Before his entire world was turned upside down, Ted Haggard was a preacher, a husband and father of five. In 2006, he made headlines when a former male escort alleged that Ted paid him for sex and crystal meth. Ted admitted to sexual immorality and buying drugs and was prohibited from preaching and exiled from his church and the state of Colorado.
In January 2009, when Ted and his wife, Gayle, appeared on The Oprah Show, Ted told Oprah that he was a "heterosexual with homosexual attachments."
When Oprah asked Gayle why she stayed with Ted after the scandal broke, Gayle said she realized that Ted's struggles were only one aspect of him and that they didn't take away from the life they had built together. "I choose to forgive him, and I choose to love him. I made the decision. Then I had to work it out. And that was the painful process for me."
Gayle's new book, Why I Stayed, answers the question that everyone asks. "I think my book is a love story," Gayle says. "I'm a strong woman and I take care of myself, and these were my choices. I feel as though the betrayal had the potential to lead us toward greater health in our marriage, and that was the perspective I was willing to take because I do deeply love this man."
One critical moment Gayle writes about is when she questioned herself after learning of her husband's infidelity. "After I asked myself those questions, I asked Ted those questions, "she says. "'Did I fail you somehow? Was I not appealing enough to you or attractive enough or sexual enough or fun enough? Where did I fail?'"
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