Shocked Mama,
 The only thing you have to ask yourself is "Is his bisexual Twitter account and his double life in girly clothes, and the guy who jerks off to pictures of him acceptable to me?"   You don't need any other reason than that. 
   We tie ourselves up in knots about when it's ok to leave.  My mother left my father after 30 years of physical and mental abuse only when he threatened my sister.  When my husband went off the deep end, I told myself my mother had a reason--she was protecting my sister's physical safety--and I didn't; but we are as worth protecting as our children (and we can't protect our children as we should when we ourselves are living in an abusive situation).  
   He doesn't need to cheat on you for it to be ok to say, This is not right, and I am not obligated to endure it.  As Kel's tagline says, "You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep others warm."
   Chump Lady has a very good post about her mentally ill husband; it boils down to this: if your spouse for whatever reason cannot reciprocate, you are alone in the marriage, and one person cannot make a marriage work.  A spouse who declares or demonstrates that s/he has a sexuality at odds with that of what was declared at the time of the marriage has changed the terms of the marriage, and cannot reciprocate.  It takes two to make a marriage, and we can't save it by ourselves when there is nothing to work with and a partner who cannot work with us.  Closeted spouses will try their mightiest to convince us they can do so, but all their efforts are in defense of the closets they love instead of us.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (December 21, 2018 9:47 pm)

I’ll throw out a slightly different opinion.  This is a timely post, as my wife and I spoke about this very thing yesterday.

Her story (nutshell) is that 6+ months ago she started feeling something was off, maybe just her feelings towards me, or us, or other women. Not even sure she knows how it all started.  Maybe 4 months ago she had a sexual encounter with a close woman friend. This got the wheels in her head really rolling about being gay, but still a lot of reservation, thoughts that she needed counseling to figure things out, month and a half ago she goes on a work trip with the same woman and they solidify their relationship, and she is at this point sure that she is gay. Two weeks later we finally have an opportunity to talk about what she had been going through (she had acknowledged for a while that she was struggling with things), and the bomb was dropped on me that she is in love with someone else.

I’ll start by saying that there is no question that she cheated on me, betrayed our marriage and family. This was wrong, and I struggle with this a lot.

Looking back on it all, when I ask myself, what would have been the ideal way for her to handle all this.  And I ask myself, should she have told me six months ago when she started having odd feelings? Should she have told me after she had that initial sexual encounter? Should she have told me before she knew for sure? On one had I would say yes, of course she should’ve been honest with her feelings  at all stages. But when I think about this, and I think about how things would have developed from there, and what would’ve been the next steps. I don’t think it would’ve been easier. The truth is is that she’s gay and it took her falling in love with a woman to truly understand that. And it would have been very difficult to move forward without that truth.   It would’ve been torture to hear that she thinks she might be gay, and then be faced with the choice of cutting off the marriage on an uncertain feeling, or openly allowing her to explore being with another woman. I can’t imagine either of those options, and I wouldn’t trade the cards I was dealt for those situations.

It’s a shitty situation that we all find ourselves in, but it seems from all of our stories that a central part of the struggle, and pain, and fear is centered around knowing in our hearts and mind what is the truth.  Many of you are dealing with the unknown or denial, and my heart goes out to you as this seems so overwhelming to face the loss of your life partner, but not have the certainty that moving on is the right thing to do.  So much of the advice on here is pointed towards helping us realize, embody, and have the strength to act on what is the truth.

So, while I am but one (possibly rare) example in a seemingly infinite variety of situations, I am thankful that when I was thrust into my situation, that I was presented the truth about who she is, and I accept the betrayal and lies and cheating that came before that, as in my case, I feel like the ends justified the means.

J

Zoso wrote:

She will let me work through it at whatever pace I need until I am ready for her to look for a new relationship.

Zoso, she sounds amazing, and you are very fortunate, given the circumstances. How do you feel about moving towards being ready? That sounds very difficult.

I wish I could quote more than one person because I agree with OOHC, KitKat, and ShockedMama.

Like OOHC said, my spouse has also refused to take responsibility for any of this and has even blamed "her" transition on me. Forget that she cross dressed routinely for 20 or so years before we even met. This was all still my fault.  And when she told me she wanted a divorce, she never actually filed. I eventually had to. 
And like KitKat, my spouse bought and purged many, many items throughout our 20 years of marriage. No telling how much money was wasted on it. Also, how much time we missed as a family because she would make up some excuse to stay behind when the real reason was that she would prefer to dress up than spend time with his family.
And that leads to Shocked Mama. Like her I don't think my spouse ever cheated on me - except with his femme self. He would chose her over us at almost every turn.

The best way to have handled it was to tell me about this before we were married. Or at any time that it became clear that it was something he could not control and was affecting our marriage. And when was that..... well, as soon as he felt the need to keep a secret it began to affect the marriage. She claims to have loved me, but she never loved or respected me enough to be honest with me about who she was. As a result, I wasn't allowed to make a decision about who I was going to marry. That basic right was taken away.

  

ShockedMamaOf2 wrote:

Sometimes I wish he would cheat on me so that I could justify leaving him!

ShockedMama, he doesn't need to cheat for you to justify leaving him. Do you say this because of your faith? I was reading an article written by a pastor recently, and in it he wrote, "If the cost of saving a marriage is destroying a woman, the cost is too high. God loves people more than He loves institutions."  Abandonment is also another reason to "justify" divorce, and that can be described many ways. It includes spiritual, emotional, financial, sexual as well as physical abandonment. I just don't want you to feel trapped because your husband hasn't actually cheated.
 

My husband apparently has always known about his sexuality, he just accidentally forgot to mention it to me for the 24 years we were married, or the two years we lived together before that, or the six years we dated before that.

This Season, the problem is that there's no such thing as "one lie."  There's only the FIRST lie.  Once you make a decision to start telling one lie, then all the rest of the lies become inevitable.  I think there's only one choice: be truthful early and often.

I don't know whether that's helpful to you in your situation, because it sounds like your wife may not have really known.