Thank you for sharing Vicky. You're very brave and I admire your honesty in what must be an impossible situation. I'm inclined to think that your husband is anything but the victim in this situation. Far from being a 'good guy', I'm starting to think he's a textbook gay-in-denial narcissist. How do I know? Because I was too and I can smell the manipulation a mile away. 

What struck me was your recent move and his apparent unemployment. That leaves you isolated and, as the bread winner, trapped. It also seems like he's been slowly isolating you from friends and family over the years. This gave me chills: "I think I might try to get some privacy and call my sister." Why does this scare me? It suggests that he's been taking sh*t about her and perhaps other members of your family. It also suggests that you need to hide to call people who care about you. You mentioned a similar situation with your best friend. Another danger sign is that you're planning to see a counsellor yet nervous about telling him. None of this normal, nor healthy. You mentioned that the kids aren't showing any signs of stress. I said this myself and it was a lie. Kids watch their parents very closely and given what you've shared here, they're growing up in a household with A LOT of anger and stress. This is like second-hand smoke. They're breathing it all in.  

​I try very hard to remain neutral when sharing my opinions here Vicky but I think your husband is a very manipulative and dangerous person. I know this because I did all of these terrible things at the end of my own relationship. We did the "big move" when she got too close to the truth. I trashed talked her family for years, particularly her sister. I did what I wanted and then made her feel like it was what she wanted. She too was in counselling for years. Hell it was my idea that she get help. Then I'd simply tell her it wasn't working. She only had a crack at freedom and happiness outside of our broken relationship. She wanted us to stay together, bless her, as you're doing now. We limped along for two horrifying years. Thank heavens I insisted on divorcing because what she needed was to get away from me. Once we'd separated, I came out, owned my sh*t, apologized profusely, got therapy, and (without me around) everyone started to heal.

​Please keep sharing here because I believe the good and honest people here are a necessary lifeline.  

Sean, Vicky I know the feeling of them alienating friends and family. Also when you have to hide to talk to your family
..she brainwashed me into thinking they were bad.   She had issues with everyone..if anyone made the slightest mistake they were on her shit list. 
Once she started her affair that was it..I was on her list.
The entire world on her list..
I loved her so much it took me awhile to realize she was a narcissist...crazy...a sociopath.

Vicky,

I think you'd be surprised at how many people suspect it.  They don't mention it because there's a chance they'd be wrong, and accusing someone's spouse of being gay is a pretty insulting thing to most people.  They figure that even if he is gay, if you're happy, they should stay the hell out of it.  They don't want to stir the hornet's nest.

I was very surprised that my best friend of 30 years had had discussions with her husband about them thinking my ex was gay.  It wouldn't have surprised me if those discussions had stemmed from my telling my friend about the lack of sex and the few things that gave me pause.  But that's not how those discussions happened with her husband, according to her.  They stemmed from her husband mentioning it after seeing my husband and I.  That didn't happen all that often - and usually at family parties.  This man could pick out things at those events that made him think that my ex was gay.  My family also told me after admission that they'd had their suspicions for years.

Kel

Ooooh, I see.  Well then shelve the "they all knew he was gay" thing until later, lol.  One thing at a time.

My ex said snipey little things occasionally throughout the years when I was out of the room.  People often told me about them within days.  I always thought it was proof of one's own idiocy to insult a person to their own family. He was also always making me defend my family to him, too. He was playing both sides against me - trying to strand me on a life raft alone, where only be was capable of saving me.  It didn't work mostly because I'm too open and talkative for that kind of bullshit to work.  I have often thought that he picked the wrong woman in me. While I was a lot of the things a typical st8 spouse is (long-suffering, giving, selfless), I was also too loud and agressive to be the quiet, complacent woman he wanted.  Too boisterous and gregarious to be an excellent beard.

He nearly did succeed at turning my family against me, though.  I had no idea that he was contacting them behind my back and spreading lies about me once I asked for a divorce.  He of course didn't want a divorce. And he had no proof of cheating, so he dropped loaded hints to my family that I was out 5 days a week, that I just wasn't the same anymore, and that something was "off".  They hasn't been informed about the impending divorce yet - mostly because we couldn't separate at that time due to financial constraints.  We didn't want our kids to hear we were divorcing..... some day.  So we didn't tell anyone until we were going to be a few weeks from separation. So he was planting reasons for why we were divorcing so that it looked like it was all my fault and he was the victim. He'd call them any time I walked out the door to get a gallon of milk or fill a prescription or visit the dentist.  He'd tell them I was "gone again and hadn't taken the kids", implying that he didn't even know where I was going.  My family would call me every time my ass stepped out of the house, grilling me on what I was doing.  I thought it was strange, but I had no reason to suspect it was anything other than coincidental conversation. I didn't find out until years later - after he finally left - what he'd been doing. And I had no idea that my family believed all these things.  It came out at a family party when they asked me if I was still out 5 days a week.  Huh?? Then it finally got revealed.  I was so.fucking.livid - mostly at my family for ever believing such bullshit.  But yeah.... I would have never in a million years have thought my sweet, dumb, innocent ex was capable of such deceit and manipulation.  The more talking you do, the more you'll find out.

Kel

Last edited by Kel (November 19, 2016 1:31 pm)