Yes, this is why when I wanted to confide in my friend, I explained very carefully to her that I wanted to tell her something in confidence, about my marriage and my then husband, but it was something she might not want to know, because it would make her think differently of him.  I also made sure to tell her that I would understand if she didn't want to know, and that I was explaining this to her because I hadn't been asked about whether I wanted to know this thing.

Leah,
 Yes! to your comment that being thrust into and living in their closets takes the toll on us.  Us, not them.  They have been living there a long time, hiding from themselves and the world, and the choices they made to live in a closet are accompanied by a trail of damage to other people (as well as to themselves, although they cannot see that) that they will not allow themselves to acknowledge, or explain away as justified by "society's" unwillingness to accept gay people (or people who believe they can be the opposite sex).  They may start out being conditioned by the hetero-normativity of our culture, but at some point most realize what their real sexual orientation is, and at that point every decision they make involves a conscious choice to deceive in order to preserve the life they are living.  
   Meanwhile, we, their spouses/partners, are subjected to whatever tactics they use to keep us where they want us to be so they can continue in their closeted lives--which as Omar Minwalla points out is inherently abusive--and we end up beaten down ourselves, and, when we do find out the truth and are living in their closets, feeling the pressure and acting out when the pressure gets too much for us to bear.  This is how my ex maintained his public persona as the logical, rational colleague, while I developed the reputation as volatile.  He had years of practice compartmentalizing, while I have always been forthright, and to have to hide the truth and live a lie was torture to me.
   And yes, telling/not telling is, as you say, a no-win situation for us, because we (unknowingly, for years) enabled their masquerade, which means that if/when we do disclose the truth, we likely as not encounter others' disbelief or their desire not to know, or their hostility, because they would rather believe in the person they knew all those years, and don't want to or can't believe that person was a false front; too, they may have seen us in the moments when we blew under the pressure and acted out in less than admirable ways, and developed an opinion of us that we are the volatile ones. Only we know the truth, and only we have borne the brunt of the reality, and only we have suffered the consequences of their decision to deceive--themselves, us, the world. 
   I have only this week begun to feel my anger over the way that my ex's disclosure and my subsequent time in his closet warped and ruined the last years of my career (we work in the same field and at the same university, and I an in the process of retiring, earlier than I wanted, to get away from him and the untenable situation of contuing to work with him while expected by him and required by my employer to stay in his closet).  At a time when I should have been able to be celebrating my achievements and the connections I forged and the lives I changed in my teaching, I was instead experiencing the upheaval of my world and, unable to tell a soul what was happening, living my professional and personal life under a bell jar of isolation, and feeling like a hypocrite every time I'd teach a text that celebrated a victory over deceit.
  I still struggle with myself over what my ultimate decision will be about what I say and to whom when I retire in a year (until then I am under a Title IX policy mandated gag order); on the one hand when I do retire I would like to tell those in the administration how unfair this policy is, how it compounded the abuse I was experiencing, how it set back my healing (when I left him I thought I could then be free of the coercion to remain in his closet, but the university thrust me back into it, essentially telling me that my rights were less than his, my value to the institution less than his, and that as a person I was to be denied the right to my own story and the opportunity to tell it even to my friends who work with me, even though creating a narrative of one's own life is basic to a person's psychological health and integrity as a person (which the university happily extols for the protected class he inhabits, while depriving me of this same right and calling that necessary).  Telling would do a lot to make up for the way I've been sacrificed so easily as collateral damage.  
    On the other hand, I believe that telling would change nothing institutionally (it's a national policy, after all), that to do so would open me to more pain because I would likely be met with shrugs for my position and a closing of ranks around him, and that it would therefore open wounds that I am in the process of healing and only serve to keep me enmeshed in a situation that I am bound and determined to leave behind.  In the long run, it might be healthier for me to simply walk away from everything in my life associated with him (except my son).  If this is the choice I decide will be healthier in the long run, it will entail a huge sacrifice and additional unfairness: I will lose daily contact with the many friends I have made in thirty years.  That is painful.  And it is infuriating, because it is so massively unfair--he will stay in his closet, continue on as he always has, and nothing in his life will change.  No one the wiser, the pretense protected, the respect he's garnered on false premises and his secret life both preserved.
   So yes, I admit I'd like him to experience even a fraction of the loss and upheaval I have, and I don't believe that "having to live with himself" is anything more than a comforting (to me) fiction.  He is happy with his life, or, at least, when he isn't he justifies his decisions and explains away all discomfort in terms of his being a victim.  
  I am not yet in the position of being able to accept the inequity that is going to continue into the future, to absorb with equanimity the losses of the past, the present, and the future, and to turn my back on it all and walk away in a spirit of peace.  I think the best I'm going to be able to do, right now at least, is to build a better life, and know that that better life over time will replace what I am feeling now.
   Building that life is what I'm doing right now; incremental change, or baby steps, as Rob would say.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (January 4, 2019 2:58 pm)