I stumbled upon this forum yesterday and I feel like I finally have somewhere to turn.  Forgive me for what is likely to be a very long post.  Feel free to ignore it because it is going to be reallllly long. I just have to get this out.  I have no one that understands what I am going through, no one I feel comfortable telling all of this to. Sean, I am so grateful for all you have responded to. I think I am dumping all of this here for a kind of offloading therapy.  Please don’t feel compelled to respond. I just need to get this out.
I have been married 19 years.  I have 3 children.  It has been a decent marriage- when I describe it here it wont sound like it but it has been.  More good days than bad.  I had a husband that I have felt loved me; he was just really bad at showing it.  Sure, he took me for granted.  He hurt my feelings a lot.  In retrospect, I would call him selfish and self-centered but he loved us in his way.  He can be moody- abrupt, short tempered, expecting perfecting.  I recall one time when my then-7 year old was cutting out box tops for education and didn’t cut them perfectly on the line and he yanked them away from her and said, “If you aren’t going to do it right, there is no sense in doing it!”  He has OCPD and this kinda tracks with that mentality.  Perfectionism. Rigor. Precision. Frugality and financial hording. List making. Rigidity. He was largely absent from day to day life- a workaholic (all signs of OCPD).  As they have gotten older, it has been the kids and me doing life together- I did everything that pertained to their lives – from homework and after school activities and doctor appointments and even down to me taking them on trips alone. Sometimes he would go but then he sometimes he would pull out at the last minute.  If there was something he wanted to do, he did it.  He didn’t ask if it worked with our schedule. He’s left me alone on mothers day for golf and my birthday for a football weekend with the guys (which I voiced my sadness over and never happened again- he is terrible at apologizing but good at course correcting, he just isn’t good at knowing before he screws up). But most the time he did what he wanted and he didn’t question if it was ok with me. When I tell the children he decided not to come on vacation with us, they just nod.  We all just got used to our lives.  (There are occasions where I have stood up for myself, but I was told I was being silly or making things up so I just stopped…. It wasn’t worth the fight and nobody wants to beg someone to want to be with them.  About 2 years ago after I took them out of the country alone, my daughter cried to him and told him she thought he hated us.  That he doesn’t want to be with us. He laughed at her and then got heated about her overreacting.  Normally I would try to diffuse the situation, but I just let her say it.  He needed to hear it.)  But for the most part, he just didn’t even consider our feelings- and not in a mean way, just in a “it didn’t occur to him” way.  I have often said that if he KNEW and UNDERSTOOD how hurt I was, he would be mortified.  He really does care.  He is just BAD at it.  One truth in my life has always been, he may hurt my feelings, but it isn’t on purpose.  He would never purposefully hurt me.  I am not sure if that is true anymore.
Anyway, Daddy just fit in when he could. It sounds bad. I know it does, but the in between times were filled with dancing in the kitchen. Sing-alongs in the car with the kids.  Silly inside jokes.  Playing in the ocean. Lovely gifts that showed real thought and understanding. When he does plug in, it is all in- and we are all so loved. He loves snuggling the kids. He paces the soccer sidelines. He takes my youngest daughter to breakfast every saturday, just the 2 of them. It wasn’t all bad.  Not bad enough to leave.  It was just lonely. And I would tell him I was lonely….but it didn’t seem to resonate.  How can I be lonely when I have so much going on and when he’s sitting right next to me every night? I was missing intimacy- both emotional and physical. It just wasn’t there. But at the same time- he’s been my best friend- we have a life and children together.  We talk about stuff. I have worked so hard and been so wrapped up in the kids that I don’t really have any other friends. He’s my life. He’s my person. ….
I am a capable person. I think maybe too much. Anything you throw at me, I tackle and I make it look easy.  So people just throw more at me and I just handle it. I may be crumbling under the pressure inside, but no one knows.  My daughter would tell you that I am attractive and the boys in her class call me a MILF (I cant believe I am mentioning that, but I feel it is important to say that people that aren’t my husband find me attractive and once or twice have hit on me at conventions…..although I don’t believe this about myself- I never have felt attractive- and certainly don’t feel that these days- probably doesnt help that my husband doesn't even want to have sex with me).  I am the breadwinner- or at least I have been until a few years ago. I have been resentful of all that I have had on my plate while he has gotten to work the easier, cushier job- I excused my resentfulness by blaming it on my clinginess and wanting him to be around so much.  Maybe I am pushing him away by wanting him around? And then a few years ago he got a super high profile job and all that absenteeism amped up a zillion notches, but I was glad to not have the responsibility of making all the money on me, so I excused it.
Last year, in the fall my then-15 year old came to me and asked me if her daddy was having an affair.  She said jokingly, but she meant it. And I laughed at her. I said, “all he does is work, work, work. He’s at the office or home. All day, every day. There’s no way.  There’s no time. He's jsut super stressed” (and he was!) She said, “well, he refuses to turn his Life360 on.” I said, well, that’s because he’s a conspiracy theorist who thinks the world is tracking him” (which is true). She said, “he’s never home. He’s angry all the time. He hides his phone when we come in the room. And his whole Instagram feed is boobs.” I jokingly mentioned it to my husband. He laughed and told all the people in his office who laughed. I have to be honest, my husband has gained a lot of weight in the past few years. I find him attractive, but hes not your traditional hot guy. He hasnt been a sexual person since we got married. He’s just not interested in it. I just really didn’t think it was possible, although I did have some questions swirling around in my head…. He talks about Susan a lot.  He mentions Cooper a lot…
And that’s what brings me to this…Before we got married, we had a very robust sex life. I remember thinking, I am going to be 80 years old and still doing this. But we stopped having sex a few months before we got married so I wouldn’t be pregnant at the wedding and it just never picked up again. I mean, not even when we were newlyweds.  When we do, it WORKS, but it just isn’t something he prioritizes. He says his medication makes him not want it. He says he’s so tired. Or that our kids would hear us.  I scheduled funches (f-ing lunches) and he would have something come up at work. I think, in 20 years, we may have had sex 100 times?  It’s almost robotic in how it comes together- hey, you wanna? Ok ill meet you upstairs. Step 1, step 2, step 3. Done.
One weekend when we were dating, I had a friend who had just come out of the closet come visit me. He was considering moving to my city. My husband was very interested in meeting this friend of mine- but he was like that with all my friends. A few weeks go by and I am at a concert with my friend and FOR SOME REASON I said to him, “If I am ever dating someone gay, I want you to tell me.” And my friend proceeded to tell me that he and my boyfriend had had an encounter. That when I was gone, he had been at his house and my boyfriend had brought out a cock ring and asked him to teach him how to put it on.  And he did. My then-boyfriend said that was all.  I believed him Now, stupidly 20 years later, I don’t really know what happened after the positioning, but I imagine that it probably didn’t stop there.  I don’t remember the next few days except that we were supposed to go out of town for a wedding and I let him talk me into believing that it didn’t mean anything. He just needed “instruction” on using this thing because he was not very experienced until he met me. It was so he would be able to last longer (never a complaint of mine). Interestingly, the cock ring never made an appearance in our lives after that. We went to the wedding…..He proposed to me 6 months later in front of my entire family and I recall feeling a sense of dread. I threw up that night. But I married him.  And I spent the next 19 years thinking about it- pushing it aside. I had 3 babies with him. It slowly (maybe 10 years later) faded from everyday thought, but I have a lot of gay friends and he was always very very friendly with them and it would pop into my mind from time to time- but then he was always very friendly with ALL my friends. He is super friendly when he wants to be. He flirts with the waitress and is "chummy" with everyone he meets. He reaches out to everyone- for a long time (pre-facebook) he had a calendar with everyone's birthdays and would reach out to them to say hello- even if he hadnt talked to them in YEARS- he is super involved in all their lives. Sends them all texts and checks in on them when he knows something is going on. He spends hours on it! I have been resentful becuase he has always checked on everyone else in the world but us- he has kept track of their lives and never known what was going on in our home…so when he would be friendly with my gay friends, I told myself I was over reacting thinking it was more.
This summer I was out with a gay friend and he drunkenly said, “I just love your husband. If he had a gay brother, I would go after him. He texts me and checks on me all the time.” And my Spidey sense went up. For weeks I sat on it until one night I snuck his phone into the bathroom at midnight and combed through his texts. I felt awful snooping. I don’t really have boundaries create with my stuff- I am an open book- but my husband is always VERY weird about asking me if he can go in my purse or go through my drawers. I don’t care- you are married to me. But because of that I try to respect his boundaries, and I had never gone on his phone before. I started at the top- I looked at Susan’s and then Sara’s. Then I saw the name of the gay (engaged) neighbor who had lived across the street- he was a good friend who was always in our house, but he had moved months ago…why were they texting.  The next 2 hours were filled with me reading very explicit texts where my husband was very clear that things had happened. In fact, in many of the texts, he was the one begging and the other guy (likely out of a sense of shame over cheating on his fiancée who was already living in their new town) was blowing him off. There were references to me not being home. How he was unsupervised. Talks about how he would make sure my kids were asleep before he came over. Many of those times I left town the with kids- he was doing things in my house or in the neighbor's. Or he would say, “text my wife and tell her you are out of XYZ and to send me over with it.”  I was right- he was always at work or home- but he was still cheating- just in my house.  That first night when I called him on it, he copped to 3-4 encounters….the next morning he owned 7-8. I wonder if there were more.  He says there wasnt..  When I ask him about express things that are mentioned (a time when I was at a conference and he was home with the kids when he suggested sneaking out of the house and picking the neighbor up at the corner) he says he cannot remember if that happened. How could you NOT remember if this only happened 7-8 times? It just feels like so many lies. I swear I could handle it better if I had the truth, but he is so truthful about so many things so maybe this is the truth???
The next few months are a blur. I told him he needed to move out. And then I let him talk me into trying to work through it. I said, Ill only try if you get yourself into therapy and go to marriage counseling. He has always refused to go to therapy with me in the past- thinks it is a weakness.  But he immediately scheduled the marriage therapy so I knew he was serious- but about changing or keeping me on the hook? It took 2 months for him to get himself into personal therapy.  He went to his therapist (who specializes in sex addiction) and only went 3 times.  The therapist “made him mad” because he “accused him” of doing this more times over the last 20 years. I worry that he is scared of what he will learn about himself.  I am 4 months in. I go to therapy twice a week. I am definiately codependent. I definitely am a disaster. We were going to marriage counseling for  a few months, but there were scheduling conflicts for a while and the counselor just wants to work on our “new marriage” and not dwell on the past.  How do you just MOVE ON with so much unresolved between us? She comes down hard on me- I need to be more assertive about what I want. I need to change this or that.  He has even had to defend me a few times.  I am so confused. He says he’s not gay. SWEARS it. He says he even hated this guy and was disgusted him. He thinks he’s slimy and unattractive (which, he truthfully is). That he just really enjoyed the attention. The neighbor made a pass at him a year before anything happened. I had him over to watch the ball drop on New years, but went to bed and left them downstairs. The neighbor was wasted and apparently grabbed my husbands butt and put my husbands hand on his crotch as he stumbled out the door. My husband pushed him out the door, but their friendship continued with texts that were funny, then it got flirty, and then it just got to be more suggestive- and then it became physical. He said that he never thought it was going anywhere so he was comfortable saying all these things and flirting. But it did turn into more- and he kept at it. It apparently never anal sex, but touching and oral (although he apparently was unable to perform when oral was done on him).  At one point he even proposed that both the friend and the fiancé meet him at our beach house to try something “new.”  Again, he swears it was because he knew it was never going to happen- the fiancé was as clueless as I am and so he knew the neighbor wasn’t going to tell him. He was just excited about texting him about it. For a long time when I asked him why he had an affair (he calls it a “fling”), he just said, “I don’t know.” But he’s been doing some introspection and says that he is just such a rigid rule follower (OCPD). His life has gotten so stressful (he’s in the paper a lot), and he just wanted to do something BAD. Something that was totally opposite of who he is. He said he has felt so unattractive and it felt nice to have someone come on to him. That it was just easy- right across the street- and that he wanted to keep the feeling of being attractive to someone coming. If it had been a woman, he would have done it with her- that there was a woman that was flirting where he gets his hair cut and that he took her flowers one day to be silly. It was the act of acting out. (and then i think about the boob pictures on his instagram).  And then I go to my therapist who specializes in LGBTQ issues and she agrees that this doesn’t mean he’s gay….and I go to our marriage therapist who agrees.  I even met with his therapist who said the same thing. They all say that I have to trust him in what he says.  But I don’t see how you can be anything BUT gay or bi to be on your knees in front of a man or rub your parts against his parts- especially when you don’t want to do that to me or ever have sex with me.  He acts like I wasn’t there asking for it and making him feel desired. I was!  I have tried for so long to be good enough or pretty enough. Work hard enough and love and support him enough.  He says, I just didn’t like doing it because I didn’t think I was good at it. He tells me that i never wanted to hold hands and so he thought i wasnt attracted to him.  
And there is more- my oldest child- the one that asked if he was having an affair, found out. The day I found out, I was driving the kids for 7 hours- alone- in the car on what was supposed to be our family vacation but – again- he had cancelled at the last minute and was coming later. She just guessed about the affair. Saw me trying not to cry behind my sunglasses and just out of nowhere looked at her boyfriend and said, I think my dad cheated on my mom. And then when I wouldn’t tell her who it was with, she guessed and called my husband to confirm it.  How is she expected to hold onto this knowledge?  How does she carry his secret? She RAGED against him and now i think has buried it. I don’t want people to know- it will be all in the paper (our neighbor actually worked for my husband so there’s that complication, too), and I cannot handle the public spotlight of it. I also don’t think my younger children could handle it right now, but I don’t want them to feel that I wasn’t truthful to them and resent me.  I also don’t feel like it is my right to out my husband if he is gay. It is his life and his story to tell.
He is killing himself to be a better father and husband now.  He knows he took us for granted. He recognizes where he has been selfish. Now, he comes home on time. He doesn’t make biting and sarcastic remarks. He is reading marriage books with me and listening to podcasts. I wondered how long he could keep it up, but given his OCPD personality, according to my therapist, it is likely that he can keep that up forever. Once something becomes a routine for him, it is there for life. I just wonder if the emotion is behind it or if he’s just checking a box. And then I wonder if checking a box is what most people are doing in a relationship? I’ve never apparently had a functional one so I don’t know what I should be expecting from life. My aunt (who only knows of the affair and not of who it was with) says, you know there is no perfect man. I know that….. so what if this is the best there is for me?
My immediate feeling isn’t anger. (although I AM mad that we went out to dinner with this man and his finance as a “last goodbye” and my husband LET ME PAY FOR IT! And he did these things in my house…. In my chair…..that he says he didn't think of me when he was doing these things (and the therapists agree!) but that my name came up 1000 times as being gone or him being free). I dont feel resentment. I just have so much sadness over a wasted life. Sadness that if he is gay that he just cant be who he wants to be (son of strict military southern Baptist father and a mother that apparently used to dress him up as a girl because she wanted a girl so badly). I feel used and disposable.  Easily discarded for someone that he “didn’t even like”- that’s almost worse than if he had liked him! I even said to him, if someone had said to you, if you have an affair you will loose 1 million dollars, you wouldnt have had an affair with him.  He agrees. So Im worth less than that.  I feel like a cover for something he doesn’t want to admit to himself. At the same time, I cant feel like he is one of these people that CHOSE to use me, because I don’t even know if he understands what his own feelings are- he is as confused as I am even though he says he isnt. But I do still used.  And I am PLEADING WITH HIM to understand that he used me for 20 years, please don’t use me for any more if there is even ONE SHRED of this that is true.
I am learning more and more about myself and him- that I don’t really know anything about him.  How did I let that happen?  How do you marry someone like that? He never told me anything about the people he has dated- he always said that was in the past and he didn’t want to share and I just accepted it,. I didnt want to pry. Apparently that was because I was his first physical relationship and he was 31 when we met. I didn’t know that until 2 months ago.  He had sex one time in high school and I just found out that the only other person was prostitute he paid to perform oral sex on him a few months before we met- and that was it. I keep thinking about how all his friends were so glad when we met- “We thought he was gay!”  How do you call someone your best friend and not know these things about them? How did I ignore all these signs? I feel so ashamed of myself for ignoring it all and dragging 3 children into a life that they don’t deserve.  I created their lives and I ruined their lives. If I can hold it together, maybe they wont have to pay for my stupidity.
Thank you for letting me get all of this out. I have no one to talk to. It was cathartic. I am so sorry it was so long. 

ImSoConfused, 

First of all, I am so sorry that you find yourself here trying to untangle this huge mess. So much of our stories are similar. It’s like our husbands are using the same script. Here are a few things that jumped out at me: 

- Their personality types are almost identical- work ethic..perfectionism. 
- You and I were so busy raising 3 kids that we didn’t notice what was going on. I bet you are an optimist. You see the good in people. 
- We make excuses for our husbands. 
- Husbands didn’t go on family trips. 
- Found an almost undetectable way to cheat with a man. Yours barely had to leave home. 
- There were signs before the marriage that we ignored. 
- Our relationships lacked emotional and physical intimacy. 
- He’s SUPER friendly with everyone. I believe this feeds his narcissism. 
- He says he wasnt attracted to his sex partner. 
- He isn’t gay.
- He wanted to do something bad. Mine called it “kinky”.
- He said that it was just “easy”. 
- He has an explanation for everything that is just enough to make me question if he is really gay or not.

I too have a long term shared life with my cheater. So many fun times. There were babies and baseball games and dinners and talks. So many talks. 32 years of marriage. 

Here’s how I look at it. Mine didn’t love me enough to NOT cheat. He didn’t respect me enough.. the mother of his children. He gaslighted me and lied for YEARS to get what he wanted. He wanted men. He figured out how to do it. He was able to live seamlessly between his cheating life and his family life. I had no idea. How did I not know? The most significant relationship in my life... THAT is crazy making. It makes me question everything, mostly myself and my crappy judge of character. 

Sean has asked me, if it had been with women, would I feel any different. I think so. If it were my daughter in the same situation, I would tell her to run! For some reason, I am trapped here, with all of this bullS*** swirling around in my mind. If I look back at what my husband has done, that I know about, it’s really enough to make me feel like my head is going to explode. Like so many here has said, it makes me question EVERYTHING.. my entire life. 

I’m sure Sean with respond soon with his spot on wisdom. Hang in there. You are welcome to chat with me anytime. 

Take care, 
Blue 

 

I feel like someone just dumped a bowl of necklaces in my lap and they are all knotted and mixed together and I am supposed to untangle them all. I get one alllllmmmmooooost out and then hit a big snag and have to start over. My entire world is not what it was. I don’t know what parts of my past are true.  Hell, I don’t know if my present is true. I don’t know if he loved me. I don’t know if he was using me. I don’t know if he loves me now or if he is just trying to keep me around for a cover. I question everything- the fact that I was nice to gay people and had gay friends…. Did that make me a good target? Why didn’t I pay attention to red flags? I thought he was telling me the truth, but was I just so needy that I would take any scraps someone threw at me? What is wrong with me?
I have started reading this entire forum. Since discovering it 2 days ago, I have read 25 pages.... it is already helping me so much.
I have spent the last 4 months trying to make this work in my life- we have talked more, we have had sex more (why am I doing this!?!??), and he’s been more involved with us. I thought I could do it- my therapists all said I could do it. But at the end of October I went to Europe with my mom, sister, and brother-in-law for 2 weeks and I didn't miss him. I just cried a lot about a life that doesn’t exist anymore- a future of traveling with him (he was supposed to go on this trip and my mom cancelled his ticket) that won’t happen. He made great efforts to text me (he would go all day not speaking to me or returning calls before discovery. I would leave town and he wouldn’t even reach out for days.  Meanwhile the man he was with- he texted with him all day every day- all night for 2.5 years… He texts me all the time now.), but I didn’t get excited about responding to the texts.
Then I came home on Thursday after being gone for 14 days. He did this big production of picking me up and swinging me around (never done that before!) "MAMAS HOME! I MISSED YOU!!!!!" But it felt forced. And when I didn’t come home cheerful, his snarky/cold behavior resurfaced here and there..  After a day of it, I called him on it. He said I was withdrawn. That I wasn’t my normal bubbly self. I told him I had spent the last 14 days worried he was cheating on me because it always happened when I left town and that I didn’t know if I could be that person anymore. She’s gone. I miss her. I liked her, but I don’t know if I will ever get her back. He got upset and walked out of the room.  Went to take a nap. And then he left to go "run errands." Life360 off. I casually asked my daughter if she could text to see where he was and he was out birthday shopping for me. But this is what I am reduced to! I never would have checked life360 before. I never would have wondered where he was when I was out of town. Never would have pictured him with someone else before. I never would have gone through his computer before, but i did yesterday. And i went through his phone last night - his search history (he is NOT technically savvy- can barely operate a smart phone) and I found only 1 instance of a site popping up- but it was not gay porn explicitly and another search for how to spice up a monotonous sex life. I did find searches for conferences to attend in the town where the man moved. Restaurants to he looked up. But then i remind myself that he cannot figure out how to schedule a flight or book a hotel.... he wasnt ever going to go there.... but then...what am i doing rationalizing????? the point is he looked it up and daydreamed about it! 
Will I ever be happy again? I liked being a happy, bubbly person. I pride myself on being a kind and loving person. I’ve joked that when I meet people they start off with an A+ and it takes a LOT to get to a C. My husband meets people and they start with an F. I am afraid I am becoming that way too. The world is so much uglier than I thought it was.
The next day when he was napping, I went upstairs and crawled in bed. Put my head on his shoulder and sobbed. He held me while I sobbed. We are so broken. There’s no way to put this back together and as awful as I have made this marriage sound, I have liked a lot of it. I have loved him and his companionship. It sounds stupid given all the bad things, and maybe it isn’t even true….maybe I just loved having someone. I asked him if he had thought about divorce. He said he had because I was so sad and he was the reason I was sad. If he removed himself from my life, maybe I could be happy. It sounds like blaming me, I know, (I am doing this for YOU) but I really truly do think he wants me to be happy and he knows he screwed this up. He wants to stay married, but he loves me enough to not if it is making me sad. That’s the thing. We are just 2 broken people who want to be happy. And I just don’t know that we can be happy together even though we both wish we could. It is taking me a long time, but I am coming to that. I don’t know if he is there.
He hasn’t tried to have sex since I got home- even knowing i am supposed to have a hysterectomy this week which will put me out of commission for 6+ weeks. I cried about that this morning. I don’t even want to have sex, but I am so sad that I’m not what he wants- i want someone that reaches for me in the middle of the night. He used to when we were dating. Is it becuase he is gay? or is it me? I am sad that he won’t admit whatever it is to me. Why is that so important to me?  What does it change?? Why won’t he SAY IT??
Why would all these therapists tell me to believe him when he says he isn’t gay? It is so confusing to me. I am an absolute person. I need to UNDERSTAND things and I just cannot understand when the actions don’t match the words- especially when everyone is agreeing with him. It isnt that they are giving him a pass. They are all making him face the music of the fallout, but they all agree that words like “I am not gay. it was just fun!” and “I need to do something that wasn’t me!” are valid. Is it even possible to not be gay and do these things with a man? I mean, I guess gay men pretend and do things with women for years….You hear about spectrums of sexuality and how things arent always absolute….But then I think of how aggressive his texts were. How sneaky he was- he knew he was trying to cover something. How he would reference me- even looping me into the thing ("text my wife and tell her you are out of tonic and for me to bring some over") so he could go over or "Im without adult supervision.".  He says he did it just to keep the dialogue going. That he enjoyed the attention. and it could have been from a woman.  That they didnt get together much- that he knew he would say no when he asked becuase the guys fiance was there so he just asked all the time, but he clearly didn’t say no all of the time. And…. These texts went on for a year and a half (they started 2.5 years ago as friendly "welcome to the neighborhood" texts, became waayy too familiar way too fast, and escalated a year later after the neighbor tried something.  But he wouldnt have tried something if he didnt feel like it would be welcomed, right??).  This is a long time.  It cant be just explained away? But the therapists say it can…..I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND.
And then there is this- was it all a waste? I put our family at the top of my priority list. I knew I wasn’t loved the way I should be loved, but I said it was ok because we were together. Now it feels like all those years were for nothing. That my sacrifice didn’t matter. My love didnt matter. I didnt matter. 
Are my kids going to be ok? How do I navigate the part where my 16 year old knows EVERYTHING and the other kids know nothing. It isn’t fair for her to keep her father’s secret. And the other kids will think I lied to them when they do eventually find out- because there is no way she can keep that a secret forever. It would be so much easier if he would just come out. Admit to himself at the least. And the selfish part of me wants my kids to know what he did. That I tried to hold us together and that this isn’t my fault. That I did everything I could to make their lives amazing. I’ve been tapdancing in front of them hoping they wouldn’t notice he was never around. If I could be good enough, they wouldn’t notice his absence. If I showed up at enough things, they’d feel loved.  I catch myself saying to them, you know I would do ANYTHING for you, right? That you are my top priority?? Because I know what is coming- I am about to end their world.
When it first happened my daughter said, it’ll be ok mama. He wont live with us and our lives wont change that much. He isn’t here that much anyway. But now he is.  Now I finally have what I wanted- well, almost- a family that does things together and a father that is present in their lives and it will be all my fault for ripping it apart just when it came together. It is just so damn unfair.

I am sorry I am posting so much.  I will try to stop monopolizing! I just need to SAY THINGS to SOMEONE.

I think that I'm coming around to accepting that this is who he is even if he doesn't know it himself. And I can even have compassion and understanding for that... Maybe even (because of the environment he grew up in as a 50+ year old man in the Southern Baptist church) I have forgiveness for him, too.i don't want anyone to take this post as me being reeled back in. I think I know my path now, but I want to ask:
What I'm struggling with is the narcissist part. Whether or not this was intentional. I have a ex sister in law who is diagnosed NPD. Actually she's borderline personality. She's mean as hell. Her intentions are always self serving. She's didn't care about anything or anything but herself. She lashes out in the meanest and most AWFUL ways, destroying anyone or anything in her path. As I type that, I know others will say, but don't you see similarities to your own journey? How hiding this is self serving? How he has destroyed your life? And yes.... But the nuances are the hard part.... The part that breaks my heart.
I listened to your podcasts and wept with the host. I'm stuck on the part where I wasn't considered in the biggest relationship in my life. And I can't make THAT make sense because I believe him when he says he's not gay. Not because he's is skillfully deceiving me (or even because it's true), but because I do think he really believes it. I think he's skillfully deceiving himself. I think he's spent so much of his life telling himself he's just a guy that doesn't care that much about sex, he's spent years pushing a feeling side to the point that he doesn't even know it's there anymore. Like how we breath without noticing it. He doesn't notice.... Even if i do... Even if it is still there. I asked him about how you allow yourself to do these things with a man if your arent gay and he says, you want 1+1 to equal 2 and sometimes they don't. I believe that can be true, too. But I know that 20 years of no sex with me plus the 1+1 not equalling 2 adds up to something. I asked him if he could see that. He agrees that it could look like that for me.
So that's one side of the confusion of how I wasnt considered: I believe he didn't know. But I also believe AT THE SAME TIME that there has to be a part of him that did. A part that popped up and said, is this fair to do to the person I love most in the world? The party where you, Sean, felt relief at being straight. Why wasn't there a tiny part of you that thought, but if I'm not.....I love her SO MUCH.... This isn't fair or right. And why isn't that part of him showing up now?
I also want to ask y'all, because many of these posts make these men out to be monsters who only act lovingly as a cover, does anyone else feel that their husband really truly does love them? That they are SHATTERED to have hurt you? Not shattered that you know, but shattered to see you as a shell of yourself. Shattered to know they did this to you even if they don't really understand the extent of the brokenness... That the gifts aren't love bombing but just the only way they know to show love? Do you believe them when they hold you while you cry.... That their tenderness towards you is real? That they wish they could take your hurt away? That they drive home from work when they call to check on you and hear you sobbing, not because they are afraid their cover will be blown, but because they hate to see you in pain? They want you to know they are here and love you? That they arent very good at being a good spouse (maybe even terrible in sometimes) but that they really have tried their hardest in many ways? Is it possible that they want to go to marriage therapy because they really love you? That they really do want to work it out? Not because they are afraid to lose their beard?

Because it hurts too much to feel like it was all just for the cover. That is all self serving. That means none of it was real. I need something in this f-ed up situation to be real. Because if it's not, that hurts more than the gay part.

Thank you for posting ImSoConfused. In reply: 

1. I think that I'm coming around to accepting that this is who he is even if he doesn't know it himself. And I can even have compassion and understanding for that... Maybe even (because of the environment he grew up in as a 50+ year old man in the Southern Baptist church) I have forgiveness for him, too.i don't want anyone to take this post as me being reeled back in. 

Of course. 

2. I think I know my path now...

Please feel free to share your decision, but only if you want to. 

3. But I want to ask: what I'm struggling with is the narcissist part. Whether or not this was intentional. I have a ex sister in law who is diagnosed NPD. Actually she's borderline personality. She's mean as hell. Her intentions are always self serving. She's didn't care about anything or anything but herself. She lashes out in the meanest and most AWFUL ways, destroying anyone or anything in her path. As I type that, I know others will say, but don't you see similarities to your own journey? How hiding this is self serving? How he has destroyed your life? And yes.... But the nuances are the hard part.... The part that breaks my heart.

As I shared in the podcasts, not all closeted husbands are narcissists and not all narcissists are gay. I'd leave it to a mental health professional to diagnose whether your husband has a personality disorder. However, there are many different forms of narcissism and sociopathy. So what's my point? Regardless of labels like gay, bisexual, or narcissist, the straight spouse shouldn't fall down the rabbit hole of focusing solely on her broken husband. I urge you to focus 100% on yourself and your children. This man isn't going to fundamentally change. It's now up to you to determine whether you want to spend the next 30-40 years in a sexless marriage with a man who cheats and lies. The words: cheater, liar, and absent father have no sexual preference nor sexual orientation. 

4. I listened to your podcasts and wept with the host. I'm stuck on the part where I wasn't considered in the biggest relationship in my life. And I can't make THAT make sense because I believe him when he says he's not gay.

I don't. He doesn't want to be gay yet still has sex with men. Regardless, I'm very sorry the podcast triggered you.  

5. Not because he's is skillfully deceiving me (or even because it's true), but because I do think he really believes it. I think he's skillfully deceiving himself. I think he's spent so much of his life telling himself he's just a guy that doesn't care that much about sex, he's spent years pushing a feeling side to the point that he doesn't even know it's there anymore. Like how we breath without noticing it. He doesn't notice.... Even if i do... Even if it is still there. I asked him about how you allow yourself to do these things with a man if your arent gay and he says, you want 1+1 to equal 2 and sometimes they don't. I believe that can be true, too. But I know that 20 years of no sex with me plus the 1+1 not equalling 2 adds up to something. I asked him if he could see that. He agrees that it could look like that for me.

Fair points. I sometimes refer to this as emotionally straight and yet sexually gay. Your husband likely wants to remain in your heterosexual marriage because that's how he was taught to define love. And yet he's chosen time and time again to have sex with men. This is the incongruity of the closeted husband: emotionally straight and yet sexually gay. 

6. So that's one side of the confusion of how I wasnt considered: I believe he didn't know. But I also believe AT THE SAME TIME that there has to be a part of him that did. A part that popped up and said, is this fair to do to the person I love most in the world? The party where you, Sean, felt relief at being straight. Why wasn't there a tiny part of you that thought, but if I'm not.....I love her SO MUCH.... This isn't fair or right. And why isn't that part of him showing up now?

If I may be blunt, you're spending a great deal of time trying to get into his head. What about you? What about your feelings? Yes perhaps he's a good man and there have been good times over the years. I don't deny that my friend. But it's time to stop treading water with him on your shoulders. I'd let him swim on his own for a while so that you can see what it's like to live a life without his many problems. It sounds like you're the only one fighting for this marriage. My apologies if that stings. 

7. I also want to ask y'all, because many of these posts make these men out to be monsters who only act lovingly as a cover, does anyone else feel that their husband really truly does love them? That they are SHATTERED to have hurt you? Not shattered that you know, but shattered to see you as a shell of yourself. Shattered to know they did this to you even if they don't really understand the extent of the brokenness... That the gifts aren't love bombing but just the only way they know to show love? Do you believe them when they hold you while you cry.... That their tenderness towards you is real? That they wish they could take your hurt away? That they drive home from work when they call to check on you and hear you sobbing, not because they are afraid their cover will be blown, but because they hate to see you in pain? They want you to know they are here and love you? That they arent very good at being a good spouse (maybe even terrible in sometimes) but that they really have tried their hardest in many ways? Is it possible that they want to go to marriage therapy because they really love you? That they really do want to work it out? Not because they are afraid to lose their beard?

These are excellent questions and I'll let the kind members here respond based on their own experiences. Again I'm not a mental health professional and I only have a few of your posts here from which to draw some conclusions. If I've read your former posts correctly, it sounds like your husband has repeatedly chosen his secret gay garden over you and your family...for decades. He has rejected you sexually, refuses to go on holidays with his children, and f*cked your gay neighbour FOR YEARS. Your husband struggles to reconcile his sexual preference for men with his sexual orientation. If I may be so bold, you too are struggling with facts. You want him to be a good husband and father but he has clearly failed miserably at both. So what now? It's time to stop projecting who you want him to be with who he is. It's also high time you stopped looking to him for answers. You have all the evidence, you know who this man is, and you know who he'll be for the next 5-10-15-20 years. I sometimes suggest straight spouses write down a "help wanted" advertisement for their ideal husband and then post it somewhere they can read it every day. After a week, I'd then suggest writing out a resumé for your husband...not based on some bullsh*t version of who he should be, but who he truly is based on his past history/actions. If his summary reads something like: "Sexually confused serial cheater seeks position as long-term husband/father to a kind, caring, woman + family. I have a history of infidelity, sexual neglect, dishonesty and abandonment of children. Available to start immediately." Ask yourself: would you even schedule an interview with someone so monumentally unfit? So why then are you letting this man control you, your relationship, define his own sexuality, and raise your children? It's madness.    

8. Because it hurts too much to feel like it was all just for the cover. That is all self serving. That means none of it was real. I need something in this f-ed up situation to be real. Because if it's not, that hurts more than the gay part.

Of course. I'm so sorry you're suffering and hope that this community and/or your counsellors can help you work through these issues...without him being present. 

9. Actually, as I'm rereading what I wrote, is it possible that when he says he's thinking of divorce because he's the source of my unhappiness, if he could take himself out of the equation, I'd have a chance at happiness... Maybe that is him acknowledging in some way that this is part of him... Even if he can't really accept it. Maybe that IS him thinking about me and choosing me- the thing I'm begging for.

I reckon it's time to turn all of that love on the most important person: you. You deserve better than a cheating, dishonest, and neglectful man. And perhaps you'd be better off on your own...without his myraid of problems. 

10. He can't allow himself to say I'M GAY. But he can say, I want you to be happy. This is the craziest party of all of this- how much you overthink EVERYTHING. 

Truth! Thank you again for sharing so openly and honestly my friend. For every straight spouse posting here, I reckon there are dozens silently following your journey so please keep coming back. Be well. 

Last edited by Sean01 (November 12, 2022 11:26 am)