Trauma informed therapy would be the most appropriate for our needs.  A great book on what trauma is, what it does to our brains and bodies, and current treatments is: "The Body Keeps the Score", by renowned psychiatrist and trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.  You can find some videos of his presentations on YouTube, too.

Thanks for your link, Jill. 
I  found the work of Omar Minwalla, PsyD to be really helpful. His research on spouses of sex addicts also applies to us.  It shows that people who find themselves in our situations often have symptoms of  PTSD and CPTSD. Here is a quote from his interview. "The maintenance of a deceptive, compartmentalized, sexual reality in the context of an intimate relationship or family system is a form of domestic abuse."

http://www.thetraumatherapistproject.com/podcast/omar-minwalla-psyd/

http://theinstituteforsexualhealth.com/thirteen-dimensions-of-sex-addiction-induced-trauma-sait-among-partners-and-spouses-impacted-by-sex-addiction/
 

Byron and everyone else who is looking for more answers:

I'm  hoping to address some of your questions a bit more specifically.  These are just MY opinions, but I'm hoping they'll be of some help to you and others.

"Trauma recovery requires re-establishing the safety of the victim."
Great. Thank you very much. And how do I go about doing that, hire my own police force?

I think what this is saying is that it's impossible to STAY in the trauma situation and recover.  For our those of us who are still trying to "fix" the gay thing and stay in the marriage, you will continue to live in the war zone, which will continue to produce the trauma.  For those of us who've decided to move on but who still live with the partner (for whatever reason), the trauma will continue (although likely in a different way).  Regardless, one cannot begin to recover from the trauma until they remove themselves from the situation (or remove their trauma inducer from their presence).  That's only the START, though.  Part of the trauma is of course from the situation itself.  But even deeper is that the trauma is being caused by your lack of control over the situation.  So when you begin to take control back of your own life, you begin to get over the trauma.  So while it's imperative that you remove yourself from the trauma, it's also imperative that you feel in control of your decisions, and not be held hostage to your trauma inducer's control.  How do you do THAT?  By moving forward and looking after yourSELF rather than the two of you as a unit.  You can be kind without giving away the farm.  Take what you need - insist upon it.  If you don't get it (like if a judge doesn't give you as much as you're asking for), then you reached for the golden ring.  You will still have the confidence from knowing that you are the boss of you, and you need to try as hard as you can to get what you need.

"That means setting boundaries and having clear and certain consequences for infractions/violations."
Most of us did not have clear boundaries going into it to begin with, and I have no idea what it even means to set boundaries. Can you at least give an example or two? Otherwise you're speaking a foreign language to me and it sounds like gobbledy-gook.

The boundaries are things like deciding if you want no contact, and then enforcing that by not responding if they continue to reach out to you (about anything except what's necessary - like the kids, or liquidating joint property, etc.).  It's things like changing the locks.  It's about deciding that you don't have to sit together at a joint event you can't get around (like a child's graduation).  You are making it clear that what you want is not them, and you WILL enforce that.  You cannot be guilted into it, and you will remove yourself from situations where they're not respecting you.  It's about taking their name off anything that's jointly held (selling it) and separating your lives - no joint bank accounts, no hanging out with their family (or letting them hang with yours - that would be you telling your family that you have a boundary there).  It means that if they DO ask if you're seeing anyone, you tell them that you are not going to discuss that with them.  And then refusing to do so.  It's the same boundaries you'd have with a stranger - not letting them have access to your home, your property, your money, or your emotions.

"Above all, please remind yourself over and over again: you did not cause it, you cannot control it and you cannot cure it."
So what does that mean exactly, that I'm completely helpless and there's nothing I can do to prevent it happening again? That's not reassuring, and in fact it leaves me feeling kind of frightened and anxious, and gives me no power to say it's someone else's fault, and I was just a gullible stooge. That's what you're telling me. Wouldn't it be more helpful and positive to say "You will survive and you will learn from this, you can become a stronger person from it, you will know what to watch out for, and you won't allow it again."

Some people need to be told that it's not their fault.  How many times have we seen people post reasons why they think their spouse is gay? (I don't have sex with him that much, so maybe that turned him gay?)  You need to know that you cannot make someone else gay.  You therefore do not need to pick through every one of your actions over the past 20 years to see what you did wrong to cause this.  Someone else's sexual identity has ZERO to do with anything you've ever done.  Period.

Additionally, being told that there is nothing you can do to "fix this" means that you cannot fix the gay.  You cannot make this go away.  Because it is a force outside of you.  It's an eye opener when we realize that we only have a few choices: 1. deal with things they way they are, 2. try to come to some sort of agreement that suits both your needs (like an open marriage, if that works for both of you), or 3. leave the relationship.  As we've seen here so, SO many times, people try to do things to re-gain their spouse's interest - changing their personal appearance, becoming more agreeable, trying to love the gay out of their spouse.  NONE of those things will work.  They gay isn't going anywhere, and there's nothing you can do to make it go away.  Don't kill yourself trying - it's not within your control.

It IS more positive to say that you will grow and learn from this, but that's a different topic altogether.  This quote is about cause and affect, and how you shouldn't bang your head against the wall about it.

"You were victimized by his affliction, his behavior, possibly traumatically. If you remember nothing else, please know that we know this to be true."
Well, good for you, for knowing something is true on your blog. Can you tell me something more specific that I can do, to start taking better care of myself, and to be more aware of things so that I don't allow it to happen to me again? It doesn't help to inform me that you know it wasn't my fault, and that I was a gullible stooge if you aren't going to tell me how to stop doing that.

You weren't a gullible stooge.  You were someone who was lied to.  And you trusted.  Which meant that you took what your spouse had to say at face value.  Which is what you're SUPPOSED to be able to do in a marriage.  That doesn't make you gullible.  It makes you trusting, which is a GOOD thing.  You can't have a good relationship without that trait.

As for not allowing it to happen again, the only thing I can say is to pay attention to red flags.  I think that we often fool ourselves into thinking that red flags are the same thing as personality shortcomings.  They're not.  Let me use an example.  A personality flaw is someone who is always late to everything.  It's annoying and frustrating.  But it may not go beyond that.  A red flag is that they're not only late, but they can't be gotten a hold of for the time period that you're waiting on them.  That means that something else is likely going on.  Maybe they're seeing someone else and they won't answer the phone/texts when they're with that other person.  Or maybe it means that you're just not important to them.  It's a red flag that something's wrong.  If you investigate and find that they were BORN late and will be late to their own funeral, and it's because they underestimate how long it's going to take to get ready, then okay - you know what you're dealing with.  But if that's not the case, something else more sinister is going on.

Not all of us had red flags with our gay spouses.  I had a few, and they didn't seem all that big to me, and they had explanations.  But in the end, the explanations weren't true.  For instance, my ex did tell me that he'd had a homosexual experience, but that he didn't like it, and it was when he was 16, and he'd never done anything like that since and he had no desire to.  But it should have been a red flag.  Because while I think it's entirely possible to have that happen, it's also entirely possible that a man who's let another man perform sexual acts on him in the first place (unless forced) is someone who is at least open to the idea.  It excited them at one point.  It could do so again.  I got pregnant with my first child after only a few months of dating my ex.  We went to the church to be married.  The pastor of course counseled us that just because we'd been sinning (by sleeping together before marriage) didn't mean we needed to continue.  Okay - whatever.  Well, my non religious ex suddenly used it as an excuse to not sleep together again until we were married.  He rebuffed me at every turn.  Now, WHY would a non religious person suddenly become interested in doing what's right when they didn't even care about God before?  Answer: they didn't.  It's an excuse - especially when put together with red flag #1.  We are sooooo willing to let those red flags be ignored.  I think it's much easier when you're older to not do that anymore.  Likely because we know how little people change over time.  So it's either like what you're getting, or move on to find it.  The more red flags (about anything, really), the quicker you should move on.

The last thing I can say in this area is to follow your gut.  It's served me well, and if I am honest with myself, I can say that my gut told me all along not to get with my ex.  It didn't tell me he was gay, exactly.  But it told me that I wouldn't be happy.  But I figured to hell with that bullshit - I can do anything I want to!  Well, I've since determined that I don't LIKE climbing up a muddy hill in the rain.  So from now on, I'm only moving forward with situations that seem like smooth sailing - like they're custom made for me.  To hell with all the rest.

I mean, I know the intention is there to be helpful and informative, and I'm over-stretching my snarky response to make a point, but the writer's conclusion leaves me in the same place I was before I read it. It's like going to the doctor, and he says, "Oh, you have a broken leg. You need to stop breaking your leg."  Duh! Thank you, Dr. Obvious.

I see your point with this one, lol.  But you already knew you had a gay spouse before you read the article.  There is no way to tell people how to not wind up in that situation, really.  And that's not what the blog is about.  It's not about avoiding TGT, it's about processing it.  And seeing that you can't fix it.  And getting away from it and starting over.  There IS no magic bullet here (hell, there's no magic bullet for ANYthing in life).

I really, truly feel that deep down, most of us know the truth - about MOST of the issues in our life (the ones that are resolvable, anyway).  I was at a conference once where the speaker suggested seeing your mind as a Windows program.  Underneath all of that is DOS - it runs windows.  Windows is limited - we THINK it does everything, but DOS is the operating system.  We can think of our DOS system in our brains as being another entity altogether - let's name him "Bob".  So that when we can't figure out something, we say, "What would Bob tell me?"  I can't figure out how to lose weight.  If I'm honest though - I know the truth - Bob would tell me to stop eating so much, eating bad foods, and to get off my f'ing ass and move around more.  It's not complicated.  We just make it that way - trying to find the right answer that will both do the job and be.... easy.  When we're with a gay spouse, the truth is that we cannot make it work, and we need to move on.  We just don't want that to be the truth.
Kel
 

Hi Keepinghope -

I'm sorry that I didn't see your response until now.  So much going on this time of year!

Thank you for the lovely compliments - you're very kind and sweet. 

I wanted to address the boundary of not seeing each others families.  I'm not saying that it shouldn't be done.  I am saying that it's on the list of typical boundaries which can aid in a clean break.  I do feel that except in special circumstances, if you don't want them seeing your family, then you shouldn't see theirs.  It's only fair.  It doesn't, however, mean that your kids shouldn't see your ex's family.  They are THEIR family, after all.  You cannot and should not try to keep your kids from your ex's family unless there is harm going on there.  And yes, the family bad-mouthing you in front of the kids is harm.  It needs to be addressed.  But the guilty party needs to be singled out; the entire family shouldn't pay for what one moron is saying.  I had this issue with my own parents - they are uber Christian and I found out that when alone with my kids, they would have private talks with at least the older one about how what Daddy is doing is a sin, how it's wrong, etc.  Whatever.  I had to tell them that they are entitled to their feelings, but that my children were confused and hurt enough - they did NOT need their own family coming at them about their father's behavior.  And if they continued, they would be spending NO time alone with their grandchildren.  That closed it down right.there.

Anyway, there is no right and wrong when it comes to boundaries.  Each person is different - and the needs sometimes change over the years as tension loosens up and time becomes precious.  I had not contact with my ex's extended family in the first few years following our divorce.  That was their choice - they unfriended me on FB and stopped sending cards to me.  I was hurt, but only that they cut me out as if they thought it was my fault.  But in reality, they thought it was.  If they didn't know that my ex was gay, and they knew I'd asked for the divorce, then of course they'd think it was all my doing.  As time's gone by and some of the older relatives have passed away in my ex's family, the truth has come out.  And then they started friend requesting me on FB again.  I was open to that.  I don't need to be besties with them to let them see what's going on with my kids (my ex isn't overly active on FB, and they appreciate seeing my kids on FB as they all live out-of-state and don't see my kids much).  I give them thumbs-up on big events in their lives, or ask pertinent questions.  Yesterday one of my ex's cousins posted something on FB about an illness (kind of like a Mayo Clinic explanation of a rare illness), and I asked if someone she knew had this disease.  Because it's likely her daughter with Downs, and I wouldn't know they were going through this.  I still want to spread love from afar.  And yet I don't need to be at their family gatherings or get all up in their business.

My point is that you don't need to establish boundaries that don't work for you.  But as people who often had no boundaries in the first place, it's worth trying some in the hopes that it'll ease the scenario a bit, and give us some long-term comfort.

Kel

'You weren't a gullible stooge.  You were someone who was lied to.  And you trusted.  Which meant that you took what your spouse had to say at face value.  Which is what you're SUPPOSED to be able to do in a marriage.  That doesn't make you gullible.  It makes you trusting, which is a GOOD thing.  You can't have a good relationship without that trait.'

Thanks for sharing this post Kel. I've been told by many people since leaving my GIDXH, that I was naive and gullible. So much so that I was believing them. 
I didn't listen to my intuition during my marriage and tried to convince myself that all was fine. I had however written a fictional short story about a 45 yr. old gay man who was lying to his wife for 25 yrs. I didn't realize until 3 years later that I was writing about my own life. The subconscious mind tried to give me clues but I wasn't listening. 

 

Thanks so much for waking me up with your words. Victim blaming is something I had not thought of. In this situation, people seem to be more comfortable 'victim blaming' because it's not acceptable to 'gay bash' anymore. They quickly took that side of my GIDXH. They have to choose a victim so it might as well be the naive straight spouse. There seems to be no way around this at times. I will try to use the suggestion you have given and let it go. I'm also trying to not have the same conversations anymore. Changing the topic often and saying 'I've moved on from that relationship, it was 3 years ago, thanks for asking.'