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Thank you Ellexoh, I believe you. I'm just ready for the time to pass and this battle to be behind me. I read last night that it takes about 3 years for healing to be complete - that makes me mad too.
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Meadow wrote:
Thank you Ellexoh, I believe you. I'm just ready for the time to pass and this battle to be behind me. I read last night that it takes about 3 years for healing to be complete - that makes me mad too.
Healing is individual. 3 years, 5 years, 10....there are so many factors. Making my "mad" work for me,
not against me and seeing this as a challenge, not a battle helped me move my focus (& blame) away
from my former partner and concentrate on my own journey.
E
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Meadow,
I'm sorry that you needed to find us here, and glad you did.
I'd been married for 20-odd years to my GXH when he came out. He sold me on this idea that we'd be some kind of modern family, where we'd still be best friends, and he'd still help out around the house, and we'd each find a boyfriend eventually, and be a big happy extended family. I bought his story, ate it right up.
What came to light later is that he had a whole life built out already - he had a circle of gay friends and he'd already started dated a younger guy who he'd claimed was just a friend. So once he came out to me, his inner turmoil settled down, since he was stepping into that new life. My turmoil was just beginning.
It is not our job to play detective and "figure out" our spouse's sexuality. If they're gay, we have the right to know. For them to hide it from us is abuse. It might be too soon for you to take that in fully. Took me many months of distance from him to wrap my head around it. The "Modern Family" idea he pitched was just another story meant to help him feel better about the deception, and placate me so I could stay hooked in his manipulation for a little longer.
I, too, have no idea who I was married to. The guy I thought I'd married doesn't actually exist - he's made of lies, whether to himself or to me. This is part of the mindfuck of the straight spouse experience.
As far as healing goes - I don't think there's a time frame. IMO, after they come out, it takes a while to even get one's head wrapped around the situation. Until then, it's hard to understand what you're really healing from. For me, it took many months for me to have the distance and perspective to really comprehend the scope of his manipulation.
If therapy is within your means, I highly recommend it. NOT couples therapy - your therapy. Also, as others have suggested, please go see a lawyer - you might be better off in a divorce than you think, and it's important that you know what your options are. Hopefully you also have friends to talk to. I got a lot of love back from the friends I told, and I was surprised at how many people know someone else in this same boat.
I agree wholeheartedly with Elle - I'm SO MUCH BETTER OFF NOW than I was in our marriage. It's been a painful path, but I'm safer here on the other side.
You can do this. It's hard as hell, and you can do it.
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Thank you Freedmyself,
I experienced about 3 years of distancing from my husband before all of this started to unfold. I knew it was falling apart and I was desperately trying to put it back together while he wouldn't entertain trying. He told me I was an emotional mess and he couldn't deal with my emotions all the time. I cried myself to sleep for a solid year while he slept in the guest room. Everything I suggested met deaf ears. Once I finally bought my little house near my kids (with my own money and all I had of my own) he brought a truck with more of my belongings and dropped the whole "My clock is ticking and I have to find out if there's more for me out there and then the I'm gay surprise.)
I think I was starting to heal from the 3 years of loneliness once i got here and was here alone for two months... Now, I find myself right back at the beginning because he told me "It's good you're near your kids, you'll have more opportunity for joy and you'll feel better. We'll travel back and forth between houses and if you hate it there you just come home and sell the little house. Just think of it as a summer house!" Well, that's changed hasn't it. Now he doesn't want me back. This is an entirely new consideration - now I know I can't fix it. I don't have any choices anymore. I'm exhausted of crying and I'm exhausted of my thoughts prodding me and reminding me that my life has been a lie.
I thank you for your advice and everyone else's too. I'm grateful for all of you. I'll take all the advice too. I have Two children, grandchildren, my son-in-law... my elderly parents, siblings and aunts here so I have a support system. They'll expect me to stop crying soon, don't you think? I'll pull up my big girl panties and work my way through the next few months and hopefully there will be less tears and headaches because of tears.
I'm sorry for all of you that you've been hurt like this. I'm sorry that I didn't even know this kind of hurt existed. Your stories break my heart for you.
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Meadow,
Warm welcome to the group..that none of us thought we'd be in.
My standard saying applies about any of your doubts; this is not us leaving them, this is them rejecting us.
Definitely build your support system and know you did all you could. Many of us, yourself included, went to extraordinary measures and endured undeserved abuse..bent over backwards aand still these spouses were not happy.
It will come..maybe not now but in time ..we can only thank God for getting us away from such morally broken people.