Hello. You can call me Bubba. I'm glad to find this forum. It's going to take me some time to explore. While I start doing that, I'm going to go ahead and post about myself.

My wife and I have been together for 15 years. Married for 12. We're 43 years old. This is my second marriage. Her first. No kids. 

She tried to come out to me as bi a week before our wedding. For her it was a big deal because she'd never shared that information with anybody before. For me, it was a Tuesday. I already knew. I didn't feel threatened by the fact that she's also attracted to women. Heck, I'm attracted to women. Should she feel threatened by that? My response was something along the lines of, "if you still love me and want to marry me, that's all I care about. I don't care who you're attracted to. You can't control that. As long as we're committed to each other, that's enough for me."

Fast forward to last summer. 

For a period of time she was withdrawn. We had a lot going on in our lives at the time and thought it was stress. We were considering moving to another city and buying a new house. Then one day she dropped a bombshell. She accused me of cheating. To say I was shocked is too light a word. My initial reaction was that it was some kind of joke. But very quickly I could see she wasn't joking. Then I thought "She must mean that I've figuratively cheated on her in some way I don't understand." You see, we hadn't really changed up our routine much from the pandemic. We weren't going out much. She's a strong introvert and this suited her. We both work from home. Her full time, and me 4 days from home and 1 day in the office. She's invited and welcome to every event I go to with friends. And she attended those often. So I couldn't even understand the logistics behind the accusation. "How would I do that? When would I have time? Here's my location history from my phone. Feel free to look that over and tell me when this cheating could have happened." We started couples therapy. 

In the therapy it came out to the therapist that she's attracted to women. And that she's basically not attracted to men at all. I'm not sure I was surprised by that. I was surprised to hear she didn't have attraction to me either. I always knew she was more toward the homosexual end of the scale. But I thought there was at least some attraction to me. I had no reason to doubt that was the case. The sex was great. And often. For our entire relationship, it never really dropped off at any time. We were going 2-3 times per week every week. Even during couples therapy before and after this revelation, the sex continued. And I wasn't the sole initiator.

At any rate, when the therapist made clear that she had a decision to make about what she wanted in her life, she stopped wanting to go to therapy. She didn't know. She wasn't ready to make that decision. She didn't want to feel pressured by appointments every two weeks with a therapist. I was concerned about the stability of our marriage, but not overly so. I started believing she was going through some kind of ebb and flow of her desires and we were at a crest right now. We argued more than usual. She started disagreeing about inconsequential things and I got used to just letting subjects drop because none of it was worth fighting over. We were still having sex. I felt the same emotional connection with her as I always have. 

During all this time, I didn't have anybody I could turn to, because to get support from my friends they'd have to know what I was going through. And she was still in the closet. I didn't feel like it was right for me to out her. 

In June, she reached a point where she was very unhappy. Clearly and obviously struggling. That's when the sex stopped. Still she didn't want to go back to therapy. Eventually, at the beginning of July, she told me she'd decided to move out. She needs time to figure out what she wants her life to be. That's when she started coming out to people (as a lesbian), and I was finally able to get some support from my own community. 

I was crushed that she didn't want to try to see if we could reach some kind of arrangement we could both live with. I've put so much into this marriage. Investments of time and mental energy and emotional energy and money. I feel so betrayed. But the feelings are complicated. I obviously love and respect her and want her to be happy. And I accept her for who she is. But I also want to be married. And I'm proud of her for admitting her feelings because she's doing something that's really difficult for her. But it's terrible news for our marriage, and I can't be happy about that. . 

Six weeks passed and we got together to talk about things. We hadn't really talked in that time. She said she wanted space and I wanted to honor that. I wanted to hear about her journey and how she felt about it. I was pleased to hear that she was interested in going back to therapy. So we started that up again. We've been to two sessions. The next session we're going to talk about what our boundaries would be if we wanted to get back together and try things as a MOM. 

Somehow I doubt she's going to even want to give this a serious try. She's in some lesbian coming-out support groups and her new community may not accept her if she decides to try to stay married as a lesbian. I've tried pointing out some communities for people who want to try an MOM, but it remains to be seen if it's something she wants. I guess time will tell at this point. 

And to be honest, I'm not sure if it's something I want to try myself. I'm not interested in casual sex. I'm not interested in an open marriage. But there are other options I might be amenable to. And she says she's not even eager to jump into anything new right now. So I'm not sure what her needs are at the moment.

I know everybody is different and what can work in one marriage may not work in another one, but I'd be happy to hear some perspectives from people who have given that a shot. I feel like our relationship and communication are both on the strong side of the scale. But there's room for improvement. I think that we have as good a shot as anyone does at making a MOM work. But on the other hand, I'm 43, and I'm not getting any younger. If this isn't going to work, I don't want to waste my time. I could be spending my time trying to find a partner who will be there as we grow old together. 

Thanks for hearing me out. Thanks for being here. I don't know what the near or long term future holds for me, but I'm grateful to have a place to go where I can talk to other people who are going through it.