Bestselling author, blogger, and activist Jill Smokler made a big confession on her Facebook page this week: She’s divorcing her husband of nearly 20 years… because he’s gay.
“Without getting into too much personal detail, this is a reality which we have faced together for many years,” Jill told followers. “And for a very long time, the deep love we had for one another sustained us through the more difficult moments that our increasingly diverging sexuality created.”
Now, she’s sitting down with the Bravo blog to talk about what is was like learning her soulmate wasn’t the man she thought he was.
Smokler says she had an inkling her husband, Jeff, was attracted to men early on in their 17 year marriage.
“I knew the situation, but for 15 years we’ve been not telling anyone,” she explains. “We met at 18, married at 20, kids at 23. It was several years later he told me he thought he was bisexual. But it was the last five or so he felt it had evolved to the point where he no longer identified as bi and could be gay.”
Related: “I’m Pretty Sure My Husband Is Gay, But He Insists He Isn’t”
Smokler says her career allowed her to ignore the problems in her marriage, at least for a while. Since launching her parenting blog in 2008, which attracts an impressive 15 million monthly page views, she’s gone on to publish three NYT bestselling books and has appeared on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and Nightline, among others.
“I was so preoccupied. He made many sacrifices to support me. But this one vital part of our marriage was missing. He was supportive for the most part, my blog, my books.”
But deep down she always knew there were unresolved issues.
“There were always things that came up. Me seeing an app, or him acting suspicious. When something arose, we’d have a conversation about it, and accept it.”
Also, their sex life wasn’t great.
Related: Woman Writes Candidly About Discovering Her Husband’s Gay Double Life
“We never had, like, raging sex,” she says. “Like, throw me against the wall sex. That was something I always resented and wanted. I thought about it constantly, but obviously, there was only so much he was capable of doing. I honestly don’t know why I never cheated on him, I was in New York so often, but I never did.”
After years of keeping it a secret, she and Jeff finally decided to come clean to their family, friends, and the world.
“When we first decided to separate he initially didn’t want to, I felt like I was pushing him out of the closet,” she says. “I was sobbing … But the reaction has been so supportive. … It’s been incredibly positive and supportive.”
In addition to the outpouring of support, Smokler says one of the best parts about the experience is that she can now live her own life more openly and honestly.
“I don’t have to go home and pretend to f**k my husband,” she says.
Plus, she has a new GBF, who she loves.
“It’s bizarre and awesome,” she said. “It’s kind of the best thing ever.”
Related: Wife Discovers Husband Sleeping With Guys; What Happens Next May Surprise You
Realitycheck
I know lots of guys will got to any distance to hid their sexuality…..
but how blind do you have to be not to notice your husband genuine lack of sexual interest
in women and in its place an obvious interest for guys, as in the occasional wondering eye ????
radiooutmike
I do wish we could change the narrative a bit.
Not every guy who discovers he is gay after marrying a woman, married the woman to hide from society or themselves. Of course, some do. And not every woman is going to be immediately keyed into that lack of sex necessarily means someone is gay.
Armiya
This is EXACTLY why I despise these content generating bloggers, mommy bloggers like her are the worst (like Heather Armstrong, also known as Dooce)
It’s not enough that she’s basically pimped her children to be used as content generators, thereby sacrificing every moment of their lives for a sponsorship from a company. No privacy for those kids. The world knows where the kids go to school and so on.
Now her marriage has collapsed and while her situation isn’t unique or new, she’s over shared in a public forum (her website) certain intimate details are now content for her wallet, and now she’s practically salivating at the new direction she can hijack of her new “GBF” for content and page clicks, as well as hijacking hash tags. Bloggers are the WORST nowadays!
DougDittmer
This happens more than we want to admit, particularly among couples who marry at a very young age before they have had adequate time to explore and understand their sexual feelings. Gay boys repress their same-sex attractions, often as a result of our religions and culture promoting the concept that it is something that will go away when they find the right woman. However it doesn’t go away and the pressure on them to be authentic and honest increases with each passing year. Bonnie Kaye and I co-authored a book on this topic which lays out the stages that these mixed orientation couples go through – Over the Cliff, Gay Husbands in Straight Marriages.
surreal33
Stupid bitch, you should know with whom you are sleeping with. No man is smart enough homo tendencies secret.
batesmotel
What’s odd with this story is this is 2017 and this is still happening. It’s unusual to be gay and in a sham marriage, but then again they were together for 17 years. And he obviously had sex with her since they have kids. I don’t know many 100% gay men who couldn’t even contemplate considering trying to have sex with a woman. The guy probably needs counseling to have felt the need to waste 17 years living a life that he never wanted. It’s not like this is 1950 or that that this happened in Alabama. This is happened in NY of all places. And now she’s using this to further her popular blog stats.
Hermes
Unfortunately, I must take issue with your assertion that its unusual for gays to be in sham marriages now.
The last major study was done in 2006 (Pathela and Others; Annals of Internal Medicine; September, 2006) and to their own shock (that was NOT what the study was focused on) they found two deeply closeted gay men, many of them married in sham marriages for every 1 gay man who was out.
Now you could argue that it has improved since, but I’m sorry to tell you that I do not believe it. So effectively, about 4.5% of men say they are gay openly and live openly. Over 8% MORE men say they are straight – but when probed with questions and their sex lives followed, are shown to and admit to actually preferring male/male sex – I personally have friends in their 30s who are married to women, have children – haven’t had sex with their wives in years and do have regular sex with each other. Since one of my own friends (another decade and a bit older) is doing the same thing after doing it for 25 years at this point – I do not believe that things have changed that much.
Kind thoughts
Chris
And this is why no one should ever get involved with a person who blogs about their life. No privacy.
Donston
So, like most women of these she knew what was up early on, stayed in the situation for many years, and is now trying to somewhat play victim. Unless she feared for her safety there’s not really an excuse. I’m not trying to sound misogynistic. I understand that emotions and the desire to be with someone can lead to much self-delusion. But at some point considering all the information that’s out there people who get caught up in these situations have got to start taking more responsibility. However, I also understand that men can be manipulative twats. It is somewhat shady to be using this to gain fame when you’ve apparently known for years. I hope she at least got permission from her ex.
These things are typically more socially and psychologically complex than we give them credit for. It’s also never as simple as “After years of being married to a woman I realized I was a homo”. Internalized homophobia, the development of perversions and fetishes, the un-desire to commit to men and love a man, religious guilt, gender dis-morphia, the development of convoluted, twisted and conflicted ego- all these things often leads to a great amount of self-denial and/or self-hate and/or confusion.
Bromancer7
I’m not sure which is more shocking — that this media whore is considered a “bestselling author” or that her husband is gay.
Captain Obvious
Roles reversed if a man found out his wife was a lesbian and talked about it publicly would anyone be calling him a stupid bitch and proclaiming he should’ve known better? You queens are a trip.
Donston
The misogyny in these comment sections can be a mess. However, she does seem to be using her “ills” for the sake of publicity, which doesn’t seem prudent, especially since she’s known about her husband for years. If a guy did the same thing I would be calling him out as well. But the name-calling is a really bad look.