(Formerly D)
So happy you were able to repost this! It was so inspirational, especially for the newbies. Thanks Sam

Why they chose us -- Kel, 17:12:40 04/10/15 Fri

It occurred to me recently just why our Gay In Denial Spouses chose US to marry. Some see it as we were easy targets. And we were. But maybe not for the reason that is commonly thought. Easy targets in nature are those who are typically the weak ones in the herd - the ones with the lame leg, the very young, the very old. They are those members of the group that are at a disadvantage and predators can easily see that. I think we often equate being an easy target as being weak. But...... I think it's the opposite, in some ways.

Think about it. There are many ways that weak people act in a relationship - some of them very negative; clingy, dependent, codependent. True enough. However, there are other ways that people who are weak behave in relationships, too. They run away from problems easily. They throw in the towel early on. They aren't big enough to forgive, so the offenses pile up very early on. THAT is not what someone who wants a good partner to hide their closeted sexual preferences wants! Nope! They want the opposite - someone with tenacity - that will keep on keeping on. They want someone with a grand sense of committment - that won't leave unless they see it as unfixable and unlivable. They want someone who will stay the course, through thick and thin. They want someone who can love despite the annoyances and trial that come to a marriage. They want someone affable to spend their days with - someone they thoroughly enjoy outside of the sexual side. Someone who lights up the room when they walk in. WHO isn't attracted to that?

I never did spend much time doing the "why me?" thing. With anything. Because for me, there is no good answer. For me, it's more like, "It could have been cancer instead - or a terribly ill child. I'll take THIS any old day." So I never really spend much time trying to figure out why my ex chose ME in particular. I read somewhere a long time ago that it turns out that even gay men are attracted to breasts. That for a gay man, they think that the typical beauty is beautiful. Meaning lots of hair, very feminine, curvy, typical female traits that all males tend to find attractive. It almost doesn't make sense. I mean, if I were a boy who liked boys, it makes sense logically to marry a "butch" looking female, doesn't it? But they DON'T. They marry someone who everyone will see as attractive. Even they find you attractive - you're irresistable!

I know it sounds vain and even self-centered, but I tend to think that my ex chose me because I was fabulous! I was beautiful, had a grand personality, was stable and loving, and had the guts to stick out anything I put my mind to. And for a long, looooong time, I did just that. It was only when I no longer considered the survival of my marriage my end-all, be-all that I finally decided that I finally saw how little I was getting for all my effort. He clearly thought I'd never, EVER give up that marriage.

I wish I could impart to all of you how wonderful it feels to be able to say, "Why'd he marry me if he was gay? Because I'm fabulous, of course! I can even get a GAY MAN to fall in love with me!" Ha ha. While I don't say that often anymore, I do occasionally say "I figure if I could make it 16 years with a gay man, I'll last forever with a straight one!". And I mean that. I survived 16 years of marriage to a man with whom marriage was like pushing a boulder up a muddy hill. Once I got to the other side of that, it was all a breeze, I tell ya!

Please have faith in how wonderful you are. You may have been duped, but that's only because you loved so hard, you believed so much in the person you loved, you had tenacity and forgiveness and faith. PLEASE give yourself credit for all of that! You weren't stupid - you were excellent in the face of great struggle!

Have a great weekend, all -

Date Posted: 11:53:09 08/26/15 Wed
Author: Kel
Subject: You don't "need" to do it a certain way.....
In reply to: Hazel 's message, "Re: I understand......" on 04:42:53 08/26/15 Wed

...however, it would be our STRONGEST recommendation that you do NOT marry him in 2.5 weeks. Do not tie yourself to someone with huge red flags before the wedding - especially the kind that can't be fixed. And trust me, not only can't YOU fix The Gay Thing (TGT), but HE probably can't "fix" it, either.

Something you said concerns me, though; You said, "No discussion or time for him to come with excuses?" Hon, there IS no "excuse" for a straight man to be doing this stuff. None whatsoever. You need to look at it this way: Being gay (depending on your religious beliefs, I suppose) isn't "wrong" - it's not a mindset and it's not something that one has control over. Just like you being straight - you don't DECIDE to be straight, you just.... ARE. If someone told you that you were wrong and you suddenly needed to be attracted to women, could you do it? Even if you thought that you'd lose everything that you loved and you attempted to at least have sex with women and try to look interested in them, would it mean that your desire for men would go away? No. And that's what your fiancee is up against. He can't make this go away. At some point it was a seed, but now it's grown to a tree - that's what you're seeing - you're looking out the window and noticing a branch coming up from below the window, and you can see it now. You say, "Look, a tree! I don't want that tree in my garden - I want that thing GONE!" So he goes outside and snaps a branch down to below the window height, so you don't see it. But that tree doesn't stop growing. As a matter of fact, snapping that branch off doesn't do a damned thing to the root system - if anything, the root system gets broader and deeper as time goes by. No matter how many times he snaps off that branch, it WILL come back. Until you leave the house and look back, you don't even realize that the tree is HUGE - wide and spreading around the corners of the house. That thing is not going anywhere. You think that you can just remove it, but it's not removable. All you have is a pair of scissors, and all you can EVER do is snip off a branch. This thing will eventually grow under the house to the point where it uproots the entire foundation, causing cracks in the walls and the floors to slope and flooding to come. The pipes groan and eventually rupture. And you keep trying to fix the windows and the doors and the floors and the pipes. But it won't matter - that tree is still there, and until you get that out, nothing's going to save the house. And the tree can't be removed.

Or look at it like having a mouse problem. At first you see evidence of a mouse in the house - some nibbled food, some droppings. You do not like this, but it's.... tolerable. You just keep cleaning up the mess. But it's starting to get to the point where you can't leave anything out - you can't trust that when you wake up, that mouse won't have wrecked havoc on your home again. It's making you angry. It seems to multiply over time. Then one day while you're sitting in the living room watching TV, a mouse runs across the room. Now you've had it. Your spouse doesn't seem at all bothered by this, but he tells you that if it bothers you, he'll solve the problem. He puts out A trap. He catches a mouse. Woo hoo! The mouse problem is gone! NOPE! Same stuff, getting worse. So he puts out another trap. Never more than one at a time. He keeps catching mice, but the problem isn't going anywhere. Why? Because there's a huge nest of the little critters under the house. And they are multiplying faster than you can catch them in one trap at a time - even if you keep catching the mice every.single.day, they will always outnumber the trap. You wake up one day to see mice all over the place. They're affecting your food, your sleep, your KIDS! Your spouse seems largely unbothered. He will keep putting out traps one at a time, but ONLY when you bring it to his attention. If left to his own, he won't put out ANY traps until you cause a ruckus. When you threaten to move out of the house, he freaks out, crying about how he LOVES you and he loves this house, and PLEASE let him solve the problem! But he doesn't - he puts out daily traps for a while, and then less often until you're right back where you were. He has excuses for why he stopped - he forgot, he ran out of traps, he had other important stuff to do. To YOU, there IS nothing more important that this! It's taken over your life! But to him, well - he'll tell you that everyone lives with mice. If's FINE, honey! He'll tell you he hasn't even seen a mouse when you're starting RIGHT.AT.ONE. You hear them at night, he claims not to. You wake him up and confront him with it - LOOK - there are mice all over the room! He claims not to see a single one - go back to bed and stop making a fuss, hon.

These are just two examples of how this works. When I said yesterday to you that this problem gets worse over time and the older they get, you mentioned that he was already older - in his 40's. That seems to be the magic time period for when things START spinning out of control - when they are tired of resisting the lure, and start giving in to it. The START of when you really see evidence popping up. And if he's doing this now before you're married, how much better do you think it's going to get after you're married (which means he's secure in the knowledge that he's "got" you now) and you start to take each other for granted as the years go by a bit? It's not GOING to get better, sweetie. It's going to get WORSE.

You don't have to tell him anything except that you're not ready to get married. If you want to go into why, then fine - do so. But you're not ASKING him to explain or to make excuses. The explanation is that he's gay. Period. The reason he wants to get married? As a cover. Or because he loves you. But he seems to think he can be married AND be gay. It doesn't work that way. And by that, I mean that when that's what's happening, it does not work - the marriage does not work.

You're already seeing PLENTY of evidence. The fact that he's stopped being affectionate is a HUGE one. Who wants an unaffectionate husband for the rest of their days??? Not me! He CAN'T fix it, hon. He should be able to be a man and walk away from putting you through hell. He knows that's what he should do. But he won't. And THERE'S the REAL issue. He's not being truthful with you. Hell, he might not even be being truthful with HIMSELF, so the chance that he's going to be truthful with you is NIL.

Just call off the wedding. Don't let him push you into it. If you're not ready, YOU'RE NOT READY. No one should be trying to convince someone to marry them. If you can't both go in with your eyes wide open and be 1000% sure, you shouldn't do it. Period.

I wish you the best, sweetie. I know this is hard.
 

Hi Sam,
Is it possible to post Patti's list in a separate post so that it is easy for newbies to find? Her list has been life saving when TGT hit me!

Thanks

CR