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December 5, 2017 11:22 pm  #1


Am I going through this twice?

After swearing up and down that he is not gay, 4 months after divorce and it seems that my GIDX is slowly coming out.  I always pictured this situation in my head and hoped that it would be soon so I could have real closure on that subject as well.  I had no idea that it would break my heart a second time.

Last week he had an old friend (of mine, mind you that I always thought of as bi) over and they were spotted all over town. He even posted pictures of them on social media.  This is not the first time.  Weeks before he had his other friend sleep over.  This is the same friend that he had while we were still married and from which we made the connection that there is some sort of relationship going.  But he is still discreet about that one, probably because he lives here too.  But this old friend he had over last week was like he was flaunting it.  At first it amused me, but there is no denial in the fact that it hurt me.  It brought up all the old feelings of shock, loneliness, pain and new ones of bitterness and shame.  The lawyer told me that he would come out a few months after divorce and she was right.  I prepared myself for that, but what I was not prepared for is that it would slam me right back into the pain and heartbreak that I thought I worked halfway through.  Here I was still struggling to tell people that I am divorced.  Still struggling to reach for a new future.  And he is coming out to the world.  Painting me and our marriage with the shame of his deceit.  Last time I had to deal just with my own feelings and reactions, now I'll have to deal with the looks our friends will give me.  Them knowing (and they will ask questions!) what a scam my marriage was.  It is like reliving it twice and this time a feel like a clown with a big red smile on my face and a tear in the heart.  I want to take my kids and move as far away as possible.  He will not even mind because I can see the kids taking lesser and lesser priority.

 

December 6, 2017 8:48 am  #2


Re: Am I going through this twice?

I'm sorry you have to experience this additional pain and humiliation.  On his thread Sean warns that a newly out man may go through a period of "adolescence" in which he flaunts his relationships--so maybe you want to steer clear of his social media presences?

 

December 6, 2017 10:10 am  #3


Re: Am I going through this twice?

Moving to a new community is not a bad idea as long as you do it because it fits in with your goals and isn't done impulsively just to get away from your ex. Think about what you want your life to be like including after your children are grown. Do you want to be less isolated and closer to amenities such as shopping, cultural activities, medical care etc.?  Will a move offer more opportunities for exercise, hobbies and friendships? What will fit into your budget?

I moved to a different climate zone so I could grown more plants.  There also are more volunteer opportunities and a community college where I can take classes. The more I focused on deciding what I wanted the less he mattered. 


Try Gardening. It'll keep you grounded.
 

December 6, 2017 5:11 pm  #4


Re: Am I going through this twice?

Try to maintain no contact ... he simply is not relevant in your life now.   I wish my ex would come out...then everyone would see it was not me...she remains closeted ..she must remain a victim of the horrible husband I was....whatever.

  I'm sure your real close friends and family will see the real reason now..   To me our ex's being  seen with the same sex shows more about them then it does about us.. 

Right now I feel even thinking about them or caring or worrying what they are doing is holding us back..
its simply not my monkey, not my circus anymore..   These ex's should have no signifgance in our lives anymore.  

At least you can see how you knew and how everything would happen....how its all true.   Be glad to be away from him.
 


"For we walk by faith, not by sight .."  2Corinthians 5:7
 

December 7, 2017 5:05 am  #5


Re: Am I going through this twice?

Hi Guys,  thank you for commenting.  @Abby, I will not move away, because then I will be moving away from my support system and I do not want to unsettle the kids as they just got used to their new routine.  I think the coming holiday is a blessing at just the right time.

@ Rob, when I saw them I said to myself YES! now everybody will see that I am not the evil queen they think I am.  I am not following him on social media, but my cousin sent me the photo's and asked if I knew about it. Thats when the sadness kicked in. And I do want to keep an eye on whom he keeps company with, because my kids are exposed to this people over weekends.  Its kinda difficult when you want to break all ties, but the protective motherly instincts won't let you.
I talked to my mom about this and I feel much better now.  I could also forward the divorce papers to him this week (South Africa is slow on paperwork I guess) which made me feel very, very good.

Last edited by Mrs Lonely (December 7, 2017 5:06 am)

     Thread Starter
 

December 7, 2017 11:10 am  #6


Re: Am I going through this twice?

Mrs. Lonely,

Are you still following him on social media?  Do yourself a favor and go RIGHT NOW and unfriend him.  Block him, even.  You don't need to see what he's doing - you are divorced from him.  Now,... I know that being divorced isn't the end of your feelings - they take time to dissipate.  And that's why seeing him with someone else (whom you suspect he's "with" in some way) hurts - because you're not over him yet.  It's natural.  But it's not good for you.  It couldn't work with him - you determined that.  So decide (and I truly mean decide - because it can be a choice) that you don't want him anymore, so it matters little who gets him now.  Any time you see or hear something that puts a pang of pain in your heart, say to yourself (literally say out loud sternly to yourself), "I.DON'T.WANT.HIM.ANYMORE.  It doesn't matter what he does now - I'm done with him."  It can and does help.  It trains your mind about what to think instead of just dealing with reactions.  That doesn't mean it won't hurt.  But when you re-frame it into "He sucks, I don't care what he does anymore" (except where it pertains to your children), it starts to feel different.

He's not bringing shame upon you.  He's bringing shame upon himSELF.  He is revealing to everyone what the true issue was in your marriage - and that it was unfixable.  And that you have suffered and have every reason to be divorced.  It literally vindicates you.  If he were out there with women, it would just make it look like the two of you couldn't get along, for whatever reason.  In that scenario, the possibility that you were horrible, inadequate or crazy exists.  NOW though?  Nope - "Oh look - he's GAY!  Got it.  No wonder they didn't work out.  She must have gone through a lot."  If people ask questions, then just tell them the truth.  "Yes, he was and is gay.  He just denied it - to me and to himself.  It meant that there was a lot of unexplained tension and grief in our marriage.  When I finally learned the truth, I realized it was unfixable."  PERIOD.  They may ask intrusive questions like, "But,... I don't get it.  How can he be gay and still have sex with you? (if you have children, there is clearly proof of this.)  I got and still get asked that occasionally.  I feel no reason to explain something to someone that I don't even have an understanding of myself.  So I just say, "I have no idea.  I'd love to have the answer to that, too."  People have asked me, "But.... didn't you know he was gay?"  I say, "I sure as hell knew something was wrong - for a long time.  But I never truly caught him, and any time I asked him if he was gay, he'd just tell me no.  If someone tells you that they're not gay, then you think they know themselves well enough to know that."  "When did he know?"  "I have no idea - he claims to have just figured it out."  They really have no right to ask these questions, but they sometimes do.  And I answer them honestly - because it's an opportunity to show them a bit of the straight spouse experience - and also because they themselves may be experiencing something just like it (or know someone who is/will).  So it's my opportunity to educate them to our plight.  The more awareness there is of OUR issues, the more support and compassion the straight spouses will get over time.

Trust me when I say that if he was flaunting his relationships with new women vs. men, you'd feel even worse.  Then you'd feel as though maybe you're crazy, or inadequate.  This is proof that the issue wasn't you, and that it wasn't fixable, and validates who you both really are.

Kel


You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.
 

December 7, 2017 3:08 pm  #7


Re: Am I going through this twice?

I'm sorry this is happening Mrs Lonely, it's so unfair on you. But ultimately you can look yourself in the mirror and know you see an authentic, honest woman, and that is priceless. Let him get on with his life and know, as you do, that you are so much better off without him.

 

December 8, 2017 7:29 am  #8


Re: Am I going through this twice?

Thank you Kel.  I think you and Rob are right about the social media and training my mind not to let it affect me anymore.  I guess this is another battle to win, but I am determined to do so.

Last edited by Mrs Lonely (December 8, 2017 7:30 am)

     Thread Starter
 

December 8, 2017 10:53 am  #9


Re: Am I going through this twice?

Yes, you can win this.  It is something you train yourself to do, but the good news is that RIGHT when you say this stuff out loud to yourself, it feels a bit better almost immediately.  It's like a good friend telling you something you know.  It calms you.

The other thing that helped me was understanding that if someone had the power to make me that upset, it meant that they had control over my emotions to some degree.  And Iiiiiii wanted to be the one to have that.  It seemed like way too much power to give to someone who I'd determined was a piece of shit.  And to someone who was likely trying to do this to me, too.  I still get mega upset sometimes, but it's almost always due to someone I love very much and respect very much hurting me.  But when I feel that ire rising up at something that someone did against me but I realize that I don't care much / respect that person, I feel like maybe the thing they just did had nothing to do with me anyway.  It still might suck, but I don't have to take it as a personal attack.  They're just a dick then.  Ha ha.

It's my opinion that a lot of us in the straight spouse world seem to have strong similarities in how we process others' actions, and how we respond to that.  It's part of what made us such a good match for the LGBT spouse in the first place.  I'm sure we all know people whose first response to finding out that their spouse did something against them isn't what ours typically is.  They react in rage, aggression, and letting very little explaining happen.  We, on the other hand, don't process that way.  We have a certain type of response that looks first for an explanation.  We are empathetic, so we put ourselves in THEIR shoes, and look for loopholes that they could possibly have used, or explanations for trauma that may have caused their behavior.  That's because we cannot fathom that there IS no such explanation and they've just done this to us.  Other people jump right to the "you bastard!" phase.  This personality trait means that we will be hurt much more often in life than we are angry.  We are problem solvers - we want to find the root of the problem, come to a workable solution, and FIX it.  We value the relationship enough to not walk away from it.  Especially if we perceive our spouse is hurting, needs support, etc. in order to get to that place of healing that will facilitate the solution.  We are uber empathetic spouses, parents, sons and daughters, siblings.  But it's to our own detriment when we're up against situation that is just constantly breaking our heart.  We really don't know how to respond any other way than to look at each incident as a separate, stand-alone incident, and respond in the way that we think a kind, decent, compassionate human being would.  That gets us all twisted up eventually, because these aren't a series of stand-alone incidents, but a big tapestry of a lot of individual f'd up threads.  It's time at some point that we begin responding to our situation as if that's the reality.  It's not natural for us, and I know that even when I'm trying to respond to something with a broader view and response, it often takes asking someone else who easily responds that way for help.  You don't have to become them and respond the way they would if it doesn't fit you.  But it can help to see HOW to respond differently, since it's just not programmed into us - like, at ALL.  Let me give you an example.....

I have a bff who is a bit..... difficult to get along with.  She and I have been friends for 33 years now - since our freshman year in H.S.  We still see each other a few times a month, and we've supported each other through marriages, divorces, births, deaths, and everything in-between.  Over the years she's become more and more difficult to get along with.  She's literally cut everyone in her life off - her mother, all her sisters, her in-laws - in totality.  This past year has been difficult for me in that she's several times chosen to be very angry over little slights that I certainly never meant to hurt her.  She looks for things to start a rumble over.  She then goes silent, and I wouldn't even know that she was angry (vs. just busy) except that she has a grown niece that will contact me to give me a heads-up.  It won't matter if I contact her multiple times and eventually beg forgiveness for something I may not have even done wrong.  She will take her time - sometimes months or longer - to get over it.  And then, one of the things she'll say is, "You completely stopped contacting me - I kept asking my husband "Doesn't she even MISS me?"  Well of course I miss you!  But you told me to leave you alone, and I respected that.  My husband and daughter have seen this pattern repeat several times this year alone.  The incidents seem to be getting closer and closer together.  A few days ago I found out that she's angry with me again.  This time over something super minor.  She says she's done with me (niece told me).  So I reached out and texted, "Hey, how are you doing?", and got no response (of course).  Well, I kept thinking of how I should respond to all of this.  Should I write her a letter?  Should I contact her every few days?  I finally asked my husband and daughter for their opinion.  They told me that I should stop.chasing.her.  I've been a wonderful friend to her, and if she can't see that, then to hell with this level of stress.  Leave it alone now.  Do NOT chase her - that's.what.she.wants.  And it's not fair and not right, and I shouldn't be lowering myself to that.  And you know what?  They're right.  Here was me trying to figure out how to contact her (just drive over there?) and what to say, and they brought a totally different perspective - STOP contacting her at all.  If she wants you, she'll come back.  And you can then tell her that you're tired of this kind of shit.  She either comes to you when she has an issue (and stops assuming ill intentions when there's no proof of that ever having happened before), or you're tired of this shit. And you know what?  They're right.  And that's what I'm going to do.  It doesn't mean I don't/won't miss her.  But they're right - I've been teaching her how to treat me - and putting up with poor behavior.  No more.  I'm too old for this Jr. High School girl shit.  I'm almost 50, for God's sake.

Kel
 


You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.
 

December 8, 2017 6:04 pm  #10


Re: Am I going through this twice?

MrsLonely,

No contact..    Please listen to Tom's top 10 ways;   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3womK70af0

We should only have to go through this ounce.




 


"For we walk by faith, not by sight .."  2Corinthians 5:7
 

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