Jamie,

I'm so proud of you!  You've arrived at a place of understanding that it's not really about how to label their sexuality, but really how to label their behavior.  And that it doesn't matter what he says if he never does it.  His patterns have revealed that his words mean nothing.  That's a huge place to arrive at - the place where you're no longer stuck examining the endless question of his sexuality, but instead, seeing how his behavior affects you, and deciding whether or not you are willing to continue tolerating it.

I know what you mean about stopping doing little things for him when they are habit.  I looked at it as no longer "investing" into the relationship.  I had decided the relationship was over, and I therefore wanted to send NO unclear signals that I was investing my time, energy or thoughts into him.  One of the first ways I did that was to stop buying things for our home together, or specifically for him.  I also had to stop accepting gifts from him, which was his way of love bombing me.  It was pretty difficult when he bought me an iPhone!  After that, I simply saw every gift as a way for him to not save money toward his own place, which just held him up from leaving.  I wanted NOTHING more than him leaving.  So I told him at some point that I didn't want any more gifts from him, and I wouldn't accept them anyway.  He should keep his money for him - because he needed to leave already.

Best of luck to you in your new revelation.

Kel
 

Brassy, I understand your need for a safe place but Jamie was also in your position and making use of this thread as support for staying in her marriage. It seems reasonable that she continue to post here.

My impression was this was a discussion thread on whether we were being unsupportive, rather than a dedicated thread for MM individuals, I believe a dedicated area is being planned.

OMG, OCJamie, me too! I'm in the exact same position and came to the exact same conclusion just a week ago. Trying to figure out if we can be civil to allow time to the next step but he is not able to do so. He MUST be the narcissist that he is. He can't help it. I'm F'ing done. I will post in my thread what happened. Congratulations to you for caring for you first and to me for doing the same. I will celebrate when I'm out of this mess & in my own place. 

  I can imagine that if such a forum had been here when I first came here, I would have gone there first, because I, like many of us when we first find the SSN, was in the mind-frame of "I"m feeling devastated but please tell me we can make this work."   And I might then not have encountered the perspectives from others that ended up being incredibly valuable to me.  Even the challenges and push back that I encountered were valuable.  

I think this thread started out as a topic of whether we do a good job of supporting both leaving and staying.  So that that end, no - it was never a thread about only being supportive.

Also, if you read what I said, I never congratulated OCJamie on LEAVING.  I said, " You've arrived at a place of understanding that it's not really about how to label their sexuality, but really how to label their behavior.  And that it doesn't matter what he says if he never does it."  For the record, I think every.single.one of us would be better off if we came to the understanding that this isn't about trying to label our spouse as much as it is about their behavior, and what it does to us.  If our spouses came to us honestly and told us that they felt they sometimes had some same sex attraction, but they were being true-blue to us, and cherished us, and they had great intimacy with us and we felt as though our marriage were not compromised by the news that they sometimes get turned on by others of their same ex, then honestly, none of us would BE here.  That's not usually the case - they tell us because they want to change the status of things.  Not necessarily to leave us, but they want something different - even if that something is okay with us.  A lot of them don't tell us at ALL - we find evidence of wrong-doing, and then they deny it, or promise no more of that behavior will happen, and then they repeat the wrongdoing.

I do often advocate for people to break things off - I won't deny that.  But that's not what I'm really about - what I'm really about is for everyone here to see their situation for what it truly is, and then decide if it's making them happy.  And if not, to have the courage to move on.  If they ARE happy with staying, more power to ya!  Congrats!  But even in that situation, honesty and integrity is imperative to the success of the marriage.  If you have that, and you see that the label isn't as applicable as the behaviors and feelings of the two people in the relationship, then good!  That's arriving at some place, too.  It's that middle ground of muddled up, scared, rejected, sad/angry stuff that sucks so bad.  So when someone arrives at clarity, I always applaud that.

Kel