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December 17, 2023 9:28 am  #1


So glad to find this site

OMG, how glad I am to find this place to share!  I discovered my husband of 16 years ( in 1996 ) was emailing other married men when the internet was brand new.  I didn't know then how to even use Instant message "you've got mail" !  We had a business together and he apparently did not close down the computer at 2am the previous morning while I was asleep and he was awake having sexual fantasies with all of these guys!! After my discovery and shock, and him denying all of it I spent Three years of going to couples counseling trying to convince myself that he was lost and just trying to figure out who he is, that we needed to double down on our marriage and start anew.  All along, I'm being gaslighted daily and lied to even after discovering he had rented a post office box to receive gifts in from other married gay men whose wives were also being lied to.  I printed out internet emails he was writing and exchanging with other men, all of them discussing how it would be funny if their wives ever found out, WTF?!  I presented this evidence in black and white and you would not believe all of his responses trying to convince me that he was only friends ( do "just friends" really discuss in detail the sexual things they want to do with each other ?) with these guys and that he had done nothing wrong, that no physical contact ever took place.  He said it was all just fantasies, nothing real, and that he was guilty of nothing, that he was NOT gay.  I responded I'm pretty sure that if fantasizing about having sex with men was what he was doing in his head that that's what he was interested in, NOT me, that he didn't need to be married to a woman. I was so angry that we had been married ten years and building our business before we had a child, and all that time he could have released me and been honest instead of ruining my and our child's life with his lie! And to make things worse, I carried his secret another twenty years after my divorce, I moved out of state, none of our friends knew because I loved him and did not want him to suffer from he couldn't help he was.  He, on the other hand, allowed everyone to think I was a bad mother and wife by breaking up our family and leaving his poor pitiful self!  Like HE was the victim here!  OMG! The ANGER I felt ( I had no one and no place to put it, as no one was talking about anyone experiencing such things in 1996 Tennessee! ) for him playing victim and allowing ME to suffer from not only HIS behavior, but then his LIES to the outside world too as if I were a bad person after me working so hard to be kind and not wanting to shame him!  I won't even go into how bad it was going through three years of trying to gain custody and child support for a child he should never have allowed us to make due to his lie!  I never spoke of why we divorced to our daughter but she came to me at 11 years old and told me she thought her father was gay and wanted to know what I thought.  I told her that it was her father's responsibility to say who he is and that we can't decide another persons' preferences for them, that that is mean.  She then replied well I know he is and now everything finally makes sense!  To this day, 40 yrs after we took vows, after twenty years of marriage, and 22 years of divorce, him having multiple profiles on gay websites ( that my daughter has seen not me) he is STILL in denial and will NOT come out of the closet!!! He cannot take responsibility for who he is or the choices he has made in his life.  I stayed single for 5 years ( you might say 12 since my finding out his lie ) and before remarrying for 10 years to finally decide to be alone.  I don't know if I can ever view a marriage as something that would ever comfort me again due to such deep betrayal and hurt and inability to trust people.  I guess it's my own ignorance for being open and kind and loving and unconditional when I love someone.  I've finally decided at 63, that I will take care of me from now on and enjoy my time alone and maybe slowly allow friends into my heart, but I will not look for another person to be my other half ever again.  I will be complete and be okay with no drama. There are no words to describe the peace you will find when you get the crazy ones out of your life!  

 

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