I have been spiraling. I know more than enough to be sure of what's going on, and it's still going on. She's got yet another of her erotic novels about to release, still deep into occult.. and the whole time I'm struggling with guilt of my own porn use. Since the night the PI confirmed suspicions, I've fallen back on that, I don't know if it's just a fear of being alone, fearing no one else will want me, I just can't move. I pushed back thru the holidays (for the kids), then I've got travel coming up, then kids birthdays back to back... then... who knows, there's always a reason to push back. 
I went down the rabbit hole of narcissism videos on social media, now that the algorithm has noticed, that's all my feeds are now... Half telling me I'm the victim, the other I AM the narcissist... Again, guilt of my own issues. 
in the year and a half since finding out, I lost 35lbs int he first 3 months, then steadily since then I gained back 60+ and just felt horrible. So I joined a gym and got a trainer, Have lost about 12lbs or so since the first of the year, walking as much as I can, it's been in the teens (Fahrenheit) but still getting 3 miles in at a time. 
Talked to another lawyer, sounds like at most, the best I can hope for is 50/50 and MAYBE no alimony. He, and others i've been talking to say it's better to settle for that in mediation, then fight the custody battle after it's finalized, keeping track of her behavior and involvement. 

It's a lot right now. I'm just angry, but not that she's gay, but that she hasn't had the decency to just leave. 

Imogene: I say this as someone who was married to a closeted trans-identifying man, and who stayed in his closet for eighteen months before I found this site.  (I stayed with him for three years after his declaration that he was "a woman in a man's body.")  I know how difficult and confusing and painful what you're experiencing is, because I also lived it. 

Living in someone else's closet is a recipe for isolation and psychological damage.  Plus it leaves you open to manipulation.  You need to be able to voice your fears and reactions with someone other than your husband: a family member, a good friend you trust, a supportive therapist (who doesn't see their job as "educating" you on why you need to "accept" your spouse).   This site is a good first step.  

 

Living in someone else's closet is a recipe for isolation and psychological damage.  Plus, it leaves you open to manipulation.  You need to be able to voice your fears and reactions with someone other than your husband: a family member, a good friend you trust, a supportive therapist (who doesn't see their job as "educating" you on why you need to "accept" your spouse).   This site is a good first step.  

Thank you for your response. I am curious about your journey; you have given me something to consider. Living in his closet has been very complex and challenging.  I am not sure I even know how to unpack the closet I have been living in. I think if I divorce him and he is with another woman who accepts this about him, I will feel like a failure. I already feel like a failure because this has sexually turned me off towards him. Honestly, I have not been myself since all this happened. I am not sure I can do this life without him.  I have been with him for 28 years.  We have had wonderful years together. He just discovered this late in life.  I have been reluctantly going along.  I have no idea how to navigate this place!
 
 

I’ve been away from this forum for some time, and always remember all of you who helped me at the beginning of the end of my 28 year marriage. I am definitely healthier living without lies. I still experience times of great grief because I think any mother wants more than anything to give her children an intact family. And yet the whole experience, once I told my truth to my sons a few years after the trauma, has drawn  me closer to them, all in their 30’s now.

One of our 3 sons got married in September, 2024 which required interaction with my ex. And with the woman he’s been living with for 5 years (he moved in with her maybe 2 years after our divorce after his rigorous dating.) Though I smiled all day for the photos and to be gracious in the couples’ joyous day,  I still feel stress in my body when I’m around him. I also feel stress in my body when I’m around her, probably because I’m an empathic person and it’s hard for me to shake this feeling that I see a train coming and she’s on the tracks and don’t I have any kind of responsibility to be a “Good Samaritan” and help her get out of the way? I know it’s not my place but if my ex had physically abused me there’d be “evidence” she could find maybe but with emotional abuse there’s no record residing anywhere except with me. I think it’s referred to in psychology as creating cognitive dissonance for me. I literally just avoided her after an initial introduction, my first to her face to face. I actually feel sorry for her. He acted ever the charming, aw-shucks, funny and smart Englishman. My family of origin swooned again being in his company. Gag me.  But they don’t know the full story.

After that family wedding experience, I made a decision to dig deeper into the initial trauma I experienced. Our eldest son is getting married in June 2025 and so I’ve set a personal goal to be even more recovered by then. Also,  I want to trust, and love, a man again but it’s proved to be illusive to me in my own dating experience since my divorce. To those ends,  I’ve enrolled in a group therapy session with a therapist who is trained by Dr Omar Minwalla. There’s plenty of information on this site about Dr. Minwalla’s work with intimate partner Deception. When I made the discovery of my-then husband‘s cross-dressing with his desire to be a woman, after he had lied to me for many many years, it was Dr. Minwalla’s work that was the only thing that made me think “he gets it.“  I will report out after. Meantime, to all my sisters and brothers out there, stay in the light! To thine own self be true. It does get better.

Hi Toward, thank you for such a good post.  I've just read three posts in a row - OOHC to another poster, your post and Elle's here and the strength and the courage, the acknowledgement of grief - it has brought me to tears I needed to feel. 

Elle that is lovely news that you are by the beach living with your sons.