Nuked:
   You can do this.  My final court hearing was Nov. 9, after 35 years of marriage (32 before disclosure) so I have been where you are currently and understand how volatile a closeted spouse can be, as well as how unable he is to empathize with your position.  It's as if they believe it's our fault the marriage is ending, rather than their sexuality and their hiding it from us (and their behavior).  
  You can rest assured that it's the right thing to do.  His actions are designed to make you feel as if you are at fault.  I tried to steel myself by saying "let his provocations roll off you like water off a duck's back."  "Duck's back" I would say to myself when I felt myself crumbling.  And I told myself that the reason waters runs off a duck's back is because of the self-care the duck gives itself (all that preening, activating the oil gland that makes its feather waterproof).  
   You may feel as if you are at sea, but trust that you will eventually see-and get to--land.  There is no doubt that it will hurt and you will grieve; pain and heartache are part of the unwanted consequences of having to uncouple.  But you will make it, and you will be ok.  
   Stay strong, come here when you need comfort and bucking up, and don't let your pain open you to manipulation or agreeing to something that may hurt you in the future. Get a lawyer for you, and listen to that lawyer.  Your husband is no longer your protector; in a divorce he's your adversary (I'm editing this to say, "he's no longer your partner"; I didn't mean you can't be civil during divorce); a divorce is all about property (assets) and that only.  (Yes, this seems wrong, but it's true. Save your despair and pain for your therapist.)  
  If he's in denial you should in your weak moments remember his fear of exposure, not to use it to gain what is inequitable, but to insist on what is equitable.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (February 16, 2019 9:07 am)

Nuked,
   I was also 62 when my husband disclosed.  Right after he disclosed I said I wanted a divorce, and then I was suckered into staying (Him: "It's going to be so hard!  Can you lie down and hold me?  I need comforting."), and experienced the classic feeling so many of us do that we were now more honest with each other than ever, closer than ever.  It didn't last, because of my husband's secrecy, self-centeredness, and actions, but for about 10 months I became a willing co-inhabitant of his closet.  Then, after he crossed several mutually agreed on boundaries, I became an unwilling co-inhabitant, and during that phase I found the SSN (and Chump Lady, whose website taught me a lot about the kinds of behaviors I was seeing in my then husband-now ex). 
     It took me almost three years from disclosure to telling him I wanted to divorce, and I moved out two weeks after that.  Even after I moved out I had doubts and longings and hope, although I knew they were mirages.  I was also, like you, afraid of being alone, although I was an independent woman who spent months on my own every year and regularly drove halfway across the continent on my own.  Being on your own for a bit when married, however, is not the same as feeling as if you now alone in the world. 
    I've been living on my own now for just over a year, and it keeps getting better and better, and easier.  Leaving is hard, the first months are lonely and painful, the negotiations for divorce, the move, are like a pressure cooker, but once the divorce is done, you will find that you can actually begin to put into practice the mindset of "not my monkey, not my circus" with your ex.   
    For one, I am not "alone in the world."  Since I've been on my own, I have made an effort to connect with friends I saw too little of during those three years (and even earlier, because my closeted spouse was not social); this week, for example, I had lunch with friends twice, and saw two other friends for afternoon tea/a drink--four of five days. I am managing my money, and living fine within my budget (my ex spent a lot more of our joint money than I did), and continuing to save for retirement.  
   That we fear we will be alone is a reasonable fear, a natural consequence of the break-up.  But you do not have to be alone; you will find that as you re-kindle friendships and make new friends this fear will ease. You can investigate co-housing or house-sharing (a trend among us older single women) and you can plan for your extreme old age (long term care insurance, etc); taking action to counter fears helps to eliminate them.  
   You acquire confidence as you go, just making it on your own.  Meeting and surmounting challenges and learning new skills enhances it.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (February 16, 2019 9:13 am)

Nuked,

You are not alone.  I was very frightened also.

The fact that they cannot cry says all you need to know about them.  It's what we are not.

"Ducks back"  is good advice..  I was reading my bible on my phone in court.  It sucks but one must be stoic ..get medical help if necessary..i can tell you  antidepressants.helped..they made me indifferent like her.   Helpful at the time but I got off them immediately after the divorce.


Don't beat yourself up. It is a sad necessary business transaction to get through. Do whatever you need to to cope through..dont be ashamed to ask for help.

Nuked, I was trying to explain that aspect of our situation to a friend this morning.  She told me she had a client who is a respectable sportscaster with a wife and kids, but he has a secret double life dressing as a woman, going out, etc.  She says he has carefully made out his estate planning documents so that his executor will hide all the evidence and destroy it after his death, so that his wife and kids never need to find out.

I had no luck whatsoever trying to explain to her how completely unrealistic, selfish, and flawed this plan is.  Nobody thinks about the consequences; they don't understand how difficult it is to maintain a lie of that magnitude, and they don't think through all the million ways the truth could manage to escape notwithstanding all that careful planning.  They don't think about the pain they're causing other people.

I had a similar reaction to yours, when I confronted my husband.  He just didn't think about how it would affect me, and how it would damage our daughter.  It's been like pouring salt in the wound now that we're going through divorce, because I see that same lack of concern or empathy on display when I look at all the financial decisions he's made on "our" behalf for "our" benefit all these years -- all the career choices that heaped rewards on him even though they left me with a disproportionate share of household chores that hamstrung my career.  I realized I'd trusted him to make all these major, significant life decisions, and all along he was just thinking about himself alone, not caring about my needs at all.  I look at my relatively paltry Social Security statements, and it's a daily reminder of how he compromised me for his benefit, and all along I thought he loved me and would look after my best interests.