It will be two months tomorrow since my husband moved out. I was so happy to find this site as it brought me out of my darkness. For the first time, I felt validated and sane. No matter what any support I received from people that were trying to help, I started to feel like I was going crazy. Then I found this site and read through so many stories and found so many similarities to mine. I felt for the first time I wasn’t alone and that other people knew exactly how I was feeling, even in my “crazy” moments.

I feel like it’s time to tell my story. Kind of long, but here it goes....

I grew up with my husband. We were high school sweethearts. We went to elementary school together. He always had a “crush” on me. Actively pursued me even though I had no interest in him at the time. He never gave up. Pursued me hard until one night I realized I started to have feelings for him. As much as a 15 year old girl in high school could have feelings for someone. We started to date. June of 2004. Never broke up. He was teased all through high school for being gay. I was always there by his side to defend him. He denied it. Hard. I never asked him straight up but I figured if I was actively defending him to bullies then he would tell me if it was true. Wrong. We graduated high school, went to the local community college. Got married. Bought a house. 2 years into our marriage (we were 23 years old) he drops a bomb. “I think I might be gay”. He goes to counseling. We go to counseling together. I learn more details about the sexual abuse he endured as a child. Being young and naive, and in love, I contributed his confused feelings to PTSD of his sexual abuse. But at the same time he would tell me “he didn’t want to label himself as gay”  So how am I supposed to take that when he is so confused himself? But I gave him an ultimatum. I said “stay and we can work through this together, or leave. But just know that if you leave, we cannot be a part of each other’s lives. It would be too painful for me to continue to be friends. I just can’t do that”. He was scared of losing me he said. So he stayed. Naive me thinking that staying meant forever. Life slowly got back to normal. And we went on as a married couple and it seemed as though he had gotten past his feelings of confusion. In the next 7 years, we bought another house, moved, and had two children. I was happy. Life was great. It couldn’t be better. I couldn’t be more in love or more happy than I was. Fast forward to September 2018, I could see him starting to get depressed with his 30th birthday approaching. Like a mid life crisis in a sense. He talked about wanting to do things that seemed rebellious and out of his character. I could see his depression setting in. It was a long few months while he seemed disconnected and uninterested. Here comes the new year, and things start to get better. I can see his mood improving and it seemed like we were back on track. Here, I feel I am the happiest and most in love I have ever felt. Having two beautiful precious boys, ages 1 and 3 at the time and feeling like I have everything I ever wanted. The love of my life, a beautiful family. Being able to raise my boys in a traditional environment, doing family things together and feeling like I was on top of the world. Then our 9 year wedding anniversary hits in April. I tried to be intimate with him, and he says he just can’t. I knew in my heart what was happening, and feeling like it was all going to come crashing down again. He didn’t really ever admit to me what was wrong just yet. But I knew that it was because of his “feelings” however I never thought that it would be the END of us. We went on a prearranged vacation the week after. A time that should have been exciting and relaxing and fun with the boys. But it was not that for me. Inside I felt depressed and crushed. On the outside I tried to enjoy my time with the boys making memories. Things were awkward between us. I was sad. I cant even remember when or what he actually said to me about what was going on. I just remember us disconnecting and falling further apart from each other. I even stopped talking to him all together. I was in such a dark place I felt so stuck, just waiting basically for him to make up his mind. If he’s going to stay or go. Our interaction went from husband and wife, to roommates in a matter of days.  I was devastated.  He would continuously say “I don’t want to hurt you”. We stayed in this limbo period for 4 months. I learned a lot in these 4 months.  I learned he had been on and off Grindr for years. I learned that he never really loved me the way I loved him. I learned that he apparently always had these gay feelings since as long as he could remember and that now he is so certain that he is gay. I learned that growing up he never wanted to be gay so he did everything he could to live a straight life.  And who better to marry than your best friend that you thought was pretty? Yes, that’s a good idea, lets ruin her life and bring her into the closet with you! But wait, that’s not enough, as if the closet wasn’t cramped enough, let’s build a family, have children so that we can suck them into the closet also. So much guilt I have for allowing that to happen. I let my kids down. Completely ruined their chance of growing up in a household with both parents and being able to be their best selves without having to go through something so traumatic at such a young age. As a parent you want to do everything in your power to protect your children. My husband’s response... “the boys will be just fine”. He didn’t seem worried about them at all.
He goes away for a work trip end of July and when he got back, I found messages on his computer with another guy. (Not the first time I had found inappropriate messages on his computer) I had found out about other things he had lied about also and it was like a light bulb going off in my head. This whole time (the past 4 months) he had been allowing me to hold on to hope that we could make it work together. He would say things like “moving out doesn’t feel like the right option”. But at that moment, I had realized it was NEVER going to go back to the way things were. In that moment, I had told him that he needed to move out. Because he was always too coward to make that decision on his own. It was like he was waiting for me to make the decision for him. A week and a half later he did. He blames his parents mostly for our situation and also blames me for “shoving him back in the closet” when he tried to come out 7 years ago. And he’s guilted me in to thinking that if I could just accept him and basically put the blame on his parents like he does, then we could be in a better place, still be friends and still do things as a family. It wasn’t until I realized a couple weeks after he moved out that I didn’t have to accept him or think the way he thinks just so we can still do things as a family. I let go of that guilt because it wasn’t my guilt to carry.

After he moved out, he entered his “adolescent phase”. In just the short two months since he moved out, he has been in and out of a “relationship” with someone that he had been “talking” to for the past couple of years but always downplayed it like it was just a friendship and that the attraction was one sided. But not just any guy! This person, I guess you could say, is well known in the drag/music world. At this time he was on broadway and my husband on a whim and at the expense of this guy, jumped on a plane (3.5 weeks after he moved out) and flew across the country to see his broadway show in New York and to be with this guy. And then jumped on a plane again two weeks later to be with him in CA. Both times having to find a babysitter for our boys as I work a normal Mon-Fri schedule and he left mid week both times. But tried so hard to keep where he was going and what he was up to from me. And he told me he had planned on doing it every other weekend. (Before I really knew there was a relationship, me being naive still) My husband has always dreamed of living a famous life. I just thought this guy was his ticket to his dream. But then a turn of events, only a few days after he told me he’d be going every other weekend because it was the beginning of a relationship (he said he was still trying to figure that out, which I took as he wanted the relationship but wasn’t sure the other guy did), he suddenly says that he told the guy he’s “not ready for a relationship” and hasn’t spoken to him since. And he hasn’t been out of town since either.  That’s the worst things he’s done. Ever since he moved out he’s been enjoying his new found freedom. Right away got back on Grindr, partying with his new gay friends, and having no responsibilities. He’s been posting provocative things on social media, then blocked me completely on social media and all my family and friends/co-workers so I couldn’t see what he was up to. Yesterday was my birthday. He chooses yesterday and this week of all days to post more provocative pictures of himself on social media. My closest friends are his friends too and they support him. It feels like betrayal.

He acts like our boys, ages 2 and 4, are oblivious to what’s going on and that they will be just fine! He calls me a bigot for not wanting my boys to see any “gay” behavior from their father. It’s been such a roller coaster ride.

The worst part is that I miss him. I miss my best friend. I miss coming home to him. Going to sleep next to him. Celebrating my birthday with him. I miss my old life. I miss having my family together.

I’m seeing a counselor and I have gotten my paperwork together to file for divorce. I just have to tighten some things up before I submit it. I owe it to my boys to try and do this the nice way. If he wants things to get nasty, I have no other choice but to protect myself and my kids but I feel like I have to at least try and do things without lawyers at first and see how that goes.

This is a terrible position to be in. None of us chose this. It is so unfair. I’m trying to find it within me to be in a better place where I can look to the future rather than continue to mourn my past.