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January 7, 2020 5:08 pm  #1


meltdown

I always knew something was weird between my wife and I.  She met me at my lowest point.  I was deeply in debt and hadn't had a girlfriend in years.  It was a blind date set up by a person who could help my career, so I went and made my best effort.  My date - future wife - wasn't particularly attractive to me, but the first thing she said to me was a coded demand: "you know it is bad luck to pour your own wine."  She was smart and had attitude, and I was game.

Within a few months, she had moved in with me and enmeshed herself in my professional work.  I was a struggling artist, and her integration into my life could be described as 'Yoko-like.'  I was not very successful, and after a couple years of struggling with me, she essentially abandoned the creative partnership.  She constantly made me aware that I was not quickly proving successful, and the negativity she began to create caused me to sink into depression.  The more harsh she was, the more morose I became, and in my morose state, she controlled the relationship.  She unconsciously worked to separate me from my friendships and even eventually came between me and my own parents.  I was alone.

I knew she had experiences with women in college.  I thought it was no big deal.  I didn't realize her mental health challenges in college were directly related to her suppressed sexuality.

She wanted to get married.  She wanted her grandmother to see her married.   So she basically bullied me into it.  She stage managed my 'surprise' proposal so that it would occur in front of her entire extended family on Thanksgiving.  She even asked to make sure I had an engagement ring with me right before we walked into the dinner.  When, to her 'surprise', I got down on one knee in front of everyone and asked if she would marry me, she said 'I guess so.'  She was trying to be cool or something.  (Years later, in an extremely rare expression of 'remorse', she said that she was surprised by the proposal and didn't know what to say.  Gaslight.  That 'I guess so' was the most truthful she ever was with me.)

Meanwhile, my academic credentials helped us to land a nice teaching job which, with my extra effort, evolved into careers for both of us.  We eventually shared a tenure-track position at a nice college. 

Whatever sex there was at the beginning was now strained and gone.  I noticed that her tendencies were unlike any other women I had been with.  There is no other way to describe it other than saying she was 'not feminine' in her approach to sex.  This is not to say she was like a dude who wanted sex all the time.  No.  She never wanted sex, but when she did, deep down she wanted to be the man.  It wasn't at all sexy, but it wasn't exactly possible to tell her that she was 'not feminine enough.'  So, our sex life didn't ever fundamentally work.

My wife only would say 'I love you' to me if people she wanted to hear it were in earshot.  She never hugged me.  We didn't kiss for 2 decades.  Sex was non-existent.  When, after years of marriage, my wife was not getting pregnant, her college friend told her just 'to have sex every day'.  This was beyond my wife's ability to do since she had zero desire to touch me, and zero physical ability to seduce me.  So, she got drunk every night for a week and essentially raped me in my sleep.

Our worst fight occurred at that time when she drunkenly punched me in the face.  I couldn't believe that on top of her emotionally controlling behavior, she had become so physically violent.  Unfortunately, the very next morning - before I could say the word 'divorce' - she took a home pregnancy test and discovered we were going to have a family.

Deep breath.  I decided to recommit to 'making it work.'.  My daughter is now ten.

So...  we all might wonder right now why I was with a closeted gay woman for 19 years if our sex life was always broken and if she was always controlling and narcissistic.  I think I was almost as good at the denial as she was.  I wanted to believe in the power-couple image we were projecting.  I wanted to be successful at marriage even at the cost of being effectively alone in life.

I also falsely believed that she would finally be happy and finally behave like a *hetero woman if I could just please her somehow.  So, I threw myself into a creative project.  I figured I could finally impress her as the artist I had always wanted to be.  I worked and worked and after a couple years, when the project was poised to succeed wildly, my wife did something totally unexpected.  She put her name on it and pretended the work was hers.  Then, she quickly derailed the success.

After years of squashing me with her complaints that I was not a successful artist, she purposefully stole and destroyed my opportunity for personal success as an artist.  It had to be hers.

Now, remember that we were splitting a tenure job in a small college.  I was aware that my wife was lying to everybody - including to myself - and I had also been guilty of helping her get to this position by covering for her - both professionally and personally.  With a looming tenure decision, I could not afford to make any moves that might endanger the status quo.  However, my mental health was gone after living with this torture.  I couldn't get away from home at work and I couldn't get away from work at home.  I talked to a couple of my students about what I was going through.  The worst thing I said was my wife is 'a controlling jerk.'  Bad move.  The students were 'traumatized' because they knew my wife, and I was denied tenure after 15 years of working to that point.

Meanwhile, my wife used my 'betrayal' of talking about her to other people as the reason to leave the marriage and start openly dating a tenured female professor she had been in an emotional affair with for 5+ years.  She had the audacity to tell me that she hadn't considered herself gay until I 'melted down' as she calls it.  Her 'newfound' lesbianism is, in her mind, an opportunistic response to my falling apart.  Never mind that she had a heavy role in deliberately crushing me.  Never mind that her only real problem with our marriage is that I no longer want to tell lies for her.

Even the person who originally introduced us has since called my wife 'a taker' and has apologized for her role in introducing us.

I have now lost my career, my marriage, and my home.  I am now unemployed and living in a single room afraid to spend gas money.  Divorce is the next step.  I have even stopped seeing my therapist because SHE is a gay woman who divorced her husband and is now married to a woman.  I am extremely open minded about being gay, but I think I need go where I belong - to the world of straight people.  Life is hard enough.  Sex is hard enough.  Why have I been wasting all this time? 

I am a straight man and I feel like I have been mugged.  Every day.  For 19 years.

How do I rebuild my entire life and identity? 





 

Last edited by Victo (January 7, 2020 11:10 pm)

 

January 7, 2020 7:16 pm  #2


Re: meltdown

Victo,

So sorry...yes they deplete us and then when when we have nothing left to give they pull their final discard (and gay move).

I think you rebuild your life one small baby step at a time.  Rather think of the future.  From all you wrote getting away from her and her abuse is a priceless gift...  ..worth more than tenure or million dollars.

Divorce will allow you to put an end to her taking.  I could not see it at the time but now..years divorced..i thank God on my knees for getting me away from such a horrible person and abuse.


"For we walk by faith, not by sight .."  2Corinthians 5:7
 

January 7, 2020 10:31 pm  #3


Re: meltdown

So sorry you are here, but glad you found this site. I agree with Rob. Take baby steps, one day or one hour at a time if needed. Although it’s hard to imagine now, you will look up soon and your life will be starting to turn around. It’s not without difficult times & decisions, but it is possible.

The key is getting out of this situation and staying out. These people Will suck the life out of us, if we keep allowing it!

Best wishes!

 

January 7, 2020 10:43 pm  #4


Re: meltdown

Hi Victo,

As a straight woman I think the dating lesbians out-competed me even more when I was young.  I was tongue-tied and they were flirty, making smart quips and the men flocked to them - I think it must feel like a test of their virility - this woman is a real challenge.  And with retrospect I think it was the same for me, the men were tongue-tied and it was the gay man who came up and talked to me.  see he wasn't physically attracted to me.

glad you found us, yes my ex would only put his arm round me for the purpose of making a pose, never when we were alone.  and alone we were, got isolated too.  and oh yeah, got my own story of his affect on my artwork.  awful.  sucked off me, crushed me and when none of that worked any more he sabotaged me too.  so there I am, 58 years old and three weeks after I got into my new home I sat down and made a little sculpture.  It is my best ever.  (then I lay on the carpet and cried my eyes out)

as Rob says one step at a time.  Be kind to yourself at all times, check the self criticism in at the door for a while, you did nothing wrong, it's your good qualities that made you attractive to her and kept you there so long, and you need your own shoulder to rely on now.  It will get better in a while, promise.

wishing you all the best, Lily

 

January 9, 2020 4:27 pm  #5


Re: meltdown

Thank you for your responses.  This is the first time I have ever written about or discussed any of this.  I knew for years that my wife was lying and in denial about loving me on the deepest level.  She could say she "loved" me, but it felt like she never LOVED me.  I knew that when she felt insecure about her own issues, she would attack me and pick fights with me that had nothing to do with me or my behavior.  Talk about stressful.  I walked on eggshells for decades.  I knew her energy was spent controlling me and keeping me away from other women, friendships, and connections, and I was completely confused that she would do this and yet NOT touch me.  What was the point? 

Occasionally, she would talk about how cool it must be to be a man who gets to go out and fuck girls.  Her father was a total Lothario and she strangely admired that about him.  She once dared me to have an affair - dismissively noting that I couldn't or wouldn't actually do it.  (Not that I had much of an opportunity given that her office at work was right next to mine and that I rarely was able to go anywhere without her.)  I felt that I was trapped in an extremely emotionally abusive and occasionally physically abusive marriage.  Anything I said could and would be used against me.  Anything I didn't say could and would be used against me.  And because society accepts that women tend to be the victims of domestic abuse before men, I felt additionally trapped.

On the outside, we were a power couple - a dynamic partnership.  On the inside, she was a liar and a taker who sucked my life-force away while offering zero emotional, spiritual, or physical comfort to me.  My only survival tool within the marriage was to shut down and stay quiet.  It was only my deep well of quiet strength that got me through the years until that was drained too.

I just didn't realize she was a lesbian in denial.  I didn't realize that she was controlling me as a way of not dealing with her own sexuality.  Everything finally makes sense but this is really really fucked up.  Had I understood this, I wouldn't have bothered to hope that I could eventually please her, or that she would eventually truly LOVE me.

I appreciate that there are others who have stories like this.  And lily, I had never thought about the 'dating lesbians' though it makes complete sense.  I feel much less stress now that I have reduced contact with her.  I feel more myself than I have in years.

I think the worst thing for me right now is that I don't have any idea anymore how to be a hetero man in a hetero relationship.  Social movements around toxic masculinity and inter-sectional feminism have not helped me.  I am certainly not a fan of male gaze media, of old-fashioned social norms, of aggressive masculinity, or of so-called rape culture.  Inter-sectional feminist theory about overlapping biases of race and gender make sense to me.  However, there is a real social misunderstanding.  Women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ people generally ARE victims in a society that doesn't generally support special needs.  And yet, LGBTQ people are just as capable of specifically victimizing others.  They can weaponize their LGBTQ status.  They can weaponize the forces of cancel culture and social media outrage to shut down discussion about their own faults.

Women can be oppressive.  I can be a victim of a lesbian.  What is masculinity?  What is heterosexual attraction?  How come I don't have any idea about these seemingly basic things despite all of my experience?
 

     Thread Starter
 

January 9, 2020 8:20 pm  #6


Re: meltdown

Hi Victo,

People can be oppressive and use others for their own benefit. It is silly to get a free pass for bad behavior for any reason. I agree.

Hard to say why our spouses turned out like this. Nature, nurture or mix of it?   The end story is the same. My GIDXH was a loser.

I am so sorry this is happening to you. As a suggestion, focus on your needs. You are smart to limit contact with your spouse.  This will help you think clearly and rationally under a high stress situation. Look for another therapist to help you through what may be a high conflict divorce. Get your financial records in order to help you gain a fair settlement.

Take it one step at a time. At each step, focus on your needs.

Best wishes and hope it all works out in your favor.

(Edited for clarity.)

Last edited by MJM017 (January 9, 2020 8:21 pm)


No - It's not too late. It's not hopeless. Even there, there's something I can do. I just have to find the will. Ikiru (1952), film directed by Akira Kurosawa 
 

January 9, 2020 9:21 pm  #7


Re: meltdown

"..I think the worst thing for me right now is that I don't have any idea anymore how to be a hetero man in a hetero relationship.  Social movements around toxic masculinity.."

I can recommend the book I was given; John Eldrege's book Wild at Hearthttps://www.amazon.com/Wild-Heart-Discovering-Secret-Mans/dp/0785268839
It is written for Christian men;   as men we are made in Gods image.    Even if you are not religious  you can take away from it we should not be ashamed of our masculinity.   It is part of who we are.  

Being a man/woman is ok..  it is these spouses that brainwashed us into suppressing  or thinking its not ok.




 


"For we walk by faith, not by sight .."  2Corinthians 5:7
 

March 3, 2021 6:10 pm  #8


Re: meltdown

Hope you're okay out there, Victo.

Your story really resonated with me. Here's wishing you're on a beach someone smiling on the other side of this.

Victo wrote:

Occasionally, she would talk about how cool it must be to be a man who gets to go out and fuck girls.  Her father was a total Lothario and she strangely admired that about him.  She once dared me to have an affair - dismissively noting that I couldn't or wouldn't actually do it.  (Not that I had much of an opportunity given that her office at work was right next to mine and that I rarely was able to go anywhere without her.)  I felt that I was trapped in an extremely emotionally abusive and occasionally physically abusive marriage.  Anything I said could and would be used against me.  Anything I didn't say could and would be used against me.  And because society accepts that women tend to be the victims of domestic abuse before men, I felt additionally trapped.
 

When I stumbled across my wife's texts to other women and was struggling to make sense of it I ran across her music account. Her favorite song was a strange rap tune I'd never heard before. When I looked it up the lyrics were something like "Wouldn't it be great to be one of the guys? Having a beautiful woman every night? Keeping it secret and never again saying 'hi'?" Oddly, this shocked me. She listened to this song about being a cheater literally hundreds of times!

But I never made the family connection before...my wife's dad was the same: a serial cheater. It destroyed her childhood. She was mirroring this destructive behavior. Hmm.

The trapped feeling! I know this so well. I would break out into a sweat if I was a minute late. I would fear coming home to see if she was in one of her moods. I was genuinely scared of her, though I couldn't admit it to myself. And the fear of speaking up was so massive, only to get worse when she hit me in front of our daughter, I recorded the audio, and the police blamed me without wanting to listen to it. The system is positioned to believe them, and it really is up to chance far more than I ever dreamed if you make it through.

Again, wishing you happiness out there.

 

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