OOHC, I understand and I understand the triggers and I can only imagine the difficulty when confounded with ones religious experiences and faith and work life.  I’m sorry you have to untangle so many connections.  It’s a lot of work.  I also want to complement you on how well you articulate these complexities, and your dissection of the Smart letter was exceptional.

To all, to be clear, my question ‘why get angry?’ was more rhetorical than experiential. Even after nearly six years, I still struggle with the anger over the consequences of my ex’s denial and the timing of her coming out,  and her lack of full acknowledgement of the impact of her denial on others.  My point was the first step in this, is accepting both intellectually and emotionally that she will not change. So I did not mean to imply that I was past all of the anger but I am getting there.

ADSJ

Last edited by a_dads_straight_journey (August 18, 2019 5:08 pm)

I'm working on forgiving myself for being such a total fool all these years.  

I have never posted my full story, and I think it's partly because re-visiting it is too painful.  And, I have no way of knowing whether my husband (or his lawyer) is lurking to see if any damaging admissions might come out.

I will say this much: being cut off sexually was deeply humiliating and painful to me.  I was too ashamed to talk to anybody about it.  Once I realized my husband had same-sex attractions, I assumed, wrongly, that he was living a celibate life out of guilt and obligation to me, and I felt it was my obligation to show the same loyalty to him.  On rare occasions when I was able to confide in people about my sexless marriage, they never hesitated to tell me I was cheating myself out of the full human experience.  I should have listened, and I didn't.  I honestly thought it was what I needed to do to keep my marriage and my family together.  I thought "if he can do it, I can do it."

So when I found out he had been cheating, prolifically, the whole time, and I confronted him, he asked me, somewhat incredulously, "Did you think I was celibate?"  And the truthful answer was "Yes".  

You know what his response was?  And he said this as if it was so obvious I could hardly disagree with the logic of it ... he said "But how would that have been fair to me?"

Said to my face, as if no reasonable person could possibly disagree with it.  To the person he inflicted celibacy on without explanation for twenty years.  Even now, when his lawyers talk about settlements being "fair to him", it triggers rage in me.  His idea of "fair" was to inflict celibacy on me for twenty years, but not on him, because it wouldn't be fair to HIM.

I pointed out to him that he had inflicted that on me, that I'd never cheated, that I hadn't had a shred of human intimacy for two decades.  His response: "I never told you you couldn't."  

Which is bullshit, of course, we had a whole wedding and said vows in front of everybody.  But it just poured salt in the open wound, explaining to me that he didn't owe me fidelity because my two decades without affection or intimacy wasn't of any value to him, so why should he feel guilty.

I'm busy trying to forgive myself at the moment, and I'm afraid there isn't room in me to forgive him.

Last edited by walkbymyself (August 21, 2019 8:21 am)

I'm so sorry you are going through this.  After a lot of reflection on my personal situation, here's my analysis of "forgiveness".  Maybe you will find it helpful, too.

In the traditional concept of forgiveness, the perpetrator genuinely seeks forgiveness from the victim after appreciating what they have done.  Very few of us will obtain this from our gay spouses, and I'm not going to squander my precious time waiting for my STBXW to grovel and beg for forgiveness.  To quote The Chump Lady, "Glaciers will melt, refreeze, and become ice swan sculptures at gay weddings in Saudi Arabia before that happens."  (See Chapter 5 of her book, and the reader letter from "Wondering".)

This means that you cannot "forgive" in the traditional sense.  Again, I point you to the Chump Lady on this (https://www.chumplady.com/2017/07/do-you-have-to-forgive-a-cheater-2/), and the brilliant quote she found from Desmond Tutu, in which he redefines "forgiveness""

"However, when I talk of forgiveness I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive [i.e., coming out on the other side a better person not consumed by anger and hatred] then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on, and you can even help the perpetrator to become a better person too."

This re-definition of forgiveness was really helpful to me, particularly since I've got wonderful kids, a lot of life left to live, and a lot to be thankful for.  My goal isn't to wait in vain for a request for forgiveness that will never come; my goal is to come out on the other side of this hellish experience a better person.  While I cannot control my STBXW's actions, the silver lining is that if this approach makes her a better person for the sake of the kids and sane co-parenting, then that's no small added bonus.

This is how I see "forgiveness".  Good luck.

Last edited by Blue Bear (August 21, 2019 12:07 pm)

.

Last edited by MJM017 (August 14, 2021 10:50 pm)