to change their sexual orientation as ex-gay ministries claim?

Just last year, the American Psychological Association concluded after a new and comprehensive review of research and papers from both sides that such therapies and those who advocate them “have not produced any scientific research to substantiate their claims of  ‘cure.”   Yet there’s hard evidence such reparative therapies can do physical and psychological harm to the individual.

Also the American Psychological Association, as well as other scientific groups, have stated there’s no need for a “cure,” since homosexuality is not a disease or a mental disorder.

Even some of the ex-gay ministries no longer claim they can change someone’s orientation to the opposite sex, but only that they can program you so you are repulsed by the idea of same gender relations and therefore will no longer act on these desires.  In other words, they can turn you into someone who can no longer love anyone physically.

Secondly, is it possible for someone with negative views about homosexuality to change those attitudes?  The answer to that is definitely yes.

You don’t have a choice over your basic sexual orientation, but you do have a choice over what meaning you give to it.

Granted our homophobic society, it’s understandable gays would absorb some negative images, but for most people those fade as they learn personally the facts from the lies, and have the stereotypes shattered by being exposed to the wide variety of personalities and lifestyles within the GLBT community.  When all that happens, Gay Pride is no longer just a slogan.

And keep in mind that being gay is only one of the things you are.

Assuming your lover already knows these truths and yet is still unwilling to examine or doubt his attitude with you or any professional counselor, then I’m afraid there doesn’t appear to be a realistic hope for much change in the near future.

As a wise old woman once told me,  “Unless you accept who you are, you’ll miss happiness by far.”

Counter-View from a Reader
“Maybe to your other readers this is a hypothetical situation to B.S. over, but it was a hell I lived through. My former partner hated himself for loving another man.  I also urged him to see a therapist and he finally agreed.  A few weeks later I came home and found a note saying he’d gone to a counselor at a certain church on highway 1 and they were sending him to an ex-gay ministry camp called Exodus International that would save him from ‘this terrible infliction.’  All my efforts to contact him failed and to this day I don’t know what happened to him, and also to this day I keep thinking what could I’ve done differently to make it turn out differently. The answer always comes back … nothing.”
Would YOU like to give advice in our next column?
Read the predicament below and tell us what you would say to this person.  The best one will be printed along with Dr. Yakerty’s response.  Send it to DrYakerty@aol.com

“What do you do if the person who makes you the happiest doesn’t make you happy enough? We’ve been dating a year and he wants me to move in with him, so it’s crunch time.  Do I settle for a relationship that’s less than I want?  I don’t want to do that.  I see too many guys around Fort Lauderdale who do that.  But what if  I’m throwing away the best relationship I’ll ever have for something I’ll never have.  Help me before I make a big mistake.”