Thank you for this post, you have said what I have felt for years but was never able to express it in the words you have so eloquently written. For these words, I thank you from the very bottom of my being.
Lostdad, I have been through many things in my life at 71 years old, two breast cancer surgeries,loss of many people close to me,family illness,however, this has been the hardest fo me to deal with.
For the 30 years of my marriage,I had tried to figure out what was wrong,was it me,I didn't feel that it was. I tried talking with him and help him through whatever it was...I was there for him. Always putting myself last,as he put me last.
When he left after my last BC surgery,he said he was bored,wan't to work and liked being with guys...we had just spent a month in San Diego so I could recuperate from the surgery and radiation. I should mention that her had left for four months prior to the diagnosis. He came home to help me through everything. 
He left without a look behind and once again left me to come to my own conclusion. I began an "autopsy" on my marriage,looking over the years together and moments of my life came to me as if a movie were playing in my head. I then realized he was gay,of course, he was a coward and let me do his work.
I wish I had had this forum at the start of this. What Sean and Cameron write have been the answers I have for ever searched for.
What you posted has brought it all together for me.
I am so grateful to have everyone here for support.
Too all of you,thank you.

Well said! In many ways, it feels like we go through ALL of those losses (except death) at once and the idea of people "congratulating" them on their bravery is infuriating.

Lost dad - well said.  I don't think anybody has understood how I have lost my past as well and I scrutinised every detail of when we were married and pre marriage, everything he had said, everything he had done, everything he wrote (ending every card and note to me 'always and forever') and every time he was out, where was he, who had he been with.  

Then the support you've mentioned.  How true is that??  I remember calling a gay and lesbian hotline to see if there was any support out there for me - the forgotten.  I started to tell my story and the woman on the phone said 'I'll put you through to the lesbian hotline!!!  They eventually gave me a number for a lady who's husband was bi sexual.  She still lived with him and her children and she went on to tell me how happy they were.  That didn't relate to my husband saying 'I'm gay' and then left. 

Then there was the councillor I saw referred to by my GP (doctor).  She listened and 'kindly' told me how hard it must have been for him to stay married and worst of all (words never forgotten and never forgiven) how he had my children because I wanted them.  So he did that for me!!!  Don't get me wrong, I adore my children with a passion but up to then had believed they were conceived because we both wanted them.  

I'm sorry we've all had to go through this but it's a relief when I see some of the posts to know what I went through is 'normal' in this type of situation.
 

Still Wondering, what you say, that you "found comfort in the fact that it wasn't another woman I was competing with" hits me where it hurts.  As the spouse of a man who has declared that he's transgendered, and wants to give shape to the woman he fantasizes himself to be within, I am competing with another woman--it's just that she's not a flesh and blood person I can point at.  It's exactly that fact that in the worst moments makes me feel awful: apparently I'm so lacking that even a fantasy woman is preferable to me!  I find comfort, however, in telling myself what you do: that our sexualities are simply incompatible.  His sexuality is not mine, and that was indeed a "click" moment.

I dunno, guys.  I totally get where you're all coming from, having lived through it.  I can only say that as a parent of a child that is emotionally and mentally ill, that the gay thing is NOT the worst thing I've lived through.  When it's over, it's over.  You can move on from it.  You can find new love and appreciate the hell out of it.  When you have a child that is ill or dies, there's just..... no coming back from that.  It takes up space in my mind and my heart every.single.day, unlike my former gay marriage.  I agonize over where my son was last night - was he sleeping in his car again, out in the cold?  Is he doing drugs today?  Is he safe tonight?  Has he eaten in the past 2 days?  When he calls me next, will he ask for something I can't or won't give him?  Will he ever understand that I needed to oust him in order to protect the other household members, or will he always see me as a mother who abandoned him?  These things tear at my soul in a way that my ex gay spouse not loving me enough ever did.  Even now - so in love with what I see as the most wonderful man on the planet - if he left me, I could find love again.  I would be raw and bleeding, but there would be hope.  My son being this ill leaves me no hope for his future, or for ours as a family.  Every picture of us without him seems like a lie.  Every holiday seems hollow.  When he's there, it's a struggle to contain myself because he is so awful to everyone - so self-centered that it's plainly narcissistic.  I cannot let him walk all over everyone that way. And yet,..... he is my SON.  My firstborn, who I brought home from the hospital and nursed at my breast.  Who I swore with my life to protect and provide for.  And I can't do that anymore.  He is 19.  He is so thin that he looks like he's starving.  He is lonely and scared and angry. And yet he makes no changes to help himself.  It is utter torture.

Give me a gay spouse any old day.  That I know I can handle - can bounce back from.  This seems to never end.  There is a fine line between love and tough love, and it seems to move all the time.  I cannot have what my own heart wants without taking from the hearts of others I love and am sworn to also protect.  I am the rope in a giant tug-of-war.  Whichever side pulls the hardest wins at that moment.  I myself am just always being dragged through the mud, trying to be the strong rope so that two sides can still have a middle.  It's excruciating.

Kel

Last edited by Kel (November 14, 2016 12:51 pm)