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April 3, 2021 12:06 pm  #11


Re: Dazed and confused

Thank you for reminding me about the phone soaplife. For now I feel like I can trust her on that front because she has not changed her password. I use it to take pictures, so if she ever changes it I will know. For now I still want to see if we can make it work. Still early days, but I feel like I owe it to my kids to make an attempt to salvage the marriage. I am thinking of giving her a year. Arbitrary, and I will discuss with my therapist, but I think I need to put a line into the sand to prevent myself or her from moving the goalpost. If there is no meaningful improvement then I owe it to my kids to file for divorce. At the moment she confessed she loved her friend and that she is affraid to be intimate with me because she thinks she may think of her friend. Another red flag on the lesbian radar. I refuse to be in a marriage if I can't be intimate. She says she loves me. Is still attracted to me, and still wants to be intimate with me when I questioned her on all of it. She will have to prove it.

 

April 3, 2021 2:50 pm  #12


Re: Dazed and confused

Qwerty, I hear you loud and clear and it is a good strong response but I want to throw up a shedload of caution your way - you are used to trusting her but she is proving untrustworthy.  You are in shock, she is not.  You are used to thinking of her as your wife, she is not.  

When she says she doesn't want to be intimate with you because she is scared she will think of her girlfriend that is a clear indication that her romantic bond, her primary bond is with her girlfriend not you.

Who cares if that changes or not, that's her affair.  Say things do get better, say she breaks up with the girlfriend and now she is wanting to save her marriage - is that a place you want to be?  How do you think she will handle things with you when the next girlfriend comes along - secretively?  but more importantly it is to ask yourself is that romantic bond going to be remade with me and at that point you have to ask yourself was it ever there at all on her behalf.

Romantically speaking you are looking at the ashes in the hearth, the fire has gone out and you are wanting to clear the ashes and rebuild the fire - and you are asking her to share in that.

I have this memory - it was morning and I was clearing the ashes out of the fireplace in the living room and I consciously recognised what I had subconsciously felt all along - he was never going to help me build a fire.

Lines in the sand are good but a year is a long time to wait only to be getting the same stuff.  I went for three months.  Then when I got the same responses I gave him another three months on the basis he might not have taken me seriously.  Then I accepted he was not romantically interested in me and moved on.

 

 

April 3, 2021 3:03 pm  #13


Re: Dazed and confused

Qwerty, if you want to try to make your marriage work, the MOM section is probably better suited to find answers for your questions.
16 years ago my wife fell in love with a woman and thus discovered she was lesbian (at the time we were already married for 20 years and had 4 children). We worked through the problems the situation threw at us, it wasn't easy but it turned out better than what we ever could imagine. 

Well over a year ago I started writing on this forum about our way throught it.
https://straightspouse.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=1931
 
(My wife SamanthaNL also posted in the MOM section, so you can read about the other side of the story as well).

 

April 3, 2021 3:26 pm  #14


Re: Dazed and confused

The thing to remember is that it needs more than one person doing the heavy lifting.


“The future is unwritten.”
― Joe Strummer
 

April 3, 2021 7:37 pm  #15


Re: Dazed and confused

I saw the mom section and browsed in there. If that is where I belong I can move there but am thinking of staying here a bit longer as things are still so fresh. I am thankful for your comment about the girlfriend being the primary bond Lily. I never considered that as a possibility. If I trust her timeline it was short-lived but you are making me realize that. I am Naive about thinking that I was still the primary bond. She broke it off with the girlfriend a week after she confessed she was bi. She broke it off on her own accord without pressure from me. She is off the couch now. We actually had a great day for the first time since the bomb, but my guard is up when she told me to quit starring at her because it made her feel uncomfortable. Like I am the neighborhood perv for staring at my wife after I complimented how she looked after her run in combination with her new haircut. As you can see I am still all over the place. That comment is not coming from a loving place and will need follow up when the kids are not around. If I can't even look at her she does not deserve me even trying. Wherever my relationship ends up, thank you all for your feedback and wide ranging perspectives. The comments above are invaluable to me while I am going through this torture and I cannot thank you enough!

     Thread Starter
 

April 3, 2021 8:42 pm  #16


Re: Dazed and confused

it is completely understandable to be all over the place - she presented to you as a desirable woman, she courted your love.  

I am sorry, but I can't help but think she was not on the couch over you or her children, she was on the couch over her girlfriend.   So when you say she is off the couch, well then I think it's back on with the girlfriend or a new one is on the horizon.

 

 

April 4, 2021 11:53 am  #17


Re: Dazed and confused

Querty,

You are welcome to join us in the MOM section. We also started a subreddit on Reddit for straight/bi marriages/relationships and, even though we are a small subreddit (we are new and growing quickly), there are some inspirational MOM stories. The link to the group is in the MOM section. We hope to see you there.

Tangled

Last edited by TangledOil (April 4, 2021 3:36 pm)

 

April 5, 2021 7:56 am  #18


Re: Dazed and confused

Thank you for keeping me on my toes Lily. I will have a look at the subreddit Tangled. Thank you for the link.

     Thread Starter
 

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