Hi Wondering. Welcome and thank you for writing my friend. In reply: 

"Hey I was wondering how a gay man can have sex with a lot of women.. and have sex with their wives for years? It confuses me how this is possible or how they can have that romantic connection yet be gay..."

I'll try to answer based on my own experience but please keep in mind that I'm not a mental health professional. When I was in my late teens, 20s, and early 30s, I could have sex with my wife fairly regularly but without a lot of passion. I think that as a young man, I could easily perform because sex was fairly mechanical. Then I discovered gay porn which killed most of my desire for my wife and once I'd had sex with a man for the first time, in my late 30s, I had zero interest in having sex with her. 

So in my particular situation, I acted like a straight man - both in and out of the bedroom - but eventually my true sexuality snuffed out my ability to pretend so to speak. I hope that helps Wondering but please feel free to write again. Be well! 

Thanks for writing Isthisreallife, although I'm very sorry you've found yourself here. Before we focus on your boyfriend, let's first focus on you. Here are a few suggestions: 

1. Get tested immediately for STDs because most gay-in-denial men are doing much more than they claim. 
2. Only practice safe sex with condoms. 
3. Focus on you and your needs: write down what you want from a relationship (like a relationship constitution); share your full story here; talk to a therapist or counselor; and share what happened with trusted friends or family. 

Now in response to your post: 

1. I desperately need help. This is a long story and I am doubtful anyone will care to read or give advice... but it would mean the world to me. I am confident my boyfriend is gay and I feel alone and cannot ask friends or family without compromising his anonymity. I do not want to ruin his life or force him to deal with being outed, because as hurt as I am I still care about him immensely. It would be much easier if he wasn’t in such strong denial. He makes it feel impossible to leave him because he swears he loves me and has no attraction to men. So why am I so sure that he is in denial? Please read on...

As I've just shared above, your first priority should be to you. At the end of the day, I believe that love is how the people in our lives make us feel. Given what you've just shared, your boyfriend has apparently dumped his personal problems on you and yet won't let you talk about them. That isn't love. That's slavery. So feel free to start your own thread here, share your story with a mental health professional, or even share what's going on with trusted friends and family. Now is not the time to isolate nor be alone. 

2. I have been in a relationship with him for 8 months - the blink of an eye compared to the stories I’ve read of 20+ year marriages with in kids being ended for this reason.. I can’t imagine, and my heart breaks for these women.. I want to escape before it comes to that for me. 

If you're posting here after just eight months, that's a red flag I believe. 

3. Upon meeting him (he is 30, I am in my late 20s) he was very open with me about his travels. His entire family are frequent travelers. Around age 26, after breaking up with his ex girlfriend of 6 years, he began making yearly solo trips to Thailand for months at a time *queue the lady boy remarks*. He is a very unconventional, hippy sort of guy. He works construction (very masculine, doesn’t exude any feminine traits) during the warm months and flees for the the winter. He already had his yearly Thailand trip booked when he met me, but shortened his trip to 2 months instead of 4 because he didn’t want to be away from me for so long. He was eager for me to join him but I could not due to work. 

Got it. Question: do you know why his six-year relationship ended? Was it because of similar problems? 

3. The beginning of our relationship was very passionate. We were immediately enamoured with each other, fell in love abnormally quickly, and were equally convinced we were to get married and start our forever together. I have never been doted upon so much - he could never get his hands off me, everyone remarked on how much he clearly adored me. Then it went wrong...

This too is a red flag and you used the word "abnormally." I'd read up on narcissism because this sounds a lot like something called "love bombing." As I've shared many times on this thread, I believe most gay-in-denial men are black-belt narcissists. 

4. About a month into his trip, things began to go awry. He was out partying until 3-4am every night and drunk, and we would argue. It felt like he began to resent me. By the time he came back, it was downhill from there. He was never the same, and although ALWAYS maintained he loved me and had never loved anyone so much, his behaviour was different. I attributed it to post-vacation depression, winter blues, and finally.. I concluded he might have cheated on me and his guilt was the driving force of his almost mentally abusive behaviour. 

I'd suggest you focus on his behaviour, rather than his words. If things are this bad now, imagine how bad they'll be in a year or ten years. 

5. Finally, I took it upon myself to view his phone. I found excessive amounts of porn, but the most surprising part is that half of it, potentially even most of it, was gay porn. I found through his app history that he had been downloading apps like grindr, growlr, daddy hunt, scruff, and the like since before he met me... and continued doing so throughout our relationship. These downloads happened as frequently as almost every other day, I am not even sure how he found so much time in privacy because we were inseparable. I found he had looked up a gay only hostel and a gay bar within his first week in Thailand. In an emotional rage, I continued to search his emails and found that in the past he had responded to and posted adds for gay personal encounters - it was clear in his posts he was interested in playing the submissive role, by being a bottom or providing oral. There was no evidence that he had ever followed through. 

Of course he's followed through! No one spends hours outside a bakery just looking at the cakes. You eventually want to eat one. The same applies to gay sex. Straight men don't: 

- Spend hours every day texting with gay men about sex
- Watch endless amounts of gay porn
- Place personal ads using gay jargon 
- Frequent gay hotels and hostels

Gay men, and gay-in-denial men, do the above. 

6. Upon confronting him - he reacted with rage and anger. Accusing me of invading his privacy, trying to ruin his life. Finally, he admitted to what he could not deny, but maintained strongly that he has NO attraction to men emotionally and that it was his deepest darkest most perverted secret that he has been ashamed of for the past few years. He vows he has never acted on these “kinks” or “perversions”, and it was the taboo that made things exciting. He claimed any time he searched these things, he felt remorse and guilt and disgusted with himself. He maintains that he wants a life with a woman, he loves me and is extremely sexually attracted to me, and he never thought of this behaviour as cheating although now he can see that it was, even if he didn’t actually engage in gay sex. 

Bullsh*t. Of course he's been having gay sex, probably for years. The difference is that you both want him to be straight so you're a conclusion ('he's straight') looking for evidence ('he's never hooked up'). Regardless, get tested for STDs and only practice safe sex.

7. I have told him that whether he is gay or not won’t change the fact that he is a best friend to me and I care for him immensely. That I will not abandon him and judge him, or reveal his secret. I have tried to make him feel comfortable enough to be transparent. The furthest I have ever got with him is him agreeing that he may be “5% bicurious”. 

You're a better person than he is. Question: is he putting this much effort into the relationship? 

8. As for our sex life, it started to fade in the last month after this coming to light and has become much more mechanical and much less passionate. He has always been a toker and has since started smoking ridiculous amounts of weed all day, and falling asleep on the couch.

Ok. Please get tested for STDs as soon as possible. So let's write a personal advert for your current boyfriend: 

- Pot head
- Seasonal construction worker
- Spends part of the year drunk in Thailand
- Loves gay porn, gay chats, and gay sex apps but has never had sex
- 5% bi-curious
- Anger issues and emotionally abusive 
- Not that interested in sex with women

Is this how you'd describe a potential life partner? I think you deserve better. 

9. No matter how many times I try to open up the discussion, it gets brushed under the rug and I am made to feel as though I am crazy, or as though I just don’t understand. It’s true- I don’t understand. But I have read about men who spend their entire lives with a woman, loving them even, having healthy sex lives, and then revealing that they are in fact gay. I think I know the answer I am looking for. I more so need to hear someone else say it to me. He is gay and I am being dragged into the closet with him... right?

I'd read up on narcissism and something called "gaslighting." It's a common defense used by gay-in-denial men like your boyfriend. I think you understand all too well: your boyfriend is gay, has been for most of his life, and is very likely f*cking around on you behind your back. He's just bullying you into doubting the facts. So yes what you've described is a gay-in-denial man trying to lock you into his closet. 

10. Additional info: on the Craigslist posts he identified himself as “a straight guy interested in trying for the first time (bottoming & giving oral).. there were years separating the posts and he always claims he is straight and that it’s a first time. - the type of porn is specifically “first time anal”, “daddy son” .. all seemed indicative of wanting to play a submissive role which is the complete opposite of his sexual relationship with me. Also, found an old google search from before he met me researching preparing for anal sex/good hygiene practice... but since I’ve met him he has NEVER been well kept in that way at all. He maintains that even if he is “bisexual” and has been curious, he has never cheated on me with male or female and would never in a million years do so. Also claims if he was gay and wanted to be with men, he just would be plain and simple, and he wouldn’t have come back 2 months early from his trip for me otherwise.. 

Ummm no. He's very good...I'll give him that. "Look I came home 2 months early so even though I won't have sex with you, spend all of my time smoking pot or online trolling for gay sex, I'm so in love with you." RUN! Run like your hair is on fire. If he's on Craigslist literally selling himself online, then yes he's having sex with other men. 

Your boyfriend is so deeply in denial that he's radioactive...and abusive. So any contact with him is just dangerous for you. You can't be his only link to a straight identity and try to coax him out of his closet. You can't be both his beard and his fag hag best friend. It doesn't work like that. It's time to accept that you can't change him, so let's focus on the only thing you can change, you. I'd suggest both short-term and long-term solutions: 

Short-Term

1. Get tested immediately for STDs because most gay-in-denial men are doing much more than they claim. 
2. If you still have sex, only practice safe sex with condoms. 
3. Focus on you and your needs: write down what you want from a relationship (like a relationship constitution); share your full story here; talk to a therapist or counselor; and share what happened with trusted friends or family. 
4. Start a trial separation of 2-3 months with no contact. You should feel better after about six weeks. Caution: he'll try really hard to get back in your life but most of these guys are lazy so he'll move on after a few months. 

Long-Term

1. Continue to focus on you: get therapy to determine why you were attracted to such a broken man. 
2. Read up on narcissism. 
3. Read up on co-dependency. 
4. Continue posting updates here and sharing your story with others. 

These are just suggestions my friend. I am not a mental health professional. I still hope that helps in some way. Be well! 
 

Last edited by Séan (April 21, 2018 10:59 am)

Kel wrote:

True Sean - my hindsight's 20-20, and I've learned lessons that others are just now wading through.  You're right in that I should be mindful of the patience I need to exhibit with others here.  I guess I wish I had someone when I was going through this who could clearly see the situation (having been there and hearing plenty of similar stories) and just encouraged me to pull the f'ing band-aid off rather than being overly patient as I was.  I'm trying to be that for others, but maybe it's coming off as too forceful.  Thanks for the reminder.

Kel

Kel (I hope I am responding to your comments correctly, I am SO new here).  I SOOOO appreciate your candidness.  I learned a bunch from your earlier post.  Some things that I was allowing that I should not be so thank you very much!!!! 
I just made an appointment for my first counseling session!!!!!!  Here I go!!!! 
 

Thanks for writing Wondering and Duped. I'm afraid I can't be any help regarding men (or gay-in-denial men) who are attracted to trannies. Just for the record, I believe a tranny is a man who appears to be female but still has male genitalia. I've never been attracted to trannies so perhaps OOHC or other straight spouses with transitioning husbands can provide their insights. Sorry I couldn't be more help. Be well!  

Sean,  Thank you so much for this thread.  I feel like I have taken a college 101 course on being married to a GID man.  I appreciate what you are doing for all of us who need to hear this right now.   I have been reading it like a 12 year old boy with a new Superman comic.

I do have a question for you.  Do you think that presenting him with this thread would help him out (at the right time)? 
We have had two very civil conversations about all of this (so there was no dramatic grandstanding etc).  I did however warn him ahead of time that that behavior would not be accepted.  He listened :-) 

Here is where I am right now, just to give some perspective. I found out about 3 months ago. 
I flat out said, “I think you are gay”.  He has denied it. I basically said, “well I’m telling you, you are gay”.  Then I told him why I think he is gay. 
 
I have an appointment with a therapist tomorrow (my first) AND she is a Str8 spouse, so I am VERY lucky to be a bit ahead of the game there.  Here is why I think he is, I'd love to know what you think? (not sure what happened to the bullets) 
 -He does not let me do any of the household decorating.-When we were trying to figure out why sex was not working he said “I am fine around woman who are friends but when I get intimate with one, I get very shy. (we have been together for 14 years, married for 10).  

• he was very critical of my weight when we first got married (and I was like 10lbs overweight for Pete’s sake).  I think this is more of the narcissistic aspect though. 
• but also critical of the female smells of my body. 
• Has ED
• He is openly and publicly adverse to homosexuals.  He has been making comments in public regularly lately (since I confronted him). 
• Very narcissistic, must fight for his way with everything 
• Love bombing me at the moment (which does make life a bit easier) 
• The thing that really tipped me off is that a man we know openly and regularly flirts with me.  GID says nothing and sometimes gives a bit of a giggle.