Rick,

I so hope you will be able to come out of the closet as soon as possible. Because this is not just your wife's story to tell. You have lived it, you have hurt, you have suffered. You have a story to tell and it is as much yours as it is hers.

I truly believe in this quote from the theologian Frederick Buechner: “What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are . . . because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier . . . for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own . . . ” 
― Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

May God bless you and keep you. 

Sue

I haven't posted here in quite a while, between divorcing my X and immersing myself in research about narcissism and other personality disorders. I came back here today because I too am thinking about expanding the circle of people I tell about TGT. I'm in a similar situation to yours, post-divorce with an X who is backtracking on TGT and hoping I will never tell another soul, including our children, a teenager and two adults who are, I believe, clueless about it. 

I am convinced that most closeted spouses who remain in denial even after discovery or confession are narcissists who stay in the closet purely in the interest of image management, which is a core motivation for the personality disordered. One thing that this discussion has helped clarify for me is that I have been buying into my X's framing of TGT as some deep secret that I need to keep, when the reality is that his fear of being "outed" is rooted in the shame he feels about his sexuality. That is not my shame to carry and never has been--have never thought being gay is something to be ashamed of. So why am I continuing to keep that secret for him? Thanks to the posters here for helping me examine that question in new light. 

If I don't live my truth then he keeps me in "his closet." I will not live there.

Hi OtherKat, you wrote:

"I am convinced that most closeted spouses who remain in denial even after discovery or confession are narcissists who stay in the closet purely in the interest of image management, which is a core motivation for the personality disordered. "

I thought that way too for a long time, but I don't buy into the "narcissist" personality disorder theory for closeted gays and lesbians anymore; I think that is a misdiagnosis, and I have several reasons for thinking that. I also think there's a different dynamic at work for closeted gays and lesbians. This was hard for me to wrap my head around it for the longest time, because the idea of "narcissism" has been so ingrained into this topic, that I resisted letting it go until recently. Again, I fall back on my therapist for helping me see this through a different prism now. I'll try my best to explain it the way she did for me.

She explained the difference between narcissism (a long-standing, unchanging personality trait) and about a defense mechanism called "reaction formation" which eventually has to break down because reality eventually catches up to the person who uses it. Basically, it's a behavior where a person acts as if they are the opposite of what s/he truly is, often to such an extent that s/he convinces himself of it, and others too.   

And she said, it's important to distinguish between behaviors and traits. Behaviors are those actions we can see and observe and describe. Traits are long-term, "built-in" characteristics of a person. Example: "Jimmy is an okay dude most of the time, and I like him, but sometimes he can be a real jerk." That's a behavior. "I can't stand that guy Jimmy, he's always a jerk to everybody, and he's been like that his entire life." That's a trait. Both times he's described as a jerk, but with different connotations. Narcissists are unmistakeable and almost always, everybody has a similar reaction to a narcissist ("geez, what an a**hole.") Everybody reacts that way. Behaviors are different, some people witness it firsthand, while others might never see it. That's why people are so surprised to learn our spouses are gay or lesbian; they never see the behaviors that we see. If they were narcissists, everybody would think what we do: what inconsiderate a**holes they are.

I looked up "reaction formation" online, and noticed one example that kept showing up on different psychology sites: the closeted gay or lesbian person who does everything possible, consciously and unconsciously, to convince himself and others, that he is heterosexual.  

Examples from different sites:

http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/reaction_formation.htm
    A person who is angry with a colleague is actually courteous and friendly towards them.
    A man who is gay has a number of conspicuous heterosexual affairs and openly criticizes gays.
    A mother who has a child she does not want becomes very protective of the child.
    An alcoholic extols the virtues of abstinence.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Reaction_formation
    A closeted gay person who, outwardly, is a rampant homophobe.
    A gay person who marries a partner of the opposite gender in an effort to prove, whether to others or to themselves, that they are straight.
    A parent who dotes on a child they secretly hate.
    A homophobic parent of a gay child.
    A philanderer who chastises other promiscuous people.
    An addict who favors strict punishment for all substance abusers.

I found this next one to be especially helpful and clear, and convinced me that my previous use of narcissism had been incorrect. This fit my experience so perfectly, - it couldn't have gotten it much closer - and is a much better fit (for me at least) than narcissism:

http://study.com/academy/lesson/reaction-formation-in-psychology-definition-example.html
A popular figure of speech is the phrase 'the lady doth protest too much.' Taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet, the saying is often used to refer to people who appear to be dramatically, and emphatically, opposed to something in an effort to hide their true feelings or desires.

In psychology, this type of behavior is known as a reaction formation, and it can, at times, be very confusing. Reaction formation is a kind of psychological defense mechanism in which a person perceives their true feelings or desires to be socially, or in some cases, legally unacceptable, and so they attempt to convince themselves or others that the opposite is true--often in a very exaggerated performance.

If this description seems confusing, consider this example. A teenager comes to the conclusion that he is gay, but because he was raised in a family that believes being gay is a serious sin, he feels the need to hide his homosexuality. Because he believes that his sexual orientation is sinful or unacceptable, he goes to great lengths to prove to everyone around him (and possibly himself) that he is stereotypically heterosexual. This might manifest itself in risky sexual behaviors with multiple people, using homophobic language and slurs, or other types of exaggerated performance. In most cases, reaction formation is very easy to identify. It often appears hyper, unreasonable, and obviously showy in order to attract as much attention as possible.

 ******
 
If that last part read "in order to deflect attention away from the real issue" instead of wanting to attract attention, I'd say that example hits the nail right on the head. 100%. There are plenty of other sites, and examples like that one show up.
 
We perceive what we experience from them to be their extreme selfishness, self-centeredness, lack of consideration, etc, and so on and so forth, but somehow we have all been led to believe that is narcissism. But it isn't. Other people would notice it if they were narcissists, and I dare say, most of us wouldn't want to have anything to do with a true narcissist, let alone marry one. And narcissistic personality doesn't change; it's a trait, not a behavior. People don't become narcissists, they either are or they aren't.

We frequently describe that we can't believe how radically our exes change. But narcissists don't change. On the other hand, once reaction formation starts to break down because that person can no longer keep up the front, one's behavior does change as he is forced to adapt to a new reality.

That went on longer than I meant to, and it's a lot to digest, but I think my therapist hit the bulls-eye; this made so much more sense to me than narcissism or a personality disorder.

It doesn't change anything in what we experienced to look at it this way, but it does put a different interpretation on how and why it happened, and I found her explanation to be incredibly helpful in my recovery. If I were able to explain it as well as she did, I would submit this as a blog entry, it was that impactful for me.

Totally, totally agree, Byron. Well said.