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October 25, 2018 12:07 pm  #1


Wife is gay, collateral damage be damned! Help me figure my this out

Hey all. New to this forum as this is all NEW to me. 

My wife of 5 years, who has been with me for 9 and we have known each other for 15 years decided to ask for us to separate and she needs "space to figure out who she is". Speed up to yesterday and I connected the pieces and asked her bluntly, or more told her that it's okay and I can help. She opened up and said she is gay. Not that she has intentionally suppressed it for years or that she is unhappy with me. 

Backstory...
Around 3 months ago cheerleading started, my daughter (4) wanted to try it. My wife mentioned one of the coaches a cute 23 year old marine (female) was "cute". She said she just wanted to kiss her for some reason. Being a guy that has a hot wife who says that about a hot fit girl I said "you know what, do it if you want to. I'm secure in my marriage and us." A night out with friends and this girl invited turned into a kiss that "was awesome". I thought that was good for her and that she would be her girl crush and it was whatever, mind you we have a great marriage. Text messages and 12 plus hours a week at Cheer practice turned into my wife shutting down on me and asking for space and acting weird, not herself. I pushed and she pushed back as we danced around whatever was bothering her. She had mentioned to me she felt lost in life and wanted to find herself. I did NOT chalk that up to being about sexuality, but more as a newly 30-year-old housewife who has difficult days and a lot of responsibility solo while I work. I'm extremely supportive and said she can go to school, start a job, find a hobby, (explore women) or whatever she wants to do, Im backing her. As of last week she has been closed down, not sure what was going on I got a gut feeling and checked her phone. We have each others passcodes and have always been fully open to each other (if I went to a titty bar she would know, or my friend cheats on his wife with a Thai hooker, she knows, I know her friends that do drugs, etc.). I found a text with the cheer coach that referenced me as her EX and them signing off with I LOVE YOU. I was livid, it broke my heart and all I could think is she was doing this out of spite for something I did that I don't know how to fix. She shut down like a clam and was only mildly open to therapy with me when I asked her to go. We went to her OBGYN therapist for an emergency session after she came back to town from visiting her friend. The friend is the cheer coach who was out of town for a few days. After being closed off and brutal about "needing to go" I connected the dots and asked her to just be honest, was she gay? She said yes and broke down happy that she could tell me but scared to death about all of this. 

I support her, happy to see her smile, etc. but OMG if I am not so pissed on a personal level that sexual desire is trumping the needs of our home and children and the rest of the collateral damage from this. I'm okay with her being gay, I told her to just stay with me and she can be as gay as she wants. Maybe a mans mentality here, but sexual desire does not equal changes in life aside from who you desire. If I suddently liked tall black women that is a sexual choice, not an "im leaving my wife for a tall black women, screw all that I destroy" moment. 

HOW IN THE HELL DO I FIGURE OUT A WAY TO COPE OR UNDERSTAND THIS???

HELP PLEASE

 

October 25, 2018 1:28 pm  #2


Re: Wife is gay, collateral damage be damned! Help me figure my this out

Hi James, 

Welcome to our group.  I'm so sorry you find yourself here.  I too watched my ex-wife fall in love with someone else.  When i found text messages and emails from the other woman saying "I'm madly in love with you" I confronted my ex and was lied to about the intent and meaning of the words.   "That's just the way female bff's talk to each other".   "I love her like a mother".   etc.. 

You make an interesting observation about a man's mentality of separating sexual desire from commitment.  I don't want to take your post off into another direction, but I will say that I think your feelings about sex vs. relationship are different than how most females feel.  I think men can say "it's just sex", but I don't think as many woman feel this way.  I think women are more likely to say that sexual desire cannot be separated from relationship.  I don't think women say "it's just physical".  

So.. how do you cope or understand this?
You have to understand that your wife is gay and that is not a choice.  She can't just decide in her mind to be more attracted to men than women.  She has been trying for years to do that because she didn't want to be lesbian.  It doesn't work.  So she has to decide now if she is going to continue to suppress her sexual desires to remain unhappy and unfulfilled and fake in order to fit the persona she wants to match.  Is she willing to stay for the sake of her daughter (for another 15+ years)?   

A difficult thing for you to see right now is that your wife is supremely selfish.  Anyone who is Gay In Denial (GID) has chosen to create a facade around them to hide their secret.  This means that her choice to marry you was made out of selfishness.  She wanted the world to see her as "normal" and she took you hostage to help achieve that goal.  A selfless person loves their partner and puts them first.  A selfless person wouldn't get married to a man when she really desired a female.  That's not love.. that's selfishness.   
Your wife has continue to be selfish by having a relationship with someone else knowing how much this would hurt you.  A selfless person would end a current relationship before starting a new one because they know how much pain it would cause their current partner and they wouldn't want to do that to you.  But she cares only about herself. 
Right now you are hoping and expecting her to make a selfless decision.  You are hoping she will chose you and your family because it's the right thing to do and it's best for you.  But she has proven that she is selfish and puts herself first.   Do you really think she's going to make a choice that is best for anyone other than her?

But what about you?  Are you willing to sacrifice your happiness?  Can you live with a lack of trust?  
What do you want for your life?
Right now you are facing loss and trying to avoid it.  That's completely normal when you are in the midst of the storm.  All you can see is what is in front of you, and right now that is only loss.  You can't see the future where you have the opportunity to gain so much more.  

You are selfless.  Right now you trying to keep your family together because you put that above yourself.  You want her to be happy even though it hurts you (allowing her to explore her sexuality).   Just as a selfish person will continue to be selfish, a selfless person will do the same.  So I predict that you will try to keep your marriage together.   You will fight bitterly for it.  But it will make you unhappy.  How long will you sacrifice your happiness for someone who wouldn't do the same for you?

You are at the start of a long journey.  You may try to keep your marriage together or you might move on.. either way we are here to support you.   Keep posting and sharing and asking for advice.  We will try to help you as much as we can. 



 


-Formerly "Lostdad" - I now embrace the username "phoenix" because my former life ended in flames, but my new life will be spectacular. 

 
 

October 25, 2018 1:57 pm  #3


Re: Wife is gay, collateral damage be damned! Help me figure my this out

Thank you, Phoenix for your view on this. My wife absolutely said she is being selfish in her decision, but shouldn't she also be who she is deep down? 

That is my confusion and frustration with this. I want to fight for the family, for her (I'm madly in love with her as a person and always have and will be). I'm a realist (usually) and even given all this her and I will always be close, we have been most of our lives through a lot with other people, friends distance, etc.

But I am still not able to wrap my head around all of it from a sexuality perspective. That is where I get stuck.  I'm trying to force myself to get "there" whenever that might be NOW, not in a year or 2 but now, for her to be able to have the right support from me NOW when it matters a great deal. 

James
 

     Thread Starter
 

October 25, 2018 2:42 pm  #4


Re: Wife is gay, collateral damage be damned! Help me figure my this out

okay James.  You absolutely need your own support right now.

Just do.  These are some really rocky times ahead, give yourself a hug you only do yourself credit in the way you feel.  You love her we get that.

what were your first feelings for her, didn't you feel desire?  physically.  didn't you feel like you wanted to have sex with her?  do you honestly think you would be married to her if you hadn't felt that?

now think about this.  can you imagine feeling desire for a man?  physically.  wanting to get intimate with his private parts.  answer is no isn't it.  not going to want to marry a man no matter how much you love him.

yet she married you without even telling you how she was feeling.  She was concealing her most important thoughts and feelings and yet thought it okay to get married to you.

This tells you she is different to how you imagined and now you are trying to bridge that gap of understanding in the most loving way a husband possibly could.

so I feel for you because of course you can't separate sex from how you feel in your heart.  You haven't.  you are feeling the pain of her having done it now.  we did no wrong and yet we get the pain - of course it makes us angry and yet that does no good within the marriage either because they cannot be accountable to you.  She dances to the beat of a different drum.

It is not about whether she leaves you now or whether her relationship with the girlfriend fails and she comes back home until the next one comes along, or if she decides to stay home and have girlfriends on the side.  It's not about that at all right now, it's about you and your understanding for yourself.  And you are doing really amazingly well - taking this straight on and asking the right questions.  

The truth of the matter is what helped ease my pain.

Please, be your own best friend, you need you right now.

wishing you all the best, Lily

 

October 25, 2018 9:15 pm  #5


Re: Wife is gay, collateral damage be damned! Help me figure my this out

Thanks, Lily. I'm headed out of town for a few days to get my head together a bit and figure out what I do from this point. My guess is I will go from one side to the other with trying to wrap my head around something that maybe is just as simple as a secret she kept and finally opened up about with the worst timing.

     Thread Starter
 

October 29, 2018 1:49 pm  #6


Re: Wife is gay, collateral damage be damned! Help me figure my this out

Phoenix, you'd posted:

"I will say that I think your feelings about sex vs. relationship are different than how most females feel.  I think men can say "it's just sex", but I don't think as many woman feel this way.  I think women are more likely to say that sexual desire cannot be separated from relationship.  I don't think women say "it's just physical".  "

Long ago, my husband remarked that he and his friends were in agreement that it's worse when women cheat than when men do, because when women cheat it's an emotional need so it signals that there's a real problem with the marriage, whereas when men cheat it's just they're so manly and driven that they just need the physical release.

I ripped him a new one over that.  I told him that was complete bullshit.  I told him that a man who is having a midlife crisis and wants to diddle his secretary has an emotional need -- that if it were truly just a physical itch that needed to be scratched, he could just tuck himself away in the shower and masturbate by himself.  I thought I made it pretty clear to him that we are through with this idea that men's sex drives are strengths, whereas womens' sex drives are weaknesses.

Fast forward to last April, when I confronted him over his repeated acts of betrayal.  You know what he said over and over and over and over?  "I never loved anybody else but you.  You are the only person I ever loved."

Women are made to feel ashamed for their sexual needs, and men are made to feel ashamed over their emotional needs.  So if we rationalize our own behavior, we all might tend to light on some kind of explanation that doesn't expose us to ridicule.  I believe this is why men are so reluctant to acknowledge having a broken heart, or having emotional needs of any kind.  

I can see very clearly that my husband is trying to fit his own behavior into this paradigm, and to project it on to me.  For himself, he is in denial that he has a crush on one of the guys he's been seeing.  I can see it plain as day, but he doesn't.  For his view of me, he assumed that there was no problem with my being deprived of the pleasure of intimacy for twenty years -- because in his mind, women don't actually need sex anyhow; they just use sex to get love.

If I'd had the energy, I would have reminded him of our earlier conversation and told him "I told you so" but I'm beyond caring.  After the umpty gazillionth time he reminded me he loved me over the past few months, I finally retorted that apparently there was something else he loved more.  Otherwise he wouldn't have risked his marriage for it.  At least that time he agreed with me.

 

November 9, 2018 3:09 am  #7


Re: Wife is gay, collateral damage be damned! Help me figure my this out

Hi James,
Just wanted to say that I feel for you. This experience seems somewhat common. Post in the future, to keep us in the loop.

bob..

 

 

November 9, 2018 6:14 pm  #8


Re: Wife is gay, collateral damage be damned! Help me figure my this out

James ... consider this ... if her physical and emotional ("I love you") betrayal was with a man would you still want her? Would you allow her an open marriage with any man that is her current love interest?

The d-day of my 27 year marriage was 8-18-18 ... the shock and disbelief was overwhelming. The next day I hit the bargaining stage "please don't leave me alone!" He replied that he needed to leave and live the life he was meant to lead. As I pondered that, I realized I didn't want to be privy to anything that he was doing. Him having the life that we were supposed to have together ... but now is gone. Yes, we will be separating. Yes, I will be filing for a divorce. I look back on our life together and wonder when the fraud started? I don't believe he thought he was gay when we got married. He's not an "I've always known" kinda gay. But everything that I poured into our marriage was wasted on someone that can never return the same.

The heart break is real, but you must move forward for your kids. Be kind to yourself. Reading the book, "The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families" helped me a lot. It gives perspective from several situations. Your journey ahead is only yours to choose. Do not give that control away to someone you can't be faithful to you and your marriage. Seek a support group in your area. Get yourself a therapist someone just for you. It is only when you take care of yourself that you are able to 'help' others around you. 

Sending bright light, love and prayers.

 

December 20, 2018 10:59 am  #9


Re: Wife is gay, collateral damage be damned! Help me figure my this out

James, I hope you are doing as well as you can as you continue to deal with this. I have only been reading this forum for the last few weeks, but I always feel bad when someone posts a few times and then there is no update. I probably speak for everyone here when I say we are pulling for you to take care of yourself and make progress to a better life.

 

March 23, 2019 7:03 pm  #10


Re: Wife is gay, collateral damage be damned! Help me figure my this out

I'm new to the board, but have been where you are. 

My XW and I married young.  She came out 10 years later.  It was a hard process, but we had couples' therapy that helped a great deal.

It may seem that your wife is selfish - that she chose to be in denial when she married you.  I suppose that's possible.  In my case, if she was GID it was very, very deep--she was as surprised as me when she realized she was gay.  While the course of events might be very different, please know that being gay is *not* a choice.  (How she handles that revelation is, though.)

In my case, separation was very difficult because we loved each other very much.  I used every tactic of emotional manipulation that I could think of to keep her in our marriage, none worked--just made it harder to finally split.  She still holds that against me, I think.

The Other Side of the Closet iis a great resource.  So is Dear John, I Love Jane and other books that are aimed at your spouse; you should read a couple to get in her shoes where she's at.

If I could do things differently, I would.  Help her figure out what she wants - but realize that it probably isn't going to be you.  In a year or two she'll be living elsewhere with her girlfriend, you'll be sharing custody of the kids.  How you feel about each other two years from now is more important than how you feel now, time is going to pass no matter what.

My $0.02 anyway.
 

 

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