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April 19, 2018 11:50 pm  #1


Warning to younger straights from an old straight

Brief background: I have been divorced from my gay sex addict spouse eight years now. He cheated on me for over ten years after I found names, addresses, descriptions (remember, that was the year 2000--a different reality from now) through therapy (even) and many broken promises. We were married 24 years with two sons, one autistic. I was the classic gas light spouse who was his beard for years. He was educated and had a professional career that I worked around to the detriment of my own livelihood for the sake of "us" and the family.

Recent reality notes: It is amazing that this man who I once thought loved me exclusively forever, has only progressed in his lack of values over the years.  Just an FYI that this sex addict (and he is an addict, not just looking for a forever gay partner) and perhaps many others like him, not only feels no remorse about how he messed up my heart, CAREER, geographic location choices, financial realities, and our CHILDREN'S lives, but has no qualms still about having sex with married men and younger men who have girlfriends. At age 66, he considers hook-ups four times/week as a downsized version of what he used to do (along with some drug use). He doesn't see himself as having any obligation to make amends to me or his sons--never has. The cowardice and narcissism overwhelms me still. Be aware younger friends that you should run fast and far away from any man who dabbles or did dabble in gay sex. It only gets worse for you and their selfishness can know no bounds. It is still painful for me to realize that I married a man with such a pitiful conscience and such a smarmy character. I thought I was bright and too savvy to have such a catastrophic tragedy occur. Wow. My heart goes out to any of you dear hearts dealing with an unfaithful on the down low partner. Get out ASAP! Don't hope for the best. It is not going to happen. Don't let your heart, career, and children suffer irreparable damages thinking he will change and REALLY cares for your well being. HE IS TOO WRAPPED UP IN HIS OWN HEDONISTIC EXPLORATIONS. Get out before you are backed into corners of age, career stops, and your children's emotional devastation.  

 

April 20, 2018 7:30 am  #2


Re: Warning to younger straights from an old straight

Bravo!  And thanks!
I'm 64; I was hit with the news when I was 61; how I wish I'd run like hell and followed through on my first impulse to divorce immediately in those initial few months.  Instead, in shock, and out of love and decades of marriage (32 years), I allowed myself to be drawn back in (he appealed to me with the "poor me, help me" line, to which I was particularly susceptible).  
  Three years after that disclosure, I am finally living on my own, and just now negotiating the divorce that when I was operating out of a sense of self-understanding and self-protection I knew was necessary for my own happiness.
  I would also add that those of you who are new here, in shock, wanting to protect your marriages and wondering whether you can salvage them, are going to resist this advice. It's often true that we can't act on or "hear" something until we're psychologically ready to hear and understand and act on it.  But see it as a flashing red warning light, and don't just reject it as "one woman's experience" (thinking your situation is different, or you are different, or your spouse would act like that).  
 

 

April 20, 2018 11:57 am  #3


Re: Warning to younger straights from an old straight

I totally agree Kate. I heeded the advice from here early on and didn't stick around to find the outcome. 
I say when we stick it out with them, it only enables them and others like them.
Leave em in the dust where they belong. 

 

April 20, 2018 3:09 pm  #4


Re: Warning to younger straights from an old straight

Yes, yes, and YES again. 

Whether it is TGT or TTT(the trans thing) it will not get better. The compulsion to act just gets stronger and stronger as they get older.

Stay Strong

 

April 20, 2018 4:41 pm  #5


Re: Warning to younger straights from an old straight

delete
 

Last edited by Lynne (February 3, 2019 1:41 pm)

 

April 30, 2018 5:20 pm  #6


Re: Warning to younger straights from an old straight

Katie: I could have written your post word for word.

It was really shocking to me when I finally had The Conversation with him -- and he seemed truly oblivious to the pain and torment his double life had caused to me and to our daughter.  He kept telling me how he loved me, but he came across truly unaware of the pain he'd been causing.  He seemed to act as though as long as he hadn't been found out, everything would have been fine.  He didn't see all these painful episodes over the past 24 years, where I was working with incomplete information and was absolutely tormented by not understanding what was going on.

And yes, to the career damage it did to me, and the constant relocations, and my need to work full time AND do the job of both parents because he was either out messing around or sleeping off the hangover from the previous nights' messing around.

 

October 3, 2018 9:37 pm  #7


Re: Warning to younger straights from an old straight

I wish someone would do a computer graph to show the outcome of anyone wanting to stay in these relationships. From everything I've read and heard it only gets worse. I can understand certain situations of having to stay but for those that have the option to leave, they should get out immediately! It only prolongs every negative thing you experience while being with these spouses. 
They blindfold us into thinking they are good people. There is nothing good about them. They work extra hard to make everyone think they are the opposite of what they truly are- Garbage.
When anyone tries to stick it out and 'help' them they only wallow in their garbage until the time comes to wake up and get out. By then it's usually too late. 
GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN! 

 

October 4, 2018 8:17 am  #8


Re: Warning to younger straights from an old straight

the U of happiness.

I read this and it rang a bell with me - you start at the top of the U and by mid-life you are at the bottom of the U of happiness and this is what I remember from my 40's - I'd sort of given up, i was wanting to settle for whatever I had and so often I see that expressed by people in their 40's but by the time I was 50 despite the birthday with a case of shingles and my miserable excuse for a husband making me feel as awful as possible and being baited by his bestie, I was aware that I was climbing out of a trough.  

point is - there is a lot of living to do past your mid years.

I have never had a problem doing the maths, I have always been looking out for people that are older than me who will spill the beans.  why not listen to what the people are saying who have already done the yards I'm facing?

So me, I am 63 now and I chat with people in their 80s and 90s and nothing I hear changes my feeling that I was lucky to be able to get free of my marriage.  Unlucky to have gotten stuck with him in the first place, unlucky to have sustained such losses, but lucky to be rid of him now.  The thing that firmed up my resolve is when i finally understood that my marriage wasn't just not going to get better, inevitably it was going to continue to get worse.



 

 

October 4, 2018 1:04 pm  #9


Re: Warning to younger straights from an old straight

Some things just can't be fixed.  Finding out your spouse is gay when you're straight is one such thing, in my opinion.  Run as fast and far as you can.

I suppose there are situations where it works.  But I'd bet that the straight spouse has given up so much of themselves just to retain the marriage that it's not worth it in the end.  All I know is that I banged my head against the wall for years, trying to make my marriage work.  I thought that if I had an absence of certain issues, my marriage would be fine.  It didn't matter - the issues weren't going anywhere, so I jumped ship.  Only to learn in my next (current) marriage that I was nowhere NEAR happiness in that prior marriage, and I was never, ever going to get there.  Because he never loved me the way a straight man needs to love his wife.  No desire, no desire to protect, to provide for, to be the rock for.  Those aren't "issues" - that's a flawed foundation.  It cannot be fixed.  If I had known then just how futile all that trying would be, and just how pale any win was by comparison to something solid, I wouldn't have wasted so many of my years trying.

Kel
 


You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.
 

October 4, 2018 7:58 pm  #10


Re: Warning to younger straights from an old straight

We tend to minimize the problem once we find out or suspect what is going on with our partners. We don't share our experience with anyone, limiting for other people to shake us and get us out of that inreality...we are to ashamed of people's judgment and we do not want to lose the fairy tale we visualized for ourselves. But in the end there is never a fairy tale with those lying and deceitful spouses.

It is only pain, emotional rollercoster, self doubt and hopeless feeling.
It will never be fixed! You will never connect with that person on the level you should with your lover. You will never feel to have your best friend by your side, because you will lose your trust.

And when kids are involved, it is even worse!

So RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN! There is no happy ending! Let us, those straight spouses with experience, to be your eyes and ears...fight for yourself and your happiness. The problem is not on your side!

 

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