You are right, he's not being a good friend or partner. I've never had a healthy relationship and this is husband number 2. I have an appointment for counseling myself. I know there is much work for me to do to be healthy mentally before I can retain a relationship based on mutual respect. I doubt there is anyone out there for me. I'll have to learn to be content with being alone.

um, I'm just listening to your stories, Jeff & Sean - great thread, thanks.  It explained a lot about how it could start but isn't the closet an inherited situation?

Isn't it a thing that the hurtfully homophobic father can turn out to be in the closet himself?



 

"Could you explain how your thinking was, during your divorce?  Would any of your perspective help me work with my husband, in the best interests of the children?"

Imagine your husband suddenly and unexpectedly went blind. He just woke up one day and couldn't see. Would you let him drive your kids to school? Of course not. Why then should you let your husband drive your new relationship? I don't know your husband nor do I know his mental state, but I know my own. If I were to estimate where I was applying my brain power during my own 'gay adolescence', it would have been: 

80% sex
10% gay friends
5% work
5% family 

In brief, I'd regressed to being a (gay) teen. During the gay adolescent phase, imagine your husband is now a 13-year-old boy. Do you discuss mortgage payments with a teen son? Do you try to discuss child rearing with an adolescent boy? Is a teenager interested in counselling, divorce, responsibility etc? No, no and no. 

If your husband is like most gay men during this phase of coming out, trying to 'work with' is impossible. So you might consider adopting an approach similar to: these are the rules; I'm going to do this; and you need to move out by [date]. You need to get on with your life...alone. I know it's hard to accept that the man you knew is now gone and never coming back. That's the hardest thing to accept. 

I'm sorry if that felt like a slap. I hope that helps in some small way. 

"..
In brief, I'd regressed to being a (gay) teen. During the gay adolescent phase, imagine your husband is now a 13-year-old boy. Do you discuss mortgage payments with a teen son? Do you try to discuss child rearing with an adolescent boy? Is a teenager interested in counselling, divorce, responsibility etc? No, no and no. "

Yes, Sean..  The problem I have even now is my GIDXW is still acting like this but we still have to raise the kids together..  It's very hard discussing teenage kids with a mom who is behaving like a teenager herself.  Its crazy.   Ie..  I try to discipline my kid and the kid simply goes to other house  and says dad was mean to me..  The 13 year old mom then starts texting me like a kid on the playground sticking up for her buddy.      Also the kids had almost two years of their dad getting sworn at and spoken to like crap...they are left with a 13 year old mom and a dad they have no respect for.    

These gay spouses leave so much destruction in their wake.
 

To Sham, CajunBelle and the many others who have posted here, I agree with pretty much everything you've written. We're *ssholes. I'm an *sshole for hurting my family and their mother. Men in general are self-centred, (childless) gay men even more so, and gay-in-denial ex-husbands deserve a particularly hot place in hell. I completely understand that a gay ex-husband sharing "poor me" posts here gets your blood boiling. I get it. I'd be pissed too. 

I'm trying to share a bit of my perspective as perhaps a f*cked up way of redeeming myself. Sham is absolutely right that I wasn't raised in "kill the gays" Uganda or Russia for example. I was a white, middle-class kid, growing up in a stable suburban home. So she's correct to write: "What's the f*cking problem?" No one was wearing pink triangles in my neighbourhood. And yet. The only way that I can describe what I went through is to provide a similar example and this may or may not apply to your former gay spouses. One of my sister's best friends has four kids: two daughters and two boys. Like me, they're all growing up with loving parents, good nutrition, a stable home, and good schools. Three of four are perfectly fine but their second child, a girl who is now 11 years old, recently developed anorexia.  Out of the blue she just stopped eating. Needless to say, they're all freaked out because this doesn't happen to happy families. Somewhere along the way, this beautiful little girl started hating herself to the point that she internalized it. She just stopped eating. 

So what's my point? Being a closeted gay person is something like emotional anorexia. Anyone who hides toxic secrets knows that these things warp you over time. Being a closeted gay person who marries means living with a burning self-hatred for faking it while putting our loved ones at risk as well. I married in a sort of emotional binge because a girl loved me! I was cured!! I didn't want to be gay. I still don't want to be gay. But I am. I was so happy and in love with this woman that I thought my problems had gone away. To draw another parallel, I was like the man afraid of flying who just blocked it out. He forgets about it because he hasn't gone to an airport in 25 years. Gay was just something 'in my past' that I buried so deep. 'Not a problem' I thought. But I couldn't fake it forever because it was killing me. I was constantly depressed. I coped through work, then porn, or spending money. And being married to a woman who continued to love me unconditionally while I so hated myself made me see red. I just want to lash out. I wanted to make things so bad that she'd leave me. I didn't deserve her and hated her for it. I made her life hell for a time. 

Why am I here? Because I'm seeking forgiveness. I'm seeking redemption. I want to convince myself that being gay isn't a choice. I want to tell all of you the things that I'm too afraid to tell the mother of my children. I've told her countless times that I'm sorry but something in me needs more. More forgiveness, more attention, more compassion. So yes you've found me out. Yes I want something from all of you. I want to hear that I'm not a monster, that I did the right thing by divorcing, and that I didn't have a choice. I want to know the pain will eventually stop. I want to stop hurting the people I love the most. 

End of rant. Thanks for reading.