I only have myself to blame for ignoring my gut hundreds of times/ways over almost 30 years about his sexuality, which he still won't admit. I rationalized away so many things. Believed so many lies. I'm the fool. The first thing I questioned was his mauve bedsheets, shortly after we started dating ("They were on sale; I'm frugal!" he laughed). He had hair highlights in high school and a body wave, and wore a pink tie for senior photos?? ("Everyone did - we all liked Miami Vice!"). He chose his favorite sports team because their jerseys are purple. He was in choir ("easy A! A way to meet chicks..."). Belong to a frat. Loved to play and watch sports and be in the gym. Something was off when he performed oral sex (gay guys don't go down on women, right?!). It didn't feel good...not familiar with his target to the point of pain. I gave him credit for trying and never had to endure it again for the next 30 years  His kissing (when it happened was also robotically bad. (He'll get better moves over time, right?!). And then we married for insurance reasons and he never held my hand - ever. It was humiliating to ask for natural affection, to coach, to cajole. So, I stopped. He was never jealous of other men who flirted with me. He just didn't want me to embarrass him in any way, socially. It seemed like he flirted with men at times, overly ribbing the same guy (no pun) at parties or going out of his way to buy farewell gifts for certain men he admired. He commented on a pastor's body language once - that he must've been a tight end in football. Meanwhile, I could walk past him naked while in the best shape of my life and he wouldn't even care. No use for breasts at all. Admitted he didn't really like touching women down there ("lots of guys don't!" he claimed). Since I'm a girl, I could never understand why men would like it, especially oral sex, so I believed him, even though my previous boyfriends seemed eager to enjoy it. He didn't care when I was ill or burdened, Let me cry all night, as I cleaned our apartment alone for an inspection the next day. He didn't think we needed to do it even though the landlords were our good friends. Such examples multiplied.

Over time, I figured out why he was in his 20s with low libido. He was taking care of himself - daily (for the whole marriage). When I asked about it, he denied it. Decades later, he claimed it was "for me," so he could last longer during the two times a month (average) we had sex. Usually in a spooning position without kissing, without affection. I told him all along - "it feels like prostitution on my end, there's no intimacy, you never kiss me, except like a grandpa with wooden pecks, I feel like a toilet, there's no connection, it feels robotic, mechanical, perfunctory..." Every time we took a trip (and there were many), he started by doing a solo walkabout ("to recon dinner places"). (This was all long before I started researching the problem and found people like Bonnie Kaye's writing on the subject.) On and on. He would rally for a short time and then go right back to his old ways. And if I felt especially connected to him on some rare occasion, he would 'ghost' me physically thereafter until I was angry or withdrawn again. When I pulled back, he poured it on thick. When I was hooked, he broke my spirit. Over and over. Up and down like that. And then I said I didn't trust him anymore. He called me crazy. I wanted to divorce. Later, I found his texts by accident with a woman from his past. So not gay, right? "She didn't even look that good," he said. He only reached out because I was talking divorce. Blah. Blah. New supply, validation, now that I'd told him my gay suspicions...Had to prove to himself he isn't. He stopped doing all the "gay" things (as I saw them), like having his pinky literally in the air, admiring fashion brand names people wore, wearing loud colors, buying new red underwear, obsessively going to the gym, drinking like a fish or trying to get me drunk to have sex (on those rare occasions), trying to watch girly shows ("to bond with his daughter"), buying Men's Health ("for articles about repairing our relationship" - barf), chatting up young, hot teenage men, being bitchy over comments about his weight or appearance, enjoying cleaning up or cooking and avoiding anything most men enjoy, watching sports with a pillow over his groin, grinning weirdly as a man complimented his calves, hanging around our kids' cute male friends and trying to be the cool dad (but disappearing otherwise), gushing about certain male coworkers or friends,

When kids came along, I was too busy for a whole decade to notice much of his BS. I tried to be the perfect housewife and mom and failed miserably. He criticized my cooking, my sweatpants, my lack of lingerie-wearing, my mothering, my lack of organization with details about school stuff or money. Then when I went to grad school part-time and got a job, he told me I was ignoring him and the kids and he denigrated my salary as not even worth all the time spent. He liked to make a show of churchgoing. I said we (his family) were "props" and "interchangeable," all to make him look like some family man. He denied it. Invoked scriptures to keep me in the marriage. Sobbed alligator tears once and then quickly recovered. The first time I told him I thought he might be gay (abt 15 yrs into the marriage) he said, "you turned me," as if that were funny. Later, he would call me a "lesbo." On the night I finally moved into the guest room -- for the next several years -- he asked me "to do one thing for him" before I went (he meant fellatio). I hyperventilated in tears, disgust, and anger. He was callous and immature. Always "joking" when he'd hurt us in some way with his comments. Was enraged that I'd told him earnestly that I thought he was gay (in private), to the point of breaking in half a thick wooden backscratcher I had. He brought this gay suspicion up first (I never did, out of shame) to all four therapists we saw across the years, to show them how "mean" he said I was, how disrespectful. Only one agreed "there must be something there to explore." The rest took him on his word that he was straight. There's never enough time or interest during therapy to go through hundreds of examples of weird behaviors normal men never do. (And everyone says they're no proof anyway. I disagree...)

In the final throes of my misery, he invoked the possible sexual abuse he'd never brought up in 28 years, allegedly involving his older brother (who got creeped on by a male pedo teacher in middle school and seems gay to me) and a male friend of his brother's. As a survivor myself, I empathized. Now, I question his whole story, after listing to Ryan King's excellent podcast on 'Our Voices.' To this day, my ex still denies being gay, even now that we're divorcing (now that our kids are grown). He bought a home in the gayest acre of our city and joined the Y, where he does yoga. He's already hunting a new woman (supply) to come and cook and clean for free... She's older and lonely. He buys her gifts. A perfect target. Though I know I need to let go, forgive, move on, and all of that, I'm not there yet. The one thing I needed and wanted in life was not to be taken advantage of again, to be objectified like I was at age five by a stranger. My ex knew I needed trust more than anything (we all do) and used me all over again anyway. He destroyed my trust in men - even in God at times. I learned too late that the ex was a stranger to me, too, who could lie right to my face, easily and often, as he did when I asked about the texts with the other woman and other stuff.

And now, he's living his best life, moving right on, keeping a large chunk of the money I helped him attain over three decades. And I'm alone. I will never like or respect him. I will never fully forgive him or myself. All I can do is pray that God will heal me, body and spirit, from all my mistakes. His Holy Spirit tried mightily and often to warn me of what I was dealing with. I didn't listen. Ladies, trust your "gut." It's God speaking, in His still, small voice. As therapist Mira Kirschenbaum says, "if [a man] is not a definite "YES," he's a definite "NO." Tell your daughters the signs. Protect them from these people. They are still out there despite their freedoms in modern culture. Listen to Ryan King. He is a godsend who speaks the truth in the "absolution" he's earning, by laying bare the truth of these players. Good luck and God bless you. I hope you'll know the truth and that it will set you free.