Press Kit
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A Spontaneous testimonial from the Editor, Dr. Jerry Bigner, The Haworth Press
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To see Carol on "The Oprah Winfrey Show"
CLICK HERE
PRESS RELEASE
New Book, DVD, Guide to Healing When Your Spouse Comes Out
When Your Spouse Comes Out:
A Straight Mate’s Recovery Manual
The Haworth Press
Stories of married gay celebrities who come out make headlines, like NJ Governor Jim McGreevey, whose stunned straight wife, Dina, watched him announce his homosexuality on network TV. Millions of others don’t make the news but suffer just as much. Because of the secrecy involved, experts don’t know exactly how many of these mixed marriages exist, but it is certainly in the millions. It is a worldwide issue.
What would you do if your husband or wife said, “I’m gay”? Author Carol Grever and psychologist Dr. Deborah Bowman explore the question in their new book, When Your Spouse Comes Out: A Straight Mate’s Recovery Manual (The Haworth Press). The compact, practical guide offers a coherent plan for lasting recovery. It carries an optimistic message through authentic case interpretations.
The new book is available in either paperback or hardcover and can be useful to individuals, counselors, therapy and support groups, and university students. An optional Guidebook for workshop facilitators, mental health professionals, and instructors is also offered.
To underscore the themes, a DVD, One Gay, One Straight: Complicated Marriages, has just been released by co-producers Grever and Roslyn Dauber (Dauber Film Services). Straight spouses tell their own stories, with narration by Ali MacGraw. It is the first video in the United States to give first-hand accounts of the anguish of mixed-orientation marriages that reveal the various stages of coping and recovery.
Grever’s earlier book about the straight spouse dilemma, My Husband Is Gay: A Woman’s Guide to Surviving the Crisis, was intended for women in the early crisis stage. This new book guides both men and women to long-term recovery, adding psychological insights and therapeutic activities. My Spouse Came Out is aimed at the long-term recovery of a relatively ignored, suffering population, the heterosexual men and women who unknowingly married gays.
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Documentary Synopsis
One Gay, One Straight
Complicated Marriages
Roslyn Dauber, Producer-Director
Carol Grever, Executive Producer
Ali MacGraw, Narrator
One Gay, One Straight documents in their own words the private journeys of straight spouses struggling to recover after their gay mates come out.
Synopsis
Ann forgot her notebook and came back home at 10:00 on a Tuesday morning. Odd that her front door was bolted from the inside. When her husband finally responded to her pounding, he was still in his bathrobe, nervous and watchful. Ann was suspicious, puzzled, noting two mugs on the coffee table, all the lights on downstairs. She neared the bedroom and a young man bolted past her. In the blur of the moment she only remembers his youth and the earring in his ear.
Thus Ann joined millions of other "straight spouses," heterosexual men and women who unknowingly married gays. Her life in chaos, Ann endured drug addiction, poverty, fears for her three children, and particularly worries about AIDS, since her husband is now in the final stages of the dread disease.
Ann's dramatic story is one of several examined in One Gay, One Straight, documenting both differences and common threads as the straight spouses seek to rebuild their broken lives. Bewilderment moves toward healing, confusion toward understanding as they demonstrate useful guidance for others in the mixed-orientation dilemma. They use different approaches. Dan used travel and adventure with his two young children to reconfigure a family of three after his wife left him for a woman. Kathe the librarian took a more introspective course with her daughter and speaks with deep wisdom. Gwen retained a loving friendship with her gay ex and married his best friend. Joe philosophizes. Bruce remains emotionally paralyzed and depressed. Carol healed through writing. Different lives, different outcomes.
How would you feel if you discovered that your intimate partner is homosexual? Imagine yourself the stunned wife of Governor Jim McGreevey as he declared himself a "gay American" on network television. While many books and films support married gay people who come out, their straight spouses have been overlooked. This unique documentary seeks to fill that gap as the heterosexual wives and husbands tell their stories directly. Conceived and produced by Carol Grever, author of two books on the subject and a straight spouse herself, the film opens the secret closet shared by mixed-orientation families. Powerful interviews dramatically demonstrate that healing is achievable and the mixed-orientation experience can lead both gay and straight partners into a more authentic, satisfying future.
Demand for the Film
The first documentary to address the dilemma directly, this film appeals to straight spouses and their families, married gays, support groups like Straight Spouse Network and PFLAG, counseling professionals, university students of psychology and sociology, and the general public, most of whom know nothing of lives hidden in the secrecy of the closet.
Now available for all territories. Running time, 28.31 minutes.
TO ORDER DVD, RELATED BOOKS: www.carolgrever.com
Author and Producer Bios
Carol Grever, M.A., has been a successful businesswoman and English professor and now writes professionally. She is author of two books on straight spouse recovery, My Husband Is Gay: A Woman’s Guide to Surviving the Crisis, and My Spouse Came Out: A Straight Mate’s Recovery Manual, co-authored by Dr. Deborah Bowman (The Haworth Press). Her unique documentary on the straight spouse dilemma, One Gay, One Straight: Complicated Marriages, was just released. She is a recognized spokesperson on straight spouse issues, interviewed on major network shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper 360, The Early Show, Iyanla, and Inside Edition. Carol earned BA and MA degrees from Phillips University and Pacific University, respectively, and did doctoral work at Oklahoma State University. An adopted Coloradan, she lives and writes in Boulder.
Deborah Bowman, Ph.D., co-author of When Your Spouse Comes Out, has worked with a wide range of issues as a clinical psychologist including the trauma facing straight spouses. She has over 17 years of experience in private practice. Her prior work in agencies includes the investigation of child abuse for Boulder County Social Services and serving the dying with Boulder County Hospice. As co-founder of the Boulder Women’s Institute she specialized in facilitating sexual abuse survivor groups. She is a professional trainer with the Boulder Psychotherapy Institute offering courses in Gestalt therapy and dream work. Deborah has taught at Naropa University since 1990, where she founded the Transpersonal Counseling Psychology Program. She initiated several specializations in the program including Wilderness Therapy. Deborah holds a BA from Kansas University and earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Union Institute and University.
Roslyn Dauber, co-producer and director of the new documentary One Gay, One Straight: Complicated Marriages, has 25 years experience as a dedicated, award-winning documentary filmmaker. She is President of Dauber Film Services. Credits include: BROKEN RAINBOW, COLUMBUS, DISCOVERY & BEYOND; TARA's DAUGHTERS: OUR FUTURE OUR FAMILIES and MENRI MONASTERY. Her work has been exhibited worldwide via television and in museums. She also served nine years as a professor of filmmaking at the University of Colorado. She holds an M.A. from George Washington University and an M.S. from the University of Southern California.
Suggested Interview Questions for Carol Grever
- Why do gay people marry heterosexuals in the first place?
- How unusual is this situation?
- Why do they wait so long, sometimes decades, to come out?
- How could the straight spouse not know?
- After years in a marriage, why would a gay married person decide to come out at all?
- As a straight man or woman, how does it feel to discover that your intimate partner is gay?
- What should the straight spouse do after the discovery—first steps and long-term?
- Do male straight spouses go through the same stages of recovery as females?
- What are those typical stages of coping?
- What effect does a parent’s coming out have on children in the family?
- Are there any warning signs or clues that your husband or wife is gay?
- What is your advice to someone whose spouse has come out?
Public Appearances
Television Appearances
In-depth interviews with all major television networks, including
The Oprah Winfrey Show, ABC. Live appearance with Oprah Winfrey in Chicago.
October 27, 2004; second showing January 13, 2005; third showing December 22, 2005
Anderson Cooper 360, CNN. Live interview with Anderson Cooper. September 24, 2004
Good Morning America, ABC. Live interview with Diane Sawyer in New York, August 13, 2004
Inside Edition, NBC. Taped interview in New York, August 13, 2004
First Friday Live, Boulder Channel 54, live interview repeated several times through August, 2002.
The Early Show, CBS, “Yikes! I’m a Grown-up” segment with Lisa Birnbaum, November 28, 2001
Iyanla Show, NBC. Live interview with Iyanla Vanzant in New York, October 15, 2001
Radio Interviews
More than 70 live radio interviews in the United States, England, and Thailand, including syndicated and satellite broadcasts since April, 2001.
Examples:
Connie Gotsch, "Write On Four Corners" public radio station KSJE, 90.9 FM, Farmington, New Mexico.
Airing 10:30 a.m. February 4, and 2:00 p.m. February 6, 2009
"Holy Hormones, Honey"
Community Radio for the Front Range, KRFC-FM 88.9, Ft. Collins, Colorado.
One Hour Radio Interview with Leslie Botha, Monday, August 4, 6:00-7:00 p.m.
Radio Interview with Kathy Partridge, host of "Connections"
Guests, Carol Grever, Roz Dauber, and Deborah Bowman
Independent Community Radio KGNU, 88.5 FM and 1390 AM Boulder, Colorado
Friday, July 11, 8:30-9:30 a.m.
Aphrodite Salas’s Morning Show from Montreal, Canada on CINW, The New 940 Monreal. Focus on straight spouse portrayal in Brokeback Mountain film. Interview at 10:30 Eastern, March 22, 2006
"Good Morning, Mark Wayne," WICH-AM, Norwich, Connecticut 15 minute interview with Mark Wayne, 8:40 a.m.,July 18, 2005
"Tony Scott and the New Breakfast Crew," Morning radio show, Majic104.9 KMJM. Clear Channel urban adult contemporary radio station, St. Louis, MO Interview with Tony Scott, Tammie Holland, Guy Torry, 7:30 a.m., July 20, 2005
Danny Kramer, KDYL Radio, Salt Lake City, Utah
Review of My Husband Is Gay, July 8, 2005
Love, Lust and Lies, the Michael Baisden Show, Radio 987 KISS FM, New York City, November 18, 2004. 2-hour live broadcast on talk-show, with call-ins. (Two million listeners)
Jay Thomas, drive-time CBS radio show, the "G. Gordon Liddy Show," syndicated in 120 cities, broadcast from from New York City
Radio satellite phone interview, Tuesday, August 17, 2004, 8:21-8:30 a.m.
ABC local NY affiliate, channel 7, in New York City, Aug. 13, 2004
Press Coverage
Boulder Camera, Boulder Colorado
Clay Evans, review of When Your Spouse Comes Out
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Boulder Daily Camera, Boulder, Colorado
Lisa Marshall, “When the Spouse is Gay,” cover feature for Fit Magazine section, June 26, 2007
The Clarion-Ledger newspaper, Jackson, Mississippi
Billy Watkins, features writer
Interview by phone, July 13, 2005 for Sunday feature July17, 2005
Boulder County Business Report, Boulder, Colorado
“The Eye” column, “N.J. Gov’s Affair Gets Phone Ringing for Boulder Author,” October 1-14, 2004
Rocky Mountain News, Mark Wolf, phone interview on August 13, 2004; article appeared August 14, 2004
San Jose Mercury News, Michelle Quinn, Family Writer
Interview completed by phone, August 16, 2004
New York Times, Jane Gross
Interview completed by phone, August 18, 2004; article appeared Aug. 19, 2004
In-Person Presentations
Colorado Authors’ League, “Nature as Source,” moderator, March 28, 2007
Straight Spouse Network chapter speaker, Ft. Collins, CO, June 13, 2005
Boulder Media Women's panel, "There Goes the Bride: Women and Divorce," March 20, 2005
Colorado Authors' League workshop, "Marketing Your Book," February 26, 2005
Boulder Business and Professional Women's Authors' Fair presenter, February 17, 2005
Boulder Press Club luncheon speaker, November 17, 2004, Boulder Broker
Speaker at University of Colorado Sociology class, Dr. Eleanor Hubbard, Instructor. October 12, 2004
Boulder Media Women's literary exchange panel, May 2, 2004
Professional Reviews of Books
When Your Spouse Comes Out: A Straight Mate's Recovery Manual
"Succinctly describes phases a spouse is likely to experience and analyzes reactions in terms of underlying psychology. . . . The book is infused with a practical optimism and compassion for all involved while never resorting to phony assurances. . . . It's well done and would be useful to therapists as well as to those who have faced the painful situation addressed." -Clay Evans, Reviewer for Boulder Camera
“Offers invaluable guidance. . . . Provides a tool kit of practical and powerful strategies by which individuals can guide their own healing and transformation. Ways to process anger, fear, and grief and to deal with health risks will help straight spouses to get through difficult periods in their journeys toward healing and enable them to reconfigure their lives over time. . . . A welcome addition to the literature.” —Amity Pierce Buxton, PhD, Founder, Straight Spouse Network
“Profoundly useful. . . . Brings together professional counseling advice with the lived experience of dozens of spouses who find themselves with a gay husband or wife. . . . the voice of wisdom is well grounded in the theoretical literature of counseling.” —Thomas B. Coburn, PhD, President, Naropa University
My Husband Is Gay: A Woman's Guide to Surviving the Crisis
"After 30 mostly happy years of marriage, Carol Grever’s husband told her that he was gay. As she discovered, the phenomenon is relatively common because many gay men believe they are at economic or social risk if they don’t marry. In My Husband Is Gay: A Woman’s Guide to Surviving the Crisis, Grever shares her story and those of 25 other women of varying ages and backgrounds. Although most of their marriages ended in divorce, some of those who divorced were successful in preserving a healthy friendship with their husbands. Grever provides practical guidance (including professional resources and advice on telling the children) and positive support for women who suddenly find themselves in a marriage that is not what they thought.”—Publishers’ Weekly
"As a past facilitator of Straight Spouse Network, and having professional experience with women at risk, I believe Carol is throwing out a lifeline to spouses in a sea of confusion and self doubt. Her manual gives women tools to navigate a difficult relationship shift. Carol’s intimate story is absorbing.”—Mary Evitts, Women’s Health Advocate
"At last! A book to hand to anyone dealing with having a gay spouse that will give them hope that they are not alone and that they can do more than survive! Out of the crucible of pain, in what many of us with gay family members experience as ‘the unexpected journey,’ Carol Grever has created a survival kit for straight spouses that offers hope and an opportunity for enormous personal growth."—Jean Hodges, President, PFLAG, Boulder, CO
"I am impressed with Carol Grever’s ability to pack so much substance and good reading into such a sensitive subject. Discovering your spouse is gay has to be one of life’s most shocking moments. Carol not only tells her own personal story about that discovery, but also tells how she and other straight spouses dealt with the pain and struggled to find their way back to normalcy and happiness.”—Barrie Hartman, Editor
DVD Trailer
Contact the Author
Leap! Book to Documentary
by
Carol Grever
This article first appeared in InPrint,
the newsletter of the Colorado Authors’ League
After two books and a decade of writing about "mixed-orientation marriages"-one gay and one straight in the partnership-I was in a rut. My writing niche had absorbed me for a long time, offering a reliable platform for additional assignments and media exposure, but the topic had become too comfortable. I was a one-note song and the lyrics were getting boring.
Though writing about it was becoming tiresome, interviewing straight spouses continued its fascination. I was touched by their anguish and willingness to tell their stories in order to help others recover. Men and women who told me their painful truths demonstrated courage and highly individual approaches toward resolution. Their experiences were moving, dramatic, inspirational, tragic or triumphant-the stuff of good film. Why not use their stories as material for a documentary on the straight spouse dilemma?
How hard could it be to point a camera, interview people, and edit the segments together? My research had garnered dozens of subjects who might be willing to be filmed. The characters would simply leap from the page to the big screen. There was only one obstacle: I knew nothing at all about filmmaking or conventions of documentaries.
Armed with a thin veneer of information from a quick reading of Alan Rosenthal's Writing, Directing and Producing Films and Videos, I started tapping acquaintances who might guide me. I met with two experienced filmmakers, neither of whom wanted to take the project because they were too busy with other work. They also disheartened me with the startling fact that the average cost of a documentary is $3,000 per finished minute. Whoa! My assumption that this would be easy began to fade.
I stepped back to think it over.
The whole idea had been shelved for a year when I met Roslyn Dauber, a filmmaker with more than 20 years of experience, both as a producer/director in Los Angeles and an associate professor at CU. Roz was easygoing, supportive, and non-threatening to a novice. Having been a teacher, she took me on as a student and she agreed to co-produce "my" documentary. March 21, 2007: That was the beginning of my elementary education in the film business and the genesis of one of the most interesting and demanding projects of my life.
Roz and I met every few days that first month and each time she taught me more about the process, from concept to finished DVD. Dozens of decisions and agreements were required. Foremost was purpose. What did I want to accomplish? That wasn't so hard to articulate, since the same motivation drove my books: To create resources for healing the wounds of heterosexual men and women who unknowingly married homosexual mates. The primary audience would thus be straight spouses, with additional possibilities in university classrooms, peer support groups and therapy situations.
During those early weeks, we discussed style, length, content, narration, budget, funding, timeframe, and our mutual commitment of time. Decisions were needed on each aspect. There were also legal considerations. Binding contracts would be necessary with the professionals, including the director, film editor, cover designer, and composer of original music. We would need releases from everyone who appeared in the DVD, allowing us to use their image and name for educational purposes. As in writing, accurate citation of sources of any quoted material is required.
It was soon apparent that I was deluded in thinking that this would be simple, or that we could just run around shooting video tape and patch it all together. There could be no tedious talking heads staring into the camera. Interesting visuals had to be planned and shot. Family photos would demonstrate individuals' personal history. Roz indicated that re-enactments with professional actors would be useful to depict dramatic experiences, narrated with voice-overs of the straight spouses themselves. It grew more and more complex. This wasn't just a home movie. It would be a professional, first class DVD that we could show with pride, and it would take months, perhaps a whole year to accomplish.
Through the following months of shooting interviews, the direction and movement of the film slowly evolved. Its storyline began to emerge, with dilemmas and rising action, climax and denouement. We were working with real people, sharing their true experiences. Nothing they said was scripted, so we used selections from their interviews as building blocks to develop a thread of meaning that served as plot. With 500 pages of transcripts, it was like putting together a complex jigsaw puzzle. Since length was critical, we continually cut segments to stay within the 35-minute limit. The result is a lean, evocative montage of anecdotes and fragments pointing toward hope.
As a writer turned filmmaker, I had to see through a different lens. Every point is conveyed visually, not with narration. Echoing William Carlos Williams: No ideas but in scenes and pictures. It's the ultimate application of the writing teacher's admonition to "show, don't tell!" I rewrote the script a dozen times, each version more spare than the last. The final narration consists of fewer than 15 sentences transitioning through the 32-minute film. Straight spouses chronicle their own histories, without comment or interpretation from the disembodied voice of a narrator.
Because the narrative portions are necessarily condensed, it was essential that they be read sensitively, with just the right tone and emotion. A professionally trained voice was needed. Could we interest a celebrity in the project? We had a stroke of great luck when Roz asked a mutual friend to approach actress Ali MacGraw. The subject interested her; she read the script and my previous book and watched a sample of the film in progress. Within a week, we had a contract and a date to record her voice in a Santa Fe studio.
Of course, everything cost more than I'd hoped, particularly as the months rolled by and deadlines were extended. Roz had estimated a minimum cost of $100,000 for production, but that didn't count marketing and promotion costs afterward. At the very least, we'd need a trailer for promotional purposes and a Web site to sell it online. Expenses climbed.
What did all this money buy? The major cost of any project is payroll: Compensation for the director and film editor and several camerapersons. We needed original music to enhance dramatic scenes. There were countless other necessary expenses: Various contractors-technicians who transfer video tapes to DVDs, for example-administrative expense to transcribe every word of every tape, specialized equipment, hundreds of video tapes, airfare and hotels and rental cars for film shoots, and entertainment of interviewees. There was liability insurance, entry fees for film festivals, dozens of Fed-X deliveries, postage, additional computer equipment and photo scanners.
Near the end of the project, the final cut of the video required color correction and audio "sweetening." A thousand copies of the finished DVD were made, with a thousand specially designed covers. It all added up to well over $100,000, and the total would have been even higher, but I worked for nearly a year on the project with no compensation.
Eventually we should recover some of the cost with sales of the DVD, but for me, the real payoff will not be in dollars.
It is the conviction that this film carries a message of healing and hope and guidance for straight spouses and their families. It is the only documentary of its kind and I'm sure that there is a need for it. This psychic reward is enough for taking the leap.
Carol Grever
