Before:  https://www.chumplady.com/2019/06/dear-chump-lady-my-wife-cheated-with-a-woman/

After:  https://www.chumplady.com/2020/07/one-guy-chumps-gain-a-life-story/

Now:  I think to some degree, I'll always be working on it.  I've been in a great relationship with a straight spouse with kids of her own for the last 1.5 years.  Not sure what your story is, but I could not imagine remaining with someone who didn't love me enough to reveal her true sexual orientation to me despite marching up to the wedding altar with me and having kids with me.  Willful deception of this kind and of this degree was not something I could (or should) overlook.  Stay in therapy, keep talking to others, keep seeking support.  The only way to get to the other side is to get to the other side.

Good luck.

Last edited by Blue Bear (April 12, 2021 1:45 pm)

My life is very much still a work in progress after my divorce from my still-closeted trans-identifying ex-husband.

I am three years out from leaving (I sold him my half of the house), two and a half from finalizing the divorce.  Eight months after the divorce was finalized, I retired (my spouse and I worked together, and I retired two years earlier than I otherwise would, just to get away from him).  So in the space of one year, I both divorced and retired.   

As soon as I retired, I moved temporarily 1000 miles away to look after my aging mother for six months, and when I returned home to my rented apartment Covid restrictions hit, so I was locked in place there from March 2020 to March 2021 (I have had my two covid vaccinations by mid March this year).  The year of the Covid lockdown (I am over 65, so very careful) afforded me introspection and healing.  Currently, I am back at my mom's, to supervise her move to assisted living and cleaning out her condominium, for several months.  

 So a pursuit of a wholly "new life" has been in limbo, and moving forward into it--including house hunting and moving--has been put on hold.  However, in the three years since I moved out, I have gone through the grieving process, and although I have not surmounted all triggers (I do not talk to or see my ex), and there are stresses from family obligations, I have no regrets about leaving.  Living alone has been so much more peaceful and so much less stressful. I am able to direct my own life, and to make the decisions I need to make, instead of always reacting I can now take action, and the sense of freedom I have from no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop (my ex's next boundary breaking move) is palpable.  

  I am looking to move, and although not my plan, I may end up moving to the town where my mother will be in assisted living.  Not my first choice, but a compromise between individual desire and my sense of obligation and duty to my mother.  I grew up there, and although not the sleepy mountain town it was, I know and love the place itself (if not the presence of too many newcomers).

  My only regrets have to do with my son, who has not been told about his father's proclivities, because my ex is still in the closet, and I opted not to tell at the time I left.  (I did this partly because my then husband browbeat me and partly because I didn't want to derail our son, who I thought would likely react to the news of his father's trans identity with some of the same awful questioning of self that I did, and I wanted to spare him.)

No magic moment.  But I am financially stable and have, contrary to my fears about finances, managed well on what I have.  

One surprise: I had been married to my now ex for 35 years when I left, and had loved him for more than 40 years, but I find that in just three years he occupies almost no space in my mind.  I don't pine for him, or look back with nostalgic fondness on our time together.  I suppose the final awful years after the trans bomb drop are the touchstone for me now as I consider our marriage, and although I am still coming to terms with the full implications of having lived for over 30 years with a man with a secret, my thoughts are more abstract than emotional, and my focus is on identifying what in me I want to change or overcome, and not at all on him.  And that, too, is a surprise, because for the 40 years I knew him I was his emotional and psychological care-taker (and he liked it that way, as he liked me fixing my attention on him).  

  I doubt I will ever have another relationship; it if happens, great, but I am well into my mid-60s, so I'm not looking.  What I am looking forward to is integrating myself into a new community, making new friends and cultivating a social network (in person...), committing myself to new pursuits and doubling down on old ones. 

 I would have preferred to have had the husband I thought I had and the life I thought we could have in retirement.  But even before the trans bomb drop, my now ex was not an easy man to live with (although he had me believing I was the problem), and many times I have found myself almost grateful to him for freeing me from his unhappiness. 

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (April 12, 2021 3:38 pm)

My late ex-husband never admitted to being gay. I saw one Facebook post 18 years into our marriage that hinted at him having sex with a teenage boy, but he denied it.

I ended the marriage, or ran from it,  due to years of his horrible abuse and threatening behavior.  Calling 911 finally for help was the best thing I could have done.  His arrest was the catalyst to separate and then divorce. My attorney used the arrest and financial records I had of squandering of assets to increase my portion of community property to over 50%.   He did send me veiled threats while he was alive. I pursued a permanent restraining order & he ceased contact.  In hindsight, I realize the worst place for a gay man would be in prison. 

It was a relief when he passed away some months after the divorce.  I grieved the end of my marriage and his death simultaneously. It has taken time dealing with the trauma and PTSD from throughout our years together.

I have much of my old life back and am working on the rest. That was my goal. I loved my job and my coworkers. I loved where I lived & am still living in the same home. He caused continuous torment and drama. It is a blessing to be free of that. It’s a gift.

COVID put a damper on my social life. We are still in lockdown after March 2020. It’s supposed to be lifted in mid-June. I received my 1st vaccine and will get the second in May. Am pretty happy!!

P.S. I hope this may help those who have gay spouses who are deeply troubled. My late ex-h was a gifted writer, and had his Master’s in Journalism from a good school.

Last edited by MJM017 (April 13, 2021 6:39 pm)

(10.30.2012), literally on a dark and stormy night, I discovered my then-husband’s stash of women’s lingerie, wigs,  jewelry, nail polish and makeup  in a suitcase he hid in his car, under his golf clubs.
So much clarity came to me. Swoosh. Almost too much reality. I would swear, though,  I was led to that discovery by a LOVING energy in the Universe. I guess I was ready to handle what came from his omissions to tell me about who he was and what he was doing. Omissions about how he was getting sexual satisfaction = lies, no matter how he spun it.
With the help of this public forum among the support I sought out,  I began recovery from 1) the devastation of learning my husband of decades had been deceiving me AND 2) the darkness within me that allowed, permitted so much deprivation in our marriage, half of which I was celibate.
No more, no more, no more. Day by day, inch by inch, I got “out”, working at points along the way with a marriage counselor, a financial planner and a mediator. I just couldn’t get beyond his betrayal of my trust and stay in the marriage. In my experience, being in our home together but leading separate, parallel lives was the loneliest I’ve ever been in my whole life and  lonelier than living alone.
He moved out about two years after I made the discovery  ( 9.4.2014) and we were divorced almost two years after that (7.5.2016) while our three 20-something sons were home visiting and still asleep upstairs. I took my wedding ring and 25th anniversary ring to a jeweler to take apart and then meld together to make me a “family” ring, as a symbol that even if the marriage didn’t survive, the family will, in a different form.
Did I ever imagine I’d be divorced at 56, just after all our sons had launched? I think not. As I look back, I guess what I see is that I wouldn’t have gotten through the discovery and it’s impact, like a boxer’s gut-punch, unless I’d first begun to realize I deserved better. I deserved abundance, not the deepest deprivation. And with time, distance, and the hard work of loving myself, so much abundance has arrived: my sons still come home to visit, I have a job I love, good friends, I met a kind, communicative, romantic man who has been a true partner. No, he’s not perfect and neither am I but for the first time in my life I feel like he’s on my team, a team supporting how I try to live my best life.
I see my ex occasionally because he still lives in town. Yes, there’s still some faint grief, mostly that I wasn’t able to give my kids the intact family any kids want. Yes, I still have work to do to forgive him.  I also can’t help but think about how imprisoned my ex was and is—remembering how he begged me “not to tell”, and I’ve kept my word. He’s been with another woman now for over a year and I want to beg him to tell her, to spare putting her through what I had to endure. But then I get myself back on “my side of the street” where I’m FREE!

"He's too clueless to know that he is the inadvertent beneficiary of my happiness at no longer being married to him"   OMG Abby,  what a great line and what a great place to be emotionally!  

Last edited by Lynne (April 14, 2021 12:28 pm)