oh goodness.  An affair with a man 13 years ago and now you have to face that she put you through all of that rather than admit to being gay.  That's the thing I struggled with the most right from day one - how could he have sat back and watched me suffer and not come clean.  

Look.  I am just going to say it.  Here it is again -  she is saying that the reason she is ending the marriage is because she doesn't want to end it by having an affair - why has that become such a concern for her now?   I'm sorry, the disclosure didn't come out of thin air.  At the minimum she is talking to another woman she has feelings for.

At the moment you are in shock.  You are behaving admirably - as you always will.  At some point in the not too distant future you are going to start going through a tangle of emotions.  Don't panic.  You'll get through it in little bits.  Be kind to yourself at all times.  Normality will resume at some point in the more distant future.

wishing you and yours the very best of luck, Lily

oh that sounds like a great trip.  what good news.

um, look I just re-read the first paragraph of your first post.  Maybe someone else has already said something but you talk about seeing your wife's counsellor.  Man or woman?  Reputation for being involved in gay issues?
There are a number of mainly gay counsellors who have unrealistic ideas of what a straight spouse can or cannot handle.

I do hope you look for an independent counsellor - do you know what it's like to be gay?  a gay person doesn't know what it's like to be straight either.

or maybe no counselling.  It can be hard to find the right person.  The desert sounds like the best medicine to me. wonderful.

DaveMack wrote:

Hey Zenslug.

Hope you're doing ok.  I appreciate hearing your story as it's similar to my own.
STBGXW on my side is only out to me, therapist, and one friend.  So we haven't told our kids or our extended family yet.  I would want to reconcile, but I'm realizing that it ain't happening and I need to let it go.
Rob's post early on in this thread struck a tone with me - I feel like I've been so supportive up until now, and now it's time to look out for #1 (+ kids.)  I'm about done with being supportive, because I'm a wounded animal right now.

Best wishes,
Dave

so sorry, Dave. sounds like a very similar situation indeed. it is taking me a long time to process the finality of the situation and my first instinct was to reconcile as well but that would just be kicking the can down the road, until the kid(s) are in college, which doesn't seem fair to me (older then and harder to start over) or the kids (finding out their family of origin was living a lie and keeping important secrets from them).

i do think you can be supportive of her still, i am, but you do need to think of yourself and the kids first. if i was you i would encourage her to come out to the kids asap. the rest will follow from there.

best to you on this difficult and parallel journey. feel free to PM me if you like. let's keep in touch!

well that's useful.  You are lucky to have a good counsellor that you know so well.  it was the phrase 'with my wife's blessing' that caused me to misunderstand - I thought that meant she was your wife's counsellor.

I didn't discover that my counsellor was a lesbian until ages later, I found out quite by surprise.  Looking back I can see she is typical of the femme style of lesbian but at the time I only thought of lesbians as being butch.