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July 24, 2018 10:08 pm  #41


Re: Update on those still in their MOMs

Yaz, can you post again how long you have been married and how long into your marriage you found out. I apologize if I missed it.  I want so much to relate to your posts but that's hard without knowing how you stepped into this situation. Right now I go from one extreme to the other. I look forward to our future and then I want to strangle him for not being honest and setting me up for heartbreak. Like Ellexoh said, it's not like he lied about what he had for lunch! This man I married promised to "forsake all others" not wish I had a penis and decide in the middle of our dream that a man meets his needs more than me. 
I will probably sign on tomorrow and say how wonderful things are. I get hit with waves of terrifying fear to the point I cant breathe.  And, he knows none of it. I reassure him how proud I am that he had the courage to come out to me. I tell him how sorry I am that he felt the need to repress and hide his feelings.  And the kicker, he hasn't cheated on me.  I cant imagine how the others feel about those lies.

Lisa
Waves and Riptides

 

July 25, 2018 12:36 pm  #42


Re: Update on those still in their MOMs

Lisa Emelsee wrote:

I get hit with waves of terrifying fear to the point I cant breathe. And, he knows none of it. I reassure him how proud I am that he had the courage to come out to me. I tell him how sorry I am that he felt the need to repress and hide his feelings.

At the risk of stating the painfully obvious, you're the one who seems to feel the need to repress and hide your feelings.  I mean, what bothers me about this entire conversation is exactly this mindset (Lisa, I'm not picking on you alone, it's just the juxtaposition of these sentences was so jarring).  


 

 

July 25, 2018 4:45 pm  #43


Re: Update on those still in their MOMs

walkbymyself wrote:

 

I agree with you Walk....but as Lisa is only a few weeks post disclosure she must still be coming to terms with 
this whole thing. 
Sometimes....to be able to see things clearly the turbulence has to have time to settle, to have a calmer realisation 
of what is actually happening, what is being said/not said and that there are 2 people in the relationship who should
take responsibility. I believe Lisa is, or maybe is under the impression she has to....shoulder the blame/be the one to encourage harmony. We all know that is not right.
 


KIA KAHA                       
     Thread Starter
 

July 25, 2018 9:06 pm  #44


Re: Update on those still in their MOMs

walkbymyself wrote:

Lisa Emelsee wrote:

I get hit with waves of terrifying fear to the point I cant breathe. And, he knows none of it. I reassure him how proud I am that he had the courage to come out to me. I tell him how sorry I am that he felt the need to repress and hide his feelings.

At the risk of stating the painfully obvious, you're the one who seems to feel the need to repress and hide your feelings.  I mean, what bothers me about this entire conversation is exactly this mindset (Lisa, I'm not picking on you alone, it's just the juxtaposition of these sentences was so jarring).  


 

I get that, but my feeling are of loss and grief and something I will work thru.  His are not "feelings". His whole life he had to hide what he was born to be. It's not something he can work thru. It's something he is. I wont add any more guilt or shame on him.  He will know eventually what I have felt but it will be after I have worked thru it.

Lisa

 

July 26, 2018 3:10 pm  #45


Re: Update on those still in their MOMs

Lisa Emelsee wrote:

Yaz, can you post again how long you have been married and how long into your marriage you found out. I apologize if I missed it. I want so much to relate to your posts but that's hard without knowing how you stepped into this situation.

I joined and intro'd to a bunch of sites right when this all came to a head, but I might not have done a full intro here. So you probably didn't miss a thing!

My partner and I got together in 1999. I knew he was gay then, and he was kind of my buddy while I was going through my divorce with my first husband of 17 years (and three little kids). We knew each other for a year beforehand. To this day, I'm still not certain how he came to the conclusion to open up to a woman for a relationship, but he did and it changed my life. We married in 2003 (15 years on Friday, the 13th of July!).

We did have a couple of MMF playdates in our early years, nothing as formal as a FWB but enough for me to see that yes, he really was turned on in a major way by men. But he got started in a career that required a lot of his energy, and we had our son in 2004, and we moved into a conservative area (after I spent my entire life in Northern California). We just got into a nice, regular, comfortable rhythm... we didn't have outside contact with others, but I still fully approved of his use of porn, erotica, toys, etc. Sometimes I did those things with him, sometimes he was more in a solo mood... it never felt threatening, he was the most attentive and thoughtful lover I've ever had, and he never demanded anything from me. 

About a year ago, after a year of what I thought was a really wonderful time in our marriage (I had been healing from the deaths of both parents, along with some health challenges), he started to get moody and short-tempered. I could tell he needed something, so I tried to step up our sex life, and do more of the things he enjoyed. It helped, but that wasn't the issue... just before Christmas, he told me that he felt lonely, misunderstood, and desperate for sex with men (he wanted to go onto PrEP and visit some local gay bars). 

At first, I just thought, OK, we'll just try to get back to the place we were before the baby was born, that made him happy. But those adventures were shared experiences; this time, he wanted to go out on his own. The more I thought about this, the more I began to panic and freak out. My head was in his corner... I knew he loved male contact, we hadn't had any for nearly 15 years, he wasn't cheating on me, he wasn't looking for a divorce or even another partner. I tried to be a GGG (Good, Game, Giving) wife, but everything we tried just ramped up my anxiety until I wound up needing antidepressants and Xanax. I also had some major health issues triggered by the stress (I have a lovely bouquet of autoimmune issues, and they all went into full bloom, so I needed mobility aids and constant painkillers on top of everything else). 

It's still a mystery to me why I had such an extreme reaction to something that would not have been such a big deal before, but I did and after two months of constant doctors visits, wound management from injuries, therapy appointments, hours and hours and hours of talking, combing through research literature, and many many kind and supportive words from women in several support groups, I feel like we are almost back to a nearly neutral place. I've learned that I cannot rush this thing, even if I KNOW I want him to fulfill his desires and I fully trust him to do it in ways that will not hurt me physically (he's a scientist, so he understands exposure protocols thoroughly). And he has been witnessing firsthand the damage my body goes through when I try to push for something that, for whatever reason, I am not ready to accept. 

We have a gay male couples counselor we've seen once together, who has also seen me twice alone, and he hooked us up with another gay male counselor who my husband has been seeing weekly for a few months now. We also got him participating in a LGBT swim team, once the counselor helped him realize that his desire for sex was really more about seeking validation and fellowship with other gay men. While he would still definitely like to have sex with men again, he's come to the conclusion that life with me is far more important, and if I cannot get to a place of peace enough for him to do that, he's willing to set it aside. He sees it as a totally reasonable "price of admission" for our marriage, especially since I gave up a LOT when we moved away from my hometown in 2003 (my career, my house, my community). I've tried opening up my heart enough for him to do various things, with varying results... him going to a sex party (where he only watched) was too much for me, him going out to brunch with his swim teammates was mostly fine with me, and him marching in the Pride Parade (his big Coming Out moment in the Chicago community) was tough for me but doable. It was worse because I had a bad fall the week before, and so was unable to participate in any way... and we have found that the worst trigger for me is when he is doing something I am not allowed to do, or in a place I am not allowed to go. The gay bar is fine, I can go in with him and I genuinely find it fun to flirt with gay men... we both know nothing will happen, which gives our banter a sense of freedom and safety so we can get as outrageous as we want. But that backroom where anything goes? I am clearly NOT welcome there, and the thought of him walking away from me to go there definitely triggers some major anxiety for me. So... we go to the bar, he doesn't go to the back room. He's constrained a little bit, I'm stretched a little bit. As I get more secure and at peace with my new normal, we may find that I'll be able to stretch a little further. But he constantly reassures me (by my request!) that he is fine with how things are, he feels SO much better having friends and activities in the gay community, and he genuinely values my health and wellbeing over his desire for male contact... that last bit was (sometimes still is) the hardest for me to accept. He would NEVER stop me if I wanted to have a date or sex with other people, and it feels unfair and wrong that I cannot offer him the same unconditional love. 

Lisa Emelsee wrote:

Right now I go from one extreme to the other. I look forward to our future and then I want to strangle him for not being honest and setting me up for heartbreak. Like Ellexoh said, it's not like he lied about what he had for lunch! This man I married promised to "forsake all others" not wish I had a penis and decide in the middle of our dream that a man meets his needs more than me.

You are still in the early days. That see-saw of extremes, what some of us refer to as the emotional roller coaster, is SO hard to ride. Big hugs and much strength to you as you walk this path!

Lisa Emelsee wrote:

I will probably sign on tomorrow and say how wonderful things are. I get hit with waves of terrifying fear to the point I cant breathe. And, he knows none of it. I reassure him how proud I am that he had the courage to come out to me. I tell him how sorry I am that he felt the need to repress and hide his feelings. And the kicker, he hasn't cheated on me. I cant imagine how the others feel about those lies.

Right now, right this second, you need to share all this with him! The ONLY way you will be able to have a happy life with him is if you are both brutally honest with each other, what my counselor calls "oversharing." You CANNOT communicate too much with him about this! He NEEDS to hear what this is costing you. This is not a game of how much you can tolerate. It's about giving and taking, being gentle and honest with yourself and him, each of you cultivating empathy and self-compassion and the ability to recognize your priorities, and learning how to choose your battles (what is most important to you? What can you let go of easily that might give him a big boost? What is intolerable to you? What are the consequences if he crosses that line?). 

Are you in counseling? Either individually or together? I'd say do both if you possibly can! You cannot fly a plane through a storm by yourself, you need an experienced pilot to help you weather this giant disruption in your lives. This is NOT the time to hold back, to give away too much, to set aside your needs. Posting here is a great start, but this is a big deal... possibly the biggest deal your marriage will ever face. You MUST invest in each other if you really, truly want to save the marriage. It IS possible, but it is NOT easy. And you must do it together. You cannot do any of it all by yourself... just like he can't. You say you don't want to add any more guilt or shame, but if you bottle it up and then it explodes later (and it WILL explode), the fallout and damage WILL be significantly worse. Of course, you will only be able to learn these things by experiencing them yourself (just like I had so many women say "slow down" and "be patient" and "stay in the moment"). But I'm hoping that by reading what we are writing to you, there will be seeds planted so that you will eventually be able to look at your situation and use the collective knowledge to inform your decisions.

I particularly love the headlights analogy. I don't need to know what our marriage will look like a year from now, whether he will have a boyfriend, or if we will even still be married. What I need to focus on is what is right in front of us at this moment... like when you are driving somewhere at night. You can't see all of the road ahead, or even what your destination specifically looks like. But you drive slowly enough to know you will be able to handle whatever pops into view, the area that your headlights are illuminated. Don't go too fast, don't worry about what is ahead until you get there, don't fret about what is behind you... just keep your eyes on what you have right here, right now, and address that thing. And have faith that you will arrive, safe, together, by taking one step at a time, instead of worrying about big leaps or final solutions.

Katje
 

 

July 27, 2018 6:00 am  #46


Re: Update on those still in their MOMs

Lisa Emelsee/ wrote:

His whole life he had to hide what he was born to be
Lisa

No Lisa he didn’t have to. He chose to.

 

July 27, 2018 6:28 pm  #47


Re: Update on those still in their MOMs

Wondering89 wrote:

Be careful when it comes to bedroom play yes it can be fun but in time I personally feel it can crush you as a woman. I felt nothing more then a sex prop for his needs because when I wanted to just make love it died pretty quick. If I said I didn’t want to do this or that he would sook and have a tantrum and roll of to go to sleep.

Oh, hugs, Wondering89! That sounds really hard and hurtful. It sounds like you were being a giving and game partner, but at the same time, it has to come from both directions. No matter how badly one person wants a relationship to work, no matter how much energy and effort they put in, they cannot do it by themselves. 

I know it's weak comfort, but this isn't a problem that is unique to MOMs... I've had many friends in straight relationships that feel all their husband wants to do is f*ck, not ever make love... that they are only a prop, while their husband just does what he wants to get off. This is a warning sign in any partnership, and I'm sorry it happened with you two. It does sound like you stood up for yourself and things are better now. 

 

July 29, 2018 5:16 am  #48


Re: Update on those still in their MOMs

Wondering89 wrote:

Been interesting reading all of this..

When my husband came out as bi at first and this is referring to something yaz said.. this is my experience..

In the bedroom for us he started talking dirty and I tried new things to try to pleasure him to.. also watched gay porn or bi porn a few times.  I know you can still get pleasure in all of this and have sex but at the same time this really crushed me.

I started to feel like a prop I got sick of hearing the dirty talk about other men.. I got sick of toys, I got sick of the porn.. the fantasy for him for him wasn’t enough and he would always push things to a point I wasn’t comfortable. He would talk dirty and say this or that but after I would question myself is that what he thinks of me or if he loved me why would he want that.
It really killed my confidence as a woman. At first it was fun but it quickly got old and started to hurt more then anything. This all stopped and we separated and got back together and basically didn’t have sex again. he came out as gay through a bunch of events.

Be careful when it comes to bedroom play yes it can be fun but in time I personally feel it can crush you as a woman. I felt nothing more then a sex prop for his needs because when I wanted to just make love it died pretty quick. If I said I didn’t want to do this or that he would sook and have a tantrum and roll of to go to sleep.

Personally for me when thinking about mom relationships I think it’s more a caring love and friendship.. it’s all the things you enjoy together.. and the cuddles or warmth.
It’s not the romance.. but I guess every man is different and we all have different feelings and go through different stages. My relationship would be different then most and my feelings.

I do think moms can work and I think it’s important to take day by day if you choose to be in a mom and work on your happiness to.

The thing that crushed me was I was never enough for him and his non acceptance about himself and the fact he could never be committed hurt. I do wish he said he was gay years ago instead of bi. When he said he was bi I thought he could still be happy with me sexually to.

I do enjoy our friendship but I have never lied or hurt my friends like he has to me. But then he also lies to himself and to others to.

I think moms are a lot of work and relationships building.
Yous are all strong and wonderful wives and partners and your husband or wives are so lucky to have a wonderful person like yous in their life.

Wow, thank you so much ...you get it. I'm scared...then I'm looking forward to being with this man who appears happy.. finally

You got me saying and accepting that I never will be "enough". Those thoughts are what usually brings me to a dark plaçe.

Lisa

 

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