A few weeks ago, Ralf Schumacher came out publicly as gay and in love with his girlfriend, to huge cheers and support.
However, the former F1 driver My ex-wife wasn’t too happy about it..
Cora Schumacher is German publication Der Spiegel She said she didn’t like the way her ex-husband publicly announced he was gay. She claimed in the interview that Ralph didn’t inform her that he was going to go public with his relationship with his boyfriend, Etienne, effectively coming out.
“It was a really traumatic experience,” Cora told Spiegel.
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She also spoke about the depth of pain and distance she felt during her marriage and her struggle to experience the love and connection she wanted in her marriage.
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“After my son was born, I felt like an old sneaker thrown in a corner. I felt lonely and craved more intimacy and affection. I tried to explain it to myself with the mindset of a 24-year-old girl: it’s your fault. Maybe you’re too fat, or too ugly, or just not good enough.”
Further complicating matters for Cora were rumors that her husband was actually gay, rumors that Ralph denied for years and even directly when Cora asked him about it.
“The rumors got worse every year,” she says, “and I think I just closed my eyes. I married for love. I wanted this life so much.”
Cora’s anguish during her marriage, and now due to the decade-old rumors publicly confirmed by Ralph, reflects the damage that society’s homophobia and pressure to “be straight” can do to straight people, especially women.
Cora’s story is not an unusual one. A typical story goes like this…
A closeted gay man struggles with his sexuality, feels pressured by family, friends and society to marry a woman, continues to struggle with being gay even after marriage, and eventually his sexuality becomes too much to ignore and he either 1) has sex with a man outside of marriage or 2) divorces his wife completely and starts a life with a man.
Either way, the straight woman who found love with the man of her dreams (and thought she had spent her life with him) is left searching for answers that are hard to accept: She feels repeatedly betrayed and lied to, and she wonders what was “real” about her marriage.
And like many heterosexual spouses left behind when their partners come out, Cora found hope in wishing Ralph well.
But Cora’s story is another one that shows that society needs to allow everyone to find love and happiness in the way that suits them, because in today’s Western society, without exception, that’s exactly what people end up doing: It’s better to figure out who you are and pursue happiness in your teens and twenties than to get married and have kids in your forties or fifties.
Source: Outsports – www.outsports.com
