Welcome to our Forum BW.....my comments are in red. 

blindsightedwife wrote:

Hi everyone. I am so glad that I found this forum as I feel like I am the only person that has gone through this. Yep.....99.9% of us felt exactly the same way. I have been married for 35 years and found out yesterday that my husband has been hiding the fact that he is gay. We have 2 grown up sons.I didn't find out my partner was bisexual til 20 years into our 38 year time together.  He insists that he has not had any sexual hook ups with other men but I found an email from him to another support group outlaying everything that he has been dealing with and in that email he says that he has had three hookups in the past. Well of course he's not going to admit to it right away. He's testing the waters hoping your dedication to the marriage will ignore the concerns you have. He is strongly denying that but I do not believe him.  Due to finances we cannot just split up but I am so devastated by this. Yeah a straightspouse is often in the worst place when this Mindfuck gets dropped on them so what you have to do is get over the hurdle of the devastation first, clear your head, get angry (yes yes.....this isn't fair and you actually deserve to feel aggrieved). He says that he does love me and wants to continue to be married. LOL....of course he wants to stay married. You're the heterosexual cover for his homosexuality and the secret he doesn't want known. I am worried that I am going to turn into this super suspicious untrusting and bitter person. Done correctly once again you deserve those feelings. They'll help you to move through the hard times ahead. Add a woman's well-honed intuition and they are tools, not bad traits.  I thought that we had a great marriage and this has thrown me for a loop. I did find some WhatsApp messages from another man about a year ago, but he lied and said they were nothing even though the messages themselves didn't sound right to me. I think I may have had a strong suspicion for a while but now that it is out in the open where do I go from here? Talk to somebody you know will keep your confidence. It's important you don't let your selfish husband steer the direction this is going. If you do you will become his doormat. I am embarrased about this as everyone thinks we have a great marriage. We have not been intimate for 3 years and in the email he says that he loves me but is not sexually attracted to me.  He admitted that he did going Grindr for a while but was worried that he would be caught. He is good at hiding stuff on his phone and I have no access to it due to him locking it. Please help. BW....this is not your issue, not your fault, the embarrassment is his but he's trying to appeal to you to help him stay in his shitty secret closet. You need to speak to people who know what has blown up in front of you. The Forum is a good start ....

Elle
 

Thank you Elle for your reply. There is a part of me that really wants to believe him as it would make things so much for simpler but another part says I would be a fool to believe it. We talked for most of the night last night and I am going to take this day by day. I have spoken to a close friend and she herself is shocked so imagine how I feel. I never thought this could be my life!!! I have not eaten in two days as the thought of it makes me feel sick to the stomach. 

blindsightedwife wrote:

Thank you Elle for your reply. There is a part of me that really wants to believe him as it would make things so much for simpler but another part says I would be a fool to believe it. We talked for most of the night last night and I am going to take this day by day. I have spoken to a close friend and she herself is shocked so imagine how I feel. I never thought this could be my life!!! I have not eaten in two days as the thought of it makes me feel sick to the stomach. 

 

BW....you can not let yourself be unwell by not looking after yourself! You have to find the strength to understand and get through this....no matter what you finally decide. Are you financially dependent on your gay husband? Because that is what held me back, for years.

E
 

Hi Blindsighted and whatdoidonow, welcome to the forum.  

whatdoidonow wrote:

...because if you look deeper everything changes. well it's changed and I looked and now I can't unsee. I don't know what to do, where to turn, how to cope, how to go on. I'm isolated, no friends and I can't tell my family . and every place I could go are shitty options because they are all tainted with what he has done in those places and towns.....I just want to sleep and not get up......

So here's my suggestions based on my own experience -

First thing to do is just keep existing - eat, sleep, breathe.  Going for walks is great, any sort of gardening is great.

I liked water - walking in the rain, swimming, I started with extremely long showers until I shifted from feeling like being sick to feeling like crying.

Don't forget to eat.  Curl up on your bed every moment you can.  Allow your thoughts and feelings to come and go.  This is where you take your arm back from your spouse and put it round your own shoulders.

Take your time forming a plan for the future.  But separate yourself as far as you can from him as first priority - even if it is just to sleep on the sofa.

Last edited by lily (Yesterday 7:05 pm)

Ellexoh_nz wrote:

blindsightedwife wrote:

. Yes unfortunately I am financially dependent on him to some degree, I do earn my own money but not nearly enough to leave him and start over. Did you leave your husband or could you find a way to work through it? This is what I am struggling with. I am taking it day by day for now. ....

It took me 6 years to leave him. Halfway through the 6 years I told him I no longer wanted to be intimate with him. I don't know what reaction I expected from him but he accepted my rejection and the next 3 years I spent thinking and planning. Ours was a traditional r'ship, the only work I did apart from mother was in business we did together. Joint bank accounts. We had a good life. But when my mother died and left me money I put it into a separate account that he had no access to.
I will say he wasn't a miserly man. Generous almost to a fault and obviously expecting Mum's money to be 'joint' which felt like the control of it would be his.
I decided to finally make the move to separate and saw a lawyer. Luckily my youngest son said "come live with me" where I am to this day. It helps that leaving him at 65 meant I have a government superannuation payment to live on, another part of my thinking process.

We're all different. Our situations and responsibilities. And Lily is correct. If you're going to leave (or stay for that matter) you must give yourself the time and space to think. (Edited to add) and it is easier to think clearly with distance between you and him. Whether it be a wall, house or city. During the 6 years....each year I would take 3 or 4 weeks to visit my 4 children in different parts of NZ. Time to focus on myself without a constant reminder of A.

Keep asking questions and reading the Forum.
We're here for you

Elle

Thanks Elle. Wow you are a brave woman and I really take my hat off to you. Do your friends and family know the truth about what happened or have you kept his secret? He has said he will move to the spare bedroom if it makes me more comfortable but for some unknown reason, I seem to want to camp out on the couch. It is so weird as I am having all these conflicting emotions as I don't seem to be able to think clearly. One moment I am extremely sad and then furious that this has happened, and he was willing to jeopardize our whole life together for a literal stranger. There seems to be one specific guy that he met on GrindR that he has met a few times for coffee (He maintains that nothing sexual happened but I dont think I believe him). He expressed in an email that I found that he wanted to be in a relationship with this guy more than anything. Apparently, this other man is in a relationship already. My worry is that what happens if I do try and move on and work it out with my husband that his guy reaches out again in the future and it all ends up imploding anyway??? I do have this other guys phone number and the crazy part of me wants to contact him (Is this nuts???) He has agreed to put Life360 (tracking app) back on his phone as well as change password on his phone so that it is open book in a way. This does make me feel safer, but I am no fool and know that there are still ways to keep things hidden. He wants to stay and try and make this work and has promised no more secrets, but I find it hard to believe coming from a person that has lied to me so many times before. I am really not sure how to feel or act at the moment.