And Sean - I was thinking on the “did you ever love her” question and don’t you think the answer might be that trite but true “you can never love someone if you don’t love yourself” notion? And sorry if intrusive but guessing: oh my goodness of course you don’t miss her - who would miss this closet stuff?! I do love my husband, no question, but if we split up I will not miss him. This is excruciating; pretty much the opposite of living out loud.
That said, I still have to get my son to a safer place before we can split. While I agree about the orientation issues being hurtful to the kids, this is the only structure they know, and with my son’s basic challenges and the pandemic, I think I have to triage. And run. Outside. A lot.
Thank you for doing this! R.

I think in terms of a safer place for my son, I mean this: he’s 19, almost 20, and you could almost say that he is a living embodiment of my GIDH’s dark places, his closet. My son is drowning himself in pot and video games, and his world has shrunk to that, conspiracy theories, the dogs, his closeted but charming (in a very full sense of the word) dad, and me. I’ve got him on medicine, and another therapist tomorrow: hopefully he really talks to her. As much as I would love to just say “truth trumps lies” - which it certainly does  - and draw the curtain back right now, today, on all of my GH’s crap, I think anything sudden will be a problem. We did a lot of living to get to this place and it’s going to require more living to get out. A strategic, staged, rational exit. Getting some light in for my son, some other folks in his life, before shaking the (fraudulent, in many ways but not all) foundation. Pray for my kid you all here, who do that. I am optimistic that I can get him across but it’s going to be a process. 
Grateful for the forum here. Again - thank you Sean

Thanks for posting Rose and OOHC. In reply: 

Rose wrote: ​I think in terms of a safer place for my son, I mean this: he’s 19, almost 20, and you could almost say that he is a living embodiment of my GIDH’s dark places, his closet. My son is drowning himself in pot and video games, and his world has shrunk to that, conspiracy theories, the dogs, his closeted but charming (in a very full sense of the word) dad, and me. I’ve got him on medicine, and another therapist tomorrow: hopefully he really talks to her. As much as I would love to just say “truth trumps lies” - which it certainly does  - and draw the curtain back right now, today, on all of my GH’s crap, I think anything sudden will be a problem. We did a lot of living to get to this place and it’s going to require more living to get out. A strategic, staged, rational exit. Getting some light in for my son, some other folks in his life, before shaking the (fraudulent, in many ways but not all) foundation. Pray for my kid you all here, who do that. I am optimistic that I can get him across but it’s going to be a process. 
Grateful for the forum here. Again - thank you Sean. 

Thank you for so honestly sharing all of that although I'm so very sorry that your son is struggling. As I shared in our previous exchange, tech-savvy children often suffer under the burden of discovering dad's secret. And why? Because they often find dad's porn history, read chats/texts with male lovers, or find a tickle trunk brimming with with sex toys and viagra. These children often labour under the weight of three burdens: 1. keeping dad's secret; 2. keeping dad's secret from mom; and 3. trying to be the "perfect" child to keep mom and dad together. I reckon it's time to relieve him of this burden by openly discussing dad's sexuality...something I'd suggest discussing reviewing with a qualified mental health professional before you and your son have "the talk."    

OOHC wrote: A little pushback here, Sean. You say that you loved your wife for the part she played in enabling your pretend life, and as a beard and cover.  But as your ex didn't know she was living a pretend life, she herself wasn't an enabler.   And in addition, didn't this "love" also come accompanied by resentment?  I mean, yes, she was part of your cover, but didn't you also resent having to have that cover? Next push: I would venture to say that a marriage doesn't just turn abusive when a wife "dares to challenge" her closeted/in denial spouse.  It was abusive all along.  Deceiving your wife about your sexuality is a form of abuse (See, Minwalla, "The Secret Sexual Basement").  To me it's the difference between covert and overt abuse.  But it's abuse all the same.  

Push back as often as you want my friend because I agree with you. 

Be well! 

Last edited by Sean (April 14, 2022 1:57 pm)

I forgot two more pieces of evidence. I remember once we were having sex just a few months after we'd been married. We were 25 years old, both fit, and should have been horny as hell. Instead, he just suddenly stopped and walked out of the room. I was confused and followed him, asking what was wrong. He told me I had to lose ten pounds within the next two months or move out.

Seriously?  I wasn't even overweight.

At the end of our marriage, when he was being sexually attentive because he knew I was getting ready to leave him, he bought sex toys for us to try, including a strap-on.  He wanted me to "peg" him, so I did. He loved it. He had a look of bliss on his face I'd never seen before. Afterwards, he acted like this was a huge milestone in our intimacy, and he could never leave me "after that". I mean, I know that straight men can enjoy anal play, but his reaction was over the top to me. 

Thank you for writing beastie. In response to your posts: 

1. I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I do want Sean's feedback. I'm reading the thread but only on page 23. It's massive! It feels strange to be posting this because this happened so long ago, I’m healed and have been in a loving relationship for decades, but I always wanted some closure with my ex-husband that I doubt I will ever get. You all may help me get that. I got married at 25 to a man I knew two months by the time we got married. We were Mormons, and this is not uncommon in the Mormon culture, which stresses sexual chastity and complete abstinence before marriage, and short courtships so you won’t be tempted to have sex before marriage and hence, not be able to get married in the temple.

That's an incredible intro my friend! I've had the pleasure of doing two (2) podcasts with "Our Path" that might answer many of the questions you ask: 

S4 Ep 3: A “Narcissist in Recovery” Gets Real - OurPath
S5 Ep 5: A Former Closeted Narcissist in Recovery Answers Your Questions - OurPath

2. He had already been married once before. He got married to his high school Mormon girlfriend at 19. They were together for fifteen months. He was abusive to her, as he was to me. I did not find out about this until after our divorce. He claimed she cheated on him numerous times with his friends. Her family says he used to lock her in her bedroom so she couldn’t leave the house (they lived with his parents), and she would climb out the window over the porch roof to escape. He used to hit her. He never hit me or locked me up, but was extremely verbally abusive and used to push me, act threatening, throw things around me, etc. She tried to leave him three times before leaving the country to escape him. He and his family told me repeatedly she was just a whore and a cheater, and that’s why their marriage ended.

Monstrous. 

3. He showed signs of being emotionally unstable and abusive during our brief courtship but told me it was because he was still healing from his first marriage and assured me he’d get better. I had a low self esteem due to my childhood emotional neglect and believed my faith and prayers would “fix” him, so just accepted the abuse. He had gone out of his way to find a wife. Because no one in his home church/city would allow their daughters to date him (he said because he was divorced), he asked a church leader for names of potential spouses from nearby cities and got my name from him. He wanted to get married quickly.

I certainly hope this barbaric practice has ended. 

4. He unleashed his abuse on our honeymoon and continued throughout our entire marriage. Our marriage was never good. He let me know I was beneath him. He was a classic narcissist. His primary focus on me was my ugliness. In reality, I was quite pretty. But he convinced me otherwise. He wanted me to have a firm, muscular body. Even when my waist was 23 inches, he told me I had to lose weight for him to be sexually attracted to me. My body should feel like a hard, smooth statue under his hands. He used to list all the plastic surgery I would need before he could be attracted to me, including a boob job. I can’t remember him ever touching my breasts our entire marriage. All kissing stopped once we married.

These are often red flags with closeted/questioning husbands. 

5. I was a Mormon convert at 19 and had had sex with boyfriends before joining the church, but it was all quick and awkward teenage sex, and then I had spent six years avoiding all sexual thoughts as a devout Mormon. So, in a way, I was sexually naïve. I didn’t realize how abnormal our sex life was until after our divorce when I was in a healthy sexual relationship with a heterosexual man.

I've heard this before, namely: "I didn't realize how f*cked up sex was with my ex-husband until I met a heterosexual man." 

6. My ex-husband and I only had sex twice on our honeymoon, once a day. After that it was strictly twice a week, if that. I used to try and initiate sex, but it was too hard on my self-esteem to be told I wasn’t attractive enough to be desired so I stopped. I lost all desire for him because of his abuse. Normally sex occurred late at night, after I was already asleep, and he’d be secretly watching porn.

Question: how did you know he was watching porn? 

7. He’d come to bed and use me to finish off. He preferred anal sex, but that was very painful and difficult due to his large size and lack of preparation, so sometimes he’d settle for vaginal, but often he had to use his hand to finish. He often tried to finish off without waking me up. It always woke me up but I often preferred to pretend to stay asleep. Anal sex was so awful for me that I used to cry afterwards. Once he felt badly and promised to stop, but didn’t. He would pressure me by pouting and having one of his abusive rants. I now believe I was actually raped all those years, when he was forcing me to have painful anal sex when I clearly didn’t want to.

I'm so sorry you went through this and, yes, sex without consent is indeed rape. He's a monster. 

8. Although he told me all the time how he deserved a beautiful wife and I was making his life miserable by “deliberately making myself ugly to him”, whatever that meant, I never worried about him cheating on me. He never paid any attention to women at all. The only comments he would make about women we knew was in regard to how they needed to shut up about something or the other. He was a misogynist.

What an *sshole. 

9. Besides using me as a masturbatory tool after watching porn, there was no physical contact between us. If I accidentally brushed up against him in bed, he’d shudder and scoot away. When I was diagnosed with a tumor (that turned out to be benign, but at that time, I didn’t know what it was) and was terrified, I asked him to hold me and comfort me. He told me coldly that I needed to “learn to comfort myself.”

These too are some common red flags with closeted/questioning husbands. He is uncomfortable hugging and kissing his wife. I've often said that physical contact with my (then) wife felt like having to hug/kiss my sister. 

10. We ended up having three children together, but I was functionally a single parent. He was self employed and would sleep late in the mornings, after the kids and I were gone (I was a teacher), and work late into the nights. At least that’s what he claimed. He would regularly stay out until the middle of the night. At first, I protested and wanted to know where he was at, but he got irate at me and attacked me for “wanting to control his life”, so I stopped asking.

Another classic red flag.

11. He was a bad parent. He did not actively participate in childcare, and when he did, it was destructive. He would “spank” them so long and hard I told him it was abuse and he had to stop. He did stop – at least on front of me. My kids told me later he always did it behind my back.

Egads what a monster.

12. Throughout our marriage, he always had one very close male friend. It was like an obsession. Sometimes they were also married, sometimes not. The obsession would last several years before suddenly they stopped being friends and he moved on to someone new. It was weird to me how obsessed he would be with whoever his current friend was. He’d spend more time with his friend than with his family and talk about him constantly. Anything his new friend was interested in suddenly became his passion as well. Sometimes I would go with him to visit his friends, and he was always hyper-focused on his friend and ignored me and any other female who happened to be present.

This is another classic red flag, meaning a husband-like relationship with another husband/father. This is something I discussed in S5 Ep 5: A Former Closeted Narcissist in Recovery Answers Your Questions - OurPath at the 1 hour 07 minute mark when we discuss "Brokeback Mountain" relationships, meaning long-term gay relationships between men who married women. In my limited experience, this often occurs between men in very conservative and/or Evangelical states, often between men who are part of the same religion or church. 

12. He was financially irresponsible and rarely helped with bills. He made my life miserable in so many ways, I could go on for pages. I’m sure you all understand. I finally divorced him after 15 years of marriage. I had lost faith in the Mormon church a couple of years prior. The Mormon church, at least at that time, was virulently anti-divorce so I just could not even consider leaving him. He was frantic when he realized I was going to leave him. He did everything he could to convince me he had changed. He became attentive, sexually and otherwise. He helped with the kids. He attended counseling a couple of times (before quitting in disgust because he claimed the female therapist was against him).

He followed a familiar path and I've referred to this as a honeymoon phase. The closeted husband panics at the thought of losing his "beard" so he fakes it for 2-3 months, perhaps even initiating sex after years of sexual neglect. This is something I discuss at the 28 minute mark of S5 Ep 5: A Former Closeted Narcissist in Recovery Answers Your Questions - OurPath. Some also refer to this as love bombing. 

13. But it was too late. I told him I sincerely hoped he was changing and becoming healthy, but he had hurt me too much during our marriage and I could not stay with him. He was devastated and suicidal, and then ramped up his abuse and threatened to kill me. I had to go into hiding for several months. He was diagnosed with bipolar but refused treatment. His bipolar episodes were devastating but did not seem to factor into his abuse.

Good God what a monster.

14. During all this time I never suspected he might by gay, despite one of my good friends suggesting it as a possibility. I just knew he was abusive and focused on that. The sexual aspect was just one small part of his abuse. But as I healed, I kept trying to figure out what had gone so wrong. I understood the abuse dynamics, but something was still missing. There was a secret I didn’t know. I always felt he had a big secret. At one point I even wondered if he was a secret serial killer.

Wow.

15. Twelve years after our divorce, I was cleaning out my basement and found my old journals. I reread the ones from my first year of marriage. Having a healthy, enthusiastic sexual relationship with my significant other, I now knew I was never ugly, I knew I was sexually attractive, so when I remembered all our sexual problems by reading my journal, it suddenly hit me.  He’s gay.

I agree! The abuse/rape, lack of intimacy, a religious cult, husband-like friendships, and many other factors suggest he's gay.  

16. The Mormon church is anti-gay and used to engage in conversion therapy and openly told its gay members to get married to “fix” themselves. My ex-husband always needed someone to take care of him, financially and in other ways, so could never have risked being disowned by his Mormon family. I now believe he thought I could “fix” him and when it didn’t happen, he was furious at me and believed I was doing it deliberately. He repeatedly told me I “deliberately made myself ugly to him.” I had no idea what that even meant. I kept my figure trim, I used makeup tastefully, styled my hair. Of course, I dressed modestly as a Mormon, but I still tried to be attractive. It never made any sense to me.

Never get in a pool with someone who is drowning emotionally. Closeted/questioning men don't make sense because they're f*cking crazy. 

17. As I tell this story, you may wonder why I need validation. Why I’m asking you “is he gay”?

Not really because this is a very common situation. Like other straight spouses who naively married closeted men, I reckon you're simply trying to understand what happened. 

18. The problem is that I never had any proof. We divorced before smart phones and had barely started using a computer. I’m sure he used the computer for porn, but I had no idea how to find it. I do know he liked me to go into chat rooms and say suggestive things to the men there while he watched. He also told me I could “take a lover” if that would enable me to stay married to him.

This is sometimes referred to as a "cuck" fetish and it's another red flag. The closeted husband is aroused by using his wife as a kind of sexual avatar, meaning he encourages her to have sex with men because he too is attracted by men. By openly suggesting you cheat on him, this tells me that he too was cheating...likely with other men. 

19. I started sharing my idea about him being gay with my significant other and my family. They were skeptical. We had lived together for 15 years and had three children. How could he be gay? I read Bonnie Kaye’s book and learned that up to 40% of gay men can successfully have sex with women, they just prefer not to. He seemed to be a perfect fit for her description of “limbo man”, someone who will never come out of the closet and pours his misery on his wife and children.

Dr. Alan Downs refers to this as "foreclosure" in his book, "The Velvet Rage." Foreclosure is when a gay man knows he's gay and yet makes the decision to remain closeted. I'd never heard that Bonnie Kaye statistic so thank you for posting it. 

20. But I have no proof.

I disagree. Based on what you shared above, I think he's pride-float gay.  

21. In fact, shortly after we split, he moved in with a woman who is about seven years older than him and is heavier than I ever was. That was strange, because he was so fixated on my weight. But she was well-off and had a very good job and supported him. They’re still together to this day. But he has continued his pattern of having a super close male friend he spends a lot of time with, and I’m sure he’s emotionally abusive to her as he was to me. But this is why my family is skeptical.

Ok so he found his "sugar momma" while also keeping a lot of best (male) friends.  To me that screams "closeted!" Skip to 00:53:53 here S5 Ep 5: A Former Closeted Narcissist in Recovery Answers Your Questions - OurPath when I discuss gay ex-husbands who date/marry women. 

22. It seems strange that I need to ask you: is he gay, after all these years. But I was so excited to find this board, and particularly Sean’s posts, that I hope you will help me out here. Is there enough evidence to point to my ex-husband really being gay?

Yes. If your children remained in contact with their dad, they likely know as well. If you are serious about determining whether your ex-husband is truly gay, I'd focus on his former boyfriends (and yes they were boyfriends). If you have a daughter, ask her because women are extremely intuitive when it comes to men's sexuality. I also reckon that one or more of these former "best friends" inevitably divorced and came out of the closet. If yes, this then confirms he is indeed gay. 

23. Is that the big secret he always kept from me? Is that why he worked so hard to convince me I was sexually unattractive? Is that why he wanted me to be muscular and super-slender? Is that why he always wanted anal sex? Is that why, whenever I tried to be more sexually adventurous with him, he would critique my performance and make me feel inadequate so I wouldn’t try again? Is that why he needed to watch porn before even trying to have sex with me? Were his special friends more than friends?

Yes to all of this. I'd also listen to S4 Ep 3: A “Narcissist in Recovery” Gets Real - OurPath and skip to the 01:15:55 point when I discuss signs you're husband is cheating with men. 

24. Was he afraid of me leaving him because he didn’t want to lose his beard, as well as the financial support?

Yes. 

25. For context, this happened almost 25 years ago. Both my ex-husband and I are now 65 years old. I’ve been in a happy relationship with my significant other for 24 years, and my ex has been with his current girlfriend (they may have gotten married, I’m not sure) for almost that long as well. He stayed with his last “best friend” for around 20 years before moving on to a new “friend”.

Gay.

26. I’m also wondering if it’s even possible that all these intense friendships were only platonic.

No. 

27. Three out of five of his “friends” were married, but the one that lasted 20 years never married, as far as I know. He did not juggle more than one “friend” at a time. He was a serial friend monogamist.

Gay. You can easily do a Facebook search on any one of these former friends. Gay men often thrive on validation so we sometimes overshare our personal lives. 

28. I don’t know why I want validation at this point. After I shared more intimate details, my children and significant other agree it’s likely he’s gay. It’s not something I need for emotional healing, but it feels like hearing “experts” (ie, those who have been through it) affirm what I truly believe may help me get some closure so I can stop wondering. 

I'm not an expert, but I do believe based on what you've shared that your ex-husband ticks all of the pink boxes of being a closeted, self-hating, Evangelical Christian...and a black-belt *sshole.  

29. I forgot two more pieces of evidence. I remember once we were having sex just a few months after we'd been married. We were 25 years old, both fit, and should have been horny as hell. Instead, he just suddenly stopped and walked out of the room. I was confused and followed him, asking what was wrong. He told me I had to lose ten pounds within the next two months or move out. Seriously?  I wasn't even overweight.

Good God what a monster.

30. At the end of our marriage, when he was being sexually attentive because he knew I was getting ready to leave him, he bought sex toys for us to try, including a strap-on.  He wanted me to "peg" him, so I did. He loved it. He had a look of bliss on his face I'd never seen before. Afterwards, he acted like this was a huge milestone in our intimacy, and he could never leave me "after that". I mean, I know that straight men can enjoy anal play, but his reaction was over the top to me. 

This suggests he was/is a bottom, or the gay man who prefers to be penetrated. 

31. I keep thinking of additional memories - at the end of our marriage, he actually said he was going to "tell me the truth" because he didn't know what else to do. The truth was that he had treated his first wife the exact way he treated me. Now, this shouldn't have surprised me except for one thing - during our entire marriage, he told me repeatedly how beautiful his first wife was. Just stunning. And here he admits he made her believe she was ugly, too. When I asked why, he had no answer.

There is little doubt in my mind that your ex-husband is a closeted gay man. I am 50 and believe that my generation straddles two groups: men who eventually come out and men who "foreclose" by refusing to come out. In my experience, as we go up in age, the self-loathing and fear of coming out grow exponentially. Your ex-husband is 15 years older than me and was raised Mormon. While I'd discuss all of this with a mental health professional, the abuse you so tragically suffered might have been caused by mental issues he experienced due in part of living in the closet for so long. I am so very sorry this man acted like such a monster with both you and your children. But, I'm thrilled that you eventually married a straight prince charming. Thank you very much for your honesty and please don't hesitate to post again with any follow up questions/comments. Be well!  

Last edited by Sean (April 14, 2022 1:58 pm)