Thank you for writing Detour. As you may already know, I've had similar exchanges about homosexuality and child abuse. You can read about them via these links: 

Gay in denial husband cries "I was abused": http://straightspouse.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=11686#p11686
Determining whether or not it's true: http://straightspouse.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=11695#p11695

In response to your post: 

1. While I agree with most of what you say, the one thing that you argue surrounding the male child sexual abuse survivor running away from the lake instead of into, is slightly off. 

I've never been abused and I'm not a mental health professional so I may be completely wrong. 

​2. Have you ever read Mike Lew's books? 

I haven't. Question: has your husband also read these books? 

3. In quick, there is a process that the male survivor goes through as an adult that occurs.  Many years into the future when finally arriving at a safe place, the male survivor may reenact the abuse in order to gain control over a situation that they did not hold as a boy.  

Understood. Question: does this apply to sexual abuse by both men and women? 

​4. This means acting out through gay porn, hooking up...seeking out situations that they have control over this time around.  One thing that many must come to terms with is that while it was sexual abuse as a boy, it felt good...and then the reasoning becomes, "well I must be gay because I enjoyed the act." 

Ok. 

​5. This of course is untrue because sexual stimulation regardless of want often results in a sexual release.  The healing process requires them to understand that such abuse was never about sex but instead the abusers power and control over them.  Anyway, it can and often is complicated. 

​Got it. 

6. I hope you are okay with me speaking up.[color=#000000]

Of course! You have more experience with this than I do so I appreciate you sharing. 

7. In the end however, this can and often does present the perfect excuse for a husband in denial to hide behind.  Even after the initial shock, after therapy, after all of the dust settles....the telltale sign boils down to a simple question, "do their actions match their words?" How is he treating me?  Is there an undeniable resentment?  Does he express a true desire to be with me or is he filled with one hundred and one excuses as to why he remains disconnected?

​I agree. 

​I have to admit that whenever I read another straight wife's post about her husband breaking down while claiming, "I was abused!" I'm skeptical. I roll my eyes and think to myself, "Well here we go again." So I'm biased against these kinds of stories to start with. I'll repost my previous reply below but here is the point I'd like to make: I believe that we are born gay because this is my own experience. And why? EVERTYHING AND EVERYONE in my life told me I should be straight and yet I turned out to be gay. And I mean every memory; every family member; every television show; every kiss; every couple; every song I heard; every church sermon, and every movie I saw extolled the sanctity and purity of HETEROSEXUAL love. In my formative years, the only exposure I had to homosexuality were images of gay men dying horrible deaths because of AIDS, laughably feminine queens carrying purses on episodes of "Barney Miller", or scary child molesters under bridges. I was scared. I was alone. So I conformed. Growing up in the straight world of the 1970s and 80s as I did was its own form of conversion therapy. If we use the same logic that "gay porn made me gay" then I should have been a straight man because I was simply drowning in examples of straight love. 

​Here now is my second point. When a gay-in-denial husband claims: "I'm attracted to men because I was abused by a man [or my male cousin/brother/etc] as a child." the straight wife's reaction is of course to believe him. She believes him because she wants to understand why her husband has zero sexual attraction to her. She wants an explanation for the porn, the cheating, and the sex toys. But what happens next is where things get complicated. Setting aside the issue of whether the abuse actually happened or not, let's look at the desired outcome. If he truly wants to save his marriage, then he'll do the following:

​1. Share openly about the abuse.
​2. Admit wrongdoing such as watching porn and/or cheating.
​3. Apologize.
​4. Get help via therapy or a 12-step program.
​5. Work like hell to stop acting out, hurting his wife, and thereby heal his marriage.
​6. Intimacy is re-established and the couple enjoys a healthy sex life. 

​Here is what I reckon most often happens when a husband claims "I'm attracted to men because I was abused":

​1. He shared about the abuse when his back was against the wall: namely when he got caught yet again or his wife was seriously considering separation/divorce.      
​2. He can't provide details about the abuse or is defensive about sharing information. "It happened so long ago and my uncle is dead." 
​3. He refuses to go to therapy or he reluctantly agrees to couples counseling (rather than individual counseling) and then proceeds to blame all of the relationship problems on his straight wife.  
​4. He shows little motivation to deal with any of this and the burden strangely shifts to his wife to save the marriage. She does all the reading/research, sets up all the counselling appointments, and then nags him to get involved.
​5. Nothing changes. He's still distant, angry, surfing porn, on Craigslist, and the couple still isn't having sex.   

​My point is child abuse, whether real or fabricated, can often become another excuse to explain away why your  husband f*cks men and watches men f*cking online. Years ago I remember having a chat with my former sister-in-law about her (then) husband. He was a d*ck, a complete and utter d*ck. He wasn't gay but he was still a very volatile, abusive, and angry husband/father. One day she proudly announced to the whole family that all of this was due to an excessively high IQ. "He just got tested!" she gleefully explained waving around his IQ score. Her brother dryly replied: "Ok so he's smart. But he's still a smart *sshole." If your husband claims that he's straight yet gay acting because of X, then logically removing X or dealing with the emotional repercussions of X would then allow him to revert to being normal (or in this case straight). You'd then have a normal marriage. That's the goal? If working through child abuse gets you to a place of happiness, then I say have at it. Sadly it rarely works out that way. As you shared Detour:

​"IN hindsight, life is so precious...life with an unhappy person, a real waste of time.  No matter how you try to add the equation up, it never really does...unhappy spouse can only equal unhappiness.  This all goes much deeper than sexual orientation, this all is about living life to the best of our ability...in a way that brings joy in a way that love can grow."

​Amen to that. Thank you for sharing my friend. Now I want to repost what I previously wrote on the issue of child abuse:

"I want to make it very clear that I believe any form of sexual abuse is barbaric, completely unacceptable, and rightfully illegal. But GIDHs are a different creature altogether. I tend to believe that gay husbands hiding their sexuality are often narcissists, if not full-blown sociopaths. I certainly was. So that makes a GIDH a master manipulator who will often say or do anything to hide his sexuality by preserving his heterosexual marriage. That said, I tend to be skeptical about GIDH claims about childhood sexual abuse, not unlike when I read about the common "I'm bisexual" defence. Some time ago, I posted a checklist for straight wives who hear the "I was molested" claim. If memory serves, my list as to whether he's telling the truth was as follows:[/color]

​a. Has he ever discussed childhood abuse before?
​b. Did he claim he was molested/abused when you were on the verge of leaving him?
​c. Is he blaming the abuse on someone who has died or is otherwise unreachable?
d. Does he have a history of lying and manipulation to explain away gay sexual behaviour like cheating?
​e. Is he claiming sexual abuse while at the same time suggesting you both attend therapy together? 

​If the answer to the above is "yes" then I'd assume he's trying to paint himself as a victim so that his straight wife will feel the need to save & protect him by staying in a dysfunctional and abusive marriage. If you really want to know the truth about the abuse, here are some suggested replies: 

​a. When did the abuse occur? How often did it happen? And by whom? 
​b. If the abuser is still alive, suggest that he go to the police to press charges with your full support. 
​c. Tell him that he needs to go for counselling alone." 

Last edited by Sean (March 25, 2018 5:03 am)

Sean, Your early morning post this morning was very helpful to me, especially your saying that my husband's sexuality (he's trans, of the autogynephilic type, and I know you were talking to wives of gid men, but I think what you said still applies) was not my fault and I did not need to feel guilty. 
    I moved out and into an apartment of my own just five days ago, and it's been very hard to leave my "home," and hard, too, to feel the end of a 35 year marriage (especially as he's still in the closet and likely to stay there, and no one knows the real reason for the break up).  He came out to me out of the blue after 32 years.  These past five days as I live the first few days of a life that will no longer include him, and in which I will no longer think of him as my husband or me as his wife, I've been berating myself and feeling guilty about the break up and about his "becoming trans" after so many years, telling myself if I had been a better wife, if I'd done things differently, then maybe he never would have reached the point where the agp needed to be expressed, and he could have been satisfied to live the rest of his life as he lived the first 58 years of it.  It really helped me to stop torturing myself to read what you wrote.  It was, in fact, a palpable relief.  So thank you.

Sean wrote:

Thank you for writing Detour. As you may already know, I've had similar exchanges about homosexuality and child abuse. You can read about them via these links: 

Gay in denial husband cries "I was abused": http://straightspouse.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=11686#p11686
Determining whether or not it's true: http://straightspouse.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=11695#p11695

In response to your post: 

1. While I agree with most of what you say, the one thing that you argue surrounding the male child sexual abuse survivor running away from the lake instead of into, is slightly off. 

I've never been abused and I'm not a mental health professional so I may be completely wrong. 

​2. Have you ever read Mike Lew's books? 

I haven't. Question: has your husband also read these books?

As a matter of fact, we both read them around the same time frame. 

3. In quick, there is a process that the male survivor goes through as an adult that occurs.  Many years into the future when finally arriving at a safe place, the male survivor may reenact the abuse in order to gain control over a situation that they did not hold as a boy.  

Understood. Question: does this apply to sexual abuse by both men and women? 
I can not speak on behalf of women, although I have a female friend who is a child sexual abuse survivor.  She did act out sexually until she entered into therapy to address all that she carried from  the past. 
​4. This means acting out through gay porn, hooking up...seeking out situations that they have control over this time around.  One thing that many must come to terms with is that while it was sexual abuse as a boy, it felt good...and then the reasoning becomes, "well I must be gay because I enjoyed the act." 

Ok. 

​5. This of course is untrue because sexual stimulation regardless of want often results in a sexual release.  The healing process requires them to understand that such abuse was never about sex but instead the abusers power and control over them.  Anyway, it can and often is complicated. 

​Got it. 

6. I hope you are okay with me speaking up.

Of course! You have more experience with this than I do so I appreciate you sharing. 
Part of the reason I felt inclined to speak up is the simple fact that the male survivor holds a great amount of shame from what happened to them.  We (as a society) perceive males as strong, capable and the protectors.  Even when a young boy is abused, they are fighting against a worry that they somehow invited such abuse.  We must become aware of this attitude so that we as parents do not make the mistake of not protecting our sons with as much care as we do our daughters.  The main rule is that if someone is paying more attention to our children ...we must ask ourselves if there could possibly be a sinister motive.  This goes for anyone who seeks out positions that offer them access to our kids without question. 
7. In the end however, this can and often does present the perfect excuse for a husband in denial to hide behind.  Even after the initial shock, after therapy, after all of the dust settles....the telltale sign boils down to a simple question, "do their actions match their words?" How is he treating me?  Is there an undeniable resentment?  Does he express a true desire to be with me or is he filled with one hundred and one excuses as to why he remains disconnected?

​I agree. 

​I have to admit that whenever I read another straight wife's post about her husband breaking down while claiming, "I was abused!" I'm skeptical. I roll my eyes and think to myself, "Well here we go again." So I'm biased against these kinds of stories to start with. I'll repost my previous reply below but here is the point I'd like to make: I believe that we are born gay because this is my own experience. And why? EVERTYHING AND EVERYONE in my life told me I should be straight and yet I turned out to be gay. And I mean every memory; every family member; every television show; every kiss; every couple; every song I heard; every church sermon, and every movie I saw extolled the sanctity and purity of HETEROSEXUAL love. In my formative years, the only exposure I had to homosexuality were images of gay men dying horrible deaths because of AIDS, laughably feminine queens carrying purses on episodes of "Barney Miller", or scary child molesters under bridges. I was scared. I was alone. So I conformed. Growing up in the straight world of the 1970s and 80s as I did was its own form of conversion therapy. If we use the same logic that "gay porn made me gay" then I should have been a straight man because I was simply drowning in examples of straight love. 
While I agree that a person is born gay or they are not, it just is, but there is one layer to all of this that deserves mention.  During the teenage years, under the stages of sexual development, most undergo a time where they explore their own sexuality.  I did not know this in being raised in a way (religiously) which forbid any sort of acknowledgement in that regard.  Guilt and sin, sin and guilt, well, you get the idea.  The sexual abuse survivor especially those who were abused by someone of the same sex has the stage of exploring their sexuality stolen away from them.  At that point they become very confused about who they are and what their sexual preferences are all about. 
I guess Sean, I am encouraging all to keep an open mind and not be so quick to discount the abuse survivor.  Many hold a great deal of shame over something that was done to them, as if they had some say in being groomed by an adult to be used in such an unimaginable way.
​Here now is my second point. When a gay-in-denial husband claims: "I'm attracted to men because I was abused by a man [or my male cousin/brother/etc] as a child." the straight wife's reaction is of course to believe him. She believes him because she wants to understand why her husband has zero sexual attraction to her. She wants an explanation for the porn, the cheating, and the sex toys. But what happens next is where things get complicated. Setting aside the issue of whether the abuse actually happened or not, let's look at the desired outcome. If he truly wants to save his marriage, then he'll do the following:

​1. Share openly about the abuse.
​2. Admit wrongdoing such as watching porn and/or cheating.
​3. Apologize.
​4. Get help via therapy or a 12-step program.
​5. Work like hell to stop acting out, hurting his wife, and thereby heal his marriage.
​6. Intimacy is re-established and the couple enjoys a healthy sex life. 
True.
​Here is what I reckon most often happens when a husband claims "I'm attracted to men because I was abused":
Okay but with a few additional challenges to this, if I may....
​1. He shared about the abuse when his back was against the wall: namely when he got caught yet again or his wife was seriously considering separation/divorce.      
Maybe however, he was carrying so much shame that it took almost losing everything for him to admit what happened to him as a child?  We are talking about ten, twenty or thirty years of carrying an unimaginable secret.
​2. He can't provide details about the abuse or is defensive about sharing information. "It happened so long ago and my uncle is dead." 
Without intense therapy, sharing information may be extremely difficult.  To my horror, the person who abused my H was an older male cousin.  My H out of fear (from being threatened as a boy) said nothing.  As it turned out, my H was not the only person in the family sexually abused by this creep.  There is also a bit of law that protects the monsters that do this...it is called a statute of limitations.  Although the moment I learned this truth, I spoke up, the abuse had occurred so long ago that there was nothing anyone could do to press charges.  (It was my fear that the molester was still targeting the children in the family.)
​3. He refuses to go to therapy or he reluctantly agrees to couples counseling (rather than individual counseling) and then proceeds to blame all of the relationship problems on his straight wife.

​4. He shows little motivation to deal with any of this and the burden strangely shifts to his wife to save the marriage. She does all the reading/research, sets up all the counselling appointments, and then nags him to get involved.

​5. Nothing changes. He's still distant, angry, surfing porn, on Craigslist, and the couple still isn't having sex.   
Maybe, just maybe no matter how much we want the survivor to just heal and get on with life, it is not possible for them.  Broken is broken and there comes a point to where we must take responsibility for ourselves and our own happiness despite the promise of "until death do us part." 
​My point is child abuse, whether real or fabricated, can often become another excuse to explain away why your  husband f*cks men and watches men f*cking online. Years ago I remember having a chat with my former sister-in-law about her (then) husband. He was a d*ck, a complete and utter d*ck. He wasn't gay but he was still a very volatile, abusive, and angry husband/father. One day she proudly announced to the whole family that all of this was due to an excessively high IQ. "He just got tested!" she gleefully explained waving around his IQ score. Her brother dryly replied: "Ok so he's smart. But he's still a smart *sshole." If your husband claims that he's straight yet gay acting because of X, then logically removing X or dealing with the emotional repercussions of X would then allow him to revert to being normal (or in this case straight). You'd then have a normal marriage. That's the goal? If working through child abuse gets you to a place of happiness, then I say have at it. Sadly it rarely works out that way. As you shared Detour:
Right.  What H may believe is an improvement as to how he was living in the past, well, it may still fall short of what I need from him in our marriage.  I struggle to understand because I am not him.  All I can do is try to figure out what I need to do on behalf of my own happiness. 
​"IN hindsight, life is so precious...life with an unhappy person, a real waste of time.  No matter how you try to add the equation up, it never really does...unhappy spouse can only equal unhappiness.  This all goes much deeper than sexual orientation, this all is about living life to the best of our ability...in a way that brings joy in a way that love can grow."

​Amen to that. Thank you for sharing my friend. Now I want to repost what I previously wrote on the issue of child abuse:

"I want to make it very clear that I believe any form of sexual abuse is barbaric, completely unacceptable, and rightfully illegal. But GIDHs are a different creature altogether. I tend to believe that gay husbands hiding their sexuality are often narcissists, if not full-blown sociopaths. I certainly was. So that makes a GIDH a master manipulator who will often say or do anything to hide his sexuality by preserving his heterosexual marriage. That said, I tend to be skeptical about GIDH claims about childhood sexual abuse, not unlike when I read about the common "I'm bisexual" defence. Some time ago, I posted a checklist for straight wives who hear the "I was molested" claim. If memory serves, my list as to whether he's telling the truth was as follows:

​a. Has he ever discussed childhood abuse before?
​b. Did he claim he was molested/abused when you were on the verge of leaving him?
​c. Is he blaming the abuse on someone who has died or is otherwise unreachable?
d. Does he have a history of lying and manipulation to explain away gay sexual behaviour like cheating?
​e. Is he claiming sexual abuse while at the same time suggesting you both attend therapy together? 

​If the answer to the above is "yes" then I'd assume he's trying to paint himself as a victim so that his straight wife will feel the need to save & protect him by staying in a dysfunctional and abusive marriage. If you really want to know the truth about the abuse, here are some suggested replies: 

​a. When did the abuse occur? How often did it happen? And by whom? 
​b. If the abuser is still alive, suggest that he go to the police to press charges with your full support. 
​c. Tell him that he needs to go for counselling alone." 

Thank you Sean...

Last edited by detour (March 25, 2018 10:42 am)

Sean wrote:

Thanks Detour. Could you address these comments as well please? I think fellow members who hear, "I was molested which is why I'm attracted to men..." would like to have your input about how to properly deal with it: ​I will do my best to answer a very complicated
"how to properly deal with it" dilemma.  Is there any real dealing with this sort of reality though?  I mean, suppose you've driven over a patch of nails on a deserted highway away from cell service....the why those nails are on the highway does not erase the fact that you are left stranded without any means to call for help, right?  So as you're sitting in your car with 4 flat tires and the person who was using nails to construct an SOS sign at the center of the roadway appears to explain the "why those nails were there in the first place," well, does that make where you have landed any less troubling?   Someone who is not working through their sexual identity issues is still not working through their sexual identity issues.  

3. He refuses to go to therapy or he reluctantly agrees to couples counseling (rather than individual counseling) and then proceeds to blame all of the relationship problems on his straight wife.
Now this is something that my H did not do.  Granted he would not have admitted the abuse unless he was backed into a corner, (the secret he was carrying was that of a little boy being threatened by a family member and to that day he still believed his abuser held all of the power)...but still, H said right off the bat, "this has nothing to do with you, our marriage or our life together."  The question, is the refusal to commit to therapy because he wishes to continue to live a dual life or is the reason that by attending therapy he will need to relive a very difficult abuse that happened to him as a boy...to open a can of worms that he has worked very hard to deny for most of his life?  Therapy even for what may seem to be a simple issue can be a tough go, child sexual abuse just seems like a rather heavy undertaking.  
​4. He shows little motivation to deal with any of this and the burden strangely shifts to his wife to save the marriage. She does all the reading/research, sets up all the counselling appointments, and then nags him to get involved.
See here's the thing....we all are given a hand of cards throughout our lives to play.  Often those cards are stacked against us but we all have a responsibility to work with what we have and do the best to heal.  Promises they make must match the action of work towards making life better.  It can't just be a six month stint at trying, it must be a forever work with therapists involved and open communication.
In the end, the burden becomes not only with the survivor doing the work but in the understanding that all who are a part of his everyday life are stuck with him on the side of the road pulling out nails and patching tires in an impossible situation.
​I guess my question is whether working through your husband's child abuse ultimately improved your marriage. Thanks in advance my friend! Be well. 

It did improve for a few years but I don't feel he worked through his sexual identity issues properly, it seems as if we are still in limbo.  This time around however, I am doing my best to focus less about the why and more on what I need and want in a committed relationship.  The tires are still flat and we are still on the side of the road.  H still has an attraction towards men, he is still unhappy, this is still broken...but the difference is that I have called AAA (a therapist exclusively for me) and I'm working on a plan to better my situation.  What better means exactly, well, that's a work in progress.

So, Sean....in the end, after years of dealing with this, I am haunted by the question, "would it have been better off for H, for our kids, for myself to have tossed my hands into the air and walked away?"  Maybe only then H would have been forced to do the work for himself, on behalf of himself...to look at his sexuality without any sort of guilt surrounding the breakup of our family.  As you said in the beginning, a person is born gay....abuse does not make them gay, but it does add a layer of confusion and wondering for all concerned.

One afternoon, years ago, after we bought our first computer...in the days of AOL and dial up, an instant message appeared on the screen before me.  "Why are you home at this hour?"  The man asked me.  I didn't understand how computers worked, chat rooms or any of it.  I took it as a wrong number and I said as much.  After a bit of conversation it became clear that I was speaking to a gay man and for some reason he thought I was a gay man as well.  Only after me saying, "you obviously have the wrong number, try again," did I realize I was online under my H's screen name.  

Not long ago I stepped into my H's office and he clicked very fast to stop the FB chat before him.  I quickly noted the name, walked to my own computer and looked up who he was speaking with.  I wasn't too surprised that he was conversing with a gay man from across the country.  So you tell me, after all of the running in circles, did anything really change?

 

Sean wrote:

Thank you for sharing Detour. What I wanted to know is: 
I feel the more we discuss, the better off those who may be going through similar will benefit from this experience.  I am one who believes in taking the lemons and making lemonade. 
​1. Whether your husband went to therapy alone to deal with the child abuse or if he demanded couples therapy; and  That was the thing, H was the one to check insurance, phone around, interview and find himself a therapist.  It was as if someone lit a fire under his feet.  H began therapy alone and then I was called in for couples, individual and then family.  There was so much cluttering the path on this.  We were still a part of H's extended family and attending gatherings with H's abuser.  I honestly had no idea.  H was not the only one, the abuser targeted H's younger brother as well.  I knew without a doubt this was not anything fabricated to mask gay in denial...and yet, gay acting out was the main symptom to what was broken.
On a side note, no matter how much we desire an express lane through therapy, NEVER use the same therapist.  That in itself did more harm than good.  We all need individual support with a counselor that we can trust.  In that, we made a huge mistake.  Lines were blurred and then things would be blurted out by the therapist who would then say, "oops, you didn't mind that I shared that, did you?"  That in itself made my husband withdraw from his healing journey with the help of a therapist. 
​2. If he continues to actively work through these abuse issues, via therapy or some child abuse group, in an effort to improve your relationship and his relationship with your kids. 
H sort of dropped the ball.  There was a suicide attempt, a nervous breakdown, he lost his job, everything seemed to fall apart at the seams.  A great help for him was malesurvivor.org.  It is a similar website as this but for male survivors of child sexual abuse.  I think it got to the point where my H just was through dealing with the past.  He went with a Band-Aid where as, he should have opted for a cast.  There is still a lot he should be working through.  Like I have maintained, he has not truly worked through his sexuality issues...the intimacy is still very much broken. 
It's a crazy thing though, my H has a need to feel like everything around him is in control at all times.  The kids could never get too rowdy, the dog is hushed so it doesn't bark but a few barks....I know this has to do with his past but in life you can't control other people as such, the only power one has is over self.  With that said, H only will interact if it is on his terms.  Son would love to play ball in the yard but the best H can do is share a movie.   As you know, kids deserve the world to be centered around them...so this is very sad indeed.  Yes, I have regrets but then again, hindsight is always 20/20. 
Feel free to answer or not my friend. It's up to you.

If you're reading these posts for the first time, Detour and I are discussing when a straight wife hears "I was abused which is why I'm attracted to men" from her husband. When I read "my husband says he was sexually abused which made him gay" I tend to believe this is just another level of manipulation by gay-in-denial husbands with their backs against the wall. Detour has shared about her husband's history of abuse and how she stayed with him to work through it. See her helpful post above. 

​Thanks to these and other exchanges, I'm slowly changing my opinion about the abuse issue. Now I reckon it's less about the abuse and more about what happens after a gay husband says, "I think I'm attracted to men because I was abused." There are two possibilities: 

​1. Your husband was abused and he's telling the truth. 
​2. Your husband wasn't abused and he's lying. 

​I myself was never abused nor did I ever claim abuse to explain my homosexuality. So I am NOT an expert on how abuse affects a person's sexuality. But I am an expert when it comes to f*cked up narcissistic gay/straight marriages. I'm sort of a judo-sixth-dan-master when it comes to gay-in-denial narcissism. So I know all the moves. Given everything I've read here and based on my own failed marriage, I know for a fact that gay-in-denial husbands or GIDHs (like me) are masters at lying and manipulation. This means we're more than capable of fabricating a tearful child abuse story to stay (semi) closeted and married to our straight spouses. I further believe that GIDHs attract incredibly kind & caring partners who put up with tsunami levels of bullsh*t from self-centred *sshole husbands (like I was). During my closeted days, I could lie so convincingly that even I believed some of the things I was saying. So I urge caution when, out of the blue, a straight spouse hears, "I was molested by my cousin which is why I watch gay porn and sleep with men."  

​BUUUUT This is where my opinion has changed thanks to Detour. She bravely wrote:

"So, Sean....in the end, after years of dealing with this, I am haunted by the question, "would it have been better off for H, for our kids, for myself to have tossed my hands into the air and walked away?"  Maybe only then H would have been forced to do the work for himself, on behalf of himself...to look at his sexuality without any sort of guilt surrounding the breakup of our family.  As you said in the beginning, a person is born gay....abuse does not make them gay, but it does add a layer of confusion and wondering for all concerned."

Whether you choose to believe that your husband was molested or not is completely up to you. In fact I think it's secondary. All relationships are different. But the straight spouse has to be 100% focused on what kind of relationship she wants going forward. (NOTE TO READER: I'm using he/she because I'm a gay male who was married to a woman.) In previous posts, I've urged straight spouses to write their relationship constitution: 

​Love for me means...
Marriage for me means...
​The husband I deserve is...

Child abuse is barbaric, reprehensible, and illegal. That is not in question. What the straight spouse needs to determine, however, is whether continuing to support her husband as he works through child abuse, his porn addiction, or his sex addiction will eventually give her the relationship she needs. Thanks to my exchange with Detour, I now think of it as an issue of whether to detach (with love) or remain in the marriage. Most of the straight spouses I've interacted with seem to personalize, internalize, and take a kind of ownership of their husband's problems. A good example is how many straight spouses are here in an attempt to save their relationships. Their gay-in-denial husbands are clearly the main cause of their marriage issues and yet it's the straight spouses putting in the time and effort to save their relationships. Sadly, his version of saving the marriage involves late-night posting on Craigslist. Sad but true. I tend to think we gay husbands manipulate our straight wives into believing they're somehow to blame for everything wrong with gay/straight marriages. This is so wrong. So if your husband is now claiming "X (X = porn, abuse, curiosity etc) made me gay," I'd urge you to take the following approach:

​1. Make yourself the priority. This means contacting the Straight Spouse Network, attending meetings, sharing with close friends/family, and posting here. 
2. Immediately share your boundaries with your husband such as: "I will NEVER accept an open relationship." Why? Because, like it or not, that's probably where he's headed.
​3. Consider that a trial separation might be a good idea for your husband to work through issues such as child abuse, cheating, or porn addiction on his own. This will allow the straight spouse breathing space to focus on herself and her children while he heals. You wouldn't hesitate to get yourself and your kids out of a burning house so look at it as though your gay-in-denial husband just set your house on fire with his various issues/problems. 
​4. Set healthy boundaries as to how much and for how long you're willing to help him. For example, "I want you to spend 6 months in therapy on your own before we do couples' counselling." Porn addiction and child abuse have nothing do to with you and going to couples' therapy too soon will simply put the focus on the wrong issue, namely you. 
​5. Don't do the healing for him. If he really wants the relationship to work, he needs to put in the time and effort. You don't need to read about child abuse, he does. You don't need to go to counseling for him, he does. You need to support his efforts to heal, not heal for him. You're not a caretaker. 
6. After a year of him actively working on the porn addiction or working through his child abuse, determine whether things have truly improved with your relationship. Most gay-in-denial husbands bring about a 'honeymoon' phase after they're caught cheating or on porn. It normally only lasts a few weeks or months before the same behaviours come back. If after a year, he's still surfing porn, cheating, and lying, it's highly unlikely things are ever going to improve. Then it's time to consider moving on. 

As Detour shared: 

"Not long ago I stepped into my H's office and he clicked very fast to stop the FB chat before him.  I quickly noted the name, walked to my own computer and looked up who he was speaking with.  I wasn't too surprised that he was conversing with a gay man from across the country.  So you tell me, after all of the running in circles, did anything really change?" 

Sorry that happened my friend. Years later after working through his child abuse issues and you're back at square one: online; cheating; and hiding it. You all deserve better.

​I hope that helps my friends and Detour please feel free to share your thoughts. Be well! 

I thank you Sean.  I believe you really nailed it here!