Gay Men and Wealth: How to Cope with Rewards and Challenges

Gay Men and Wealth:

How to Cope with Rewards and Challenges

In my experience (32 years in 2024) as a gay men’s specialist psychotherapist in California and gay men’s specialist life/career/executive/relationship coach worldwide, I have enjoyed a great diversity, even within my specific niche.  I’ve noticed over the years, though, that in addition to working with gay men as individuals, couples, and polycules, I’ve developed an expertise even more specifically in working with affluent gay men who often have considerable wealth, from all over the country in the United States and in the world.

Most of the time, we are working on goals that are about gay men’s mental health and well-being (personally and professionally) and specific problems that come up in our lives.  Occasionally, I help gay men who have achieved wealth but need some kind of support around this.  Obviously, this is a “nice problem to have,” or can be dismissed as “First World problems,” but despite what they are called, they can still be “problems,” “nice” or “First World,” or not.

It’s important in the midst of our daily grind and rat race to take a step back and just allow ourselves to reflect on where we are with things.  There are so many Western pressures to accumulate wealth, even at lower socio-economic levels in various countries.  In most capitalist democracies, and even in non-democracy countries, there can be nearly constant financial considerations to “do more” at every phase of life.  It’s as if “accumulating wealth” is the “object of the game” in life, like we’re all just playing one big round of Monopoly (the board game that was invented during the Great Depression as send-up of class divides).

But when we consider issues around wealth, we find unique issues for gay men.  Gay men can be especially “attuned” to how wealth translates into a sign of self-worth, familial worth, and societal worth, when we as gay men are a population that is regularly devalued.  It is theorized that wealth among gay men (and other social “out groups”) serves as perhaps an unconscious psychological defense against societal devaluation.  Other populations such as Blacks and Jews have been associated with this phenomenon as depicted in songs like “Cadillac Car” from the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” or the book, “An Empire of Their Own” about Jewish entrepreneurialism in early Hollywood after corporations on the east coast were anti-Semitic and excluded them.

Let’s look at the rewards and challenges for gay men and wealth, and explore our understanding of how to identify and utilize “supportive others” as resources. For each reward and challenge, I’ll also offer a possible “coping strategy”:

Rewards – The rewards of wealth are kind of obvious. Wealth is a frequently enviable position for many, the world over.  It’s “nice work if you can get it.”  The wealth of others can inspire us, or it can “bother” us in comparison with an “us versus them” mentality, but existentially, there will always be people with more wealth than us, and people with less, in all populations and cultures, and throughout history.  It’s a big deal, and it can be overwhelming.  Let’s look at some of the rewards wealth can bring:

1. Security – Wealth brings security for our self-care for the long term. With some exceptions (more all the time, it seems), gay men often do not have children.  And with no kids, who will take care of us in our old age?  We have to have an answer for this, and wealth can help us hire people to do some of the things adult children as parental caretakers might do, which costs more overall.  With sufficient wealth, we can be secure that our needs will be met, even if we become elderly people in society, which, with modern medical technology, we are increasingly likely to be.
2. Standard of living and lifestyle – Wealth is a fuel and energy that creates situations and experiences. It allows us to fund the various elements of vacations, from transportation to lodging to food to experiences.  Wealth gives us access to good restaurants, world sites, cultural opportunities in arts like concerts, theatre productions, and dance events; or access to ticketed professional sporting events, or allow for expensive hobbies (like keeping horses, or skiing, or aviation).
3. Domestic Lifestyle – Wealth can inform where you live (the section of a city or a local neighborhood), what dwelling you live in (a house/condo/townhouse/loft/apartment), how it’s decorated (theme, style, design), what you wear, what you drive, what you eat, what household devices your home is equipped with, what daily conveniences you enjoy, and even whether you hire various support staff (housekeeper, chef, gardener, assistant, nanny, pool keeper).
4. Reward for (usually) not having kids – Wealth when we do not have children can help us conserve funds that otherwise would have been used to provide for our children abundantly. We save money from not doing trust funds, or paying tuition for private schools, or college, or graduate school.  We save when we don’t provide children with a house down-payment, or medical support, or gifts for special occasions (graduation, marriage, their children, birthdays, anniversaries).  All of those resources that would have gone toward raising children are re-invested in how the primary relationship (couple or polycule) lives.
5. Philanthropy – Wealth provides us the practical ability to express altruism in high-magnitude ways according to your value system and the causes you want to support (LGBT rights, the environment, medical causes, children’s causes, animals, the arts, architecture/preservation, scholarships, other educational institution supports (buildings/rooms), or serving as a benefactor or mentor to someone (Carol Burnett famously tells a story of an anonymous benefactor who bankrolled her early years in show business with the only caveat to never reveal their name, and to pay it forward if she became successful; she later established a theatre scholarship at her alma mater (and mine) at UCLA).

Nice as these rewards, and others, are, wealth also brings with it considerable challenges, which are “not unimportant” in the deal.

Challenges can include:

1. Fear of Losing Security – Many people once they achieve wealth can be haunted by an anxiety about losing it. We’ve all heard of the “rags, to riches, to rags” stories.  Where I live, in Los Angeles, entertainment professionals can be notorious for this (and sometimes miserly because of it) in never really shaking the anxiety that they had starting out as a young actor, or writer, or designer, worrying about where your next gig or your next meal was coming from.  For some reason, this can be a neurosis of people who have wealth, and it can cause considerable subjective pain, especially if we define anxiety as “the fear of loss,” either material or emotional, such as a fear of loss or status or being humiliated, all of this usually neurotically.  Sometimes, the more you have, the more intense the anxiety of loss can be, which is kind of tragic to “have” and not enjoy it.

Coping Strategy: The solution lies in cognitively reframing from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset, backed up by solid financial planning advice from trusted experts (a Certified Financial Planner, a Fiduciary (who is a planner legally obligated to put their clients’ needs first).  We also cope by learning cognitive techniques to cope with anxiety and learn to live with the “the fear of loss” as a fact of life that is possible, but not likely.

2. Guilt at having what others don’t in society, being called “privileged” and denigrated for being wealthy and “more than” mainstream society, being called “materialistic” when gay men express that “gay men have good taste” phenomenon; while also being denigrated for being gay and being “less than” mainstream society

Coping Strategy: We have to learn to ignore societal homophobia that manifests as rage against us; develop your own altruistic values and boundaries about if, and how, you want to “pay it forward” for others.

3. Guilt at having what others don’t in your family (“outshining” or “showing up” your parents, sibling rivalry)

Coping Strategy: Understanding that each generation, as children grow into adults, is responsible for itself, whether they achieve or accumulate more, or less, than the generation before (or the one before that).  Emphasizing both the opportunity and the responsibility of “everyone for themselves” in a family past the formative years, taking personal responsibility for the trajectory of your life, even if that means coping with good fortune or misfortune along the way.

4. Feeling you’re betraying your culture (modesty, overall SES class background of your FOO, possible immigration factors, implications for what “wealth” means in cultural (not just financial) ways

Coping Strategy: Find ways to honor your culture without necessarily “obeying” any notions that poverty is “noble” or that wealth is “immoral,” if gained by ethical means.  Celebrate your culture in other ways, knowing that everyone in a culture probably does not adhere to every tenet and must “customize” their understanding of it and what works for them.

5. Fear of denigration by jealous others such as school peers, siblings, co-workers, critical society (blanket statements from others about “privilege” which is jealousy, rage, and demonizing whole groups (white, male, cisgender, American, even if NOT straight); and society at large that deeply resents affluent gay men as as being “sinners who are undeserving of God’s abundance and need to be punished” (much the way rich Blacks have been persecuted in history; the “gotta keep ‘em down” mentality as an expression of White Supremacist bigotry and the “Tyranny of the Majority”).

Coping Strategy: People who are jealous of what others “have” are inappropriately crossing interpersonal boundaries instead of minding their own business (Gladys Kravitz!).  With the exception of a basic tax system and insurance systems in civilized societies, people with less do not gain more by simply resenting or being jealous of those with more when they should be striving for their own success in their own way, and perhaps advocating against systemic privilege issues or other unfair/imbalanced dynamics like racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, xenophobia, and other bigotry.  Abundance thinking is a hallmark of robust, fair, equitable societies, but not everyone in any society will “have” equally in any culture throughout the world and throughout history.

Also, we need to recognize that one form of homophobia, if we look closely, is about class resentment and homophobes’ frustrated “need” to punish us materially.  The Holocaust acted out its murderous anti-Semitism by deliberately humiliating Jewish families materially, such as confiscating art, cash, jewelry, clothing, belongings, and even “gold teeth,” and very specifically demanding they be robed in plain rag uniforms held in concentration camps under horrible living conditions.  Republicans’ desire to get rid of sexual orientation legal protections as part of their long-term political and social agenda is in part to prevent LGBT people from suing for actual monetary compensatory and punitive damages in civil legal cases.

6. Anxiety about Imposter Syndrome, self-doubt, and feeling unworthy of gains made

Coping Strategy: Cognitive Therapy that explores Family of Origin issues of where the Self-Schema, core beliefs about the self, were formed, can help identify how the feeling of being “less than” was incorporated into your self-concept (often through a hypercritical parent).  Cognitive Therapy can also help develop professional self-esteem about how you learn, hone, and express your skills in a professional setting, critically recognizing your contributions but also identifying areas for professional growth or business expansion through the lifespan of a career.  Practicing “abundance thinking” helps reframe the “zero sum game” of “I only win, if others lose to my benefit.”

7. Pressure to support family and friends and feeling you “can’t” say no (to parents, siblings, children, grandchildren, nieces/nephews, or friends undergoing misfortune)

Coping Strategy:  Interpersonal relationship boundaries apply to all interpersonal relationships, including to partners/spouses, about we spend our resources of time, energy, and money.  We have both the right and the obligation to carefully decide what we can and want to do about those resources, especially money, and the prerogative to decide if, when, how much, and how often we might give money to others as altruism within a family or within a community.  It is always our right to allocate our personal resources of time, energy, and money according to our decisions, even if others disagree or criticize, because they are, after all, our resources that no one else has claim to.  The exceptions to this in a broader society would be through taxes, or charities, or profit sharing, or social security, or other instruments to manifest the idea that “to them much is given, much is expected,” or what can also be referred to as “noblesse oblige” to achieve broader social justice.

8. Administrative headaches (taxes, philanthropy administration, investment anxiety, how to allocate assets in variable ways (stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, bank accounts)

Coping Strategy:  Assembling a collection of supportive professionals to delegate to is key.  There isn’t time in life to become expert at taxes, law, philanthropy, financial planning, and even household administration equally, so we have to humble ourselves to defer to the trusted credentials of others whom we’ve “vetted” to be trustworthy (word of mouth, online research, books by reliable authors).  It would be arrogant to assume that we can do everything about everything, and do it better than those who have done the work and put in the time to become expert at something.

9. Pressure for “wealth culture learning curve”, especially if wealth is sudden – disorientation culturally from being thrust into a new class (“The Beverly Hillbillies” did this as a classic TV “situation” for comedy)

Coping Strategy:  Having emotional support for any life transition is important; whether it is aging, relocating, changing jobs, changing partners, changing friends, medical condition, appearance, or socio-economic status.  We need to have emotional support to make smooth and “digestible” transitions so that we feel empowered in life to face change, and not feel like we are “trailing behind” being “dragged” by life, or that outer circumstances are controlling us, like “the tail wagging the dog.”  We need to invoke critical thinking at every phase of life to decide what we want to keep, that serves us, what we want to modify, given the current circumstances, and what we want to discontinue, that no longer works for us, our circumstances, or even our time in history and culture.

10. Fear of being swindled, undermined, or betrayed in business or by strangers (such as identity theft) – wealth visibility creates a magnet for exploitation by non-violent crime

Coping Strategy:  Part of self-care that goes beyond medical care and recreation is setting up an emotional, financial, and physical safety for us.  Getting to know people such as firefighters, cops, lawyers, insurance professionals, and accountants can help to educate ourselves about common schemes we might be vulnerable to (whether in wealth, or perhaps in old age), having skills to research those we collaborate with (such as online references or background checks), and learning how we engage in proper vigilance to protect our identity, our online data, our personal health information, our banking information, or any material/information that could be used against us by professional criminals who deal in getting ill-gotten gains by way of illegally-obtained personal information.

11. Fear of being targeted for violent crime (street muggings, burglary, home invasion)

Coping Strategy:  Learn from cops or other sources (online information, neighborhood groups, crime statistics, local crime blotter reports) where or when we might be vulnerable to common street crimes.  A security professional might be able to consult on our home security for locks, alarms, home safes, or even a home safe-room.  Learning to be aware of our surroundings and how to reduce risk of being “targeted” by muggers (such as not “flashing” jewelry, or not appearing inebriated or incapacitated in public, walking with purpose, learning to use self-defense, and scanning our surroundings, especially at night).

12. Existential Angst – Wealth can be existentially an enjoyable experience, that many people from all walks of life aspire to, and people achieve on a spectrum from very high levels to lower levels. But existentially, financial and material wealth is only one component of an overall quality of life.  If it were only one, rich people would always be ecstatic, and poor people would always be miserable, and that’s not true.  People of all SES experience the full range of subjective human emotions, and research shows these can be in remarkably similar proportions.

In modern parlance, “successful” is often used a euphemism for just plain rich, and this terminology is problematic.  It assumes that to be successful in life, one must be wealthy, and if one is not wealthy, we are “unsuccessful.”  What this leaves out is non-material wealth, which can be many things.  Having strong familial and friend/community interpersonal relationships is a form of wealth.  Having an appreciation for nature is a form of wealth.  Having an ideal work/life balance is prosperity in time.  Having an abundant amount of joy in life is a form of wealth.  Knowing a lot about things that give us pleasure such as enjoying the arts, or recreational sports, or history, or knowing a lot of songs in our head can be a form of prosperity.  Having abundant health and not being particularly encumbered by the pain of illness, ailment, or disability is certainly a form of wealth.  No amount of money can force abundant health, as we have seen from famous people who sadly died of diseases or accidents.

Coping Strategy:  Deliberately self-reflect on the “domains” of life that help you define wealth, success, and prosperity.  Evaluate if your life is lopsided in one area or the other of material vs. non-material abundance.  Sometimes, we do need to focus on wealth, especially for our long-term security and being responsible for ourselves to live as independently as possible in a civilized society.  Other times, we are quite financially secure but need to focus our attention and cultivate non-material resources, such as having more time and involvement for partners, sex, community involvement, time with friends, enjoying pets, enjoying nature, or providing rest and relaxation for ourselves (even if all of these do require a certain minimum amount of money to live on).

13. Toxic Competition (intellectual property theft, “one-upsmanship”)

Coping Strategy:  Reassure ourselves that our only “race” is with ourselves; that despite social pressures or the illusion of life as a competitive game, our only competition is ourselves.  While we can enjoy being part of a community, it’s because we like sharing something in common, but not as an excuse to find ways to feel bad about ourselves because someone else has, or does, something that we feel we need to match; it’s the old “keeping up with the Joneses” phenomenon that tends to put citizen-against-citizen in a game we didn’t really volunteer to play.

14. Sense of Mistrust – People who are wealthy whom I’ve worked with have very often expressed a certain anxiety about their interpersonal context of people and worrying whether the people in their lives, especially the people who assert being in our lives, are seeking us out because they like us for us, at whatever SES we are, or if they simply are drawn to us for our proximity to things they want, like money, status, power, or access. “The Heiress”, a classic play and then movie with (gay actor) Montgomery Clift, explores whether a handsome young suitor likes a wealthy girl for who she is, or for her money, while her cruel father casts doubt on his intentions by insulting his daughter’s appearance, and it’s a bit of a “dilemma” play with an enigmatic ending, not unlike the play “Doubt,” that almost tortures its audience with us trying to figure out the truth of the situation.

Coping Strategy:  There’s a quote that says, “when people show us who they are, believe them.”  Time is our friend here; if people are in our lives as “fair-weather friends” who seek to just “gimme gimme,” that will become apparent reasonably early in our tenure knowing them.  Privately, you can sort of “test” people by not always picking up the dinner tab, or denying “requests” for things or favors, and see if they still take your calls or return your text messages. Grifters and parasites may be abundant, but they’re not especially bright, so they are easy to spot.  Then you “cull” your social life (or professional network) and you’re left with good-faith friends and colleagues you then don’t mind doing favors for later.

How Do Your Interpersonal Relationships Support You?

Gay men with wealth, to whatever varying degree (now or in the future), can thrive by utilizing a robust Social Support Network.  In general, wealthy people can feel isolated either because they “speak a language” that few others do, or they feel “lonely at the top,” or they ruminate in isolation because of a fear of not knowing whom they can trust.  Famous examples like Howard Hughes, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson come to mind.

So, to avoid this, it’s important to defend against isolation by utilizing all the above adaptive coping strategies.  We need to identify, cultivate, nurture, and sustain the members of Support System.  These can include:

1.Spouse/Partner – It’s important for gay male couples to avoid the “animal kingdom” tendency for two males of any species, including in a gay male relationship, to indulge in competition between each other. Even gay men are not completely immune to the societal effects of “Toxic Masculinity” that seduces us into toxic competition like we’re the last men standing, or the toxic masculine trait of “accumulating” insatiably.  Our spouse/partner needs to feel like our sanctuary, and refuge; we need to trust them with specific situations, naming numbers (who else but our spouse or partner usually knows our annual income?).  When we have to show a “brave face” to the world, our spouse/partner is perhaps the one person (or a few people if we live in a gay male polycule, which I work with, and they share an even more complex financial dynamic).  This is the person we “go to” at our most vulnerable, private, intimate moments in life, so we have to cultivate relationships that are worthy of this.

2. Family – Our father, mother, stepmother or father, uncle, aunts, cousins, siblings, etc. can also be “in the know” in our most private support system. Having access to, and even responsibility for, our parents’ finances might be a task as they age into seniorhood and we need to take over their financial responsibilities if they are no longer able to, ethically and fairly.  Our family as a key part of our social support system seems to be inherently time-limited, like visiting on major holidays or vacations.  Our family, including oftentimes a “collective” family estate, can give us a sense of small group identity and a sense of belonging of “who we are,” especially if we are not estranged because of rejection from them for being gay, as certainly happens.  Television does a great job of dramatizing the idea of the “family as support system” such as “Dallas,” “Dynasty,” “Succession,” or “Empire.”

3. Peers – Our peers in the same economic class can sometimes support us in that “been there, done that” kind of way. We might confide in peers and ask them for advice on things that only people in similar circumstances can understand, and this can be a very high or even very low SES.  But confiding our relying on our peers, showing our vulnerability, has to be done carefully to balance having a sense of support and intimacy, while also preserving our privacy.

4. Books from Reliable Authors – Books (and possibly websites or webinars) are not interpersonal support directly, but they can still function as a supportive resource if we are getting sometimes very specific information that we need, from very specifically credentialed and accredited experts. In all the materials we read, we have to apply critical thinking to see if the material or advice pertains to us, needs any “translation” (such as advice for straight couples being applied to gay couples), and is timely and still relevant to today’s social and economic climate.  I don’t recommend Dave Ramsey, the financial guru, because he is specifically anti-gay.  Whereas, Suze Orman writes good financial books and she’s a member of the LGBT community as an out lesbian.  Jane Bryant Quinn is a straight woman, and her financial planning books are my favorites, with a little less bravura than Orman.

5. Financial Planner/Accountant – There is a certain intimacy in this professional relationship because our financial planner “knows the numbers” that would be kept private from just about everyone else, except perhaps some family. The process of choosing, trusting, and maintaining the financial planner relationship is critical, and trusting their advice when there are economic or stock market ups and downs, and at different times of our lifespan that need different perspectives (such as approaching versus being in retirement).  We also have to find a way to balance trusting their credentials, expertise, and advice with objectively evaluating their professional performance, especially against other professionals who might serve us better and get us better long-term financial security.  When to “hold steady” and when to “jump ship” requires financial advice outside of our own financial planner, which can be hard to get.  Sometimes, having a “second opinion review” our situation from an equally-qualified financial planner can identify trouble spots, or, just give us additional peace of mind that we are in good hands.

6. Therapist/Coach – Last but not least, having a therapist or coach in your support system can also help to to facilitate open processing of anxieties, to help clarify your life priorities and agenda, to process guilt about your situation, to process Family of Origin issues or conflicts, to process Imposter Syndrome, to learn Assertive Communication techniques that can be applied to many different situations, to cope with the anxiety related to loss or threat, to help you schedule self-care and rewarding experiences, to process mortality and existential dilemmas, and provide accountability in coaching you on your goals in all of these areas in how you define current and future success.

I might be able to make referrals for some of these resources, and I’d be happy to serve as your resource for therapy (California residents) or coaching (worldwide).  I can explain some important legal and ethical differences between these professional services when we talk.  For more information on how I might help in your specific situation, call/text 310-339-5778, or email Ken@GayTherapyLA.com, or Ken@GayCoachingLA.com, and I’d be happy to answer any questions.

Ken Howard, LCSW, CST is the most experienced gay men’s specialist psychotherapist in the United States today (licensed in California), as well as a life/career/relationship/executive coach for gay men worldwide.  With over 30 years experience working almost exclusively with gay men as individuals, couples, and polycules, he is also an AASECT Certifed Sex Therapist, a retired Adjunct Associate Professor from the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work at the University of Southern California, and is a Certified Psychiatric Social Worker with an additional year-long certification in Consensual Non-Monogamy and Polyamorous Families from Sexual Health Alliance.  He is a member of Kink-Aware Therapists and the Secular Therapy Project.  He is the host of the podcast, “Gay Therapy LA with Ken Howard, LCSW, CST,” and is the author of the books, Self-Empowerment: Have the Life You Want! and Positive Outlook: Collected Essays for Successfully Living HIV Today.  He is the librettist/composer/lyricist for the gay-themed musical, “On the Boulevard,” an LGBT-take on George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” (from which “My Fair Lady” was adapted) available on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube.