Bah - so glad to hear that.  Yes it sucks, and really absolutely no reason to give him more of your precious health and wealth of love and time.  Time to pay all your attention to looking out for yourself.  Time to think safe.  Please talk with someone.  It's so important to break the secret keeping for your own sake but also to have a friend on the ground.

Denial is not the confusion that a straight spouse finds themselves in as a consequence of being up against it, denial is cold, calculated, intensely protected.  He is not the one confused.

Bisexual - ask yourself this, have you ever heard of a long term gay couple busting up in midlife so one of them can go straight?  I haven't not one.  But so many stories of 'straight' marriages where the gay one leaves in midlife for an  'authentic' life.  

My instinctive take on it is no, not possible to be oriented both ways.  not at the magnetic heart of sexual attraction where eye contact is smouldering and the heat rises.  

There are people who believe they are attracted both ways but my observation is that it is a two step - fall in love with a man get rejected and turn to a woman for comfort.  And by the time they are mid life they are realising it's only men where they will find comfort as well as love. 

You are describing something a bit more cold hearted.  More like my ex - give him more string and he will only want more - it's the string he wants, no true thought of resolving anything.  

He played me, got what he wanted from me and that was my worth to him.  

Another question it might help to ask yourself is what do I think would happen if it were the other way round and I need his kindness, I need him to care for me?

 

Last edited by lily (June 29, 2022 8:41 pm)

Bah,

My husband of 19 years came out as gay three months ago.  He told me he has been questioning himself for 10 years however I overheard him talking to his parents and tell them 20.  Meaning, like you, he was questioning his feelings from even before we were in a relationship.

I am dealing with a lot of anger towards him right now that he took the choice from me if I wanted to live his lie and now deal with a future I had never dreamed of.  All the security and love I though I had is gone and I question everything about our relationship and marriage.  I question why he even married me.  was it because he was trying to deny the gay or was it because he really wanted kids so used me to get them.  He has not touched me intimately in 10 years.

My two cents is if he's actively looking for these hookups its because it's what he wants and its not going to stop.  And usually what we don't see is much much worse.

I also understand the pressure of being strong because you are wanting to be careful of his mental health and feelings.  We love them and we don't want to see them hurting.  But I was doing so at the detriment to myself.  I have been emotionally decoupling myself from him and working on removing myself as his "dumping ground" for when he needs to vent about things.  Though be aware that when you start doing that is typically when the gas lighting starts and the Narcissism rears is very ugly head.  

Tell who you need to tell to take care of yourself.  You deserve to have a support system for you for whatever is to come.  He is the one who cheated, not you.  He has to own up to that with your friends and your friends are adults and can decide how they want to handle it. 

I started with my "internet friends", coworkers (my job is virtual), my family (They fall into the pissed as hell camp), lifelong friends in other states, and have just started on people whom he will have to 'see' eventually.  I started with a group I am in and have been for 13 years.   I want him to have to deal with the consequences of his actions and answer to people other than me that he's hurting.  

I'm also a huge proponent of therapy.  I was luckily already established with Psych and Counseling before he dropped the bomb and was able to get emergency appointments to get me through the first days of the wreckage.  My counselor is also doing our joint sessions.  He is supposed to be finding a personal therapist of his one but that one google search he did didn't magically end up with an appointment and since then he is happy as can me.  And its not my responsibility to do it for him.  My Counselor has helped in setting clear boundaries in that with his confession and the shift in our lives that while I am still his wife of paper he has lost the privelage of me as a wife in the sense of having to support in things that i don't want too and being the person that does the things for him.  

Since we have a lot of complicated issues we can't jump straight to divorce.  But what we have done is separated withing our home.  we had a house with a MIL suite and he's moved into that while I"m in the main house with the kids.  This way we each have our own space, though he has the ability to shut and lock the door into his area and just check out while I could never, not with the kids.  I know others on here have also done the same thing of separating bedrooms to help have their own spaces while things get worked out.

Finding out your long term partner is Gay/Trans in Denial is incredibly hardcore.

While there are decent people in loving relationships who come to this lgbtq understanding later in life, MOST of these relationships are characterized by the GID partner having always known.  And that means that they purposefully ensnared an unsuspecting straight partner into their insane trap of lies.

To learn this is the reality of your partnership is a hardcore experience.  It means your partner has deceived you all along - oftentimes for decades!!

Everything you think you know to be true about love and sexuality and partnership are falsehoods.

None of this is easy.