In 1984, Buxton, along with two other straight spouses, was invited to speak to a group of gay fathers in San Francisco, in the jammed basement of an Episcopal church in Haight-Ashbury.
"She spoke about how unattractive she felt, how much pain she was still going through," recalls Bill Jones, 76, a longtime member of Gay Fathers of San Francisco. "I get choked up just thinking about it now. She represented, to the gay men in the audience, the wives they've left, and many didn't realize, until that moment, how much anger and pain and bitterness their wives had gone through.
Amity Buxton founded the Straight Spouse Network in 1986, three years after her husband of 25 years came out to her.
(Randi Lynn Beach For The Washington Post)
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"She became a hotline for the wives," he says.
The Straight Spouse Network was born two years later. There are no official figures, no sure way to know exactly how many U.S. marriages include a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender spouse. But through phone calls, e-mail, Internet message boards, a Web site (www.ssnetwk.org), newsletters and speaking engagements, Buxton has communicated, by her own count, with more than 9,000 straight spouses of gay people. She has contacts in every state and internationally.
Since McGreevey's announcement, requests to the network for information have increased from three a day to an average of 20. Three out of five are straight wives, says Buxton, though the number of straight husbands has been rising.
"Desperate for someone to talk or address questions to. Husband came out, agreed to divorce, but trying to prove I'm an unfit mother," says one e-mail.
"He's in denial, but I have no doubt. I don't want to embarrass him, but I need to deal with my pain and rejection. Are groups confidential?" says another.
"I want someone who understands what I'm going through. I was married to a man for 16 years who I thought was committed. Now I feel it's all a lie. I feel betrayed and deceived and it really hurts. I'm embarrassed to tell."
The shame runs deep. For more than a year after Darryl, her husband of 12 years, told her he was gay, Lydia Joy Burgdorf didn't tell a soul. She thought she was "the only person who's going through this."
She wasn't sure who to turn to, where to go. Her chief concern was the kids: Cassandra, 10; Carl, 8; and Deirdre, 7.
She did not want them living in a broken home.
"This is not what I signed up for," says Burgdorf, 40, a D.C. native who moved to Omaha in 1986.
She went to her priest, who told her to forgive her husband -- and that was that. She called her employee assistance program, looking for counselors who could help. She went to the bookstore, searching the psychology and self-help sections.
Then she read about the Straight Spouse Network in a Dear Abby column in July 2003, and the two started corresponding by e-mail.
