Hello Dee, Lake Breeze, and jkpeace.

Lake Breeze, you asked:
"What I do not understand however, is how some young gay men go through their youth, just as you described above, but they do not decide to marry a straight woman.  What makes for that difference?  

Breeze, I think jkpeace hit it on the head: Some young gay people are given more support, and less abuse, than others.  The more support and acceptance a young gay person has, the less likely they are to enter into a sham marriage with a straight person.

Other times, the difference is this: That he met another young gay man at a crucial time in his youth, and they fell in love.  It was "them against the world" during their youth, rather than "him (alone and gay) against the world."  He had a loving male partner at a young age, and they navigated the world as one.  

I know several gay male couples, now in their mid-50's, who survived their youths in that manner.  They never entered into false marriages with an innocent, unsuspecting straight woman.  They feel very fortunate to have found each other and fallen in love back then -- back when they were young and the world was far more hostile.

I know a gay male couple who are now in their mid-50s and have been together since they were 20 years olds in college.  That's how they did it.  They married when it became legal to do so, and they have raised three children together who are now in high school and college.

Lake Breeze wrote:
"I am coming to believe that it is a personality disorder, whether the person is straight or gay.  I have often thought that my former spouse would treat another gay man, the same way he treated me; cold, callous, and selfishly.  "

Yes.  Some people are just wired to be abusive and destructive from birth.  Others aren't hardwired that way but become that way over time, as a result of chronic mistreatment.  This is true for both gay and straight people who are abused as children.

Lake Breeze, my thinking is that your husband is such a distorted, tortured man that if he ever entered into a relationship with another man, he would have severe problems with reciprocation and being emotionally intimate, just as you're predicting.  If he has been so filled with anger, lies, and hatred -- enough to destroy his own life and yours, then that won't go away overnight.  He won't be able to have a healthy relationship with another man until he faces himself -- all of his lies, distortions, and actions... which will hurt like hell.  

The day he's healthy enough to have a healthy relationship with another man is the day he will know how much of a tremendous and heartfelt apology he owes you.  That day, sadly, may never come.

jkpeace wrote:

"I do wonder about the same question as Lake Breeze asked:  What causes some gay people to be so, so broken that they think that marrying a straight person is the answer?

Actually, that is probably it:  They are more broken than the others.  Perhaps less strong or having less support."  

That's exactly it, yes.  The gay men that choose to marry women and hide are usually the ones that were filled with the most shame and self-hatred and who couldn't imagine another viable alternative.   

If a gay young man grows up with strong gay men in his life, who model happy and healthy gay relationships... then he can imagine having a happy, healthy future.  If he had zero positive gay role models, then he literally can't imagine what his future could be.  

Also, if his family is clear that they accept and love all people, gay and straight, starting from the time he was a young child... Then he will feel safe within his own home, rather than being constantly on edge and having to hide from his own family.

And, if he sees openly gay men being treated with respect in various jobs, then he will see that he won't need to marry a woman in order to have respect in the workplace and a livelihood.  So, he will pursue a career with the same confidence as any other man would, without any complications of pretending to be someone he isn't, every single day, at work -- and without the complications of hearing homophobic talk at work that fills him with shame and at times fear.

I do think that some gay people, just like some straight people, are born with personality disorders.  

But I think that what really twists gay people is growing up feeling that there's no safe or real place for them in this world.  This produces a type of constant wounding -- feeling afraid and ashamed and on edge, from the time a gay child is very small.  The world is literally working against the gay child in a very systematic, chronic, insidious way.

This does not excuse a grown gay man or lesbian heaping abuse upon other innocent people.  Not at all!  

Just like many straight people in this world were also wounded and abused growing up.  And then, some abused straight people bring that abuse right into their straight marriages and abuse their spouses, repeating the cycle.  Does that excuse a straight person's actions?  No!  And it doesn't excuse a gay person's actions, either.

If, while growing up, all human beings were treated with love and respect, then there would be a lot less abuse happening within all marriages -- from both gay and straight people.

If gay people were treated with respect and acceptance within their homes, their schools, their workplaces, and their religious institutions -- then there would be ZERO desire on the part of any gay person to pursue a sham marriage with a straight person.  

It would never even occur to them to do such a strange and destructive thing.

Last edited by Jeff W (October 24, 2016 8:29 pm)

Hi, jkpeace.

I'm glad to help.  

My thoughts: You need to put your own needs above his and take care of yourself.  This means not letting him live with you.  You have been deeply traumatized by him, and you need to heal.  If he's still living with you, you won't be able to heal.

When he tells you that you're being unfair to him, he is completely wrong.  I'm thinking he really means that life has been unfair to him.  Yes, life has been unfair to him.  He was victimized growing up, and being gay made his life far more difficult than it ever should have been.  

But!  You became a victim, too.  Your life was made far more difficult than it ever should have been, too.  He was unfair to you for many years.

It sounds to me like you're having a difficult time setting boundaries with him.  That's normal -- especially if you have compassion for him, once loved him, or even still do love him on some level.  

But please remember that your needs are just as important as his needs.  And, you are ready to move on.  You don't want him in your home anymore, and that is enough of a reason to have him leave.  You have every right to tell him to leave and to enforce that choice.

Don't be drawn back in.  This man lied to you.  He cheated on you.  He emotionally abused you.

Don't allow him to use you as a security blanket anymore.  You'll only be hurting yourself.  And, you'll be hurting him too, in the long run.  Reason being: He'll never learn to stand on his own two feet if you keep making yourself available to him as a safe place to land.

Thank you for the input. My husband, also the father of my children is my best friend and I can't for see a future when I don't feel that way. I think his family and religious upbringing  has caused great damage. Good news, for now anyway, well good and bad news, he is sober. He was arrested for a DUI. Since then he's been sober and working hard to stay that way. I am urging him to go to counseling.  If he is gay, maybe that will come up and he can work through it. I sincerly want him to find happiness. And I will support him with that however I can. No matter what we are parents, even if we cease to be romantic partners. If he eventually comes out to me, I think I might be relieved not to have to wonder. And we can keep working on our friendship but he may never do that, and live in inner turmoil. Who really knows I can't predict the future. But Im pretty sure I know him better than anyone, and I'm sure not going to be surprised or angry with him. I guess I will focus on my own personal healing and being a supportive wife. Hoping the sobriety sticks this time. I wish he could know that I'll always be on his team rooting for him. But at some point, I'll need my own emotional needs met. One day at a time.

Hi, Standing.

You sound very supportive of him, that you feel he's your best friend.  I'll have to ask you this though: Do you feel like he's treating you like you're his best friend?

You're being a good friend and wife to him, but it doesn't sound like he's being a good friend and husband to you.  It sounds lopsided.  You're giving and giving everything to this man, but what is he bringing to you?

All alcoholics are self-medicating away their pain.  Whether your husband's pain is due to being gay, or due to another issue altogether, the fact remains that your emotional needs aren't being met.  

I'm new to this forum and blown away by people's stories.  You've probably read other people's stories on here too, how they stayed in toxic relationships for years.  Literally, years of never having their emotional needs met, always giving giving giving... and receiving nothing in return -- except more years of pain and wasted time.

Maybe imagine an alternative reality: What if you had a different husband -- one who treated you like a best friend and met your needs, just as you'd do for him?  

You'd both meet each other's needs.  That's a true marriage and partnership.  Lopsided relationships don't work, as you'll see in other people's stories.  Over the years, the relationship just becomes more and more lopsided.

Last edited by Jeff W (October 24, 2016 3:35 pm)

This is a fascinating thread. Thank you for everyone who has shared, both gay and straight. I can only share my own experience and perhaps the experiences of long-term friends. I agree with most of what Jeff W has shared so While it may seem logical to label the gay spouse as twisted or evil, I believe we (the gay spouses) are simply projecting how we feel about ourselves. And how we project largely depends on our mental health and the way were were taught to manage our emotions. 

Before writing more on that, I'm encouraged by recent developments that may limit (or perhaps eliminate) the devastating problem of gay/straight marriages. In North America, there now seems to be a general openness to the LGBTQ community, particularly since gay marriage was deemed a constitutional right by the US Supreme Court. No matter where we live in the world and no matter how repressed a country may be,  young people now have positive gay role models via television, movies, or the internet. Bigots are largely on the defensive, even when hiding behind religious beliefs. We need only look at the current presidential election where gay marriage is largely a non-issue. 

Now I'm happy to share why I married, stayed closeted, and then divorced. In my teens, I had ZERO gay role models. So without any gay people in my life, I got my cues from the media. While growing up gay men were portrayed in movies or on television in three ways: the effeminate, purse-carrying, poodle-loving sissy; the child-molesting pervert; or as living corpses dying from AIDS. The first time I ever saw openly gay people was when my family traveled to Washington DC. It was the first AIDS march. So for most of my formative years, I equated 'gay' with death. I didn't want a poodle. I didn't want to be a pervert. I wanted acceptance. I wanted to live. I wanted to marry a woman and have children. In my world, there was NOTHING positive about being gay. Like so many others, I had to conform. Then I found a girl! 

She found my secrets, brooding nature, and brokenness strangely appealing. She was kind, protective, and nurturing. Our first sexual experience was magical and I was so relieved. "I like girls!," I excitedly thought to myself. Later I learned she had an alcoholic father and a manic depressive mother. Our relationship became all about a broken me and all about her trying to put the pieces back together. We were more friends than lovers. There was affection but absolutely no passion. I played the role of a straight husband for a time. Things changed dramatically when I first discovered the internet. It was 1996. My second web search was for gay porn and from there I was completely hooked. For decades, I couldn't get enough of gay sex videos until I eventually made the jump to the real world. I then satisfied my hunger for men with escorts, then hook ups, and finally true love. All the while, I hid this from my wife. I should have shared all of this with her but I was too scared, didn't want to hurt her, and didn't want to break up our growing family. 

Since the age of five, I'd perfected how to lie, distract, and manipulate people to hide my secrets. Like an alcoholic, I was surrounded by enablers or people who minimized my behaviour. My wife was no match and I used all of these terrible talents to keep her off guard. Lack of sex was her fault. I traveled so much for work because I had to. Those strange websites were simply viruses or pop-ups. Like an addict in a downward spiral, I was going mad and yet made her feel it was both her fault and also her responsibility to fix me. Then she flat out asked me the question. I was exhausted. I tried to lie one last time, broke down, and told her the truth. There was no going back.

Why did I choose to marry a woman? In my mind this was the only option. Living on the moon was more likely than dating boys, marrying a husband, and starting a family. Roughly 25-30 years ago, everything and everyone convinced me I had to be straight and I simply didn't have the strength to go against this programming. I was too young, too poor, too vulnerable. I could have found my tribe in university but the only out guy was chased off campus...by the football team thugs no less! He really had to change schools. By the time I'd started working, in my mind I was 100% straight.

How can I explain the closeted gay spouse experience to straight spouses? Imagine choosing to be morbidly obese. I'm not just talking about gaining a few extra pounds, like many do when aging, I'm talking about in your teens consciously working at being as heavy as possible. This means eating as much as possible in public...all the time. This means actively trying to gain as much weight as possible. This means no exercise and lots of greasy food. Imagine two morbidly obese people walking down the street hand in hand, kissing in public, walking with their obese kids, having sex etc. To many, this would seem repulsive. This is the only example I can think of that captures the gay experience. From a very young age, children are taught that being fat means being lesser than. Skinny kids are smarter, better looking, and more successful. Heavy kids are fat shamed, told to lose weight, told to try harder, taken to the doctor and so on. Sound familiar? Friends and family alike are universally against obesity. The fat person is ridiculed and marginalized on the internet, TV, or in movies. No one has ever said, "You gained weight. God you look great!" Skinny is better and to be fat goes against everything we've been told our whole lives. This is how I saw myself as a gay person. I was pathetic, ridiculous, and lesser than. So I conformed to survive. This was my reality. Last summer I told a woman I was gay and she ecstatically replied, "You're GAY! That's great. I LOVE gay people." I almost fainted because it went against everything I'd ever known. I felt like a turn-of-the-century slave who has just woken from a stasis coma only to learn that Barack Obama, an African American, is now president. Gays and lesbians are no longer hated, but I still hate myself. 

Why did I marry? Because I simply wasn't strong enough to go against the grain. Why did I cheat on my wife? Because body and soul ached for intimacy with another man. Why did I act like a narcissist in the final years of my marriage? Because two sides were warring within me. One wanted to be a devoted husband & father - roles I had tried to play my entire life. Another side of me was a self-hating, sex-crazed and self-centred adolescent who didn't care about anything but the next weekend or my next hookup. I had spent my whole life lying so I simply lied, manipulated, and (later) bullied my way through the final years of my post-disclosure marriage. Why did I act like I hated my wife? Simply because she was there and the poor woman was the living, breathing embodiment of everything I hated about myself: hetero-conformity. Years later, I think about those days like an alcohol addiction: I was a different person then; I got help; I asked for her forgiveness; she freely gave it to me; and now it's time to move on. 

I hope that helps some of you understand your gay spouses a bit more.