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April 7, 2019 11:39 pm  #1


My wife says she is 80% gay... where to go from here?

So, about a month ago, my wife of two years came out as pretty much lesbian (without fully committing to the term and claims she's attracted to intellect/personality and that's 80% women).  Basically, she has suspected it since she was a teenager but grew up in a very conservative culture and knew accepting this label meant social ostracism as well as a potential one-way ticket to hell.  So, she repressed it... and, frankly, I probably would have, too, if I thought it meant eternal damnation.

Our whole marriage has been a bit rocky with a lot of emotional ups and downs.  The emotion was provided by her but potentially exacerbated by the fact I'm a pretty unemotional, rational guy, so I really couldn't relate to her feelings.  Anyway, about a year ago she started exhibiting some binge eating and bulimia behavior.  When we married, she told me she had never had issues like that in the past, but she later admitted that was a lie.  She has struggled with eating disorders off and on for her whole life.  Regardless, after around nine months of her insisting she would figure out this eating disorder on her own, I told her she'll either go to therapy for the eating disorder or we'll go to marital counseling together so we can understand why she refuses to go therapy when there's clearly something wrong.  Given that choice, she went to therapy.  It kind of felt like a jerk move, but it was the only way she would go.

So, therapy was all well and good, and she hasn't exhibited the same eating disorders since.  So, that's awesome.  What was not as awesome is that she told me she was more or less gay.  Basically, therapy had given her the courage to admit it... at least to me and a couple of her close friends.  I respect that.  I want her to live her most authentic life.  And she claims she still wants to stay together with me, but I suspect this has more to do with the fact I get a pretty big paycheck than true, marital affection.

The reasons for my suspicions are as follows:

1.  Upon hearing that she might be gay, but she wasn't sure, I encouraged her to date some girls and see what she likes.  The idea being to test it out, and if she likes girls we split up.  If she doesn't like girls, we stay together.  This hasn't really gone as I had hoped.  Largely because it requires mutual trust and respect.  However, the first girl she dated, she ended up almost kissing.  I read about it through texts on her watch (technology these days).  I was a little irritated simply because she had been out with this girl a couple times and insisted it was fully platonic, and she was just making new friends.  I know she wouldn't be a fan of me kissing girls I meet, so I know that's not her definition of platonic.  For me, the worst part was confronting her about this, and her refusing to admit that it happened until I told her I had pictures of her texts.  So, good-bye trust.  Actually, potentially the worst part about this is that she then got mad at me for reading her watch.  She was legitimately angry because it was "sneaky".  I mean, I get that, but we've given each other the passcodes to our phones and know each other's passwords.  I just don't ever have a reason to read it until my wife is out until midnight with a girl and then acts weird the next morning.  But the whole time we've given each other authorization to read each other's phones.  That was the first time I've ever read her texts, though.

2.  Now, we're still sort of on this whole test it out whatever, but she has become increasingly more distant.  Often-times, she's texting incessantly and won't even look up at me whenever I walk in the room.  She's texting new girls she meets... you know, "as friends".

3.  Interestingly, we seem to be getting to a new point where I'm starting to be blamed for our sexual problems.  She claims she doesn't want sex because she doesn't feel emotionally intimate with me.  This is, apparently, my fault.  She also claims that her newfound sexual definition is the deepest kind of love because she's attracted to people not based on gender but based on who they are.  I get that, but it feels weird to start being judgmental towards all the straight people in the world.  Additionally, she pulls the minimization card and says that we shouldn't separate just because of her sexuality because sex isn't a big deal.  Once again, I agree that marriage shouldn't be based on sex alone, but I think sex is a big component.  As a side-note, when we first got married we had sex daily.  I could tell it was super high-stakes to her like she was having sex with me just to make sure I wouldn't leave her, but we had sex nonetheless.  But it was kind of weird sometimes.

4.  She and I have talked about having kids several times.  She has generally leaned towards no, and from what I remember, I've had a pretty consistent position towards yes but a few years in the future.  Now, with all of this new lesbian stuff in the mix, I've been re-examining what I want out of life.  I want kids in a couple years.  She claims I used to strongly not want kids, but I'm about 95% sure I've always told her I probably wanted kids once we could financially support them.  It feels like gaslighting, but maybe I'm just remembering wrong.  She now strongly does not want kids.

5.  Add to all of this a few lies I figured out that centered basically around her making me believe she was something she wasn't, and that I caught her in the beginning stages of cheating once around a year ago (with a guy).

So, with all of that, here I am.  I'm not really a fan of divorce.  I like it when people can stick stuff out because life is never going to be perfect.  However, I have at least some modicum of self-respect, and I don't want to be in a relationship where I'm perpetually lied to.  I will admit that I'm kind of an idiot and didn't see the lies earlier.  I grew up in a direct, honest family.  If one of my family members says something, they mean it.  There's no weird bullshit where you have to guess if they meant it or what parts of it is true.  In her family, everybody lies to everybody else.  They do so partially to try to avoid inconvenient truths but also partially just to introduce power plays against each other.  I stay out of it and attend to pressing work-related matters at her family functions.  One of the other in-laws does, too.

Her mom is just full-blown psychotic, in my opinion.  She's called my wife and told my wife she was wasting her life because my wife turned down a job offer she didn't want (for good reason).  She's called my wife and told her I would divorce her for a bikini picture she put up on social media.  She's called my wife and told her I wasn't taking care of her because I didn't buy her new kitchen utensils when we got married.  I used to hate the woman until I got stuck with her around for a week and realized she probably does have some sort of psychological disorder.  It's hard for me to hate someone with a chemical imbalance, but I don't want her in my life either way.  The problem is that my wife is very close friends with her mom, and I'm a firm believer that we become who we spend the most time with.

Anyway, the wife and I will be starting a period of separation next month.  We had initially planned this because my wife's therapist suggested that my wife needed to figure out how to support herself financially in order to gain self-confidence and not just be in relationships for financial protection.  Now, it has even more gravitas because I'm trying to decide if I even want to be with her anymore, and she's trying to figure out just how gay she is... basically, could she ever be with a man again?

For me, this boils down to a few things.  First, am I willing to live a life without kids?  I'm almost certain I want kids.  Second, am I willing to live a life with an 80% lesbian?  Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't so abrasive towards straight people and the idea of having sex just because you're horny sometimes.  Also, she's strictly monogamous, so there's no flexibility there.  Third, what the hell am I doing in a relationship that was built on so many lies (I was her rebound from her last boyfriend, but she lied about it.  She said she had no eating disorder issues, but she did.  She said she was straight, but she wasn't.  I've caught her in the early stages of cheating twice...)?  This is something my best friend pointed out, and all he knows about is the lesbian part.  Like, she had to have known when we got married that this might be an issue later if she already had sexual attraction to girls as a teenager, but she never brought it up.

Truth be told, I'm extremely excited to be separated for a time.  I just don't want to be around her.  It's tiring and confusing.  I'll be talking with a therapist soon to help sort everything out, but I'm very curious what you all think since a lot of you have first-hand experience here.  Honestly, I suspect I'll be ending the relationship.  It's just too much.  I don't know what to believe, but I do know I don't trust my wife... which is pretty heart-breaking to write because I want her to be my closest confidant.  Yet, in some weird way, I love her.  Despite it all.  I mean, I write about all of the negatives, but some of my happiest moments have been with her as well.  I remember standing behind her on mountains with my arms around her with my cheek snuggled against hers watching the sunset.  I remember walking with her for hours at night hand-in-hand discussing what we wanted out of life and how we'd change the world.  If she was in any sort of trouble right now, I'd save her.  But I need stability, and she has turned out to be potentially the least stable person I've ever known.  I'm just not sure where this story ends.  I've done my best to love her with all that is within me.  Maybe that's why this is so hard.  I feel like I've failed.  Like raw, determined, unrelenting love failed and died.  I did the best I could.  I guess sometimes even your best isn't good enough.  Maybe some things just aren't meant to be.

 

April 8, 2019 6:19 am  #2


Re: My wife says she is 80% gay... where to go from here?

You want to know how I reacted to your story?  When I first started reading, I thought you were, as many of us are in the early stages, spending a lot of time talking about your spouse and what her issues are and were, rather than talking much about yourself, and what you want and need from a spouse and from marriage.  You took yourself to task for insisting that your wife go to counseling ("It felt like a jerk move"), which was not only a reasonable response but a necessary move both for her and for you. You believe she was "legitimately angry" when you read her texts, but the fact that she was lying to you, and, given that you had agreed to let her date women, she owed you total transparency and honesty. You should not have had to seek information; she should have been giving it to you. What I thought was that you had difficulty setting boundaries, and were letting her obliterate those you did set. 
   Then I saw you assert your values: honesty over duplicity, openness over secrecy.  You say that you understand her position, growing up in a Christian community in which being herself would have required her to take some big hits.  This is you, not condemning her, but understanding her, while also then expecting her, now that she could admit and own her sexuality, to meet your honesty with honesty.  But she didn't.  She also started blameshifting, blaming you rather than her sexuality for your sexual problems.  She also did something a lot our spouses do: tell you indirectly that she doesn't want to be married, but not telling you outright, because to do so would mean they have to own the sexuality they both fear to own and desire to own, and they can't therefore end the marriage but mush push us to do it: she told you she doesn't want kids, knowing you do.  That's a pretty strong statement of "I don't want to be married," a direct challenge to you to act on your values.
   Then I saw that you began to assert your own values, and to realize where you had avoided conflict--which meant you didn't have to set boundaries (leaving the question of children open, just trying to avoid her mother). 
    And by the end of your statement, I see you announcing what the outlines of a life you want to live would be, and what you can and cannot live with.  When I saw that, I cheered inwardly.   
   You seem like a grounded and honest person, with excellent values, but with what my therapist once called "boundary issues," meaning a weak sense of knowing where and how to set a boundary, because you question whether what you want is legitimately ok when the other person's needs conflict with your ideas of what you want. But I see nothing in what you say to suggest that you are unreasonable or unempathetic, or selfish.  
   Your last two paragraphs?  Print them out and put them where you can see them often when you are separated.  None of us who have divorced wanted to divorce.  All of us hoped we could work out a compromise with the gay/trans thing.  We loved our spouses. We tried hard.  Most of us did things to accommodate our partners that in the end we regretted doing (like your telling her she could date women).  We were bonded to our spouses.  But we, like you, realized that years of living a lie has warped their personalities, and grappling with their sexuality puts them under enormous stress that they react to, often,by doing  and saying cruel things to us, and dealing with us in less than honest and admirable ways.  And yes, we often feel as if we've failed; but as you realize, we didn't fail, and love didn't fail.  We were up against something out of our control that we--and our love--does not have the power to change.   We do the best we can; and it's not that our best "isn't good enough"--it's that our best was never going to be good enough because the task was not doable. 

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (April 8, 2019 6:27 am)

 

April 8, 2019 4:48 pm  #3


Re: My wife says she is 80% gay... where to go from here?

yes, that is so refreshing to read.  Hi abc,

Most of the things I feel I should be saying to a new poster I don't feel the need because you have already said it - you have recognised she hasn't been honest with you from the start and isn't now.

I got stuck with my ex for a long time - it was decades before I realised he was GID.  one lone little thought crept across my mind before the shock set in - this is my get out of jail free card.

yes you feel a duty of care for her but from further down the track I can say that where I put my sense of care for my ex over my own interests, they are the bits I regret.  Not the other way round. 

wishing you all the best, Lily

 

April 8, 2019 6:09 pm  #4


Re: My wife says she is 80% gay... where to go from here?

Likewise - and don't beat yourself up for deciding what you want out of life or that there are some places you just don't want to go. I wish you well.


“The future is unwritten.”
― Joe Strummer
 

April 8, 2019 8:39 pm  #5


Re: My wife says she is 80% gay... where to go from here?

My two cents? For someone who is monogamous (or claims to be) her behavior doesn't seem to support that if she's texting others and almost kissed someone who wasn't you.

Also, her ideas about being attracted to the person and not the gender seems like a cop-out rationalization to me. I would think most of us call people 'friends' when we are attracted to them without physical desires attached. I don't think that makes her special. I think that makes her confused. A romantic relationship usually includes both emotional and physical bonding. That's what makes it different! Getting both with one person is kind of the point of marriage if you ask me.

Plus, if you want kids and she doesn't? Kind of huge. It's often a deal-breaker for straight relationships and for good reason. It's a crucial difference in the alignment of your values.

Seems to me that she either wants to have her cake and eat it too or she's in denial about what these issues mean to you both going forward. Sorry you are going through this but maybe it's better that it be now than thirty years from now. You deserve more than a 20 percent partner.

 

April 9, 2019 9:08 pm  #6


Re: My wife says she is 80% gay... where to go from here?

My first thoughts are that you sound like a really great guy who got a raw deal. I also feel like if you stay with your wife, you will come to regret it. She has lied to you multiple times, she is basically telling you she is not attracted to men, and she is using you for your money. Add in the fact that she doesn't want kids and I see you 10 or 15 years from now with some serious regrets.  I have those regrets...and I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.

I'm sorry you've found yourself in this situation. You are going to make some 100% straight woman very happy someday.

 

April 10, 2019 9:17 am  #7


Re: My wife says she is 80% gay... where to go from here?

You got some great replies already.  Welcome to our group.  I hope you find peace and help here. 

To me.. .   "80% Lesbian" really means "100% lesbian but scared to admit it, so I'm going to keep using you until I feel safe". 

Getting a divorce and ending a relationship that was sadly built on lies is not a failure.  It is the correct answer.  You deserve it.  Neither of you will be happy together - best for each of you to find what makes you happy and fulfilled. 

*For the record, I'm a fairly conservative Christian and I am not in favor of divorce as a general rule.  However, when the marriage was entered into under false pretense and lies and there is no path to fix it so that both parties can live a fulfilled life, I believe divorce is permissible.  There are verses that back this up based on my research. 


-Formerly "Lostdad" - I now embrace the username "phoenix" because my former life ended in flames, but my new life will be spectacular. 

 
 

April 11, 2019 11:08 am  #8


Re: My wife says she is 80% gay... where to go from here?

I read your story and it resonated with me profoundly. It's like my story, but not waiting 24 years to come to that conclusion... I now have two kids in school, we run a business together, and the separation thing is going to be a really complicated, ugly, hot mess.

You and I have some very similar beliefs -- we both took our marriage vows quite seriously and meant it when we said "for better or worse." One piece of advice that I received on this board is that "for better or worse" is null and void when one of the partners doesn't practice full disclosure with something so important as "oh, and by the way, I might be 80% gay..." That's a deal breaker in my book.

Our stories are so similar it is crazy. Sex early on in the marriage was "normal" and yet there was something just a bit off. She just didn't get into it the same as I did and she didn't seem to enjoy it nearly as much. As the years progressed, it started to feel like an obligatory act... something to keep me pacified so that I wouldn't be inclined to outsource those services. She grew less and less interested and took on an increasingly passive role.

I was concerned about our relationship's lack of intimacy and talked to her about it. She said it was an emotional thing and that it was my fault due to the fact that I suffer from depression. She said she just didn't feel close to me. We tried to "fake it 'til you make it" to see if adding physical intimacy would help our emotional intimacy issues but it didn't.

I noticed that when she would discuss her fantasies, they always ended up with another woman. I started to connect the dots and began a period of observation. I would initiate sexual contact "normally" and find little to no response on her part. If I included pillow talk of fantasy, fantasy that included her being with another woman, her body responded with a significant arousal response. I asked her about this after a while and she said it just got her more excited. More excited vs. not excited at all...

I spent years in therapy trying to figure out why I was so depressed. I knew in my heart it was due to my relationship with my wife, but I tried to take ownership of the issue myself because at least I can make changes to myself. It wasn't until I came upon this site and shared my story with others and heard their feedback and responses that I was able to say that the underlying issue causing problems in my marriage is the fact that my wife isn't attracted to me physically. Emotionally, I do believe that she loves me. But there is no physical chemistry between her and me because she is sexually attracted to women. That was a hard pill to swallow. Once I admitted it, however, it all started to come together and make sense to me.

It is really hard for me to come to terms that she was willing to use me to achieve her goals in life and sacrifice my happiness in the process. She wanted to legitimize herself by participation in a traditional nuclear family -- mom, dad, two kids... without having to admit to herself and the world that she is in fact a lesbian. I don't know that she is ever going to be able to admit that to herself let alone the world.

In our deep conversations she has admitted to being rather unhappy. She says that me being unhappy has made her unhappy. She has offered at times to let me go if that is what I need to find peace and happiness in life. I have tried for over 15 years to find ways to make this work and I have come to the conclusion that this is a problem for which there is no fix. I can't fight nature/nurture -- she is who she is and there is nothing I can do to change than.

It's hard for me because I love her completely. I truly wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. She is a great mom and friend. But I am at the point where I can be honest with myself and say that I need more than a roommate, I want a spouse that can love me back as much as I love her and in the same way. I want someone that can look into my eyes and feel the same thing that I feel when I look into hers. I want someone who desires me as much and in the same way that I desire her. I have come to understand that I can never have such a relationship with my wife. To her I can only be just a companion, a friend to walk life's journey. She will never be able to see me as a romantic partner.

I have grown much in the past few weeks. My depression is getting better because I now have an understanding as to what the real problem is. Now I am making plans for how to move my life forward. I never expected to be alone but I have to live an authentic life and end this living a life of a lie. I can no longer pretend to be a happy husband. I need to take care of myself, and make my happiness a priority. Living as a martyr for a losing cause only makes everyone miserable and I am setting a terrible example for my children.

I will get through this. I will get better. I know that I have some very difficult times ahead for me, but this pain too, shall pass. In the end, I will come out of this more resilient, more self aware, and more focused on living an authentic life to find peace and happiness.


 

 

April 11, 2019 12:00 pm  #9


Re: My wife says she is 80% gay... where to go from here?

Davin,
What an insightful post. We all feel this disconnect where we love our spouses, and see the good in them, and then have to come to terms with the reality of being used—whether used intentionally or not, it is devastating to us.

I think one of the hardest things is our feelings like where you say, “she really is a great mom and friend.”  For us, as spouses who love and who believe in reciprocity and who assume honest intimacy and who accept and love the person for who they are, it is normal and admirable for us to see the good, and value the good more than the problems. At first, we remember that: all marriages have challenges and no one is perfect and we can only change ourselves, right? We work on ourselves.  Our spouses tell us we are the problem.  We work harder.  We are used to solving problems, and so we try to find another solution, and this increases our sense that we are not who we thought we were, we really are not the strong and warm person we thought we were, especially as the distance with our spouse continues, and they continue to tell us we are the problem.

What has been hard for me is accepting that this man is not really my friend. We may have done friendly things, we may have worked together well on some things, we may have both enjoyed our dreams for friendly activities in the future. I have told myself again and again—especially during the difficulties, well, he is my friend. 

But would a real friend have turned things on me this way? Can I really trust this person?

Can I trust this person? Can I trust this person?  Can I trust this person?  That is the core issue: Can this person actually care for me as a person.  Can this person have enough empathy to see me as me and value me for me? Can this person be vulnerable and introspective enough to be integral with themselves?  In what way is this an honest, reciprocal, healthy relationship?  Even as a non sexual “friendship.”

Either our spouses  are intentionally using us, or they are unable to integrate themselves to be able to care for other people in honest ways, so we get used anyway by their splitting of themselves. You were understandably depressed by her lack of connection to you. She then used that to tell you that you were the reason she could not emotionally connect to you.  Intentional or unintentional, it is destructive.  What matters in the end is not her motives, but how it affects you, and no you are not a needy person or [insert other negative character trait here] for being affected by this stuff.  You are not the problem!

This affect of blame and self evaluation and work makes it hard again for us:  as we have gotten used to working harder, trying to read their moods, taking responsibility which they have insisted we take, we are now used to looking for the good in our spouse, looking inward for our “problems,” looking to ourselves to just be more loving and understanding, and so we make excuses for them like:  “of course she had a hard childhood.  If I were a truly loving person, then I would accept this, I would accept her as she is, she cannot change, etc. she is not that bad.  She is my friend.  I will look for the good.  We internalize the idea “if I keep doing what I have been doing, then I will keep getting what I have gotten.”  So we figure we must not have found the right solution, or not tried enough, so it circles more and more.  But we were not in a real relationship.  Instead we were in a game we could never win—we just did not know it.  We have to stop doing what we have been doing of being stuck in this destructive cycle.

It is a hard thing to wrap our heads around.  We can hardly believe it.  It shakes our sense of not just our spouse and our relationship, but also of ourselves.  And we see we have devoted our love and years and hard work to a relationship, and all that love and years and work are gone now.

If you have not already, you might try reading Chump Lady web site.  Whether our spouses have cheated on us physically or not, the relationship dynamics are spot on.  I got a lot of clarity reading that site.

Last edited by OnMyOwnTwoFeet (April 11, 2019 12:34 pm)

 

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