Sorry you find yourself here, but it's good you found this site.  People here understand what you are going through because we have been through it ourselves. 

  Here's a reaction and a question that I have after reading your story: his story doesn't add up; if he doesn't want to act on his feelings, and those feelings have nudged up from 20% to 30%, why has he felt it necessary to tell you this news?  That's a question I'd sure be asking in therapy, along with, "If you're not into anal sex or male genitalia, what makes you call yourself bisexual?" 
  Also, you say that "he seems to want [your] marriage to work," but that he spends your therapy sessions expressing "resentment and contempt" for you.  Have you asked the therapist to spend some time in the sessions helping you to process his revelation and him to understand how this news has devastated you?  Has your therapist asked what you each want out of therapy?  Have you asked the therapist whether s/he is hearing a sincere commitment from each party to the marriage or heard evidence so far on the part of both of you that each of you wants the marriage to continue?  Because it sounds from your story of that therapy that he is using it to tear you down and make demands of you.  A therapist should not be allowing one spouse to make unilateral demands on the other.
   I think you would benefit from a therapist of your own, and not the one you are seeing for joint counseling.  You need a safe space of your own to process your feelings without feeling any external or internal pressure (from him or from yourself) to guard your reactions or adhere to expectations.  

    I also experienced the "emotional detachment" and "zero empathy."  Later I realized this was because my ex had already made up his mind about what was of primary importance to him, and neither I nor our marriage was it.  What was of primary importance to him was his newly disclosed sexual orientation, and he had already decided that in order to embrace it I was an obstacle.  The choice he offered me was get with his program or get out.  Since getting with his program required me to violate too many of my own values, I got out.  Eventually.  After three years of trying to get with his program yet being shown time and time again that he wasn't really committed to either me or the marriage.  (What I eventually learned is that "me" and "the marriage" ought to be the same thing. In other words, to be committed to me was to be committed to the marriage.  And, likewise, to be conmitted to the marriage was to be committed to me. ) 

   This will be hard to hear, but are you sure your spouse's desire to stay married isn't due to his wanting 100% time with your daughter, or not wanting to have to pay child support if he divorces you?  You do not say whether or not you've seen a lawyer about your options in a divorce, but you should do so, to protect yourself and your daughter, in case he is planning to drop another bombshell down the road after he decides to tell you that counseling isn't working/hasn't worked.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (June 3, 2019 9:04 am)

Hi Julian, 

I agree with OOHC, your husband's story (and it is one we hear often around here) doesn't really add up. Why did he drop this bombshell? He wants something from you (wants you to agree with something he will be suggesting soon). Otherwise there would be no reason to tell you. Telling you about his sexuality and then complaining about you in therapy almost sounds as if you are being groomed for the next step. I wouldn't be surprised if he suggests opening up the marriage (at least his end of it) so he could explore these feelings further. 

You also mention his ultra-conservative family and how you would hate for them to think YOU carelessly gave up on the marriage. Why do you assume they would think you gave up on it? Why are you willing to let them (and others) think you are the one who gave up on it? No, no, no. This should be on him - not you.

Yes, get your own therapist. Couples therapy should almost always be a second step. You need to decide what you want as individuals first. Only then can you come together to see if you can join forces and journey together. 

And yes, also get a lawyer. You need to learn what rights you have and what steps you need to take to protect you and your daughter financially should you or your spouse decide to end the marriage.

You need to gather your team (therapist, attorney, and supportive friends and family you can trust). Sometimes it is hard to think straight and we need people who have YOUR best interest at heart.
 

Julian

You’ve got the best advice you can get here already. My husband didn’t admit he was bi. I caught him online, and then he only admitted to be bi. He is gay.
The lack of affection you felt is the result of gay/straight marriage.
My recommendation to you is to see an individual therapist who specializes in this area.
Ask your husband how he sees the future of your marriage? If he doesn’t want to act on it, why bring it up?
Another suggestion, start a journal. Write down all that’s being said in your sessions. It’ll help you track your feelings and better decide.
You are young. You have your entire life ahead of you. You’ve got this.

I want to thank you all for taking the time to read my story and share your thoughts and experiences with me. It is both comforting and terrifying to know that others understand what I am going through. I wouldn’t wish this pain on my worst enemy (not that I have any enemies.) 

Many of you have suggested seeking an attorney. I’m only 8 weeks into this nightmare, so I don’t think I’m there quite yet. We make roughly the same amount of money, and we don’t have any assets/shared accounts—so this would be a pretty easy split (legally/financially) if we did not have a child. The only thing I am confident of is that our daughter comes first for both of us—and causing the least amount of pain/damage to her is our priority. 

I arrived at our last counseling appointment a few minutes before my husband, and I made it very clear with the therapist that I’d like to focus on the bisexuality (and all of the things that don’t add up.)  The articles you shared really helped me to articulate the way I feel my husband is rewriting history—and forcing me to look at our life together on dual screens. 

When probed once again with the “why tell me” question, my husband said it’d been “eating away at him.” He described his fantasies about men as “adolescent:” going on dates, holding hands, kissing. I’d been so focused on the sexual aspect of this revelation—but from his description it seems that what he wants is a romantic relationship with a man. Somehow, this is more difficult to grasp than sexual desire—and I’m honestly not sure what it means. 

I ended the session letting the therapist know that I could not continue on with the marriage counseling since it’s been taking an emotional toll on me and I was afraid it would cause permanent damage. I told her that I’d like to seek individual therapy and that I hoped my husband would do the same. She talked us into one final session (this coming Thursday). I left her office a complete wreck and told my husband I needed some time alone. I spent a good hour crying my eyes out on a park bench. I still don’t understand why I am the only one carrying the emotional burden of this? It’s like someone replaced my husband with a pod person. How could he see how much I’m hurting yet remain so completely detached emotionally? In some ways, the lack of empathy is even more shocking and devastating than the bisexual bombshell. 

My husband found me leaving the park. It was clear he did not want me to be alone with my thoughts and coming to the conclusion that there is no path forward. He said he loves me and he’ll always love me. I don’t doubt this, but I also know that there’s a big difference between loving someone and being in love with them. When we went to sleep that night, he pulled me onto his chest and attempted to kiss me, but the floodgates burst open and I ended up soaking his shirt with my tears. 

We had a really nice family weekend together (out of town), but things got a little tense later when the discussion turned toward TGT. One thing he said really concerned me. It was something to the effect of: If I weren’t unhappy, the bisexuality thing would have never come up. It seems like his unhappiness began when he stopped being the center of my universe. 

So much of what he says is contradictory, and I am having difficulty deciphering what’s real and what’s not. He said he had been thinking this weekend about starting over…with me…like hitting a reset button. I said I did not think that was possible…there is too much pain and uncertainty. Later, when I asked why he even wanted to stay married to me (if he’d been so unhappy)— he said “because we have a daughter.” 

I can tell that it is really difficult for him to talk about us not being together. It is difficult for me, too. This would be so much easier if I weren’t so in love with him (and sexually drawn to him…even still!) If I could pay someone to take the love away (a la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), I probably would. 

I assured him that no matter what happens, I will always love him...but it is unfair of him to stay with me just to keep the family unit together. In the end, we will all be miserable. Despite his lack of empathy for me, I am very empathetic of what he is going through. The only thing I know for sure is that I’ll be OK. I’m straight. I can take care of myself. I have friends to lean on. He has a father who would very likely cut ties with him if he knew about TGT. I can’t imagine how painful that must be. 

The fear of the “I’m gay” bombshell weighs heavily on me—and while he swears he is bisexual (not gay) and tries to minimize the same-sex attraction, it will always be the ticking time bomb beneath the table. I’ve even entertained the idea of a threesome—not because that is something I truly desire but to maybe accelerate the trip to Gaytown. I know that this is awful and selfish, but this would be a lot easier if he’d come out as gay and not bisexual. At least then, I would not be stuck in this limbo… where time stands still and the future is so hazy. The decision to leave would already have been made for me. 

In the end, he is still the father of my child and the man I’ve loved for close to a decade…and I don’t wish him a life of suffering. Of all the emotions that have torpedoed in and out of my days, the anger has been the worst…and I do not want to hold onto it. I understand that the road ahead is long and that I need to let my head take the wheel….because the heart (I know) is not always the most reliable navigator. 

Thank you all for your kindness and support.  

Last edited by Julian_Stone (June 11, 2019 11:03 pm)

Oh Julian!  I think I could have written your entire post!  It is all so so devastating.  When  I was out a few months, so similar!  I was a basket case, true.  And devastated, much like you describe.  Confused.  Torn.  Afraid of the future.  Rethinking the past.  Wanting my husband to comfort me, relieved when he might come to find me.  And also not certain about the mixed messages he was sending. 

Random thoughts:

Good for you for getting your own therapist! 

Trauma bonding.  Have you read about this?  If not, please do.  It is so so hard to do this: but try to detach in some ways.  Just for some clarity.  Even just a weekend away, maybe take the baby to visit family for the weekend.

I know you love your husband, and I do not know him, so I do not want to be unfair.  But IMO:  Your husband may seem to care for you, as he is giving you extra comfort now. Yet he is the one who is hurting you. And notice: he really IS hurting you actively and directly—and this is not just the hurt of rejection, but also the hurt of the active criticism where he is telling you the “bad wife” stuff. And all while he supposedly cannot bear to lose you and your little family. This is an absolutely totally destructive experience. This is ACTIVE hurt, that he is doing—criticizing you, blaming you for the problems in the marriage, when he has dropped a bomb and changed the relationship at its foundation.

He is also hurting you by focusing on himself.  When he comes looking for you, he is not necessarily doing it for you.  Maybe, but I agree with your suspicions: he wanted to be part of your line of vision, he did not want you to have the clarity of distance.  He is suggesting he is still about “ us,” but “us” right now is really about him, and you as a kind of extension of him, an extension who allows him to do whatever he wants, while not having any feelings herself.  He wants to “keep you,” but that is not the same as wanting to love you.

And yes!  The lack of empathy is stunning! 

This is a particular trigger for me, because my husband has been critical of me throughout our marriage.  And it got worse and worse, and it was always this contradictory stuff, deep and impossible and directly different from other things he might have said another time.  Always at the core of it:  he said again and again that he never felt I loved him.  He felt alienated from me.  He felt like I did not care about what he wanted. I tried so hard! Although I felt like his criticisms were not justified, I still tried harder to show him I loved him.  Over time, though, I questioned my sense of who I was.  And as he criticized my loving gestures, and still told me how bad I was and how he felt I did not care for him...a horrible assault on my self.

Of course my husband did not want to admit that he really wanted to,love and be loved by a man, So he twisted his inside view to blame me—if OMOTF was “better,” then I would feel I loved her!  I would not keep wanting to look at gay porn and gay hookup sites.  But I do not feel she loves me, and I keep looking at all this gay porn and I am seeking sex with men—therefore she is not doing what she should!”  And then he would go scanning for anything to point out as the reason du jour for my failing him. 

Look up “DARVO” too—this is what is happening.

I am enjoying the word “obfuscating” lately.  And this man, your husband, is obfuscating!  Obfuscating, obfuscating, obfuscating.  Creating a fog in many ways.  It is like you are not allowed to see or know “what is.”  He leaves the doors open so you believe he is there for you:

—Not gay, but “bi,” which suggests: “hey Julian!  You can have me too!  Like, don’t give up and go away, because maybe I will want you sometimes too Julian!  You know you want me!  So stay here!  Because I am here for you.  Maybe, sometimes.  There is room for yiu—maybe, sometimes—Because I am BI!”

—“I am here to comfort you,” and he offers you a hug and a shirt to sop up your tears.  And this is after messing with you and telling you that YOU are why he is unhappy.  Nope.  The image I had pop in my head just now was Kaaa the snake from the animated Jungle Book movie:  “Trust in meeeeeee, just—in meeee.”  And then, Kaaa hypnotizes Mongolian and cradles him in his coils—and it fools Mowgli, but Kaaaa just want to eat him, to swallow him whole and digest him little by little.

So because your husband is being the comforter, the nice guy, and you feel emotional, it puts him in a superior position—he is the great compassionate giver, having to take care of difficult you.  Sorry if this is unfair and snarky—it just seems so much like my experience, and right now I feel angry.

—“Do you love me?” We straight spouses want to know.  We sure are questioning if our spouses ever loved us. My husband does not want me “saying how he feels,” but anyone in an intimate relationship has the right to figure out if they can feel confident in their partner’s feelings for them. But:  so cagey now!  IMO, If your husband really wanted YOU, not to lose YOU at this moment of crisis, he would be focusing on you, doing and saying all he could.  But the answer from your husband was something like: “I cannot bear to lose our little family.” 

Having said “doing all he could,” I want to qualify that love bombing sometimes looks like this, so you have to watch and listen carefully.  For consistency.  For disconnects.  For if this fits the normal patterns in the past.  Etc.

As for me, I got “What is Love?”  I have also gotten “What is enough?”  And “I think of you as family.”  And “I married yiu because you were a strong independent woman who I felt would not require emotional connection.”  that was a hard one to take in.  But when I ask back, reflect back what I thought he said, he tells me, that is not really what I said. Of course it is not exactly what you said—but what were you really saying?  It sounded to me like, “i wanted to marry you because I did not want to love you.”  And then he can easily tell me I am distorting things, but does not clarify.  Or he says, months later, that what he meant by that was that he assumed I would be busy with my career.  Of course, he made it impossible for me to work as I wanted to.  And, that also is not what he said.  But he gets to define things always,  So...just a big old fog. My shape shifter.

He just never tells you he is all in. But he also does not tell you he is all out.  He keeps you staying with him by “almost love”—hints of love.

I spoke with my therapist today about how my husband has told me many times—with words, not just actions—that he is gay.  But NEVER saying the actual phrase ”I am gay.”  For example, he said to me that he had looked at gay hookup sites (for more than 20 yrs, BTW, which I learned about 9 whole months after disclosure, even though he had told me months earlier that he had told me everything). His reasons for looking?  Because “I wanted to see if there was someone else like me.”  So yeah.  Those words.  “Someone like me” = gay men who are married to women.  But he never fully says “I am Gay.”  Always a justification or “hey, look this way!”  One time, he said, “so, what do I say to people, I am gay but I’m not gay?”  Another time, “What? Would you just feel better if I just said I am gay!}?  I told him yes, BTW. And he changed the subject.

The image I had pop in mind during therapy yesterday was like those Highlights Magazine art pages, where the whole page is divided into a bunch of blobs, and you color in certain numbered blobs, and you keep filling in blob by blob.  You did not know what was there, but eventually you see the real picture—the parts left UNcolored.  You see the main image now!  But strangely, the true picture, the main image—it never announces itself, it has no color in it at all. You only recognize it by filling in the blanks around it. 

Our husbands seem to imagine that if they never color themselves in, we will be confused.  Especially because we are not them and so we “have no right” to define them.  And we ARE confused! Especially because they keep messing with the blobs we are coloring in!   But we CAN eventually define the other things we see, and we CAN eventually see the boundaries.  We can listen and observe the things that are almost spoken, that are said but not “said.”  We can listen to actions.  We are used to the main image announcing itself through emphasis, but our husbands want us to stay confused. We have to,listen to ourselves. 

The whole “is he bi” question is not the right question. It is just part of the fog that keeps us looking into the swirling eyes of Kaaa so we cannot see the emerging outlines of the picture. We can change our focus to our own picture.  We can color ourselves in:  Am I happy in this relationship?”  Am I confidenti in this relationship?  Will I ever feel like I am enough for this partner?  Can I trust my partner?  Not just to be honest, but to care for my heart and soul? 

My therapist suggested as an image the Escher artwork where the stairs and creatures are always shifting.  How can those stairs keep going up?  Well, it is an illusion, but you just cannot quite see the trick.

So, next thing:  in spite of your pain and confusion, I hear in you a confidence and awareness of who you are, of your values, and a kind of clarity of what is going on.  Please write down a lot of this to refer to later.  I look back on myself soon after discovery, and I also had more clarity about myself in similar ways—but I was also in shock and denial.  In the time it has taken me to move through the shock and trauma, my husband had a big period of “Love bombing.”  Which was totally discordant with the utter lack of empathy.  And totally discordant with the hostility and blaming of the past.  But even with the love bombing, I was listening and watching for the things that seemed more real and honest.

Eventually I realized that I was living in a world that was not reality, and that this itself was an attack on me.  Living in a world that is not reality wears you down.  We want reality more than we want love, I think.  But as long as we are with our husbands—if they are giving us the “non-picture,” we stay there hoping we might find a different picture, or find ourselves in the picture.

I have had several times in conversations with my husband where I feel desperate to even sense that he SEES me.  Where I have said, holding my hands at square to frame my face:  “look at me, look at my face, do you even see me?”  One time I even pulled our wedding album off the bookshelf and opened it up and pointed at myself:  “look at this girl!  Do you see her?  Who is she?  Do you even know?”  Because more and more, I believe he never really has seen me.

So then just staying in the marriage becomes a kind of abuse because there is an all-out assault on your sense of reality.  Even if everyone is polite and smiling, it is fake. It is the “lack of empathy” World,  it is the world where definitions of truth are denied and twisted.  It is a world where “you” cannot exist, because yiu, real you, who matters, in reality, is absolutely not at all compatible with yiur husband’s denial.   This is more than “two sides to every story.”  It is not two people meeting.  It is only one story:  his.  As long as you are still of use to him, He will happily absorb you entirely into his story, and you are just a character in His fiction.  He will absorb you into his “non picture.”  And that then becomes the only place for you with him.  By not existing anymore.

After living in this environment for some time, I now actually feel less strong and clear.  Although I was living in this world before, but I was not aware of it.  Once you see it you cannot unsee it.  So, write down your current clarity so you can refer back to it later and remember yiur strength of mind and strength of character and the strength of your inner emotional world. 

Ok!  I enjoyed those metaphors way too much.  But really Julian, please take care of yourself.  Give yourself permission to cry and cry and cry.  This is gut wrenching.