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February 20, 2018 9:21 am  #1


Dear Gary's Wife

Dear Gary's Wife, 

If we can be of assistance to you, please let us know.  We are here to support you.

Kind regards,

JenS

Last edited by JenS (April 29, 2018 3:40 pm)

 

February 20, 2018 1:07 pm  #2


Re: Dear Gary's Wife

I kind of feel like I'm living in that state where you end up recognizing that contradictions exist.  JenS is right, and at the same time Gary did come here to try and wrap his brain around what our experiences are.

He may have been trying to get a clear picture of the damage this situation causes.  He may have been asking for absolution.  It may be a mix of both of those things.

Anyhow, I'm not in the business of granting absolution but I will give him a limited amount of credit for taking an uncensored peek into the world of pain this whole thing causes.  I know far too many men who delude themselves about their own adultery, and that's without the added factor of TGT.

 

February 20, 2018 1:53 pm  #3


Re: Dear Gary's Wife

Jen and WBM,
I agree with both of you. He is playing the victim role and wanting forgiveness. I have none for him. Sean's posts are so much more honest. This man has a lot of inner work to do,he has no insight. He has a long road to go.

 

February 20, 2018 4:32 pm  #4


Re: Dear Gary's Wife

"I am one of those awful gay husbands who married a straight woman.  I'm not using awful in a sarcastic or mocking way, but rather as a truth." 

"it was wrong not to tell my wife about me before we married...."

"what a terrible thing that truly was."

"I and others like me had no right to screw up the lives of our spouses."

"...I robbed (my wife) of the opportunity to be loved."

"she had a right to decide.  I took that away from her with my deceit and I have to live with that.  I meant no harm but I wound up hurting the person I love the most."

"​I'm not here seeking absolution or sympathy.  I am deserving of neither and don't expect any.  I've done many things that I'm not proud of but I have not cheated on my wife.  Don't get me wrong, I'm no hero because of that.  I'm the same deceitful, selfish, cowardly, piece of crap that all the other husbands are."

WHERE are you guys seeing that he's playing the victim and wanting forgiveness and absolution?

You have every right to decide he's the fox in the hen house based on your intuition alone.  But he doesn't automatically become a villain just because he's a gay spouse.  This is not about them being gay - it's about honesty and authenticity.  And how often, we straight spouses don't get enough of that from our gay spouses to make an educated decision.

Don't turn this into a witch hunt, guys.

Kel
 


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

February 20, 2018 5:00 pm  #5


Re: Dear Gary's Wife

Agree, Kel.

 

February 20, 2018 5:29 pm  #6


Re: Dear Gary's Wife

Kel, you of all people know the devil can quote scripture. I could find as many quotes in Gary's posts that show Gary blame-shifting and minimizing as yours suggest humility. 
Walkby, you're right.  We don't know why he came here.  Maybe he came here to see whether his wife would be devastated if he left.  Or maybe he came here to see whether he could send his wife here so she could get a little support to keep her going while living in her MOM with a chronically depressed man.  We just don't know.  All we have is what he said, and as much of what he said is self serving as it is self castigating. 

 

February 20, 2018 5:48 pm  #7


Re: Dear Gary's Wife

Let's not forget this is the man who would stop off at the adult bookstore for some gay porn after a date with the woman he was going to marry.

He says he's here to tell us not to blame ourselves.  That's like the upfront reason he gives for posting.  From my perspective the hunch I have is the thing he wants to say to us is don't stop believing your closet gay spouse loved you at the start.

He is protecting his closet!

 

February 21, 2018 12:50 pm  #8


Re: Dear Gary's Wife

I want to thank you, JenS, for creating this thread with the thought in mind of helping other straight spouses who are struggling to see beyond the web of lies, manipulations, and just plain wearing down of living with a closeted or GID spouse.  

  Gary's last post is a textbook example of how such a spouse, warped in personality from so many years of living a lie and/or denying the truth of his sexuality, attempts to defend himself and his actions by deflecting, blame shifting, and speaking as if from the moral high ground as if it's his place to "forgive" others and "accept" what he characterizes as our misdirected projections onto him of what has happened to us.  Not even martyrdom is beyond his disordered thought process!  Nor instructing us on how to speak to his wife!

   I'm not going even to bother to answer him on his own thread, because I have had more than enough of such rhetorical dancing and verbal gymnastics from my stbx to understand that at base everything he says is designed to justify him in what he has done and what he will do--whether that is ending his marriage in order to live the life he fantasizes about and yearns for, or staying in the marriage because he's ashamed of who he is and can live a comfortable life financially while convincing himself his wife is there because she wants to be, and that because he represses his revulsion of her female body and femaleness enough to have a semblance of sex with her every three or four months that he's doing his part.  (To me, sex under those conditions is akin to abuse, like being asked to kiss the rod that's used to beat you. A cruder but better analogy is that you're being fucked into submission in the name of "intimacy" or "marriage building" or "love" or of encouraging denial and a cruel hope.)

   I hope Gary's wife does come to the SSN, and reads around here. I hope she realizes that the situation she's in is not her fault and she's not to blame, even if she thinks she is and her husband subtly encourages her in this belief whether by action or speech (for being too fat, for failing to leave even though her husband seems to calling all the other shots in their marriage, for not realizing she's been living in an implicitly abusive situation with far-reaching psychological effects she hasn't yet begun to understand, let alone heal from).  I hope other spouses recognize in Gary's self-serving rhetoric the same bs they hear at home, with the result that their eyes are opened.  
   
   Gary's wife, and other spouses, just know that once your eyes are opened the realizations start coming thick and fast, and keep coming thick and fast.  You can't believe you put up with what you did; you can't believe you believed what you did, about your spouse, about yourself, about your marriage; you can't believe that you spent so much of your time worrying about your spouse, when it's become glaringly obvious your spouse never gave a fraction of that concern you showed to your spouse for you; you can't believe how you trusted and believed and tried to accept the lies; you can't believe the way you allowed yourself--and your family--to be beaten down by a situation you didn't cause by a spouse who was a drag on you and the marriage and the family, and that you didn't even see the way that you were being conditioned to beat yourself up and to allow the whole sorry mess to continue.  

  Gary's wife, and other spouses who may be reading this, remember: you didn't cause it, it's not your fault, and you shouldn't blame yourself.  For any of it.   

  What you should do is build yourself a support system: family, friends, therapist; lawyer.  And be very kind and forgiving to yourself.  Because the responsibility for the mess lies with the person who created it and kept adding to it and blames you either for not wanting to live in it or for not cleaning it up.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (February 21, 2018 1:05 pm)

 

February 21, 2018 1:21 pm  #9


Re: Dear Gary's Wife

JenS - the echo chamber is a concern. Definitely.

OOHC - Can you hear me applauding? Because I positively am!

 

February 21, 2018 1:55 pm  #10


Re: Dear Gary's Wife

You guys make good points.  I'm aware that I am much further along in my journey than most people here, and therefore have a different perspective than many here.  I was aware when I wrote my post that others may feel differently toward a gay member being here.  Which is why I said that others have every right to feel differently.  And I didn't say it WAS a witch hunt - I said let's not make it one.  I thought we were in danger of it going in that direction.  But if we're going with the freedom of speech thing, then by extension, I get to call something a witch hunt if I want to.  That's freedom of speech, too.

I do very much respect righteous anger - I think it can be VERY useful to moving on and then healing.  And I do try to be respectful of other perspectives - I almost always see the other side of things even if I don't think that's the choice I'd have made.  I don't negate anyone else's opinion - even when I disagreed on Gary's initial post, I didn't tell anyone they were wrong about Gary (who am I to know if they're wrong?) - I asked where they saw those traits amidst his writing.  That's not disagreement - that's respectful questioning.

I'm not trying to resonate with everyone here.  Lord knows I certainly have my haters.  I, just like everyone.else.here, have my own viewpoint.  It may be different than some, or most.  That doesn't bother me.  I do get that we're all at different places, and have different personalities and experiences.  And that's the beauty of this place - that there's room for everyone's voices.  If we all just agreed all the time, we'd likely never challenge our own thinking and make changes in our lives.  That's the beauty of a different perspective - it provokes thought.  There are lots of people who come here wanting others to agree with them and validate their thinking, only to find out that people generally don't.  Those individuals get angry that we're not "accepting" enough, and leave.  What they really want is for us to tell them that they're right - that they can make it work because someone is telling them that they love them while sumultaneously treating them abhorantly.  That's not gonna happen - we do tell our true perspectives on things.  It's kind of our M.O.

Fondly,

Kel

 

Last edited by Kel (February 21, 2018 1:58 pm)


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

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