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Last edited by Duped (November 11, 2019 3:30 pm)

I think we all learn from these sorts of stories, I always like reading these sorts of things where we reflect and embrace what we are learning.

I had 4 million realizations.  Some of them I was only able to recognize much later than they actually happened:

1.  The day I logged into his email account and found an email from "Yahoo Match" with his matches, based on his preferences.  They were all of gay men in the immediate area.  I clicked on the link in the email, which took me to his profile.  There was no way he was going to be able to say this was just some random e-mail - he'd set up an account with preferences.  I realized that day what had been wrong for so long that I was begging this man for sex.  When I confronted him, he told me that he wasn't sure if he was gay or not because he'd been having recurring dreams about past abuse, and they were no longer scaring him, but exciting him.  So he figured if he looked at some pics of guys, he'd figure it out.  Ummmm,..... you weren't looking at gay porn - you were actively trying to meet men.  That was intent to cheat.  He told me that he didn't love me anymore - that he loved me as friend and as his kids' mother.  I immediately knew we needed a divorce.  He was adamant that we didn't go down that road.  So we went to counseling instead.  Things got better for a time.  But I knew from that day forward what the issue likely was.

2.  He would often encourage me to go out with girlfriends and have some fun.  It would kind of come out of nowhere - he'd be like, "You need some time out!", and then practically arrange for it to happen - including a new outfit, shoes, jewelry, etc.  Then THAT NIGHT, after I returned home, he'd tell me now it was HIS turn.  And then he'd already have made plans for the following night.  He could have gone out any time he wanted to - I trusted him then.  But he made sure that I "owed" him in some little way.  And he'd usually stay out all night, telling me the next afternoon that he'd gotten too drunk to drive home, so he did the responsible thing and slept it off there.  He would never tell me this as it's happening, though.  Phone would go straight to vm.  It was like one big set-up; he'd say afterward that if I'D wanted to stay out all night, he'd have let me and not have given me grief afterward.  As if I owed that to him now, too.

A good 3.5 years after we finally broke up and moved on - after I'd already re-married, as a matter of fact - I realized one day that his odd friendship years earlier had actually been a gay affair.  And that as soon as he stopped hanging out (a.k.a. "broken up" ) with said friend, he went through a huge bout of depression that I just couldn't understand.  Seemed to come out of nowhere, and he largely isolated himself.  If I were to ask what was wrong, he'd just tell me "nothing".  If I persisted, he told me that there was GOING to be something wrong!  So he got to sit alone, pining over his beloved, brooding and angry and sullen.  Took me years to figure out that the odd friendship and the depression were related.  And that he'd already been cheating on me years earlier.  I remember feeling so alone at that point in time - pregnant, with a toddler and a kindergartner all the time - as if I were alone within the relationship.  It's amazing what you can remember feeling, and then see it so clearly years later.

When I finally asked him if he thought he was gay, and he took a good 5 seconds of thinking before even answering "Hmmmm.", I knew.  Straight men don't answer like that!  Then he told me that he didn't think he was gay, but that he'd put some thought into it.  Nail, meet coffin.  Even so, I STILL wondered - because he never admitted it before I found out from someone else that he'd already told them he knew that he was gay.

So many things are so clear to me now.  Mostly about love in general, and about myself, and what I deserve.  And a lot about straight men and how they tend to think/behave.  It's like.... HOW did I keep fighting all those years?  WHY?  I was getting nothing in return.  But any little nugget would give me hope.  Now I realize that I could have had a million of those little nuggets, and they'd never have added up to one good cornerstone.  I realize how little I was settling for all those years.  And that the root of the marital issues wasn't that he was dumb, or gay.  I kept thinking if I could only solve these few things in my marriage (job loss, lack of intimacy, and not taking adult responsibility within the family/household), then everything would be good.  I could get by that way.  Now it's evident to me that even those things being solved would never have brought me true happiness.  The absence of crap doesn't necessarily make for happiness.  It's more neutral than happy.  NOW I know what true happiness is, and how minuscule of a possibility there ever was for me having that within my old marriage.  It was alllll a pipe dream.

It's so good to be woke!  Lol.

Kel

 

Last edited by Kel (September 8, 2017 10:17 am)

I am in the middle of this whole thing right now, so a lot of it is pretty raw.  I found out through a series of events.  One, I had found a hand written page of song lyrics.  Those lyrics along with a lot of late nights and his avoiding being home in general led me to suspect he was seeing someone.  There was a time when those songs were for me.  Then about a week later, my daughter was really upset about something and just couldn't shake it.  She had been having trouble at school, so being the mom that I am, I gave her a few days, and then pushed more to get her to talk to me.  I got that it was something with dad, but she was not going to say because it was "too personal" for him.  So that was the big red flag. 
     Turns out he had basically come out to her while they were shopping for clothes and told her all about his special guy. He asked her not to tell.  (Although he refutes this to this day.) 
     So.  fast forward a few weeks.  I got an admission from him that he is indeed gay and has met the love of his life.  He didn't know love could be like this.  Here (our home) is chaos, there (with him) is calm.  He has always been gay but tried to hide it.  WTF!  Guess he fooled everyone with 18 years of marriage and 5 kids. 
      Realizations:  Now, too many to count.  Over the past several months, I found myself saying it's not about him being gay, it's about him being so negative, mean, cruel, angry, manipulating.  But to be honest, it IS ALL about him being gay.  If he had been able to grow up honest and authentic to himself, he would not have needed to hide in the first place and not created this whole fake relationship with me. Our relationship was very real to me.  He is the most narcissistic person I have ever known in my life.  He sacrificed his whole family, wife and all 5 kids, his faith, his jobs, all on the altar of trying to make himself feel better.  
   The kids and I will survive this.  We are not sacrifices.  I am taking back myself bits at a time.  Every victory is hard won and deserved and celebrated.   The victories are things like:  all 5 kids went to school today, we laughed today, we played today, I went to work today, the dishes are done before I go to bed.   God, it's hard.  
   
    

Last edited by Tamiam (September 8, 2017 1:19 pm)