Hi Joe,

I'm so sorry. She's lying to you.  And you should find it insulting that she expects you to believe such bullshit.  She is lying, and has the nerve to act hurt that you don't believe her lies?  Yeahhhhh,..... no.

And you're right - if you caught her lying and she hasn't fessed up to it, then you can't really know what you can and cannot believe.  The massages she paid for is a perfect example.  She did it, and you had proof.  What did she say THEN?  That the bank screwed up?  If you need to use something as an example of her lying, use that - it's irrefutable.  It's just stupid that she'd do something that she didn't think you'd like (even if it was just paying for the massages), and then lies to hide it?  I mean, don't do it in the first place, if she's concerned about the ramifications.  Or do it because you believe you have the right, and then f'n OWN it.  You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

It never seems like they have the time to cheat.  I know of coworkers who've cheated with colleagues and their spouse just thinks they're at work.  These people would take looooong lunches at a hotel, and if their spouse tried to call, we were instructed to say that they were in a meeting (which is totally believable).  I knew of one woman who had a lover she only got to see a bit of, and she'd take an earlier train, get off a his stop (which was on the same line), sit in his car, mess around, and then get on the next train that she should have been on.  She had a monthly pass, so the extra cost would never have shown up anywhere.  One woman told me that she had supposedly joined the PTA and was gone all the time for school meetings.  What was her unsuspecting husband going to do, check to make sure she was at every meeting?  She made sure to be at a few events as a volunteer - like the book fair.  He'd bring the kids through and she'd look like she was working her shift for the PTA.  I knew of another person who got off every other Friday in the summertime as a department perk.  She didn't tell her husband.  Just got up and went into work every Friday as usual.  Only she was spending the entire day twice a month with her boyfriend.  I knew of a stay at home mom that used to have her man friend over when the kids were napping.  Where there's a will, there's a way, as the saying goes.

No one tells their spouse they're cheating "just to get back at them".  That's dangerous and not to the person's advantage to say such a thing.  And the fact that she screamed "Yes, with women!" is actually the truth.  It popped out, and she didn't want to deal with the fallout, so she'll just say it was a lie.  Lies, lies, lies.

I'm sorry you're going through this.  Stand your ground. What she's doing is called gaslighting and love bombing.  They're all distraction tactics.  You don't have to believe what she throws at you.

Kel
 

Hi Joe,

okay so I expect writing that post has put it out in front of you.  It takes a lot to process this doesn't it.  Just the simple fact that the person you trust the most is faking you hurts unbearably.  Beneath that is the slow burn, the intense bit, the sexual mismatch you are both feeling the effects of.  You have been carrying the brunt of it but look who it is who starts screaming at you when the truth starts to emerge as inevitably it eventually will.

Don't let her do that again.  Has she apologised?  Don't let her use you as a scratching post.  

After a while i realised I had to accept I was the only responsible adult in the house and it was up to me to make the calls that needed to be made.

Wishing you all the best, Lily (the old one not the new one here now)
 

Hi Kel: thank you for the reply. It's helps to hear others perspective because when you love someone the way I love my wife it's hard to see through there bullshit. Honestly, I think I'm still in denial a little. She's big on distraction tactics and uses them in me regularly. It's helped to become aware of it and call her out when it happens. But she's lied to me so much over the years that my trust in her is gone.

Given what you know about people that cheated, what's the best way to catch them? Were these people madly in love with the other, making attempts to see each other regularly or did they meet up every so often? I'm asking because I can't help but wonder how many times this has happened, when and with how many people. Something that keeps sticking out is the word "women". It had a plural meaning in the way it was said...is there more than one? I need to catch her because it's the only way I'm going to get her to face the facts and admit the truth.

Phoenix, thanks for your reply! Can you tell me more about GID or point me toward a good resource. Your points about increased sexual activity being a cover hit home. I can't understand why she suddenly flipped the switch, though I'm happy she did. We were in bed recently and she asked to watch some BJ porns to "learn how to do it right"; I agreed to put them on and as soon as it came on she stopped watching and wouldn't watch. So I switched it to lesbian and got the same thing. I asked what was wrong and she said the BJ porn was gross and she's never going to watch lesbian porn again because she's not going to have me accuse her of being a lesbian. I asked when she watched it alone; what was it that turned her on? I asked if she was turned on by it watching it alone what's changed? No response was given, then she jumped on top of me.

I forgot to mention a few things in my 1st post. Around the time that she admitted to the affair; I found tons of pics on her phone that were love memes and a few that discussed facing a difficult decision with love and having no regrets. Another talked about moving forward with love or going back to how things were. She claimed they reminded her of something unrelated to us but again; her explanation doesn't add up and none were ever sent to me.

I also wrote her a long letter after all of this happened. In part of it, I told her I believed in my mind, heart and soul that she had an emotional or physical affair and that she was afraid of the consequences of being honest with me about what happened and that I didn't think she meant for it to happen but truest believe it did.  When I got home that night, she screamed it never happened, then got in her car and left. She never wrote back, never explained her feelings and never addressed it again. I've asked her if she finds women attractive, if she's thought of them sexually or emotionally and who she talked to at work about us and got nothing but denial from her.

Steen: Thank you for sharing. It's unbelievable how they can lie and lie and lie. It's hard to believe I've met two people in two days who had things admitted and retracted. Kel is right; why can't they just own it? It's almost like she enjoys seeing me in agony!

Hi Phoenix,

I can't thank you enough for your response. You're right, I was unprepared when she admitted it and I'm just as unprepared now.  What you're saying makes perfect sense with regard to preparation and where she's at in this process; so I will start researching. We do have kids.

Might I ask if it's not to painful, how most of you reacted to your spouse coming out in the moment? Were you supportive, angry, denial? What did you say? What did they say? What did you ask?  Did you leave right away? Did you stay and try to work on things? How did that work out? Have any of you opened your marriage? If so, what difficulties or struggles did you face? If they retracted their admission; what did you say?

Joe,

My experience with my ex finally admitting to being gay came about a good year after I asked for a divorce.  There were several instances of me "catching him" over the years though, and he always had an excuse.  For instance, Twice he went out with my much younger sister and her friends while I was home watching our then very young baby.  Both times they went to gay clubs as my sister's roommate was gay and that's where he wanted to go.  My sister reported to me on one occasion that my husband had gotten very drunk as the evening wore on, until he was dirty dancing with all the men, and he even tried to make out with my sister's roommate.  He was very young then - maybe 25 or so.  She said she wasn't sure if he was gay, or if he was trying to be hip and go along with the crowd, but regardless, it had been inappropriate and awkward for her.  My then husband told me that he remembered NO such actions.  I asked him if I wasn't to believe my sister, and he just said that he doesn't know why she'd say such a thing.  He doesn't remember anything after a certain point in the evening.  He had done things before where he'd gotten belligerent to me while getting drunk, and the next day he'd claim to know nothing of those actions.  Oddly though, he seemed to remember other things that happened at the same time.  For instance, one time he was so out of line that I slapped him.  The next day he woke up, came to me and said, "Did you BEAT me last night???"  I told him what he'd done and what I'd done.  "Oh.  I don't remember any of that."  At the time, I remember thinking, "If you wanted to claim ignorance, why didn't you just forget ALL of it?  The other part of me said that he wouldn't have brought it up knowing the rest of the story if he'd remembered all of it and saw how bad it made him look.  So I never knew what happened.  But it was all brushed under the rug, of course.  He had "no idea why your sister would have interpreted anything I did in that way.  Even if I DID do those things, they'd have HAD to be a joke!"

Another time I went online and checked his email account while he was out of work because we didn't have computer access at home.  I'd done this many times for him - he would tell me to.  Once I checked in and there was an email from Yahoo Dating, saying that he had matches based on his preferences.  I opened it.  They were all local men!  I called my sister over - whose house I was at - and said, "WHAT the fuck am I looking at???"  And she was like, "Oh SHIT.  I TOLD you he was gay!"  We'd been married for 7 years at that point.  Not long before that, our oldest son had been molested.  My husband had been horrifically sexually abused at around the same age, which I'd long known.  When I confronted my ex about the dating matches, he told me that he'd been having dreams about his past.  Except now instead of being scared in the dreams, he was excited.  He said it made him worry that he was gay.  So he thought if he looked at some men, he might be able to figure it out.  It didn't even make sense to me - if you want to LOOK at men to see if you would get a physical response, then why not try looking at gay porn? (Not that I'd have liked that any better).  Instead, this man - whom I was begging for sex - wasn't giving any to me, but was actively searching for a partner???  It was serious enough that at the time, he blurted out that he wasn't in love with me any more - that he loved and respected me, but as a friend, and as the mother of his children.  I told him we'd get a divorce then.  He panicked - he didn't want to not have daily contact with the kids.  So I told him that we either had to go to serious counseling, or call it quits.  He actively sought out counseling, and for a while, we were better.  He literally told me that he would never cheat on me with another WOMAN - but he didn't think of being with another man as cheating.  HUH???  In the end, the entire thing was addressed the same as if I'd found him trying to match up with women - as a stupid indescretion.

In the end, it was my brother-in-law who told me that my ex was gay.  It was August - a year and a half after I'd asked for a divorce - when my BIL told me that my ex had told him in January that he knew he was gay.  Told BIL that he'd never cheated (which I then believed, but have come to think is a lie), but he knew he was gay because he thought about men, but never women.  So here we were - already getting a divorce - and when I came home and very gently told my soon-to-be ex that I knew he was gay, he denied it.  I told him how I knew, and he said that he never told BIL that he was gay; he must have misunderstood.  What he SAID was that I'd asked him if he was gay.  I'm like, "Dude. I KNOW.  Just freaking own this already.  It's not going to make any difference at this point.  We're already done.  But for God's sake, have enough respect for me to tell me the actual truth for ONCE."  And he still couldn't.  He started crying, saying that he could NEVER tell me that he was gay, because then I'd be angry that he ruined my life, and wasted 16 years of my life.  I told him that he hadn't ruined my life - he was giving himself way too much credit - I'd be FINE.  And that I have 3 beautiful children out of the marriage - I could never regret it.  Still,..... he denied.  "But I can't be gay - if your family found out, they'd never let me see the kids again!"  I said that it wasn't up to my family, and that he's their FATHER - I would never deny him the right to see the kids unless he was hurting them.  And I didn't see him ever doing that.  So THEN he said, "Yeah, I'm gay.", and broke down into a heap on the floor.

The reality is that they're scared to admit that they're gay.  Maybe for one or two reasons, or maybe for dozens.  Maybe they think that gay people are sinning and will be damned to hell.  Maybe they think that they're lose the respect of the people who love them.  Maybe they think they'll be shunned.  Maybe they've always thought of gay people in a certain way, and they're not that way (like flamboyant, or butch), and they somehow feel that they don't fit the gay profile.  Or that if they come out, they'll turn into the profile they hate.  Maybe they want someone who helps with the bills and the house and the kids, and don't want to give that up.  Maybe they see themselves as liking the same sex for sex, but not emotionally.  Whatever it is, there is something if not several somethings that they're scared of.  And so they deny, they hide, they convince themselves that they're not really gay, even if they are participating in gay acts.  Maybe they think it's like someone who only smokes at parties - they don't consider themselves truly a "smoker".  It's just..... recreational.  And they're GOING to STOP!  Whatever the reason, the truth is that they can't handle the reality of the situation (even if the worst case scenario is only that bad in their imagination).  So they refuse to tackle the problem.  Throw YOU under the bus, instead.  Make YOU suffer - you're strong - you can handle it.  That's what made me angry in the end - not that he was gay, but that he'd thrown me under the bus and then lied about the fact that he'd even done so.  He let ME suffer because he was afraid to.  He considered his feelings more important than mine.  And THAT chapped my ass.

From all the stories I've seen here, it seems that in cases where the gay spouse admits to same sex attraction, the st8 partner starts out as supportive.  After all, they love their spouse, and want them happy - that's all they've ever wanted.  And oftentimes, the gay spouse is MORE than happy to play the victim here.  If you aren't supportive, or are in any way accusatory or don't give them permission to do what they want, then it's YOU who's selfish.  It's YOU who is unsupportive.  It's you who just.doesn't.understand how tortured they've been over this all along.  Or they turn the entire thing around and blame YOU for driving them away - you're too difficult, you're too oppressive, you're not clean enough, you nag too much - whatever it is.  YOU drove them to cheat, because you're horrible.  They never told you any of these things, but they'll use them as justification for their own behavior.

In the end, my opinion is almost ALWAYS to just get out.  By the time you're here, things have already progressed past the point where you can in good faith support them and trust them any longer.  They've been keeping secrets for so long that you can't trust anything they say any longer.  I never advocate doing an open relationship in a marriage - especially when it didn't start out that way.  It's counter-productive and unhealthy in several ways.

Kel

Last edited by Kel (August 25, 2017 1:07 pm)