1) Were you able to remain close/amicable with your spouse (assuming you separated/divorced)?

Be civil and take the high road and be amicable BUT don't be a doormat.  You have a future that is independent of her that you need to focus on.  Maybe you can be close at some point many years from now.  My opinion is that staying friends with your ex is a very bad idea at least until you get your head together. You need space and to heal and grieve the end of the relationship.  

If you stay friends you'll be stuck in the past/limbo and its better to go no contact. 



2) What and how did you tell your kids (our kids will be 7 and 4)?

I don't think they need to know why at this point.   But be truthful as you can.  

3) Were your kids okay and did they adjust okay to the separation/divorce?

They were hurt and are still adjusting but okay. 


4) When and how much did you tell your friends & family about WHY you separated?  I ask because my wife is very slowly coming out of the closet and still very much reluctant to share her secret with many of her friends & family.  

I think in any divorce its hard and friends tend to choose sides or ditch you altogether.  Also you maybe surprised how many are cheerleaders for your exes bravery in coming out and telling your what on earth is your problem with that.  


As for the last question - see response to #1.  This is why you can't be friends now because they aren't your friend ! All you will get is gaslighting comments like this. 

Finally,  this is a really tough situation.  BUT there will come a time when you are grateful to be out of the marriage and you will be much happier.  

Sorry that you are here but the grass is greener !  




 

Last edited by Laurence (January 20, 2018 5:33 pm)

Phoenix said: 
"You sound like every straight woman's dream husband.. own that! You were and are awesome and if you had been with a straight woman you would have made her so happy." (someone told me once how to correctly pull a quote from someone, but I can't remember now....)

Anyway, that is what I was thinking exactly when I read the original post. Own that! You are a great person that has a lot to offer, but were just with someone who couldn't be happy with you no matter how well you treated her.  

Take things one day at a time, see your therapist and you will get through this.  

Thanks Josie and OutofHisCloset. 

A couple of thoughts in response to your advice/suggestions. Perhaps I do feel too much of a sense of duty/loyalty to my wife that I should cut back on.  I do worry about the implications of living in a small, conservative town where people love to gossip.  I don't want my soon to be ex to be bullied, shamed, etc. for her sexual orientation.  I'm fairly progressive politically and socially, so I think it's unacceptable to discriminate others based on race, religion, sex, etc. Despite the betrayal, she's still a good person worthy of respect and dignity. If people want to judge and criticize for her cheating on me and keeping this secret then that's a different story.  I would hope I don't have to shield my kids from ridicule at school, but that may be an obstacle down the road.  

I guess with the whole secrecy thing...It's not like she makes it a point to tell me I can't say anything.  She just would prefer we keep it quiet until she's ready to be fully out.  She's definitely becoming more and more comfortable with her choice and is slowly coming out.  I think she realizes that she won't be able to control the narrative when we officially separate.  I told her that I would be sharing my story with my good friends and family and then prospective gf's when the time is right.  I think it's ludicrous for her to expect me to go along with the idea that we were simply 'incompatible.'  She's still struggling with that point as she keeps reminding me "our relationship had major issues that started long before you knew I was a lesbian."  Sure, it did and you took little steps to change those issues because you couldn't and didn't want to reveal why. 

I'm going a bit off topic here, but just want to illustrate how ridiculous it is of her to say our communication problems were the crux of our issue.  On her birthday, I wrote her a very sweet note about how proud I am of her job as a mother and all she does to provide a great home for our family.  I assured her of how much I still admire her beauty and personality.  As soon as I turned my back on her, she dumped my card in the trash can.  Yet, she kept on display all the cards she received from female family members and gf's.  One was from this girl she had a crush on.  Mind you this girl never gave her the time of day and was seeing other guys.  This girl's card basically just said 'happy birthday.'  Yet, that was somehow more sentimental to her.  She stayed out past 2 am with one girl, 3 am with another (on a school night no less) and 5:15am in the morning with another female within a short time frame (when she had this sudden newfound freedom and thought it was okay to live like college-aged kid).  Yet throughout our relationship, she rarely wanted to stay up past 10pm - even when we were on vacation together with no obligations.  Yeah, talk about communication.  I tried explaining that I was fighting a no-win battle, but she still brings up times where I wasn't there as much as I should have been. 

I know this is still fresh, but I am certainly over the idea of 'us' ever being a thing in the future.  I know I deserve better.  I am still relatively young with lots of love to give.  I no longer want to be that burden who felt responsible for someone else's happiness.  Though I still deeply care for her, her pessimistic attitude was draining on me.  She used to make me feel guilty for the rich social life I had so I cut back a lot. Now, I have just a small circle of friends (I've also become more introverted as I've grown older) so I need to focus on building back those relationships.  

It is hard watching someone who you loved so deeply feel so liberated from severing ties with you.  Like...I was really THAT bad of a person? Our relationship was that meaningless to you???  All I really want from her is to acknowledge the pain and hurt I feel and to be supportive of me.  If roles were reversed I would feel terrible and wish to help in anyway I could - and I'd be elated that my partner was understanding of my choice.  She's getting better with this, but still not as sensitive to my experience as I'd desire her to be. 
  

1) Were you able to remain close/amicable with your spouse (assuming you separated/divorced)?

For a while, yes.  Until I realized that it was just me doing him favors because I thought if I was nice to him, he'd feel obligated to repay me when it came to be my turn.  Only,..... he not only never stepped up to the plate, but if I asked him for something, he'd was just somehow never in a position to be able to help me.  So I stopped being nice just so we could be friends, and sure as shit, he showed that he wasn't my friend after all.  He was just taking advantage of my good nature.  Once I realized I was being played like a fiddle, I started standing up for what was my right, and then he got nasty.  I'm talking..... me wanting to be paid the child support he'd been ordered to pay.  I don't CARE if you don't have the money to do it - neither do Iiiiiii.  You figure your shit out.  It's not my problem anymore.  And sure enough, he figured it out once the court told him to pay or he'd be in jail.  Suddenly he was able to figure it out.  Interesting.  So no, we're not friends.  I thought we could be, but it just meant me bending over backwards so he could do less than his fair share.  And I had enough of that during our marriage.

2) What and how did you tell your kids (our kids will be 7 and 4)?

Our kids were 14, 10 and 7 when we separated.  He didn't want them to know he was gay, despite the fact that he was living with his boyfriend, at his home - where the kids visited every-other-weekend.  I waited a bit, because there's no great time to tell the kids such news.  But then after a while, I told him enough - if he felt that being gay was okay, then why be ashamed of it?  If it's so bad that you can't own up to it, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it, ya know?  I told him that I was giving him a month to tell the kids.  It must have been longer than that and he still hadn't told them anything.  In the end, I wound up telling two of the kids on accident.  I remember the oldest saying, "Is it true what I'm hearing about Dad?", and me being like, "What, that he's gay?"  And the kid being like, "No! That he's not moving back to this area!  Wait.... he's GAY?!?"  Oops - my bad.  The other kid I don't remember as well, but it was something similar - some misunderstanding that resulted in the information being transferred.  In the end, I wasn't sorry - I'd given him months of living with the gay boyfriend, and enough is enough.  Quit lying to the kids about who this man is.

The 14 year-old was a boy.  He had a difficult time of it. He knew that we'd gotten pregnant out of wedlock with him, so he twisted it into "I was born to hide the fact that my father was gay."  Which may or may not be true.  So he felt that his life was built on a lie, and could never amount to anything.  This kid was always full of excuses though - for any and everything under the sun.  So I told him that no - he wasn't made to hide Dad being gay - he was made in love, and besides, your origins have zero to due with what you can become.  The sky is the limit.  My middle son was very quiet about Dad being gay.  Turns out he feared that he'd "inherit" it.  We constantly assured him that that's not how it works.  He's calmed down considerably.  The youngest - a girl - was just fine with it.  To her, Daddy was still just Daddy.  And I encouraged that.  She' much more open to the gay community than the boys are.

3) Were your kids okay and did they adjust okay to the separation/divorce?
They all adjusted just fine.  Well, the first kid had huge behavioral issues all along, so it's difficult to tell if the divorce made it worse or not.  It did get bad, but I really think it's likely more of a chemical imbalance than anything else.  The other two are fine.  I'm re-married, and my youngest considers her step dad to be her real dad.  The older two do not.  And that's fine by me/my now husband.  They've all grown up in a much happier home than the one that xdh and I had.

4) When and how much did you tell your friends & family about WHY you separated?  I ask because my wife is very slowly coming out of the closet and still very much reluctant to share her secret with many of her friends & family.

I shared it with everyone, eventually.  Initially, I told only a few close friends.  I knew that if I told a SINGLE family member, it'd be all over like wildfire within 24 hours.  Ex and I were still living together, and he was uncomfortable with people knowing.  Turns out that was because he thought that my straight-laced, conservative family would try to let him not see the kids.  I assured him that'd be something I'd never let happen.  And they DID try.  And I told them to cut it out.  He still hasn't told his OWN family, though.  He only has extended family (cousins, aunts/uncles) though, and they're all in a different state and he rarely sees them.  So I get why he wouldn't bring it up.

5) Did you use SSN to help cope with the anxiety and fears you experienced?  Did you attend any of the meetings? If so, did you find them beneficial?

At the time (2010) was a fairly dead bulletin board.  You could post and not get a response for weeks at a time.  There wasn't a whole lot of feedback - only people just kind of divulging their situation.  Which can in and of itself be therapeutic.  But it wasn't the same as it is now.  I never got to go to meetings or meet anyone else in person who'd gone through this.

Kel