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March 5, 2022 10:01 am  #1


I want to know for sure…

I have been married for 3 years. I am 31 and my husband is 33 and we have had had little to no sex our entire marriage. It’s been almost a year and a half at this point of no sex at all. I have tried everything from changing the bedroom atmosphere, to toys, porn, etc. He has also been very vocal that he doesn’t like me to initiate sex, which would be fine with me but he never initiates. I try to bring up sex: why we don’t have it, what could we do to have it more often, what are his fantasies, etc but he always shuts down. Like he won’t talk about it at all, says it makes him uncomfortable.

Some backstory….everything was great up until our honeymoon. We didn’t have regular sex then but I just assumed it was because we had separate houses up until about a month before our marriage. When I asked him about it he said it would for sure increase after we moved in together (looking back almost the only times we had sex was after a night out when he’d been drinking a lot).

Fast forward to our honeymoon we went to Mexico and there was a limited about of things to turn on the tv so he’d brought his iPad so we could watch a movie. As he was finding something to watch on Netflix one night I got an overwhelming bad feeling. After he scrolled for a bit, he handed me his iPad because he couldn’t find anything. I took it and started looking for movie, but then that feeling started creeping back in and for the first time ever I switched pages on the browser from Netflix to see what other tabs he had open. To my under shock Adam4Adam was pulled up on what of the tabs. I switched it back to Netflix and gave him his iPad and told him I didn’t want to watch anything. I started crying and of course he came over and asked what was wrong. I told him what I’d found. He said at first he had no idea how it got there, that he hadn’t use his iPad in forever and that “you know I havent used it in forever, because you’ve never seen me on it.”, but I knew that that wasn’t the case that he didn’t know because I’d seen him flipping through tabs. After a while he finally said that him and his friend many years ago were trying to look up his cousin that they thought was gay. That answer still seemed fishy but I let it go for the moment. The next day his Grandad died and we had to fly him early from Mexico so we didn’t talk about it again until 2020.

So I always knew he’d lied to me about “looking up his cousin”, but I tried to let it go because I wanted to make our marriage work and besides hardly any sex life was pretty good. But the. 2020 happened and after the shutdown I started getting ready to go back to work, my laptop was old and my husband offered his old iPad for me to take to work. He went to get the iPad for me and I noticed he was taking an extremely long time on it, but I figured maybe he was saving things or whatever. Well when he finally handed it to me he said “I don’t know how but it factory reset.”, I told him that things don’t just factory reset on their own, and he just shrugged and said “well it did”. Again didn’t believe him but let it go, once I got to work though I couldn’t let the feeling go that he was lying to me, so I looked back on his storage on the iPad and found 4 gay porn signs with a ton of data, and then I went to downloaded apps  and found 3 different dating apps that had been downloaded at one point on his iPad and also his phone (which of course he said the apps had only been on iPad). At that point I felt physically ill, I canceled my clients for the day and went home to confront him. I asked him if there was anything he wanted to tell me he said no, and then I proceeded to tell him what I found. He swore on everything that it was just where he was looking up his cousin.

Well the rest of the year until August 2021 was terrible, he became very angry about hardly anything, of course we weren’t having sex, we barely talked, I was pretty depressed, he also decided to quit his job and start a self employment career during this time. I took on 3 jobs and got loans just to make ends meet. So to say we were in a bad place is putting it lightly. I confront him again that August and he finally admitted he thought at one point he might have been bi. Fast forward to more weeks and it’s that he thought he might have been gay. Keep in mind we’re still  trying to maintain a normal look marriage at this point and I’m absolutely miserable.
On New Years Eve of 2021 I asked him if he wanted to start the new year in this same pattern and he said no, so we had a conversation. During this conversation he said: he didn’t know if he wanted to be married, he didn’t know if he was currently gay, he didn’t know if he wanted kids anymore, and besides his business plan he had no idea what he wanted on the next 5 years. All of this was kind of devastating to me because I knew and knows what I want, and I felt like the ground just opened up beneath me.

Sorry for my long windedness but I feel like you need a solid basis for what all happened. My question is do we think he’s gay?  Or should I fight harder for my marriage? I  feel  completely betrayed and lied to but I’m not sure if that’s something I should try to get over. To me it almost feels selfish of me to walk away from this, but at this point I’m not sure anymore. I also don’t want to keep him “trapped” in a hetro relationship when he’s unhappy.  I feel like a large part of me just wants to know for sure. What are your opinions?

Help,
A lonely wife

 

March 5, 2022 11:07 am  #2


Re: I want to know for sure…

Hi lookingfortruth, I think you have found more than enough red flags. Everything you report suggests he has been living a second life on his iPad and feeding you smoke and mirrors to try to keep it under wraps. What you do is your choice to make but I think it takes two people to save a marriage. If he is not in the fight or hoping to sweep everything back under a rug, you will likely wind up sacrificing yourself trying to keep things together. Is this healthy?

If he is gay, and desperate to stay in his closet, you may never get an admission. Are you prepared to live in a state of constant uncertainty?

I would certainly suggest you take some time to consider the past and the future, preferably somewhere you can think without his presence intruding on your thoughts. Think about what you have been through and what your options are. Finally, look for someone you trust and get their opinion. You might also try to write everything down and then look at it objectively. Imagine if this was from a friend or family member and think about what you would say.

Remember to breath and take care of yourself.
 


“The future is unwritten.”
― Joe Strummer
 

March 5, 2022 11:26 am  #3


Re: I want to know for sure…

"he said: he didn’t know if he wanted to be married, he didn’t know if he was currently gay, he didn’t know if he wanted kids anymore, and besides his business plan he had no idea what he wanted on the next 5 years."

I'm so sorry. There is nothing for you to fight for.  He has said very clearly that he is not at all committed to amy part of your marriage.

Its so sad that he has duped you in this way. The best thing is to file for divorce and give yourself a chance to find a man who wants the same as you in a relationship.

 

March 5, 2022 11:29 am  #4


Re: I want to know for sure…

Hi lookingfortruth,

So sorry you find yourself here. I agree with Daryl in that you have a lot of red flags.

My late GIDXH was the perfect fiancé. I had no sex on my honeymoon. It was hit or miss within a year and stopped. He also stopped working a few years later ostensibly to start a business. He didn't do the work. My best guess is that he became addicted to gay sex. I believe the business was a cover for him to pursue gay men and MTF trans women (pre-operation). I worked over 60 hours a week, finished the few job assignments he had & then dropped, and did all the household chores.  This was sexual, emotional  and financial abuse. I stayed until it was safe for me to leave. I found proof of him soliciting a MTF trans woman on social media after he died.

I would suggest consulting a family law attorney to know what your legal and financial rights are. You can choose to proceed or not. It's always good to know where you stand.

No one deserves abuse & you have every right to protect yourself.

Last edited by MJM017 (March 5, 2022 11:54 am)


No - It's not too late. It's not hopeless. Even there, there's something I can do. I just have to find the will. Ikiru (1952), film directed by Akira Kurosawa 
 

March 5, 2022 1:52 pm  #5


Re: I want to know for sure…

Thank you all for your responses. Unfortunately I feel like you may be right. I feel like the ultimate failure, but at the end of the day at least I’ve tried most everything to make things work.

     Thread Starter
 

March 5, 2022 5:55 pm  #6


Re: I want to know for sure…

You are not a failure. It sounds like you were deceived and given a constant run-around to keep you off balance and away from the truth. You can't succeed at a task if you're not given all the relevant information.

Be well.
 


“The future is unwritten.”
― Joe Strummer
 

March 5, 2022 7:27 pm  #7


Re: I want to know for sure…

lookingfortruth wrote:

Thank you all for your responses. Unfortunately I feel like you may be right. I feel like the ultimate failure, but at the end of the day at least I’ve tried most everything to make things work.

You are not a failure in any way shape or form. You both stood up and made those public marriage vows and you are not the one reneging.

I think you have been smart, brave, compassionate and honest to ask him as soon as you saw the signs and to give him room to explain and be upfront and honest with you in return.

The fact is you cant make it work alone.  My heart goes out to you as you work towards a solution.

 

March 9, 2022 2:54 pm  #8


Re: I want to know for sure…

Hi lookingfortruth, so sorry you're going through this at the moment. I do think these are serious red flags, and if you want to know for sure, I would say he seems to be either bi with a sexual preference for men, or gay. If you had said your sex life was fulfilling, then it might be a different story and perhaps he has some attraction to men, but is mainly attracted to women. In that case, it might be worth trying to salvage things, if that is something you could deal with long term. But it sounds like he might be repressing a strong attraction to men. Has your sex life always been this way? As devastating as I'm sure a divorce would be, you are still very young and you deserve to build a life with someone who is on the same page as you. This does NOT make you a failure, it makes you a smart, strong woman who is looking out for herself and her future.

 

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