Thanks for sharing Beth. Wow. He sounds like a complete *sshole and now an *sshole dating a 25-year-old. Enjoy the inevitable demise of their relationship. In response to your questions:

1. Just wondering if you felt guilty and how you dealt with it?

Yes, post-break up I eventually felt very guilty. I dealt with my guilt via therapy, lots of reading/introspection, and posting here. 

2. And if your friendship with your wife is a close friendship or just a get along ok type of friendship?

​Friendly but very business-like. For a time, we tried to remain close friends but it was just too painful and weird for both of us. I'm not sure how to describe that period. It was like an inmate trying to remain friends with a prison guard or perhaps a rehab patient trying to keep in touch with a former doctor. The relationship was fundamentally unsound so being friends just took us back to all the bad sh*t I did. It was better when we both moved on. It allowed us to stop focusing on our broken relationship and start focusing on the kids. 

3. Has she met your boyfriend?

No she refuses to, as do my kids. But it will eventually happen. I'm no longer pushing anyone as I did that for too long. When they ask, they'll meet him. 

4. And how did you feel when she started dating?

I don't believe she's dating but I'm all for it. She deserves a straight man who wants to be with her. 

​5. I really have high hopes for a friendship, I am close with his mother so us getting along will be better in the long run, but I feel it will be harder for him at this point.....I guess time will tell.  

​I'd work on managing those expectations if I were you. You deserve better than friends like this: 

​'I was telling him the other night how i feel like my life is all out of my control, like I will be alone and lonely and divorced and have to move at some point and my future is uncertain and I question what was real and nor real from the past 20 years, H just said with no emotion "what do you want me to do about it?" '

​Staying in touch with his mother is equally dangerous in my opinion. You'll only end up talking about one thing: him. And a mother is always going to side with her son which means she'll meet the boyfriend, spend holidays & weekends with them as a couple, and so on. You'll inevitably see this is as treachery. I'd urge you to start seeing a therapist or counselor, cut off all contact, and get on with your life. Staying in touch with this toxic man and his enabling family will just keep you stuck in the rut of blind hope that he'll some day come back to you. That may sting a bit but it's my opinion.

​Be well my friend. Please keep coming back.   
 

Hi Beth. Before reading my answers, I urge you to book an appointment with a mental health professional. I am simply stating my opinion based on my own experiences whereas a qualified therapist can focus exclusively on you. I am not a licensed mental health professional. With that in mind, here goes: 

1. H says he is not sure if he is going to tell anyone else about TGT right now.....he is scared of losing friends and family and his plan is (unless its changed by now) to get his new life established, meet new friends (gay friends i assume) and become happy and comfortable with himself and then tell people, which at that point he won't care what anyone thinks of him because he will be happy.......does this sound logical to you?

Ummm no. That's so f*cked up my teeth hurt reading his gay-in-denial logic. So it's ok to discard you because he's gay and yet not ok to tell his co-workers? What an *sshole.  

2. He also wants to tell people that we drifted apart or that things just didn't work out, ( after 20 years) which makes me mad because i feel that puts blame on me, he just isn't accepting the real reason for the end of our marriage is because he is gay.

Damn straight it's his fault! You can do whatever you want, but you're no longer the keeper of his secrets. You're free! Turning now to more tactical issues, you can probably use this as leverage in your divorce settlement. If you're going the divorce route, I'd talk to a lawyer as soon as possible. 

​3. I have asked him if he would consider at least telling his mother because as i said we are close and i really need someone to talk to in real life about all of this, i know she would be understanding and of course still love him.

Ugh. Questions: What exactly do you love about this man? The lying? The new boyfriend? I've read about many many straight spouses who try to help with the coming out process. It never goes well because they do it out of the faint hope that, "See I'm so nice maybe he'll come back to me." My advice: go no contact with him nor his mom, get therapy, tell your family what happened, and get lots of support. It's all about you now. It's time to move on. 

4. I have not told anyone because i feel that since he came out to only me all he did was pull me into the closet with him and i do not feel that it is my place to tell anyone......how would you have felt about that, if your wife told people before you were ready?

​She's no longer the keeper of my secrets...because she's no longer my wife. The same rule applies to you. The minute he moves out, you are no longer a couple. I'm sorry he's put you in his closet but you don't have to stay there. YOU DID NOTHING WRONG. 

5. As far as being friends with him i really think i could do that down the road if he became his "old self" again.....we had 18 years of good times, and did fun stuff together.....our sex life was lacking in many areas and it was like we were more friends than H/W over the years anyway and i think i could make that transition, i would even be willing to meet his BF's and i'm sure he would be ok meeting anyone that may be in my life...BUT...only if i was dealing with the him who existed before this crisis hit, the "old self" ....he was funny and talkative and liked hanging out with people and really seemed to enjoy life, had a great personality.

Understood. So that was then and this is now... 

6. Now he is a depressed, unhappy, narcissist, who i feel rejects me in every way, I hate this guy.

This is not someone you want in your life Beth. Time to let him go and also to let him earn his way back into your life. You deserve so much better.  

7. So i was wondering if you feel that you have returned to the person you were before it got too much for you to keep your secret in any longer, now that you have settled down....and was that even the real you before? your real personality?.......i guess i struggle with wondering if H was even ever really the great guy i though he was or was that an act too?

I would really urge you talk about all of this with a qualified therapist. Why? Given what you've shared, I think you're demonstrating a lot of empath/co-dependent tendencies. Again I am not a mental health professional, but I do know two things: first, many gay-in-denial husbands are narcissists. I certainly was. Second, most narcissists choose as partners very kind, caring people, who might be empaths or co-dependents. I think you should focus 100% on yourself and your healing after such an ordeal. As such, I don't think it's healthy for you to stay in touch with toxic people, regardless of your history. Moreover, you seem to want to sacrifice your own health and happiness to somehow remain involved in the coming out process. While I'll defer to a professional's opinion, I personally don't believe it's healthy for you to remain involved with this man nor his mother. I wouldn't waste too much time waiting for him to "get better" because I reckon that's what you did for the last few years. Let him fall on his own, get up on his own, and then win back your trust. 

8. And i feel in order for me to fully forgive him i would need a sincere apology, like really just acknowledge  the pain he caused me and the blame he put on me....all he would have to do is ask and i would forgive him.....did you ever reach a point where you could give your wife a true apology, taking full responsibility?

I doubt you're going to hear a genuine, "I'm sorry" from a closeted narcissist who is happy letting people assume you're the reason your marriage ended. If your husband is anything like me, he's going to have to hit rock bottom by himself before you get any apology. The truth has to hit him upside the head a few times before he understands what exactly he did. The odds are against his relationship working out with Mr. 25-year-old. So I'd be prepared for when he comes crawling back to you for love and support. I reckon that will be in about 6-12 months. BUT this doesn't mean you should wait around for him to become a straight man again. As I've written above, I'd focus all of your love and attention on yourself. This means sharing your story, asking for help, getting support, and perhaps getting professional help as well. 

9. I feel i will never get one but i am hopeful that when the asshole he is now disappears and he becomes human again that he will see what he has done to me, maybe he sees it now but can't handle what he has done and that is why he hates me? do you remember ever feeling like you hate your wife, because of what she represented? i think hates me because when he looks at me he sees a life he feels stuck in and doesn't want to be a part of anymore, but he is not seeing that he is the one who creates it, not me. 

We agree: he is an *sshole! He acts like he hates you but he truly hates himself. He's drowning and is just clawing at anything and anyone to keep his head above water. Yes at the time I felt incredible resentment towards my (then) wife but I now understand this was just me projecting my toxic self-hatred on others. 

10. H is moving into an apartment next week and i feel like he will never look back, it breaks my heart after so many years to be treated this way but i also feel like a weight has been lifted and so many things that i have sensed over the years all make sense now, i feel freed in one way, and dumped in another.

This sounds a lot like narcissistic "discard" which you can read about online. If your husband's journey resembles mine, he'll be lost for about 2-3 years before a more adult (and still gay) version of him re-emerges. His relationship with the kid won't last, simply because the odds are against any relationship with such an age gap. Don't waste your time trying to "heal" him. Get away (and that includes your soon-to-be-former-mother-in-law), heal, and when you're ready find yourself a straight man who's crazy about you. Nothing good will come from staying in contact with such a radioactive person/situation. 

​I truly hope that helps my friend. Be well and please feel free to write again. 

Last edited by Sean (February 16, 2018 12:34 pm)

OOHC says: "On this forum we straight spouses who speak with the same message have been asked to temper our remarks so as not to wound the already wounded straight spouse, but I think your approach of telling it like it is is in the long run more helpful, because it prevents people from living in a false reality."

Amen to that. Coddling and allowing people to perpetuate self-delusion is not helpful in the least. And while I don't advocate deliberately harmful speech, the truth is not deliberately harmful. When truth is viewed as harmful...we've got some societal problems on levels it makes me ill to think about.

Thank you, Sean, for truth speaking.

Thank you for sharing Beth and for that reminder that the early days are the hardest. If therapy didn't work, I'd suggest you start your own thread here, contact the Straight Spouse's Network, attend meetings, and find a "sponsor" to help you work through the pain. You've come a very long way in just five weeks my friend. It took many of us years or even decades just to separate so I reckon you're on the right track. So keep going! You wrote: 

"I do see myself as an empathetic person, perhaps overly caring and loving and I know I may get hurt and used because of that, but I would rather risk the pain than to behave like a narcissist myself, I don't want this to change who I am at my core.......I know I am strong and will get through this but I am just at the beginning of the journey." 

​Amen to that my friend! I'm not asking you to change who you are. That would be like me asking you to change your eye colour. My point was something like this: yes be a kind and caring person BUT stop touching the hot stove over and over again, hoping it won't burn "this time." What I mean is at the moment, your husband is like a hot stove. Any contact you have with him will result in some form of (emotional) injury. His mother may or may not be toxic, but she's like a hot skillet on the stove...meaning too close to the heat. 

​It's very easy for me, now 3+ years after g-Armageddon, to finger wag and (virtually) "tsk tsk." But I'll never forget how many times I cried in empty children's bedrooms, anguished over my wedding photos, and felt so much pain about lost hope that I wished I were dead. Mourning the death of a marriage, the death of a life together, takes time. And every one of us will take as much time as we need to heal. I can often fall for the "hurry the f*ck up" mentality, but when I feel frustrated with husbands or wives just "not getting it" I always try to check myself. So take as much time as you need Beth to grieve the end of your relationship. But I can assure you that a happier, more honest, and more authentic life awaits you on the other side.

​Be well my friend.   
 

Last edited by Sean (February 17, 2018 12:20 am)

I really can’t be assed writing on Gary’s thread, I think we’ve all been gaslighted enough. Sean, you say it all well and I agree that he’s most probably cheated. You’re damn right that him calling his wife chubbier (who doesn’t love an italic emphasis ;-)) is just narcy and shitty.