Hey there.

Last Monday, my wife of 13 years came out to me that she's gay last week. Lots of processing has occurred. This poor woman has been dealing with this for 10 months but couldn't get up the courage to talk to me about it (I'm so proud of her for being so brave!).

Our sex life has been a lot of me doing the initiating, but we've been pretty low frequency for the last few years. We've always had sexual hangups with each other because of our religiously conservative childhoods.

To re-emphasize, none of my reaction has been disgust/anger/betrayal. I feel sorry that she had to carry this alone and imagine every possible catastrophic outcome for 10 months on her own.

Let me establish a few things to give the best context I can.

- She has emphasized she is gay, not lesbian. Said a different way, homosexual bi/pan-romantic - she still loves me romantically, I am just not her sexual type.
- I love her just as deeply, and I want to stay with her. My reactions as I have been processing with this new reality have been to draw closer to her and figure out how to make this work. We're too close to each other to just throw this away over sexual attraction.
- At this time, we agree opening the marriage up isn't an option for either of us. Similar for divorce.
- We have grown much closer together in the last week! So much cuddling, trust and intimacy. We've discovered a lot of truly blissful ways to reconnect.

Last night, however, I could tell something was weighing on her, and we talked some more, leading to a very painful clarification:

- She does not want to have sex with me at all. She does not feel like it's possible to approach now that she realizes that she is not sexually attracted to me.

Initially, when the initial conversation came to the sexual parts, her position was that the next step was to figure out what I truly need from sex and we could negotiate openly and honestly together. That position has changed: She feels like she can't make herself try to have sex with me at all.

She was afraid of this follow-up talk because we both acknowledge I have the tendency to martyr. If there's a difference if opinion, I tend to surrender quickly and try to move on to the next thing.

Her fear is that I'm going to put on a brave face, soldier on, and we grow old together but I'm dead inside. That fear is not unfounded.

Prior to the big conversation, I had a pretty monolithic view of sex, sensuality, intimacy, romance, attraction, etc. Sexual intercourse was all of those things tied together all at once, and that oversimplification caused me to pull away when she wanted less sex. She rightly saw I was going through the motions because I didn't want to bring up the pain. That's my style... I know it's not the healthiest.

Since last Monday's conversation, my understanding had exploded each of these huge concepts into separate parts, like they actually are. I truly don't know what I need from sex anymore - I was already processing everything else and figured we could address sex later. However, last night's conversation seems to have closed the door on sex altogether.

While I feel disappointment, sadness, and grief over what seems like it could never be, I'm also frustrated with myself. Rationally, I want to bundle my sexual needs into a box and throw it into the sea. I desperately want to stay with her and grow this marriage into something more beautiful than it's ever been. I hate that I feel so crushed at this being taken away, especially when I don't even want it right now.

Again, I don't feel angry with her for arriving at this conclusion. I don't even want to have sex right now, nor do I want to

Even cuddling is complicated for me now, and that destroys me. I need her touch, but I'm scared I'll be in my head about it for a while, so I wasn't feeling very cuddly last night, and it hurts so bad I got up at 4:30 to write this post.

I don't know how common my reactions are in for this community. I still love my wife, and I genuinely choose her over sex every time. I want peace with the thought of a celibate relationship.

One last note, we are both in individual therapy, and our first couples therapy session is tomorrow.