StraightSpouse,
    I can well imagine that you are feeling an immense amount of pressure and anxiety about having to go to the party with him, where some will know what you're going through and others won't.  Do you think it is the case that others who haven't said anything do in fact know or guess and telegraph to you somehow that they want you to "manage" him or stay or support him?  I could imagine that his parents might very well suspect something but also want you to hold him up or in some way love him out of it, in which case you'd feel that pressure, too.
   Just remember that you are not the one responsible for his choices and behavior, and you do not have the ability to change him, and that his actions are his to be responsible for.  Hold your head high and focus on your niece. 

lily wrote:

I lose all respect for the closet parent maintaining their closet in the face of their own child's suffering.

As I've written here before, one of my main concerns now is my children's emotional health and my hope for them to have healthy intimate relationships of their own as adults.  I feel they can only do this if they learn the truth about the "toxins in the water" they've been drinking in our home unaware for their whole lives.  I feel it is essential for them to learn the truth about--and understand the lack of warmth and honesty and secrets that have been at the foundation of our family life.  My husband is still having trouble coming to terms with it all himself, and he continually self justifies his worst behavior, and tries to compensate for this with other more surface warmth.  It's not that he is not nice--he IS nice, he IS a listener, etc.  But he is is also NOT nice, and  NOT a listener--not where it really counts.  It does not matter how many dishes he washes if the foundation of the marriage is a falsity.  It does not matter how many nice family dinners he makes or pays for in a restaurant if he is actually lying and using his children's mother (me!) as a front.  It does not matter how much he (now but not before) drives the kids places or asks about their days--none of this matters if behind the scenes he has been criticizing their mother about pretty much everything, treating her with contempt, while telling her that he never feels she loves him enough, and then continuing to not take responsibility and even blame their mother (me!) for all the same-sex things I've discovered.

But it is really hard to remember to look at the foundational acts sometimes.  And of course the kids will never really even be able to look at the foundational issues fully unless someone tells them.

Since discovery, I have kept my husband's secret for more than a year now--all of us straight spouses know how keeping the secret--while reeling with the shock of the discovery--comes at enormous, almost unspeakable personal expense.  I did this for many reasons, but one was to give him a chance to heal relationships with our two at-home children.  As I've shared before, my husband's negative criticisms, contempt, and distancing had escalated in the past years, and then had become almost frenzied right before discovery--and this negativity was also directed toward these two young teen sons, especially one of them, just not as strongly toward them as toward me.

Honestly, I have seen my husband make great efforts to improve his relationships with these sons, as well as to nourish his relationships with our two young-adult children.  And many of the good things I listed in the first paragraph are things that had suffered before this past year--he had become so nasty and selfish, and just ignoring these at-home boys except for criticizing them.  But he is really really striving to connect with them now.  Seeing him do this--and it has included nice trips and awesome recreational activities as well--this has led to me feeling additional grief for my own loneliness, because my own isolation and inability to share my story has also isolated me from my own children.  I have always been a very open mom, honest and sharing.  And also peaceful and looking for happiness and humor.  And I've been a good coach to them with schooling, work, routines, etc.  But with the emotional devastation, I have been just surviving. I have cried, distanced myself physically, become quiet, had trouble following through on even simple things, and been quicker to outbursts with the kids--while my husband has become super amazing dad.  He has done this at my expense, while I have not been the person--and the mother--I always have been.  One of my fears (probably distorted and irrational), is that my kids will not remember all I've done with and for them in the past, and will not remember how distant and mean their dad was to them in the past, and they will now see him as the kind involved parent and me as the moody unreliable one.

At a recent appointment with my private therapist, I said to her that my husband really had made such efforts to be a better father, to improve the relationships, etc.  I said to my therapist that I did not want to hurt this relationship between my children and their dad.  That I felt this was important for their emotional health.  I said I felt I needed to swallow my emotional pain and not show it to them, so as to not interfere with these now-improving relationships with their dad. I said I had noticed the two at-home sons had become more at ease recently in their lives in general, in comparison to the first months after discovery, when they both become more moody and started doing stress things (incessant face picking and hair twirling, etc).  But now they are doing much better.

My therapist took my hands and said my name and looked me straight in the eye and said:

"Has he sat down with them and said, 'I was a poor husband to your mother.  I hurt her deeply in these ways, and I kept these secrets from her and took away her ability to make real choices about her own life. And she suffered for years from my criticisms, and she has suffered beyond belief this past year.'"

I said, "well no."

And she said, "Then he has not become a 'good father.'  All he is doing is adding in more fun things to do.  He is not being an example of honesty and personal responsibility.  He is still taking advantage of you.  He is not doing the important things.  He is NOT being a good father."

Last edited by OnMyOwnTwoFeet (June 30, 2019 2:46 pm)

OutofHisCloset wrote:

      I think part of my paralysis and depression stemmed from this knowledge, that no one was going to help me, and most of all my then-husband.  I had only myself to rely on, and not only was I not feeling strong, I didn't want that to be the case; I wanted my marriage partner back, I wanted my then-husband to want to have my back, but he, in adapting and running toward his new identity, had already disavowed his status as my husband, even as he claimed he wanted to stay married to me and made me feel as if I was the one causing the problem.  During that time, when I knew I was probably going to have to leave, but thought I either couldn't leave for financial reasons or didn't have the strength to leave, I used to quote Eleanor Roosevelt's line to myself, "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."  It helped me put one foot in front of the other.  Emotionally detaching is one of those steps.
  

Thank you so much for this!  I have had this same feeling a lot lately: "Is there no one who can help me? I don't know if I can do it! I used to think I was so strong, but now I have nothing left in me."  And also, when trying to talk with a few people, "Is there no one who will help me? Is there no one who will help me be safe?"  And I realized again: it has to be me.  I have to do it.

OMOTF,

"...My therapist took my hands and said my name and looked me straight in the eye and said:
"Has he sat down with them and said, 'I was a poor husband to your mother..."

Yes and no...   It is true he has not been a good father ..else he would have treated you better and kept an  intact family..    Yes he/these spouses are wrong on so many levels..

But..   Like you said he has improved his relationship with them...this is a good thing.   I would say I think my relationship with my kids is better I assume it is better with their mother.   I strongly disagree with your therapist....  these spouses will never sit the kids down and say they treated us like shit..   The thing is it may not help the kids, us,  or the spouses  in anyway..  Our kids really cannot help us in our pain and suffering..   we need to help the kids.. the kids want a mom and dad..   they need stability and consistently in their lives..   the kids are neither our pals  or our therapists...           
My kids may never know how much their mother hurt me...  and I do not want to remind them. God knows..   They get to have a relationship with their mother..it gives me some use for her.   They, get,  now..  stronger, abused dad.  If they want to about it about is someday sure I can give them earfuls.   But these therapist demonstrate, often, their lack of experience in going through this..

 

Last edited by Rob (June 30, 2019 3:58 pm)

The unfairness of having to swallow shit sandwiches for our children is one that I also have felt, keenly.  When my ex first came out to me, and declared his intention to "transition" (quotation marks because I strongly believe this is impossible, although it is the lingo), my first thought was for our then 25-year-old son, who had gone through a rocky adolescence and early 20s, but was just beginning to right himself.  I didn't want my then-husband to come out, because I didn't want my son to have to struggle with an analogous set of questions like the ones I'd had to ask myself about...well, everything!  Past, present, future, sexuality, gender, legitimacy as a person, a wife, etc etc ad infinitum.  
   Then my ex decided to stay in the closet, and wanted to keep me in there, too. (He provided compensations, in the form of lots of sex, which at the beginning I welcomed, before I understood about trauma bonding, and when it was all new and felt like a new commitment to me and the marriage, before I began to examine the character of that sex, and to realize I was little more than a prop and a stand in or model for the woman's body and responses he wanted for himself.)  And because I wanted to protect my son, I kept his secret.  Life in a closet in a lonely, isolating, stressful existence.  By keeping that secret, in essence, I protected my ex's relationship with his son; but I also perpetuated a lie, and because their relationship is predicated on a secret and a lie, I enabled it.  And as long as I keep silent, I continue to enable it.  Yet I don't think my son would welcome the truth at this point, and I still think it would complicate his life in ways he doesn't need. But as time passes, I worry that my son will find out someday, and blame me for not telling him, for deceiving him.  So even though I acted out of an impulse to protect my son, which also included helping to keep a good relationship with his father, I may yet get the blame.  And you can bet my ex will never thank me for this.  Indeed, he believes he is entitled to my silence, and doesn't give a fig that I now have a dishonest relationship with my son--because his closet is worth more than any human being.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (June 30, 2019 4:58 pm)