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1 - private
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How do you move on, and do you ever share what you've been through?
It's been more than 10 years since the trauma my ex inflicted on me, but it still haunts me.
He hid his bisexuality and when I was discovering it, he began to gaslight me. Then it got worse. I reached out for support to therapists and all of them at that time kept explaining his position and how I should understand why he was being abusive. I was careless and shared it at work and it got me put on a permanent leave.
Then my ex poisoned me, and I developed psychotic episodes.
I was hospitalized over and over, losing weight and developing a deep fear of the world and all that the LGBQTI+
stood for.
Now 10 years later, I am healthy, and I am taking courses on gender and learning and crying most days.
Not sure what to share with my classmates but feeling like I'm overflowing with grief and fear, once again.
The panic attacks come and go and I'm doing as much self-care as my therapist recommends.
But I wanted to reach out, to find my people. Are you there? Do you know what I'm feeling? Would you share
how angry, hurt and alone you felt? Or still feel?
That way, I know it's okay to still feel this way after all these years?
-Private (privately holding it in all these years)
- private
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Re: How do you move on, and do you ever share what you've been through?
?
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Thread Starter- Toward the Light
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Re: How do you move on, and do you ever share what you've been through?
Private, You are always entitled to your feelings, always. Yes, 9 years out from divorcing my ex after 28 years of marriage and three sons, I am still healing and, yes, my own reckoning with my self-destructive behaviors have come with the “freedom from” him and “freedom to” build my own life and relationships based on honesty. You are stronger than you know, one step at a time. Mostly, take care of yourself first—like we are told on airplanes—you have to put your own oxygen mask on first.
Last edited by Toward the Light (August 29, 2025 8:41 am)
- lily
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Re: How do you move on, and do you ever share what you've been through?
Look, obviously there's no statistics possible seeing as it turns out people lie about their sexuality a lot but my view is there are more people who aren't straight than there are straights by now.
so yes agreed, it pays to be careful who you confide in and I will go out on a limb here and say it makes sense to me that there is a high percentage of non-straights in the profession of psychology. I know the counsellor I saw was a newly divorced closeted lesbian.
She did a decent job of the six sessions of counselling I was booked in for but she didn't sympathise with my feelings over my discovery that I was married to someone who was gay in denial, which was kinda invalidating, nor did she mention the psychological abuse I was being subjected to. It was my lawyer who told me I was being emotionally and financially abused and that was not the whole of it.
My ex loves his closet and on the surface he seems like such a nice man, everyone likes him, I believed it too, but underneath the surface the thing he enjoyed the most was tricking me, he got great pleasure from that, playing games, causing me confusion, taunting me in my innocent trust.
It's 13 years ago now for me. I am 70 now, a lot more comfortable than I was in the early stages and I have known happiness amongst all the grief but I was 19 when I met my ex so It was my whole adult life and I don't expect to reach some mythical state where it doesn't matter and I'm not going to be triggered anymore - no way would I go to gender courses.
I live in Australia, still numbers of wild parrots here and I have been feeding them on my verandah, they are very entertaining, I'd much rather be with them.
- freedmyself
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Re: How do you move on, and do you ever share what you've been through?
Hi private,
It totally makes sense to me that you would have a new set of feelings resurface now that you're healthy.
It took me nearly a year post-discovery to start to wrap my head around all the ways I'd been psychologically abused and manipulated with my GXH's lying and gaslighting. Prior to that, it was too fresh and I was too fragile to really understand what had happened to me.
It's really easy to be rainbow-washed now - so much celebration for the person coming out, and frequently so little understanding of what it's like to be the straight spouse victim of their closet.
I'm better now than I was before my divorce, for sure. I do have happy days, and I feel gratitude for a lot of what I have. I don't think this will ever be completely behind me - healing is a long road.
- Ellexoh_nz
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Re: How do you move on, and do you ever share what you've been through?
freedmyself wrote:
.... rainbow-washed ....
What a wonderfully descriptive word!
Private 🤗 10 years. That's a long time to still be carrying a weight as heavy as a dishonest husband, though you surely have learned much about yourself as those years have passed.
The 38yr r'ship with my former partner ended just a couple of years ago so I'm just a newbie in all this. Family is what has helped me through, and I had no qualms whatsoever about telling those close to me. Why shouldn't we tell our truth!
But yes as others have said..you pick and choose a confidante carefully because judgement comes easily when people have been hoodwinked into believing that somebody finally being their "authentic self" deserves only kindness and applause.
More importantly though.. you have to be confident and accepting that what has happened was in no way your fault.
You didn't make him bisexual.
You've found your tribe Private. The Forum has been quiet of late, not sure why so don't be put off if it seems empty lol.
Elle
KIA KAHA
- private
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Re: How do you move on, and do you ever share what you've been through?
Private, You are always entitled to your feelings, always. Mostly, take care of yourself first—like we are told on airplanes—you have to put your own oxygen mask on first.
I appreciate your reminder, take care of myself first. That's what I've been trying for the past 10 years but somehow something was missing. A community. People who knew my plight, who got it.
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Thread Starter- private
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Re: How do you move on, and do you ever share what you've been through?
Look, obviously there's no statistics possible seeing as it turns out people lie about their sexuality a lot but my view is there are more people who aren't straight than there are straights by now.
so yes agreed, it pays to be careful who you confide in and I will go out on a limb here and say it makes sense to me that there is a high percentage of non-straights in the profession of psychology. I know the counsellor I saw was a newly divorced closeted lesbian.
....but she didn't sympathise with my feelings over my discovery that I was married to someone who was gay in denial, which was kinda invalidating, nor did she mention the psychological abuse I was being subjected to.
..... the thing he enjoyed the most was tricking me, he got great pleasure from that, playing games, causing me confusion, taunting me in my innocent trust.
It's 13 years ago now for me. I am 70 now, a lot more comfortable than I was in the early stages and I have known ...... I don't expect to reach some mythical state where it doesn't matter and I'm not going to be triggered anymore - no way would I go to gender courses.
I have to agree, I believe the straight population is dwindling. And there are more Bisexuals and LGBQTIA+ but many just deciding not to show their inclinations for their own personal reasons. Most of the therapists in the past didn't seem to appreciate my stance as a victim. They seemed to know too much about having to deal internally with the conflict of an LGBQTIA within themselves and that wouldn't have been an issue if they would have agreed that any form of abuse is unacceptable. As for the abuse, yes, he also seemed to enjoy my pain. I remember crying and saying that this was killing me and he said children could live without their mothers. What a horrible thing to say. What an awful man he was. You're right triggers will always be around the corner. But the field I am in going into requires that I confront some of these issues and I have to face them as painful as they are. It led me here and that's what was missing, my people.
- •
Thread Starter- private
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Re: How do you move on, and do you ever share what you've been through?
Hi private,
It totally makes sense to me that you would have a new set of feelings resurface now that you're healthy.
It took me nearly a year post-discovery to start to wrap my head around all the ways I'd been psychologically abused and manipulated with my GXH's lying and gaslighting....
It's really easy to be rainbow-washed now - so much celebration for the person coming out, and frequently so little understanding of what it's like to be the straight spouse victim of their closet.....
I'm better now than I was before my divorce, for sure. I do have happy days, and I feel gratitude for a lot of what I have. I don't think this will ever be completely behind me - healing is a long road.
You're right for some reason now that I'm healthy the memories are finally coming back in pieces. Sadly, those memories are also coming back with feelings as if I was going through them all over again. Panic, fear and anger. I keep asking why did it have to be so evil? Why the intense psychological and emotional abuse? Why the poison. There's really no excuse for abuse ever. The rainbows and the color purple so hard for me. I don't hate LGBQTIA+, I hate the abuse they do and the lies, the coverup and the overlooking of the trauma inflicted on a straight spouse/partner. I am lucky though, like you. I have this amazing gratitude for life. I am alive. I see the beauty of the butterflies, birds, sun and moon and gorgeous blue skies. But it came with the understanding that I almost lost my life.
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Thread Starter- private
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Re: How do you move on, and do you ever share what you've been through?
.... rainbow-washed ....
What a wonderfully descriptive word!
Private 🤗 10 years. That's a long time to still be carrying a weight as heavy as a dishonest husband, though you surely have learned much about yourself as those years have passed.
The 38yr r'ship with my former partner ended just a couple of years ago so I'm just a newbie in all this. Family is what has helped me through, and I had no qualms whatsoever about telling those close to me. Why shouldn't we tell our truth!
But yes as others have said..you pick and choose a confidante carefully because judgement comes easily when people have been hoodwinked into believing that somebody finally being their "authentic self" deserves only kindness and applause.
More importantly though.. you have to be confident and accepting that what has happened was in no way your fault.
You didn't make him bisexual.
You've found your tribe Private. The Forum has been quiet of late, not sure why so don't be put off if it seems empty lol.
Elle
I am so grateful for your words. My tribe. How uplifting those words were. My heart was soothed, and tears ran down my face. I could finally speak openly to my counterparts. Yes, my family was there to help me through all the hospitalizations, but they never could comprehend the tragedy of the truth that we suffer. I want to know for sure it wasn't my fault. But I fear because I was open about how I disagreed with lies of closed homosexuals, that it led to my demise. My therapist says you can say anything. But be prepared for the consequences. Now I'm closed off to people. I want to make friends, but I can't seem to. I want to reach out, but it feels so superficial especially if I don't share the real me, the once abused me who overcame and somehow survived.
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Thread Starter