lily wrote:

sorry to hear that HF but this is all expected behaviour from a gay in denial spouse - her 'answers' were I'm confused, idk, idk, idk, okay I'll go to a counsellor.  What do you think she is doing while you are looking after the kids?

I remember finally understanding he wasn't confused I was.  His answers were confusing me.  and a heartbeat away from that I realised it was deliberate, intended to confuse me.

 
It feels deliberate sometimes. What's frustrating is I always seem to find myself defending things completely unrelated to the topic at hand and she drudges up my past mistakes in our marriage and everything becomes about that.

She's often with her sister, either of her parents, or with a small group of local friends who get together from time to time. Oh, and she sees her counselor once a week.

Denial is a thing.  We kinda all know that.  it happens on automatic to preserve function.  So we are inclined to be forgiving of denial because we assume from our partner it must be like that, it must be of good intent.  But there's a different sort of denial - the deliberate kind.  I finally understood it when I did it myself.  My friend comes to visit, you've been smoking she says, no I haven't I reply.  But I can smell it, oh that must be coming from outside, her brow creases.  But I smelt it coming up the stairs inside.  Oh maybe you're smelling something else.  Honest to God I stonewalled her three times.  And on the third denial I saw self doubt enter, I saw the confusion on her face and I could see that it hurt her.  I apologised and confessed.

Do not expect a gay in denial spouse to apologise and confess.  They will keep denying as the day is long.   would you do that?  would you blame shift so she is defending past mistakes rather than answer the questions?  I wouldn't, where's the accountability, where's the honesty, where's the love in that?

HF, I think you might find the BS is only coming from her, not you.  In couples counselling you can find yourself being double tagged if it isn't the right counsellor.   a lot of counsellors are LGBT and they do not understand what it is like to be straight.  They just want to tell you how to accommodate your gay in denial spouse better.  that's more of the shifting sands.

This is so tough, wishing you all the best, Lily.

Hoarfrost,
   The sex is a tactic, whether deliberate or not. It's called "trauma bonding," and it's an intermittent reinforcement mean to re-secure you. 
   It happened to me, too, and it's the thing I most regret, as it worked like a charm and I spent three more years in my marriage and suffered a lot of psychic damage.