Rose, stay or go it's about sticking up for yourself.  What you described where he is now accusing you of lying is gut-wrenching.  He is having a lend of you.  

So you stick up for yourself a bit and he treats you nicer and then not too far down the track he is having a lend of you all over again.

He knows he's gay, he knows he's cheating on you yet he puts the blame on you, this is psychologically abusive.  

what happens if you don't love him any more?

Thank you for writing Rose. I now better understand your handle here, RoseColoredGlasses, seeing the world through pink lenses rather than reality. Fitting. You wrote, "I do kind of love him," and I get it. I've been posting here for years and now see that most gay/straight couples go through a bargaining stage. How long they stay there varies. During the bargaining stage, the closeted husband is trapped in deep denial about his sexuality, meaning he thinks that a cheating and sexless marriage is somehow "tolerable." He loses touch with reality. Similarly his straight wife enables him by staying...even if she's "threatening" divorce. She secretly lives with the illusion that same-sex attraction is just a "phase" and that by showing him unconditional love he'll somehow give up all of this "gay stuff, pick me [her], and come back to their marriage." Most couples I've encountered trapped in this denial pattern are pushing 60, nearing retirement, and are often religious. My questions to you are: 

1. Who are you in love with? Are you in love with some fantasy (closeted) version of your husband or the monstrous reality of who he is today?  
2. What do you really think the best outcome is here? Please be honest if you're hoping he comes back to you. 
3. You've been using the "I'll separate/divorce when my son is in a better place" excuse ever since we started exchanging messages here. That's going on two years my friend. I'm going to assume you haven't yet discussed all of this with your adult children but feel free to correct me. Is it possible that your son's problems are linked to your toxic marriage, toxic household, and having to pretend (like you) that mom/dad are still a happy couple? 

Harsh. Yes. But all shared with love/concern my friend. Good luck!  

Hi Rose,

I'd been with my ex 37 years married 32 when I filed for divorce.  There's this messy feeling in me that I can't quite put into words but it was what impelled me to make a post to you wanting to say it's so hard to get a divorce from one of these types of people and you are trying to do it after 37 years of being psychologically abused by him - don't expect yourself to be able to function as well as you might hope.  I remember feeling like I was being carried out on a stretcher by the time I left.  That stretcher was made largely by my lawyer.  She was amazing.

One day later and I was shocked all over again by how much better I was for being away from him.

Sean's description is bang on for my ex - I used his desire to keep me quiet to get him to agree to divorce but I can't honestly say I had the upper hand because he was in hyperdrive doing all the spin doctoring with my friends and soaking up as much financial advantage as he could get - I'm still annoyed at some of the things I let him get away with and you know if I had my time over I would wish to be a bit acrimonious - first he makes a deal where I get all the household contents and he gets a lump sum way more than it was worth and I agree to it so I don't have to argue with him.  He then proceeded to campaign to keep all the stuff, obviously I can't take his personal stuff, his bed, his chest of drawers, his tools his table his chairs his family stuff he needs the kitchen stuff, the garden stuff the washing machine, the tv.  And on it went so that when the removalists came he had put my quilt and best linen on his bed and I let it be.  With hindsight I wish I'd said to the removalists take the whole bed.  Emptied his clothes out of the nice Huon pine chest of drawers which I had put all the work in to restore and said take that too.  At the least I could have stripped my linen off his bed couldn't I, no apparently not, too busy being nice.

Fact is, I was so used to keeping him happy.  That's what he does.  With hindsight he looks so ugly.

"My husband claims to enjoy penis without any attraction to men" : discuss. A recently deleted Reddit post indirectly asked a fascinating question that sparked a lot of online debate. Can men be attracted to male anatomy and interact sexually with other males while still claiming to be heterosexual? Debate!

Thank you for writing Otter. While the straight spouse often jumps to the question, "Are you gay?" when she catches her husband on gay porn or cheating with men, I reckon she should ask herself several questions before having a showdown with her confused husband, namely: 

1. Do we currently live in an environment that tolerates homosexuality? 
2. Was my husband raised by homophobic parents? 
3. Does my husband equate homosexuality with something evil/illegal such as pedophilia? 
4. What would be the consequences of my husband admitting to me: "I'm gay"? 
5. Is he financially and emotionally prepared to live with (#4) these consequences? 
6. Has he been honest in the past with his attraction to men? 
7. Based on the answers to 1-6, can my husband truly answer the question: "Are you gay?" 

I have spent years wondering why husbands/fathers who watch only gay porn, cheat exclusively with men, and refuse to have sex with their wives, look wives in the eyes and say, "I'm not gay." Based on the above questions, I now believe that some men are simply incapable of honesty answering the question: "Are you gay?" If your husband fits the following criteria: 

1. Lives in a city, state, region, or country where homosexuality is either illegal or considered a mortal sin. 
2. Was raised by homophobic parents, often in a fundamentalist or evangelical church. 
3. Was brainwashed to believe that homosexuality = child molesters, drag queens or pride float go go boys.  
4. Would lose his wife, family, friends, and possibly his career by suddenly bursting out of the closet.
5. Isn't financially or emotionally prepared to live on his own as an out gay man. 
6. Has lied for years to his wife about gay porn and cheating with men. 

Then your husband will likely go the route of claiming he is bisexual or has "same sex attraction" because of some fabricated reason such as sexual assault. I reckon there are just some men, mostly in conservative American cities/states, who simply cannot honestly answer the question, "Are you gay?" because in their reality, gay people are somehow evil or are living some nebulous "lifestyle." 

Last edited by Sean01 (January 23, 2024 12:16 am)