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1 - LMM
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Futility or Productive Work?
I’m a 40-yr-old wife with several young kids and bisexual husband, just 3 months into this revelation of why he was so harsh and closed off from me.
He’s seeing a sex therapist to heal from conversion therapy and we’re seeing a Christian marriage therapist. His sex therapist told him often that we need to put everything on the table for future sex life choices, and then slowly as the years go by we can decide which things are good and healthy for us. We’ve been fundamentalist Christians our whole lives til 2020 (though he was sneaking gay porn). So we never had any choices except straight, monogamous marriage and many limits within that. It feels healthy to say we don’t know what’s really OK or not and what we think about moral standards. We now accept that his sexuality isn’t evil or Satanic, so who knows what else is actually OK.
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 Ill 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.
Part of me thinks we should make a 100% agreement that marriage is monogamous so that he can mourn that life he never got. To me it’s similar to my sister’s infertility, how she is mourning that she’ll never have kids. People grieve over things and move on. I’ve grieved that my abusive, addict parents won’t ever be real parents and that I can’t visit them or hope for a happy ending. That almost killed me but I grieved and got therapy and accepted it. My husband chose to marry a girl, and he can grieve that our society boxed him in when he could have had sex with guys.
Part of me also thinks maybe it’s better to give him free reign because then he’s choosing me. Do I want to be with a man who has to grieve to stay with me? Is it real love then? After 2 decades of feeling unwanted and rejected, I don’t want to feel like he’s stuck with me.
- lily
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Re: Futility or Productive Work?
you sound like you are very prepared to believe things might be different to how you feel they are and it sounds like there are plenty of therapists and priests to tell you things are whatever way they want to say they are.
I'd like to point out that your sister is grieving the loss of her children - she is experiencing a grief that she will have to live with for the rest of her life. It's not a grief she can move on from.
Your husband will only mourn the loss of his lover for as long as he stays away from men. Same for you, btw.
and as you say you've had 20 years of feeling unwanted and rejected.
Whether you give him permission to have sex with men or not is not going to change this basic response - he is not attracted to women, it's men that attract him. do you want to have sex with a woman? I mean seriously, think about how you feel. It's like your mind doesn't even want to go there isn't it. sexual orientation is not a choice, it is not going to change whatever anyone says or does. He can't choose you. Well you could try dressing up as a man, flatten your chest, glue a moustache, etc on...and act all manly of course.
Last edited by lily (January 18, 2022 1:28 pm)
- LMM
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Re: Futility or Productive Work?
lily wrote:
you sound like you are very prepared to believe things might be different to how you feel they are and it sounds like there are plenty of therapists and priests to tell you things are whatever way they want to say they are.
I'd like to point out that your sister is grieving the loss of her children - she is experiencing a grief that she will have to live with for the rest of her life. It's not a grief she can move on from.
Your husband will only mourn the loss of his lover for as long as he stays away from men. Same for you, btw.
and as you say you've had 20 years of feeling unwanted and rejected.
Whether you give him permission to have sex with men or not is not going to change this basic response - he is not attracted to women, it's men that attract him. do you want to have sex with a woman? I mean seriously, think about how you feel. It's like your mind doesn't even want to go there isn't it. sexual orientation is not a choice, it is not going to change whatever anyone says or does. He can't choose you. Well you could try dressing up as a man, flatten your chest, glue a moustache, etc on...and act all manly of course.
Lily, thanks for these thoughts that help me clarify the things spinning in my mind! I’ve never thought about it, but a big YES that I’m willing to think my feelings are wrong to trust. That’s why I’m here, why I let an abusive church control my whole adult life. I grew up with really unhealthy parents and in churches that said, “Never trust what you feel is going on. Trust your parents/pastor because they give you real truth that’s not your emotional reaction.”
To the rest, I’m not sure it applies. He’s very attracted to women, but also men. He says if he were single and now not under the religious system, he’d definitely sleep around with women. But also men. Now that our relationship is healing, he’s very attracted to me and sex is awesome. He’s emotionally connected and he is really turned on by my body, not just the fact that I’m there to have sex.
So that’s why I’m wondering if he can grieve that he won’t be with men, sort of like he’s now grieving that he’ll never have the career choices he always wanted because he got married in college and had kids right away and moved to the country. He’s so angry and regretful that he can’t go back and build a business career. Starting now isn’t an option with our family needs. It’s different, but I see him accepting that he chose another path that limits his life.
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Thread Starter- lily
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Re: Futility or Productive Work?
oh dear. That's a lot of smoke you're getting blown in your direction, I wonder if the sex therapist is adding to it.
we often hear the same thing experienced, to the point there is a phrase for it - 'honeymoon phase' refers to the period of time a GID husband will romance his wife in order to keep her. It doesn't last, it's a performance.
Have you ever played with magnets? either they stick together like there's no tomorrow or they push apart like there's a forcefield between them. It's attract/repulse.
Evidence you have - "20 years of feeling unwanted and rejected."
20 years. I'd just like to point out how damn insulting it is of him to say if he were single he'd definitely sleep around with women - why then has your sex life been so lack lustre, is it just you he rejected? such bs.
Being able to perform sexually regardless of the magnetic element of sexual attraction takes what it does.
Have you found Sean's thread yet?
- Ellexoh_nz
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Re: Futility or Productive Work?
I told my partner I wanted our r'ship to be monogamous. He was resentful and agreed with it but said he would never tell me if he ever met anyone. We are no longer intimate though still together, both seemingly stuck here... Waiting.
The only productive work will be you trying for a semblance of normality in a sea of mistrust and the broken pieces of your future.
If you dream of the touch of a real man and not somebody pretending to be one... gather yourself and stay planning a new life.
And stop making this about him. He doesn't deserve you
Elle
KIA KAHA
- LMM
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Re: Futility or Productive Work?
Have you ever played with magnets? either they stick together like there's no tomorrow or they push apart like there's a forcefield between them. It's attract/repulse.
Evidence you have - "20 years of feeling unwanted and rejected."
20 years. I'd just like to point out how damn insulting it is of him to say if he were single he'd definitely sleep around with women - why then has your sex life been so lack lustre, is it just you he rejected? such bs.
This hit me hard. In a freeing, breath of fresh air way! The idea that we’ve had since he broke down and opened up is that he’s been really clinically depressed and taking out all his pain on me. Making me out to be defective, disappointing and bad for him so that he can emotionally stab me and beat me up. Make himself feel like a victim. That’s why he acted like the guy in the narcissist interview (Sean), because if I deserve to be avoided and blamed, then of course he doesn’t want sex with me or closeness in any way.
Then we watched Pray Away on Netflix about his reparative therapy and we listened to Sean’s interview. He saw he was wrong. Therapy showed him I’ve been acting safe all along. That I’ve been enduring this without ever hurting him. Then he really got remorseful and caring.
All that to say, I know I’ve been rejected all these years. Now I finally see that I didn’t ever deserve it. And I’m not taking it anymore. We’ve never really gotten to see if we can magnetically attract, because neither of us was a healthy adult here. When I keep standing up for myself and the honeymoon phase is over, will he still attract towards me or not? That’s the big question and we’re 3 months into the honeymoon time.
Last edited by LMM (January 21, 2022 11:09 am)
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Thread Starter- lily
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Re: Futility or Productive Work?
Like Elle, I'm guessing the sex therapist isn't straight.
This is not good. "Therapy showed him I've been acting safe all along."
It's manipulative - you are being made the one responsible for his behaviour.
Now it's up to you to 'act safe'.
This is a honeymoon phase. Don't you think the remorseful caring is performative too? Meanwhile, in the interests of 'acting safe' you have agreed that him having sex with men is on the table - when it isn't, not as far as you are concerned it isn't on the table. Your honest self-expression is being sold down the river.
I think you need to seek support on the ground, family if possible, even a visit to the doctor for a check up is good - and be careful. Look after yourself. The thing about the magnets is that's what it's like - if a woman stripped off in front of you saying angel, I love you can you imagine wanting to get between her legs? Now change it to a man...
It's alright for you, when he romances you it's a man you see before you and you are attracted. But for him it's a woman he sees before him not the man he wants to see.
Even when the performance says no I am attracted to you, and it sparks the love in your heart, the feeling of being unwanted and rejected is still there underneath. Because for him it's just a performance not a deeply felt act of love.
Last edited by lily (January 21, 2022 3:37 pm)
- LMM
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Re: Futility or Productive Work?
Lily,
It’s actually an LGBTQ specialist sex therapist…who’s not gay (he’s married and monogamous to his longtime wife) but he mostly works with gay folks. So yeah, not a run of the mill therapist view! Which I liked because my husband has to heal from years in his teens of abusive conversion therapy to “pray away the gay” and all the ways it warped his personality and relationships. I wanted him to see someone who’s aware of that particular trauma and this guy is. But it can definitely be unhelpful for our marriage if he wants people to be open and authentic in a way that disregards the straight spouse - not sure if that’s at play!
You touched on one of my big struggles, that he’s like a magnet with attraction on both sides. If the bisexual thing is true, which I think it is. He says he’s equally attracted to genders. So for me I’m great having sex with him, and I think he’s great now with me because he’s healing from his abusive Pray Away therapy. But he also has other needs.
The way I see it, I’m satisfied but he can’t be. So if I’m not OK with him someday satisfying that side, he has to grieve. Maybe that’s fine and good (geez, I’m trying to grieve having a rotten, abusive husband my whole adult life who’s made parenting hard!). People can grieve not getting things they desperately want. If I Cana be OK with him getting that, then we’re both satisfied. The real question is if he’s actually GID and will realize he only wants guys. That’s my big worry.
We’ve read some books by men who are bisexual and love their wives, have great sex and also have different arrangements called “monogam-ish” marriages where they have something with guys but emotional intimacy with the wife. They’ve done it for decades and are all happy. His therapist gave us those. But I know from this forum that sometimes the guy realizes he’s fully gay and wants just men. It’s so complex!
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Thread Starter- lily
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Re: Futility or Productive Work?
Just because the married sex therapist says he's straight doesn't mean he is does it? what if he's in the closet too?
Overwhelmingly the anecdotal evidence is 'bi today, gay later'.
The question I think you need to ask yourself is do you really believe you are having great sex now, and it's happening because your partner is healing from trauma - or do you think that is selling the experience of the previous 20 years a bit short.
- Ellexoh_nz
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Re: Futility or Productive Work?
Many members in this Forum thought they were monogamously married longtime to somebody
His therapist could be anyone
Elle
Edited to say... Monogamish is bs
Last edited by Ellexoh_nz (January 21, 2022 9:05 pm)
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