Agl03 wrote:

I was raised in the church, married my missionary in the temple, the whole nine yards.  As a family we had be struggling with the faith for awhile now.  Combined issues have been contributing with the most notable seeing how the Young Women treated my daughter when she came out, and how they treated me during my medical recoveries.  However, I now see my husband used my reasons for pulling away from the church as a shield for his own lies.    

When we first married he typically would instigate things.  Until we started trying for kids.  I have medical issues that interfered with getting pregnant so it became schedule driven.  After we had our last one he never wanted to touch me again.  I would try to initiate in a number of ways but nothing.  He would either shut me down outright or have performance issues.  Because of my medical issues I blamed myself.  I thought he found me fat, ugly, and broken.  When I tried to talk to him about it he'd shut me down.  Now I feel even worse, that he was never attracted to me at all.

So for 10 years I've had a sexless marriage.  We'd go to church like we were supposed too. I stopped working to be a stay at home mom, a goal we'd discussed even before we got married.  We made a good team raising our kids. I thought we were happy.   We were comfortable and since our relationship started as friendship things were easy.  I used to say love, I don't say love anymore.  

We stopped going to church during the pandemic.  it wasn't safe for me to be there, I have damaged lungs and I barely survived the pulmonary emboli that damaged them.  Covid would likely be too much.  Again he used me as a shield as to the real why he didn't want to go.

I'm coming up on a month now from when he came out to me.  Depending on who he is talking too (and if he thinks I can hear him) he says he's been having these feelings for 10-20 years.  10 years is when he stopped anything sexual with me.  20 years was his mission.  I now very much feel that he married me because that was what was expected of him as a return missionary.  His parents approved of me.  And he wanted kids

He said he came out because he was tired of hiding it and the guilt of the lie was too much for him.  that he wants to be happy as who he is now.  That because of how we were raised in the church was a major reason he'd not said something for so long.   He is currently fighting with his father who is demanding he go to his bishop and repent.  That he honor the holy commitment he made to me.    Oh and bonus of he didn't want to be my caregiver.

His parents have reached out to me once since he told them.  After a cursory, are you okay, i was, I'll use the word encouraged, to not run away, to stay and do my job (like the good little mormon girl i was supposed to be), and most importantly don't announce anything publicly so that family and other peeps in the church didn't find out.  They weren't worried about me, they were worried I would take a torched earth approach to my life being upended and put it on blast all over social media where I am friends with all of his Aunts.  

I don't blame the church for tricking me into marriage. We could have been any faith and had this happen.  I loved him when he proposed.  I loved him when we got married.  I have loved him for the last 18 years. Up until a month ago I thought we would be together for the rest of our lives.  It hurts beyond words that he has not loved me the same way for god knows how long or if ever.  It was him that made these choices.  He made the choice to lie and mislead me, not the church.  He made the choice to seek out others, not the church.  He made the choice to make life altering decisions, not the church.  He had doubts and feelings and step after step chose to move forward with our relationship.  And he doesn't fear the church's reaction to his revelation.  His parents on the other hand are in fits about it.  

 

Ag103,

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. No one deserves this. 

It doesn't surprise me that older LDS want to keep this hidden. They grew up during the time when the church just flat-out demonized gay people and pushed them into mixed marriages and conversion therapy. At least they've made some progress since then, but it's hard for older people to change their attitudes. 

Am I correct in assuming that your husband was not abusive to you? You blamed yourself for the lack of his sexual interest, did he encourage you to blame yourself? I'm curious as to how common it is for GID gay husbands to be abusive. 

In my case, my exhusband was such a narcissist it was inconceivable for him to admit he had a problem. It was all my problem and he was driven during our entire marriage, from our honeymoon on, to convince me I was ugly and sexually unappealing. It almost destroyed me. I had no self esteem. For the first few years after our divorce, when I would look at old pictures of myself, it shocked me to see that I was actually pretty. He had gaslit me to such an extent that I suffered a form of body dysphoria - I could only see my flaws, the same ones he exaggerated to me year after year.

Yet, even with how cruel is abuse was, I sometimes wonder if that made divorce easier for me. He destroyed the love I had for him very quickly in our marriage. I think that losing someone you genuinely loved, even under false pretenses, might be even harder. 

I wonder about the mission experiences of gay closeted mormon boys. My ex told me really weird stories about his mission after I left the church. He thought I would find them funny, but it disgusted me due to his lack of honesty and malicious behavior. He used to send fellow missionaries women's underwear in the mail if he didn't like them. I can't even begin to figure that one out. He convinced his companion and two other elders to go see a porn movie with him (back then you had to actually go to one of the seedy X rated movie theaters). I can't figure out his motives for all this, but I wonder if knowing the elders he targeted may have gotten sexually aroused turned him on. Who knows.  And knowing my ex, he definitely fell in love with some of his companions. 

I wish you healing and hope, for both you and your daughter.

 

Last edited by beastie (May 16, 2022 3:12 pm)

Ellexoh_nz wrote:

 

My partner's mother raised all her children in the catholic church. When she and all the aunties learned their son and nephew was seeing a married woman (me ) with 2 children the shit hit the fan. Partner's aunties froze me out and his mother prayed for him. 
His mother died years ago but man! hearing her son likes men would have her spinning in her grave

The church has so much to answer for that it never will
 

There are many churches other than the LDS church that have contributed to this problem. There are many religions who encouraged mixed marriages without giving a second thought to the women who were being offered up as sacrificial lambs.
 

Agl03 wrote:

That is what is really sad about a lot of this.  He doesn't care what the church will think and nor will I, the rebel I was that didn't take seminary in high school caused much pearl clutching.   I don't need others to approve of my faith of my relationship with God.  That is between me and God.  

However, his parents are so concerned what others will think that it is stopping them from acting with the love and empathy they preach or giving the support we each need.  He is desperate for their acceptance and love which I fear he will never get.  I have always been close with my MIL so I thought she would be a support for me, but nope.  They are terrified of what the sisters will say, what the ward will say, and that they will see them as a failure.  which is absolute nonsense on so many levels.

The factor that his parents and the church have never even considered is what I want  or others like me in this situation.  I very well know what I'm "supposed" to do during a trying situation but that is not going to do a bit of good right now.  Praying is not going to fix this.  Going to church isn't going to fix this.  Talking to a bishop isn't going to fix this.  They expect for me now to just sweep it under the rug and put on that picture of a perfect family after years of lies and betrayal.  Which absolutely not.  I don't care if he'd come to me and confessed he'd been looking at and interested in other women the result would have been the same.  He shattered the trust between a husband and a wife and essentially told me he doesn't love me and I don't know if he ever really did.

I am incredibly grateful for my side of the family.  I have a mix of Incredibly active/won't be surprised if gets called to a very prominant position in the church to left the church 60 years ago and will not be turning back and everything in between.  We all accept each other and have each other's backs no matter what..  And Every single one of them has my back right now and they don't care who knows or if I'm seeing my bishop on a weekly basis.  

 

I'm so glad that you have a supportive family. That means so much. My family has always been very supportive, although my father struggled for a while after I left the church and acted like he might cut me off before my mother and a kind stake president intervened. I've felt incredibly lucky. I also have a mix of very active members and those who left the church. I'm proud of my family because even the very active believers accept LGBTQ members of our family. They know that the LOVE is the most important commandment. 

My ex's family, like yours, is a different story, and I suspect that was a large part of why our exes made the choices they did. My ex had mental issues (like untreated bipolar) and I think he always knew he needed the support of his family to survive (he could never hold a job and had to be self-employed, which was also problematic at times). His narcissism made him phrase it as they OWED him, or he DESERVED the support of others, but I think that deep down he knew the truth was he NEEDED them. I have no doubt his family would have not only disowned him, but his father may even have been violent. They later disowned a gay grandson. They were a deeply enmeshed family, in unhealthy ways, although they were always kind to me, even after the divorce. They knew their son was cruel to me and didn't appear to blame me. But as far as I know, they never knew he is gay.
 

His parents do have a right to know

Beastie wrote:
"I have come to agree with Sean (a gay exhusband answers your questions) that married closeted gay men almost by definition develop some form of narcissism. They have a hidden self they cannot show out of fear, so they build a false self. They are so absorbed in maintaining this false self that they have no mental or emotional room to even consider the needs of others. I think that's why the straight spouses in mixed marriages get no consideration. They suck up our lives in their lie, and don't even think about what that does to us. (with some exceptions, of course) "

I agree.  I think that there is a flip side to that "false self" they have to worry about, and that is the one they are suppressing.  Between obsessing on the forbidden and dangerous desires of the hidden self, suppressing those desires and that self, and curating their public image, they are fully absorbed with the self.