I appreciate you posting LMM. Before getting started, I'd encourage you to: 

1. Read this website's OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum » First Aid Kit: How to survive finding out your partner is LGBT (boardhost.com)
2. Get tested for STDs/STIs. 
3. Reach out to friends/family or Personal Support - OurPath for help. 

In reply: 

1. This is very helpful for me to read. I married my bisexual husband as a very strict religious kid just out of college, after his conversion therapy told him he’d stop having same sex attraction if he married a girl. Like God would remove it because of his faith. He felt attraction to women, but wanted the male attraction gone because it was seen as evil. Of course, it didn’t go away and we both have had 20 years of painful marriage because of that lie.

This is a common story and I'm so sorry you've both suffered. "Pray Away" is an excellent Netflix documentary about faith-based reparative/conversion therapy. It is now understood that sexuality cannot be changed through such methods and many former leaders of such groups have now condemned such practices.   

2. In October I found Our Path and heard a podcast that may be yours. It wrecked me! It was our story. He listened and then went out for hours of driving, because it cracked open his denial and abuse of me.

If you're referring to this podcast: S4 Ep 3: A “Narcissist in Recovery” Gets Real - OurPath, yes this is me. I'm sorry if it caused you more pain but am also relieved that your husband admitted he was abusing you. Denying our wives sex/intimacy, gaslighting/blaming them, cheating on them, and lying about our sexuality are all forms of abuse in my opinion.  

3. The sexless marriage, blaming everything on me, being emotionally cruel but also very helpful so everyone saw him as godly. He came home, asked me if we could go away from the kids to talk, and for two hours he confessed that he was doing this to me.

Good. I hope he apologized as well. 

4. I didn’t realize before that the sexuality was the reason - I always thought I was disappointing and unlovable.

None of this is your fault. 

5. We’re in marriage therapy, he’s getting his own sex therapy, he was diagnosed with Intimacy Anorexia and he’s recovering.

I also hope you're in individual counselling because you're a victim as well. 

6. In this new recovery, he’s admitting that he doesn’t like our 5 kids. He’s never attached to them or felt like a dad. He resents having to take care of them. He doesn’t like having all these little kids always around. I don’t get it at all!

That's quite the admission. While I know it's a lot, please also try to focus on how this is affecting your children. They are often the silent victims of toxic gay/straight marriages. 

7. But he says he wanted to move up in church leadership and also avoid suspicion about his sexuality. Having a big family meant everyone seeing him as loving kids. It’s so confusing to me.

His sexuality does not explain everything...some men are just *ssholes and terrible fathers. Again I'd consult with a child psychologist because it's highly damaging for children to grow up with angry/resentful fathers who don't love them. 

8. But I’ve always FELT all of this, and was deeply pained by how he isn’t really connected to them. I just didn’t know why, since he’s more helpful with kid stuff than any dads I know.

For me personally, there was often an element of performance in everything I did and this included fatherhood. As I shared during the above podcast, closeted/questioning husbands like me are often very good at being "on stage." This means I "played" the good dad and perfect husband for others. But once I was "off stage" I stopped.  

9. We’re trying to make this MOM work. He’s now really loving and initiates sex all the time. He’s doing great in therapy, is switching careers so he can stop being burned out and drained.

I myself am against mixed orientation marriages, particularly when husbands are gay and have a history of abuse.  Statistically most MOMs fail but there are support groups for MOMs and a thread on this forum as well. With regards to him initiating sex, I'm very happy for you both but I'd be mindful that there is often a "honeymoon" phase in these relationships. By "honeymoon" I mean a short period of a few weeks or months during which the gay/questioning husband furiously acts like the perfect spouse to keep his wife from separating/divorcing. (Some books also refer to this as "love bombing.")  

10. I’m eager to see who he really is when he’s more healed and authentic.

Based on my experience, the "honeymoon" phase doesn't last more than 3-6 months. If after this time, he's back to his former toxic ways, once again is the angry/distant father, and he no longer has sex with you, I'd discuss all of this with your qualified therapist in individual counselling (not with your marriage counsellor). I'd also suggest journaling so that you can keep track of everything because gay/questioning husbands often shift blame on to their caring/empathetic wives.  

11. We left church so he’s not performing for them any more! I have so much pain from how he abused me, but also hope now for the first time.

The difficulty for straight spouses in your position is determining who you married. Is this new "honeymoon" version of your husband really him or is he just playing the role of "recovered husband"? Only time will tell. I apologize if I've rained on your parade because I do want you to be aware of the risks in these marriages. Regardless, I applaud your husband for finally being honest with you, hope his abuse stops, and wish you both good luck. 

12. [Added from your post on the MOM thread] But I worry about misleading him. I’ve told him that I agree with his therapist that when our kids are grown and our worldviews have time to grow, I might be OK with different things. He hopes I'll be OK with something like him having oral sex with a guy at a gay bar but not emotion-charged sex in the sense of spending the night in bed with a guy or having ongoing relationships. For now, it feels good to say “Hey, we’ve changed so much lately maybe I’d be fine. But there’s a good chance I won’t.” Still, he may be pinning a lot of hope on it because now for the first time there’s a chance.

Good on you for setting your boundaries: NO to an open marriage until our young children are grown and out of the house. If I'm reading this correctly, you've just started couples counselling and your husband is pushing hard for an open relationship. If true, that's some straight up bullsh*t. A kind and caring husband would: acknowlege your feelings; apologize for hurting you; stop making you feel like you're holding him back from "exploring" (read: cheating); and then let you set the timeline for moving forward. While I'm not a mental health professional, you appear to be apologizing for having boudaries and I reckon your boundaries are more than justified: you're not ready for an open marriage. It's perfectly normal to state: "I'm uncomfortable with my husband f*cking other men." A normal/loving husband would respect this totally acceptable boundary. An abusive husband punishes you for non-compliance with things like brooding behaviour, the silent treatment, and little digs to chip away at your resistance (inappropriate statements to test you followed by "I'm just joking...lighten up!"). This is why I'd urge you to have individual counselling to have someone 100% focused on you and perhaps explore co-dependency. Moreover, he's using the bullsh*t Christian/conversion therapy language like "blowjobs aren't cheating" (wrong) and "it's ok if I don't have feelings for the other man" (again wrong). Cheating is cheating, particularly if he's choosing to have sex with men outside of your marriage. So what's my point? He doesn't get to set the agenda here: you do. He doesn't understand honesty enough to declare his sexual preference: you do. He doesn't have the right to unilaterally open you relationship: that's a decision for both of you. From what I understand, most women in your situation who have successful MOMs acknowledge their husband's attraction to men, without opening the marriage. While I'd discuss this with a mental health professional, I think it's a huge red flag if your husband is so quickly pushing to open your marriage and appears to be oblivious as to why you have boundaries about the same. End of rant! 

Thanks again for posting and please keep coming back. As always, if you disagree with anything I wrote or would like to ask additional questions, feel free to post again. Be well! 

Last edited by Sean (January 19, 2022 4:51 am)

Thank you for replying LMM. You wrote: 

1. Thanks so much for these thoughts - truly helpful! I actually found Our Path through the "Pray Away" movie website!

Glad you found help/support. For those who don't know "Pray Away", it's a Netflix documentary about conversion therapy. 

2. My husband had conversion therapy from those people as a teen, but watched Pray away without realizing he’d see the people who abused and damaged him. Then he asked me to watch with him, and he was even more broken watching it again. It was good but very hard for him to see those same people apologizing and recanting what he was still trying to do.

I can imagine watching "Pray Away" was difficult for you as well. 

3. He was gone the next morning, just disappeared in sort of a breakdown that day. He cried for days and he never cried our whole marriage, even when our kid almost died in the ICU! A few days later I found your interview and that’s when he really opened up to how bad he treated me.

Let's hope that honesty and healing continue. 

4. It’s helpful to know about the 3-6 month [honeymoon] phase. I’ve wondered that.

For those who haven't read our previous exchange, I mentioned that gay/questioning husbands often initiate a "honeymoon" phase following conflict. In my limited experience, it's an intense period of "love bombing" during which he tries to win back a straight spouse; a spouse who is seriously considering separation/divorce. He initiates sex (often after years without intimacy), buys her gifts, talks about his feelings, and generally acts like the husband/father she's always wanted. Sadly, it's often short-lived. Many gay-in-denial (GID) husbands can only keep this act up for a few weeks or months. Over time he eventually falls back into old habits: no sex; back on gay porn; verbal abuse; or (worse) cheating with men. My point is that only time will tell if he's changed or is pretending to have changed.   

5. I’ve had my own therapy a few years now and just joined a 12 step group to heal from abuse. Everyone tells me to only trust changes behaviors, not words!

Good for you! Joining a 12-step programme for abuse is an excellent idea. I hope you find a lot of love and support through that fellowship. 

6. I’ve been amazed at how remorseful he is, after never admitting to being wrong before. When he broke down, he really pulled back the curtain to show me why things happened. He’s afraid he’ll go back to that. He apologized to our older kids for making them think things were my fault and making himself look like the stable, nice parent. We’ll see if he keeps recovering.

Again this is a very good start. Only time will tell if he's a loveably bunny or a scorpion who just occasionally wore a bunny suit to hide his true nature.  

7. Our kids have all been in individual therapy for trauma and anxiety for a couple years. Now I understand why they all needed it so badly. We just found out our youngest (at 5) isn’t autistic, like they thought for 3 years, but has complex PTSD. This family life is a killer for kids.

Amen! Thank you for having the courage to share this. Toxic dads and toxic marriages are like second-hand smoke for children...meaning that no matter how much we parents try to hide and protect them from the smoke, it gets into everything and everyone. 

8. I was a really sheltered but gentle and kind Christian girl who thought I’d love being a mom. Instead I’ve been in this unmanageable life of constant pain.

I'm so sorry you and your children have suffered.  

9. I wish I could go back and not listen to the Christians who said God called me to heal his sexual problems. It’s not fair to my kids that they were born into this nightmare.

This hurts my heart but I reckon you're doing the right things to protect yourself and your family. Thank you again for sharing so openly & honestly. Be well! 

Thank you for writing Parker Ann. In reply: 

1. Thanks again for your quick responses.

My pleasure. Click here if you'd like to read our original exchange. 

2. He wrote me a letter coming out to me. When I started questioning him is when he slowly gave me more of the truth.

The gay husband's coming out journey is a bit like an iceberg, meaning 9/10ths of the truth often remains below water. Feel free to share the details of this letter if you like as it might help other straight spouses. 

3. That's when he told me about the sexual relations with the Best Man.

Follow this link to read about her husband having sex with his best man before the wedding. As I shared near the end of my recent podcast interview S4 Ep 3: A “Narcissist in Recovery” Gets Real - OurPath, it's quite common for the closeted Christian/Evangelical husband to date/hook up with another dad who is part of his religious community. These men consider each other "safe" because they simply can't come out, in their minds, without destroying their lives and the lives of their families. I call this the "mutually assured destruction clause" meaning that both men feel a certain false safety in their relationship because neither man plans to come out.     

4. He proceeded to protect their marriage instead of ours. That was a huge sign to me to leave.

I believe you're referring to the best man/lover getting caught and then deciding to stay married to his wife. If you can, please explain why this motivated you to leave. 

5. I'm so thankful you have come forward to answer so many questions. You don't know how much it means to me!

That's very kind of you but please keep in mind that I'm no saint! While closeted and shortly after coming out, I did many of the monstrous things described in my exchanges with straight spouses over the years. But thank you nonetheless. Be well! 

Last edited by Sean (January 20, 2022 5:00 am)

I’ve made some big leaps into new territory lately, after getting feedback here. Talked to my aunt who lives nearby, whose daughter is a lesbian in a longtime relationship. And talked to my pastor at the little affirming, open minded church that I now attend.

My aunt said my lesbian cousin has been very concerned since she met my husband that he seems gay. This floored me! I thought he gave no clues after college. She doesn’t know him as the drama and musical guy, she knows him as the tough renovate the fixer upper houses guy! My aunt, uncle and cousin kept thinking about this more (not less) but couldn’t bear the thought of possibly saying it to a straight church leader.

My pastor was wonderfully helpful. He gave me a new idea about divorce - if the marriage covenant is broken already, maybe divorce is just the legal fact when there’s no real marriage going on in the home. The more I talked to him, I realized that I feel very peaceful and happy if I think of raising my kids without the emotional drama and roller coaster of my husbands ongoing depression, abusiveness and needing me to accommodate everything we do around his comfort.

He was really shaken up last week when I said it’s monogamous marriage only for me. I did it in a cuddly, sweet moment and made it lighthearted but he immediately got stiff, quiet and went to bed without another word. Basically immediate abandonment happens if I speak this need of mine. Now he’s gone all week in a nearby city to stay at a hotel because he needs personal space to lower his anxiety. I’m wondering this time if he may cheat.

I’m planning to tell him that I love the way he’s healing and being authentic lately. I would love to see us walk that out and build a marriage where we both feel safe and loved. But I also see that it may not be authentic to him. And if there’s ANY chance of that, I’d rather cut our ties now. My aunt pointed out that I’m 40, so divorcing now with a house full of kids is better than him leaving me in20 years at empty nest time.

I feel good right now about being decisive. My religious fears about divorce are gone. I think God would have liked me divorcing him at the first year! When I “try on” what daily life is like without him, it’s like I have my full brain and personality working instead of 80% focused on all his comfort needs.

Thanks, Sean, because what you said here really validates me. I actually already had an unexpected phone call with him, a very long one that brought necessary truths out. When I asked, he said that he doesn’t have attraction to my body. He likes me as a person and our shared history. He pushes himself to get through sex now (as opposed to years of not having it). He’s basically just performing, wanting to give us the “happy” life.

He wants to stay married. He doesn’t want to be single and live alone and doesn’t want to be with a guy. But he kept saying he sees that I deserve being with a straight guy. He’s trying hard to convince me that sex is only 1% of life, and that everything else matters a lot more. The saddest part was him vowing he’ll really kill “that part” of himself, no more porn or anything, and he’ll be a good husband/dad so he can stay.

I believe that all my years of praying, fasting, imploring God to heal our marriage are coming into play now. It’s coming painfully clear that the marriage is a sham, a cover. God can’t heal what’s not even there. God’s  mercifully setting me free from all the false hopes.