okay so a question on time line - which happened first, the romantic affair with a woman or the confession to you that she was gay?

re falling in love as opposed to general love - yes sensible to have different words as the romantic experience is in a field of it's own - we love family and pets and so on and don't swear eternal love or dream about getting into bed with them!

there is quite a move these days to downgrade it.  Romance is a Modern Construct, screams the modern (gay) author.  No it isn't, it is as old as the hills.  

Feelings are absolutely key.  The wish to make the other person happy - that comes with the feeling no will power required.

there are absolutely tons of MOM's going on.  Historically and currently, tons of them.  And plenty continuing on where the straight spouse knows but stays anyway.  But the only other MOMs I have heard of where the straight spouse is saying they feel happy in the MOM are from people posting here - both highly religious couples.  

You're number 3 but you're the first to want to talk it through, and you have been great to talk with.

all the best, Lily.

Yes there seems to be a high incidence of narcissism in closet gay people.  It seems possible to me your wife's mother might be a lesbian too.  

I think the thing about dating is falling in love makes you so vulnerable and it is instinctive to be protective but so maybe you're feeling a little in love with someone and then they don't ring and you feel devastated for a while and then you meet someone else and on it goes for one reason or another not sticking but then you fall in love and it is 100% in and it's bigger than the both of you, and my belief is that if that were allowed primacy in human affairs then we would all be a lot happier and more peaceful,  

Falling in love is a powerful event and it does shape the meaning of life.  It's not the same thing, but it shapes your life in the same way as the love being born in your heart with the birth of your children.  

Here's a little snippet from my distant past.  I have been pretty much living with my ex for about two years.  We have gone on holidays with a whole bunch of people and there was this guy who made a play for me.  And guess what he succeeded, I felt like I was falling in love with him and wanted to go with him.  The route of our holiday travels take us close to my family home and I go visit my mum and tell her and she says to me something along the lines of not being so ready to change and I listen to her, oh I am not being dutiful to the dictates of love I should stay with him.  

Damn!  we work the way we do.  It is a shame my mother did not support me in moving on but then she was taken in by my ex too - she liked him, she thought he would be kind and gentle with me.

A 'real' love that minimises the importance of romantic love is at odds with the human heart, I believe.

Yes there seems to be a high incidence of narcissism in closet gay people.  It seems possible to me your wife's mother might be a lesbian too.  

I don't know, and she died several years ago (my father in law also has passed away), so it remains unknown possibility. For I realize that we didn't really know who she was, we only knew the narcissist. 

A 'real' love that minimises the importance of romantic love is at odds with the human heart, I believe.

The romantic love (falling in love), is important at the beginning of a relation, to get it started. Later (couple of years or so) real love gradually takes over.
So I didn't say romantic love is to be discarded (ideally it should start a love relation, and mostly it works that way), but on itself it's just not sufficient to preserve a long term marriage. Feelings and emotions can be beautiful, but are not stable and can (temporarily) change due to circumstances. If times get rough it can look like happy feelings are gone, and you don't get out of the relation what you want. Where to turn to if romantic love is the only thing that's there?

To my opinion a marriage should be based on real love, while both partners work to keep the romantic feeling alive. This emotional aspect can't be of the same enduring intensity as the "falling in love" period, (that's not really possible).

Falling in love is a powerful event and it does shape the meaning of life.  It's not the same thing, but it shapes your life in the same way as the love being born in your heart with the birth of your children.  

Before I met my (future) wife, I had fallen in love with a girl and was totally in the clouds, way out, but there were too many differences between us, so it didn't work out. I felt miserable with love sickness, my Fleetwood Mac Rumours album got me through. It were all very strong feelings and emotions, but it would only have had changed my life if it would have carried on, so we married etc. But by then it would also be a deliberate decision. The marriage vow is a rational promise, with all heart and mind involved.  It's not like: "then I felt something, now I don't, so goodbye".
The will enters into it. If the will was not behind it, faithfulness would be a hollow concept.

Here's a little snippet from my distant past.  I have been pretty much living with my ex for about two years.  We have gone on holidays with a whole bunch of people and there was this guy who made a play for me.  And guess what he succeeded, I felt like I was falling in love with him and wanted to go with him.  The route of our holiday travels take us close to my family home and I go visit my mum and tell her and she says to me something along the lines of not being so ready to change and I listen to her, oh I am not being dutiful to the dictates of love I should stay with him. 

Damn!  we work the way we do.  It is a shame my mother did not support me in moving on but then she was taken in by my ex too - she liked him, she thought he would be kind and gentle with me.

First thing I notice is the fact that you were open to fall for someone else's advances, I think that is an indication that at that moment there already was a real problem in your relation with your ex.

The advice your mother gave is understandable. Often: A relation gets temporarily in a serious dip, another comes along and could mesh up the lot, while it would be better to work on the relation, solve the problems and get it back to a good place. So usually this is good advice. It's just that your mother didn't know the actual reason behind it all. It's not your mothers fault nor yours. 
You shouldn't blame yourself for being a victim of a (closeted) narcissist. No one expects to get caught up in a network of schemes and carefully created plots which only purpose is to feed and support the narcissists fragile ego. Who would even think it's possible that there are people with those sick motives. 

You might think "had I just listened to that inner voice that warned me", or "had the circumstances at that moment been just a bit different (like the route home) my life could have been also". 
But rationally you know it makes no sense thinking like that, it just happened as it did and you cannot change it. 


After my wife came out, and after the first years of turmoil, I still struggled for years with my own feelings and emotions. Although my wife could deal with her lesbian feelings and the marriage was stable, still I didn't felt desired as a physical man, the sexual relation was functioning but wasn't really connected to her feelings. Also looking back on the years before, there were so many extreme difficult times. It all felt as a deception and also dishonest, for I didn't do anything to deserve it. But also the same thoughts crossed my mind like you have: "If I made this or that other decision when I was young, my life could (would) have gone so different".
Being angry at God wasn't an option to me, for I realized I cannot claim God to give me a happy life on earth, He just doesn't promise that. I didn't loose my faith, but I did feel like He left me to my lot in life. 
I didn't understand why, and He wouldn't tell it either.

But than came that event when I decided to Love like the example God gives, it was an absolute turning point to me. Not that the circumstances changed, or that I started radiating light or being superhuman loving. 
No... it changed myself. The way I looked at the whole situation, the way I approached myself, how I experienced my feelings and emotions. That decision put me on top of that all.
With that I have something much better to go for, and I don't give a damn what it means to my feelings. THIS is how I'll live and THIS is the way I'm gonna love my wife. And nothing is going to stop that!

It made me look forward, not thinking anymore about what I had been missing out, or "what ifs?".
(much later I realized that God brought me to this point, and He had never left me to my lot, but that's another story).

A step into a next phase, which had so many positive consequences in the years that followed.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

Often people used to say that to men who went from woman to woman, ie you won't acquire a family but I wonder if there isn't an original meaning that it is the opposite - keep rolling, stay clean.  

If I had not fallen in love with my ex I would not have got into bed with him.  But then the next man that made a play for me, I fell in love with him and you know what, he wasn't gay but he wasn't worth much if any more than my ex not that I saw that at the time.  I was a rolling stone.

Let me roll until I find the one, then naturally I will settle and faithfulness is more than a concept it is an inherent feeling.

okay that's my answer for now.  

 

Last edited by lily (January 16, 2020 6:08 am)

The man who made a play for me and I fell for it was back in the early days before my ex and I got married.  I met my ex at 19, we were living together but didn't marry for some years.  I was 57 at discovery and 59 by the time I was divorced.  The love of my life happened while I was getting divorced.  

When someone says he/she's the love of my life we all want to say no.  Unless they're happily married of course in which case fine, you can believe what you want, you're happy.  

So, some years ago, still married, had already met the love of my life but not fallen for him yet, I was doing one of those first aid classes and the instructor was explaining about the electrical impulse that causes your heart to beat.  He said it was like a Mexican cheer wave - and there was a cheer-leader who started the wave going.  Some little chamber above the heart has all these little fans jumping up and down starting an impulse that makes your heart beat.  It all comes down to the one who starts it though, there's a lot of little fans and about 10-13 bigger ones, he said.  So if one dies, as they do, the next one steps forward and becomes the starter of the Mexican wave.  When you run out of cheer-leaders you used to die until they invented pacemakers and the wherewithal to install them.

So I am thinking that is what it is like in terms of love.  I'm a serial monogamist - if one love goes there are more chances to come.

The other thing that happened around that time is that I had watched the courtship of a pair of emerald wing doves, it took place over a period of weeks on a large fan leaf - a young palm tree that was planted outside the window of my home office and they must have set up home nearby and then the male dove died.  The female is now walking around on the ground under the leaf, cooing and calling for him, day after day.  it's so sad.  

I don't know what happened to her.  If she found another mate or not but it wasn't sounding good.  I didn't see her with another mate, and then I stopped seeing her at all.

now it's me making long posts but I have to stop right now so I'm going to post this as is, mid sentence so to speak...



 

Last edited by lily (January 17, 2020 4:22 pm)