OOHC, yes, I actually do have a personal therapist as well.  I have talked with her about it and she is helping with some exercises to help with the anxiety around all this and with ways to "use my voice" and work I need to do as a person.  I have told her my worry that my husband is gay and she said I need to trust my gut on this.  But then in another conversation she said I'd be surprised if he turned out to be gay.  She said sounds like OCD to her.  I asked her why she thought that and she said this is just two people with two different opinions and that is ok.  But that is the kind of thing that makes me stop and question it.  Why does she feel that way?  I guess I want someone to say "yes, I think it is a real possibility that you are right about this"  Otherwise it still leaves me second guessing.  

The next part of your comment about him doing more does bother me too.  I have had thoughts like this is manipulation at its finest, or I am being given the Jedi Mind Trick.  It seems that as soon as I pulled away he panicked and started trying to fix things, but now it seems like a show.  For sure if we had sex it wouldn't be believable that he was really enjoying it.  I say why now?  After all this time do you suddenly want to?  He even said I don't know why, but ever since I've been back I want to have sex with you.  I said this sounds like a last ditch effort to keep me here!   Right now I go back and forth between thinking he is the most manipulative person there ever was and that is why I am so confused and maybe he genuinely means it.  I'm leaning toward the first one at the moment......

I used to do some volunteer work with domestic violence victims. We were taught about a cycle in which the abuser would promise change and "make up" to the victim after the abuse so that she (most were women) would give him another chance. The change did not last but the moment she had friends and resources aligned to support her is when he'd do this and she'd not leave/return to him. This could go on for years until friends and family gave up on her.

It should not matter to us whether or not he is gay. We should be looking at his overall behavior and how it affects us, not waiting for someone or something to attach a rainbow label to him.

Duped wrote:

Sorry to go off thing again!

 

Don't apologise
It's wonderful to get a reply

 

Elloxoh,

I very much understand what you're saying about not being ready or having had enough until you get to that point.  You never know how far you are from that point - just that you are moving in its direction.  You hope that one day, you'll arrive at this place where it's evident that THIS is the point where you need to make a decision.  Or THIS is the moment in time where it suddenly felt like a switch has flipped.  Rarely in my life have I had that.  ONCE - when I had to go to court to get a restraining order against my mentally unbalanced son, because he had become physically dangerous to the other children in the house.  Truth be told, it wasn't having had enough.  I'd had enough for a LONG time at that point.  Everyone was telling me that something had to break already.  I knew the decision could only come from me.  But I loved him - he is my son - the child I nursed at my breast and swore to protect with my life.  How could I do this to him?  How could I push him out onto the street and be a decent mother - a decent person?  What if he came to his senses and things turned around?  Well, one day he got into a bad physical fight with my younger son - whom I'd never seen be physical before.  I asked my older son to leave.  Just..... get out.  And while he was out, I walked around, putting away what I thought were dangerous items - vases, larger heavy items that were within reach, etc.  I had locked the doors, too.  I never felt the "I've arrived" feeling at a decision.  What I DID feel was that I realized I was SCARED.  Oh my god - I'm SCARED of him?  I didn't realize I was scared, but I recognized my behavior as being that of someone who was scared.  If Iiiii was scared, and I was larger than both of my other children, then what must they feel like when they're home alone with him???  Oh my GOD - I have to end this.  I have to DO something.  Iiiiiii never got to the decision for myself - I ONLY was able to make a drastic decision when it came down to protecting others who were more vulnerable than me.  In that moment, I made the decision to go to court the next day.  Called my husband on the phone and told him to take the next day off for this.  Told the other kids to make no plans.  Went to court, met with the advocates, met with the judge, got the order.  Went out into the hallway, and bawled like a baby.  I did what I had to do.  And I was mortified that I was at that point in my life.  But my feelings didn't matter any more - I was resolute on the action.  I didn't expect to have no feelings on the matter - it was just that the feelings were NOT going to change my decision.  I would just deal with them separately - they were not going to make me re-think anything.

With my ex, I never reached the point where I felt like I was at that precipice.  It was more of a realization that nothing had changed in 16 years, and we had SO much change to happen before I could even stop being unhappy.  More until I would actually happy.  And in looking at the track record, we were NOT going to get there.  Hell, I think that overall, we had no real movement in the problem that wasn't just temporary.  I never got tired of waiting.  I got tired of hoping.  The day that I lost hope that anything was actually going to change was the day I set the wheels in motion.  It was either accept that place, or get away from it.  I was NOT choosing to stay in that place.

We see battered women never get to that place.  We see them continue on in a relationship because they love him.  They are in danger, they are not being treated lovingly, they are living a miserable existence.  And yet they stay - because they love him, and they hope he'll change.  We wonder when they'll have had enough.  We know that if we were in their shoes, we'd have had enough loooooong ago.  You may not see your situation as being the same as theirs.  And in many ways, it's probably not.  But there are similarities.  You are unhappy and unhealthy.  You are not enjoying life.  You are not joyous on a regular basis.  And you know what has to happen for that to change.  Only.... YOU aren't the one in control of the change.  If you keep believing that the change will come, then you will keep staying.  It's only when you lose hope that change will likely occur that you will make a decision.  The real trick is being honest about whether hope SHOULD exist at this point.  Not whether you have it because you're determined to have it.  But rather, if you were looking from the outside in - and weren't biased due to your love for this person - would you think that you should have hope?  THAT's where the decision is at.  Right.There.

Kel

When my mother left my father after 30 years of marriage, the only thing that allowed her to do so was that his mental illness had escalated to the point that he threatened to harm my sister.  She had not left when 15 years earlier he had choked HER and I had begged her to get us out of there. She could act only to protect my sister and not herself.  My best friend was able to leave her husband only when he put her and her daughters at financial risk and in legal jeopardy from a fraud scheme, althought their marriage had been a disaster for years.  In these cases, the decision was in some sense made for the women--the course of action was clear.  It wasn't that they had to decide to leave; they knew they couldn't stay.  
   In my case, it hasn't felt like that decision has been made for me by the circumstances, and deciding to leave after 35 years of marriage, gathering up the courage, letting go of the hope that maybe things might change, that my husband will come to his senses and stop wanting to be a woman, has been the hardest thing I've ever done.  My husband never said he wanted a divorce; he said he continues to love me and he wants to continue to have sex with me--but as if we were two lesbians.  That he changed the terms of the marriage by declaring a sexuality at odds with my own wasn't even enough to allow me to believe it was ok to leave him, because I still loved him.  I still had hope;  I still believed that maybe I could change myself to fit what he wanted or somehow "win him back."
    I lived in his closet for a year and half after disclosure before I found this forum; it took me months after I found it to make a call to a SSN volunteer in my town, and then to tell a friend; my name here, Out of His Closet, marked an important step for me, but it has taken another year after that first post here, two and a half years since disclosure before I could tell anyone in my family (my mother--which I did just two nights ago; she was supportive, and I didn't hold back, even on the sordid sexual details I've written about on this forum).  
    I've known for a long time that telling my mother would be the point at which the die was cast, the point of no return, because I knew that once I'd told her that my husband dresses in women's clothes, hates his male body, is sexually excited by feminizing himself, that there would be no way I could stay in the marriage.  The day after I told my mother I finally reached the point where I could bring myself to call a lawyer--which I did yesterday--but when I was told she was in court and her secretary wasn't yet in so I'd have to leave a call back number to make an appointment, I couldn't even bring myself to leave a call back number.  I was shaken when I put down the phone.  But the ice is broken, and although at onle level I still can't believe I have to do this, at another I know I have to and will. I know that I love my husband still, but I also know that it's a love that is become destructive to my health and well being, and I must separate myself from hm.
    My mother said, earlier today, you can look at this divorce as saying that you have decided the situation is not something you wish to be part of.  She's so right: I haven't wanted to be part of the situation since the day he disclosed it, but it's taken me this long to come to the point that I could act to end the marriage.  As Kel says, "I reached my end point on hope.  I realized things were never going to change."  And I can't accept that, as she says, as my life.  ​I'm choosing myself, that is, and choosing for myself. 
   But god, how long it has taken me, and how hard it has been.  I certainly couldn't have done it without the pushing, prodding, understanding, support, and stories of those on this forum.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (August 11, 2017 3:31 pm)