Thank you Julian. It's all very confusing. Yes he desires sex with me and likes my body but he has always rejected non sexual intimacy like cuddling and public affection. Sex has often been unsatisfying, we have never made eye contact and it's very fantasy based. He's never brought a gay fantasy into the bedroom but the fantasies have always been about me and various men, he got very focused on cuckold fantasies.
We do love and care for each other but no it isn't passionate and although we did have a lot more sex when we first got together it was a bit porny and not passionate either.

For the last 7 years our relationship has been quite depressed. It hadn't survived having two children very well. I built up a lot of resentment as he didn't take enough responsibility for them when they were young.  I was really taken a back as our whole relationship has felt so equal and suddenly it wasn't at all and I was doing the vast majority of the childcare and home life. But these last couple of years have been better now they are older. My husband says there's no spark and he's right but I thought we were in a similar position to all the other long term couples out there with young children.

He is still deeply confused about his sexuality although does admit he's at least bi.

I wish the lockdown would end as I want to get out of the house and to stop thinking about it relentlessly!?

Hi everyone
I wondered if anyone had experience of a deeply closeted partner slowly discovering they are gay? By that I mean that the partner has not been living a double life? And if so what the process was like? I have spent the last year (since day 1 of lockdown 1... Timing!!) In a state of confusion. We have been in couples therapy and through that unbelievably slowly, one tiny comment at a time, it is slowly emerging that he's gay.
He's had one gay sexual experience when he was 19 and apart from that the only other thing has been looking at gay porn (but also straight porn). I genuinely don't think there has been anything much else as we are talking very honestly and the way it has all come to the surface this last year makes it seem that there hasn't been consciously aware of his sexuality let alone acting on it.

He now has said he is attracted to other men and he has just about come round to the fact that he's bisexual but the journey and the confusion isn't over and my instinct is he's gay.  I genuinely think he is in the deepest confusion and can't access his feelings about who he's attracted to. I said to him (kindly) that I think he is gay and he said that he isn't ready to look at that yet or say that to himself. We have been having some good, very open conversations and it's as if he is trying to be a detective about his own sexuality rather than just being able to say how he feels. Sean has given me some really useful advice over on another thread but I  just wondered if anyone has had a similar experience that they would be happy to share? Thank you xx

This is really interesting. I'm right in the middle of my husband's drip drip revelations about his sexuality but the lack of physical affection has been a problem from the start. He was always into sex so this wasn't the problem (although the sex was never great and lacked intimacy) but the lack of cuddles and public affection really got to me and was the cause of lots of arguments. I argued for 2 years as I wanted to cuddle up on the sofa and he hated it. He hated and looked down on any physical affection that's typical of heterosexual relationships and now I know why.
I wonder how conscious he was of the reasons he didn't like physical affection.
I'm just clinging onto the hope that it's going to be such a revelation when I have a partner who is affectionate!

Thank you so much Sean for your detailed answer. I really do appreciate your time and your perspective. It's useful to see it all the red flags there in a list. The thing with my husband is that he did actually really like sex and my body but as I said there was an emotional detachment and the sex wasn't good and I even went to hypnotherapy to try and get myself to like it more!

The other weird thing is that the information about his dad also having his own struggles is also true as I found out this information from his mum. I think the really sad thing is that his dad has lived his whole life in the closet.

You are right about our era. I don't know if you're American or British but my husband grew up in a small town where there were no gay people and has internalised homophobia even though we have gay friends and live a very liberal way. I find it quite unbelievable how he has lived all this time pushing this down.

My husband and his dad spoke today. My feeling is that it's all about to come out. The truth feels near to the surface now.

I'll update you!

Thanks again for your answer. I've been googling for months now and this is the first website I've found that has felt really useful and relevant.

Hi Sean and everyone,

Oh god I'm going through a tough time at the moment.
It's a long story and very confusing. At the start of lockdown 1 I found out that my husband had had a 1 night stand with a woman. We then started counselling and through that he has
unexpextedly revealed that he is confused about his sexuality. He is 42 and we've been together for 18 years. We had a good relationship which went a bit wrong when the children came along but only in the normal way that my friends are also experiencing. In the counselling he has said that he had a sexual experience with a man when he was 19. He had never told me this before which is strange in itself as it's not a big deal to me (the fact that he hasn't said makes it a big deal).  The fact that he says he's confused is confusing in itself. How can a 42 year old man be confused. Surely he has been living with his own sexuality all this time and knows who turns his head when he walks down the road?

Although I've never found any "clues" that he might be gay and I don't think he has been with a man during our relationship the truth is I've had a very buried gut feeling that every now and then would come up. 5 years ago I went to a counsellor about something else and said "I think my husband might be gay".  But there really has never been a reason for me to say this to him and we have had a lovely relationship. Even now when things are falling apart actually we still get on in the day to day. The other significant thing is that although we've had a regular sex life. For the first 10 years he was very focused on a cuckold fantasy. In the end I really went off this and I've been trying to move our sex life to being present in our bodies and connecting with the physical rather than fantasies
He is just not into this and he is emotionally distant in sex. We've also had ongoing arguments over the years because he's not very affectionate and has really rejected and looked down on things like cuddling up on the sofa. He