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December 1, 2018 1:46 pm  #1


Lies, Betrayal, and So Many Emotions

Hi. My name is Natalie. I have been married for 26 years. In 1998 my husband left his yahoo account open one morning before leaving work. When I got up and got on the computer there was a funny icon in the toolbar so I clicked on it. It was yahoo personal ads and I saw a personal ad my husband had placed for male seeking male. I confronted him about it when he got home the next day. He told me he was looking for a male to join us in our sexual relationship. That was tipping point at the time and we separated and divorced. Five months later we were back together and remarried a month after that with no more discussion of the personal ad. Through the next 15 years his sexual desires became more and more weird and I was very uncomfortable with them but I went along to try and keep him happy and to keep him from seeking out men again. In June of 2017 he admitted to me that he had joined KIK (a socialĀ  networking app that most people join for sex hookups or to discuss their kinky sex behavior.) More and more lies surfaced over the next several months until what I thought was all of the lies had come to light. I agreed to meet some of the people he had been talking to but quickly realized how unhealthy they were and decided I would no longer associate with them. He agreed. Then in December of 2017 he told me he had joined a dating app and met a woman with whom he wanted to be "friends with benefits" and wanted me to meet. I agreed because I was too afraid to lose him. They met up the day after I met her for sex. She and I became friends and things developed to where the three of us would sometimes have threesomes. I was very uncomfortable with this but again, I was trying to make him happy because I was afraid to lose him. I have several chronic health conditions and am on Social Security Disability and needed his income and his health insurance. I told him if I found out he joined any other dating sites/apps that was it and I would leave. She also told him if he did that she was done as well. In October sure enough, he joined another dating site. So I left and she told him it was over as well. She and I have become even better friends and have bonded over our shared trauma. My husband finally admitted he is a sex addict. During his recovery with a 12 step program and individual therapy he has been addressing his same-sex attraction and has come to the conclusion that he is bisexual with leanings toward men and sex with plus-sized women. He has told me if he ever gets into a long-term relationship with anyone again it would be with a man. He is willing to stay married on paper so that I can retain his insurance and there is talk of us living together as roommates only with separate bedrooms with the understanding that neither of us would bring anyone into the house for dates or overnight stays. He wants to still support me financially because I gave him 28 years of my life. He has recently told me that he knew by the age of 13 years old he was attracted to guys but that being gay back then was so taboo he would never admit it. He also knew he wanted kids and did not know then what he knows now about gay people being able to adopt children so he knew he would need to marry a woman to have children. We have one child who is 18 and a freshman in college. We have a deep connection just because of all of the things that we have been through in our married life. We are friends but nothing more. I feel so betrayed not only because he obviously used me but also because he is a sex addict and cheated on my multiple times and lied over and over and over again. My emotions are all over the place. One minuteĀ I hate him and want to kick the snot out of him and the next I am praying this attraction to men is just a phase and that when he works through his sex addiction he will realize he loves me and wants to be with me. I get sad, angry, lonely, depressed, happy, anxious, scared, self-loathing, and so many more emotions all within the time span of an hour. I don't know which way is up half the time. I am in therapy and I am trying to work through and process all of this but it is hard. I am terrified of people finding out he is gay or bisexual and what they will think of me for being married to him for so long. In previous years when things would go wrong with our relationship (and even in our previous divorce) he allowed everyone to believe our problems were all my fault. He did whatever he had to do to keep his public image pristine all the while making me look crazy and completely at fault. At least this time he is admitting that the separation is his fault and that I set some boundaries and he crossed them and is paying the consequences. He won't admit to anyone that he is gay or bisexual. I asked him if instead of being bisexual if he thought maybe he is gay and liked sex with plus-sized women because the majority of them (all of the women he has been with fit what I am about to say) lack self-esteem and will do whatever he wants to please him sexually and that is why he likes having sex with them. He said he hadn't thought about it but that he would see if that was accurate in his therapy sessions. I am in a group on facebook for Recovering Spouses of Sex Addicts and have been a member here for quite a while but have not posted here until today. We just had this talk last weekend and I have been trying to process it all and come to terms that it really is real. I am hoping to connect with people who have been where I am and that maybe have some experience in the healing of this kind of betrayal or at least know what I am dealing with. Thanks for reading if you made it this far. This is definitely a condensed version of everything I have been dealing with.


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