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November 18, 2018 12:35 pm  #1


Just started the Journey to a better life

Im starting a new thread in this Support topic.

It’s been exactly one week since my wife of 18 years came out to me that she was gay and in love with someone else.  It has been, hands down, the hardest week of my life.  The feeling of total loss, and the weight of all that is to change because of this has weighed so heavily that it has been difficult to even breath.  Being around others has been extremely difficult because it feels like you are living a lie. I worry so deeply about what this will mean to the health and happiness of our kids (12, 15, and 15).  I worry about losing friendships. I worry about the financial implications.  I lay in bed in the dark hours with wave after wave of panic keeping from the sleep I so desperately need. 

All this is made worse because the one person who I would normally turn to for support is leaving me, and can’t always be there, and won’t be there in the way that she has been for the past 22 years.  I feel like this is the crux of the situation.  The unbearably sad truth is that I have to start letting her go, in a time when I need her the most.  This is the crazy of it.

I’m very thankful that we are not fighting about it. I’m not angry with her. She is deeply saddened by the reality of what this means to me and our family, but knows that living a lie is not fair to us either.  So many of your stories are filled with complications around deciept and lies and differences of perspective on what should happen, and I can’t imagine the level of stress that puts on the situation, but I think in many cases, the common thread is that it is time to start a new life, one without the one you may still so deeply love and depend on.

This is not easy, and I find myself needing to define my life with new purpose.  Without her I don’t feel purpose. I don’t want to be without her, so I have a hard time imagining anything that doesn’t just feel empty.

In looking to the future I have gained great strength from other’s stories and support on this forum.  The most important for me right now in this stage is believing that I will find myself in a better place, with a better life.  I can’t fathom what that can be like and in this dark time I even struggle to hold the belief, but it is this faith that some day, however distant it might be, that it will be better than even the life I had with my wife before her coming out.  This belief has been a dim beacon of light that helps me to keep my thoughts oriented in the right direction. Helps me to not think to much about the “what if we just...”, or “maybe it’s a phase...”.  Helps me to see that what is ahead of me, with as difficult as it will be, is part of that journey towards the better place.  This faith that there will be a better place on the other side of all this impending loss and pain and sadness is literally saving my life. Although I am not feeling suicidal, the level of loss feels so extreme that I understand why the thought of it would be considered.

I am so thankful for this group being here, and today, only one week into this, I’d like to give a little back.  My advice, as has been said so many times on this forum, is to believe that you can make a better life for yourself on the other side of all this.  I’m not speaking from the perspective of someone who has been through it.  I’m speaking from the position that that belief is all I have right now. I have no idea how that can be possible, when all I see around me is going to start unraveling and I still have hundreds of painful conversations to have with friends and family, I still have to watch my wife pack her stuff and move out some day, I have to go through the divorce filings, change all our paperwork, support the kids, and on and on and on....

I’m am standing at the starting line, and for those that come to this forum that find themselves in the same place, BELIEVE that there is a better life in the end. Use that belief, even if it’s blind faith (as it is for me now), to guide you through each moment of the Journey.

 

November 18, 2018 12:42 pm  #2


Re: Just started the Journey to a better life

Jaybird wrote:

I’m am standing at the starting line, and for those that come to this forum that find themselves in the same place, BELIEVE that there is a better life in the end. Use that belief, even if it’s blind faith (as it is for me now), to guide you through each moment of the Journey.

We're all at different stages of The Journey. And I've read that women who come out as gay are much more likely to leave their partner sooner rather than the men do. Men stay hidden in the closet/in denial for longer, drawing out the pain. My pain.

Strange as it may sound....I kind of envy you Jay....lol


KIA KAHA                       
 

November 18, 2018 1:28 pm  #3


Re: Just started the Journey to a better life

Jaybird,
 You're to be commended for your attitude in what is undoubtedly one of our lives' biggest upheavals. 
 
   I am one week and two days divorced.  In January of 2018, after 35 years of married life, after almost three years of living in my husband's closet, a full fifteen months after I could see the handwriting on the wall that we would have to divorce but that he would never initiate it, I initiated the process.  It went slowly, because I took it slowly.
    Now that the divorce is final, I find that I am living with an ease and peacefulness that I find so unfamiliar after three years of living with my ex's secret that I have wondered if it might be the product of creeping early senility!  No more anxiety over what he might do; no more anxiety over what I should do.  No more clouds of silence (on his part) and hope (on mine) hanging over the household.  No more unmet expectations, feelings bottled up, no more disappointment on either side.  Living in that atmosphere was a daily assault on my health and sanity, for all that pain and uncertainty you described in your first paragraph.  Everything was suspended and nothing was settled and I was hanging--life was hanging--in the balance.  Only when I acted--because he never would--could things begin to be righted.
  All of which is to say that I'm here to tell you that it will indeed get better.  You will not be sorry that you acted.  You will have challenges; your mood will go up and down.  You will grieve.  You will be lonely.  But those periods  of grief and loneliness, we have to believe, and so I have found, are finite.  Life is already better for me, and I, too, trust that there's more happiness to come.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (November 18, 2018 3:20 pm)

 

November 18, 2018 2:46 pm  #4


Re: Just started the Journey to a better life

"living a lie is not fair to us either" - this is a gift although it might not seem like much of one at the moment. Take it one day at a time. One step at a time. Don't measure your pace against others. This is a journey, not a race.


“The future is unwritten.”
― Joe Strummer
 

November 18, 2018 3:40 pm  #5


Re: Just started the Journey to a better life

It is an unbearably painful and disorienting time for sure !  I think it took about 6 months before I stopped crying at least once a week. BUT being free from someone who no longer (if they ever) loves you is truly a gift. It will take time and there will ups and downs but it does get so much better ! In the meantime be gentle with yourself. I learned a lot about myself and relationships and it helps to see what role I had and what I wanted in the future.

 

November 18, 2018 6:08 pm  #6


Re: Just started the Journey to a better life

I just reread your post and on the second reading I was able to sit back and just read that list, that awful long painful list of things that are coming up and see it as a real healing process for you and your family.  such a weight off the children to deal with it all now.

For me it has been an all out relief to end the marriage but your wife is being so decent about it it might be harder for you to lose her but you will always be parents together.  Hopefully you will be able to have an amicable divorce.

of course you have a lot to look forward to in your future.

wishing you all the best, Lily

Last edited by lily (November 18, 2018 6:09 pm)

 

November 18, 2018 7:33 pm  #7


Re: Just started the Journey to a better life

OutofHisCloset wrote:

Jaybird,
 You're to be commended for your attitude in what is undoubtedly one of our lives' biggest upheavals.

Thank you. I’ll admit that it was a brief moment of strength that I was able to write that. 

I’m really happy for you and your newfound peace of mind.  It is stories like yours that have given me the strength to keep the candle of hope lit, and I thank you for being here with me during my journey.

     Thread Starter
 

November 18, 2018 7:44 pm  #8


Re: Just started the Journey to a better life

lily wrote:

I just reread your post and on the second reading I was able to sit back and just read that list, that awful long painful list of things that are coming up and see it as a real healing process for you and your family.  such a weight off the children to deal with it all now.

For me it has been an all out relief to end the marriage but your wife is being so decent about it it might be harder for you to lose her but you will always be parents together.  Hopefully you will be able to have an amicable divorce.

I am hopeful that our divorce is amicable as well. We both still love each other, but her realization has caused such a shift in her (she describes it like a switch went off) that there is no going back to being a heterosexual.  We’ve had a fantastic relationship. People have always looked to us as role models when it came to a caring loving relationship. 

I think you are absolutely correct that the circumstances will make it harder to let her go.  Neither of us has cause to want to run away from each other.  This is one of the reasons I find that believing there is a better life (even if our life was already great) is so important for me to have the strength to do what is right.

     Thread Starter
 

November 19, 2018 3:01 am  #9


Re: Just started the Journey to a better life

Hi Jay,

just want to say there's a temptation to make the divorce amicable by not questioning what your partner wants so it is good to be able to discuss the details with a family member or friend who has your back.

and that the thing we missed out on in our marriages is 'the difference' - the emotional difference of a love life with another straight.  It is something worth looking forward to.

all the best, Lily

 

November 19, 2018 6:21 pm  #10


Re: Just started the Journey to a better life

So sorry you find yourself here. I wish I had some great words of wisdom to share with you but I am so early in my own journey that I find I have none. I know exactly what you mean about not wanting to live a lie though. I know that no matter what and how much it may hurt, I don't want to live that lie at all anymore. It's my GID husband who wants to live it. Crazy.

The best I can offer you is some *hgus* of support. 

 

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