Alicia wrote:

26 years of marriage, 29 years together. I had NO clue my husband is gay and I thought we had a better then average marriage. Sigh.
I have clinical depression and have been a little low lately. I almost went to the hospital when I confronted him. For the first time in my life I snooped because he has been out of the apartment a lot recently. The picture confirmed and I felt the floor drop. I made a psychiatrist appointment and met with the doctor this week.
I don't know what I will do. I didn't ever expect not to live out my years with my husband unless he passed. I have so much grief. At first he wanted a divorce, but the next day he wants to stay with me, but date on the side. I'm trying to deal with it. I don't want him to leave. I don't want to date. I don't want to be alone.
I'm looking forward to therapy, and hopefully a support group. So many for him, but not for me.
How do I stop crying? Why am I not able to consider dating? It's all new, but when did you face reality? How many have stayed in their marriage and consider it living with your best friend?

Alicia, 

Welcome to our group.  We are going to do our best to support you and help you get through this storm. 

Don't feel bad about not knowing your husband is gay.  For those who chose to hide their sexuality, it is the most closely guarded and professionally held secret in the world.  It's the core of who they are and if they are not comfortable with it, they will devote their entire life to keeping it a secret.  It's not a little white lie.. it's a big giant earth-shattering lie that they spend every ounce of their fiber trying to keep secret.. and for most of their life.  They get really good at it.  So don't for a second feel guilty or shameful for not knowing. 

Depression is normal for a straight spouse.  We often attribute it to other factors, and there certainly can be other factors including chemical imbalances, etc..  But often it develops over time without knowledge because something is missing in our lives.  My health and happiness slowly declined during my 16 years of marriage because something just wasn't right in my life. Subconsciously I just knew that I wasn't fulfilled but I couldn't put my finger on it.  I told myself that the lack of sex was just normal for a married couple.. that my wife just had a low sex drive.  I convinced myself that I was just imagining that she made other people a priority over me.  I thought I had the best marriage.. we were best friends, we got along so well, we never fought.  We had two kids and a nice house and a great life.. but I was depressed none-the-less.  I just didn't figure out why until it hit me upside the head like a 2x4. 

I'm so glad you made an appointment with a therapist.  I would recommend seeing a medical doctor as well.  You are indeed in shock.  You are likely having trouble sleeping and eating.  That is physical shock.. not some made up mental thing.. it's real and it's dangerous.  In case nobody mentioned it yet.. don't have sex with your husband again.  If he's sleeping around, you don't know how safe he is.  You need to get tested for STD's to be sure and you can't open yourself up to risk again in the future 

You don't want him to leave because you are gripped by fear.  I was too.  I had planned out my life and had a vision of my future and it was destroyed in an instant.  I fell apart..  I couldn't imagine how I could ever be happy again.  I was comparing the future I envisioned versus an emptiness..  it was fear.  I couldn't see any way I could ever be happy again.  This is normal when you are in the storm.  All you can see is the clouds and rain.. it's dark and dangerous and scary.  It takes time to get through the storm.  You have to concentrate on staying safe and navigating through each day one at a time.  But as time goes by, the storm begins to pass.  The skies lighten and the rain slows.  The pain begins to die down.  You start to gain stability and peace.  Then one day you begin to see through the clouds.. little rays of sunshine and peaks through the clouds at what begins to be visible.  You will walk toward the sunshine and the peace and calm that comes after the storm.  Then you can put your life back together and start to see the amazing beauty of the world around you. You will find a future that you never knew existed.. you couldn't possibly see it while you were in the midst of the storm.  Even right now you bogged down at the start of this paragraph and lost the ability to imagine the vivid and happy thoughts I tried to capture for you at the end of the story.  It's normal... you aren't ready for it yet.  But you will be in time.    

Allow yourself to cry. It's ok to not be ok!  It's normal and natural and healthy to cry.  Don't feel guilty for an second. 

Don't worry about dating.  It's too early.  You aren't ready, and you know that, which is why you can't see yourself doing it.  Just because he wants to see other people doesn't mean you need to or want to or are ready to.  What you are seeing is the difference between where he is and where you are.  He's many years ahead of you.. this isn't a surprise to him.  His heart is ready and excited to move forward to satisfy his sexual lust.  But you aren't there yet, you were kept in the dark... in the closet so to speak.  Give it time.. lots of time.  Someday you will be ready.. or you might just decide that you are happy to be alone and don't need a man in your life.  Give yourself time to figure that stuff out.  You can't see what the future holds yet.. leave those decisions for a later date.  Focus today on getting through today. 

Please do find local support.  We are here for you online, but we can't wrap our arms around you and hold you.  If you have close friends and family local to you, start with them.  Don't think that you can't talk to them because of his secret.  You don't owe him secrecy at your own harm.  

The SSN has local face to face support groups in most major cities.    Fill out the form here and give it a day or two and they will get you in touch.    http://www.straightspouse.org/test/face2face-support-groups/


Found final question is the hardest.   How many of us have stayed in our marriage..  Not very many.   Most of us do spend time considering this and trying to figure out how to make it work.  It is possible, but it's very hard.  It takes a special person to allow the dynamics of their marriage to change and to release their spouse from their vows of monogamy.  If you can do that and it works for you, then more power to you.  But I think we find that in most cases it is beneficial to only the gay spouse and harmful to the straight one.  The straight spouse is left to decide between two bad options.. staying in an unfulfilling marriage or abandoning their hopes and happiness out of fear of the unknown.  Don't let that fear back you into a corner.  


We are here for you Alicia..  Keep posting and sharing your feelings.. update us as things go.  Ask for advice or help.  Let us know how we can pray for you.

 

HI Alicia,

I'm so sorry you're going through this.  It's such a shock to the system to learn that the person you thought you were married to doesn't actually exist.  It's like finding out we've been having a relationship with a shadow all these years.  The sad part is that even though we've had an inauthentic relationship for years (maybe even decades), we feel panicked at losing even that.  It's what we've come to know - the graph on which we plot our lives.  The good news is that very often we'll find out later just how little our relationship was actually giving to us.  We've been fooled into thinking that what we have is adequate - only to find out later that it never was.  And it opens us up to having a much better life after we shed the skin that was stunting us so much.

What your husband has done to you is appalling.  He's given his time and attention elsewhere, to the point where you had to go find the information - because he doesn't deem you worthy of having such important information about your own life.  What you found is that he's also been giving his body to others - forsaking his vows of commitment to you in the process.  He's opened you up to being exposed to diseases - he's endangered your very life.  In light of that, you need to understand that he cannot possibly care much for you on a genuine level.  He may give lip service to his love for you, or the marriage.  But he has put both in danger to the point of death.  And the level of trust you place in him must now be viewed in light of that.  He's been in this marriage for a while now for what HE could get out of it.  That won't change.  He's not suddenly focused on you if he's asking for your blessing to go share himself with others.

I know others here might disagree (and that's okay), but I don't view and open marriage as a marriage.  What is marriage, if not a vow between two people to forsake all others?  You stand at the alter and promise to love each other - to cherish them.  To forsake all others.  To love them through sickness and health, through rich and poor.  What's that mean?  It means that you've decided that you want to dedicate yourself to this ONE person - wholly - for the rest of your days, despite any circumstances that come your way.  Some of us view this - them asking us for permission to be with others - as something that the marriage is... "experiencing".  We see it as our duty to stand by this other person despite what they want to do.  But our vows never say that we will stand by the other person with faithfulness despite them mistreating us and breaking THEIR vows.  The vows themselves assume that you two will remain a united front - dedicated to each other only - as the two of you (as one) experience the ups and downs that life throws at you - the financial challenges, the physical ailments, throughout all your mutual days alive.  It does NOT leave provisions for each others breaking of said vows of forsaking all others.  That is breaking the marriage contract.  Giving the other person your blessing to go ahead and break their vows is akin to giving them your head nod to end the marriage.  It's always said that marriage is more than a piece of paper.  If that's true, then allowing one's spouse to forsake the marriage vows is asking to reducing the marriage itself to a piece of paper.  Because what ties you to the marriage any longer then if not just the legal aspect of it?

I think it's very telling that he first suggested divorce to you, and THEN came back and proposed staying together without being committed to each other.  It put the fear into you of losing the marriage.  It put you in touch with your fear and grief over ending the relationship.  Once that was firmly in place, then he offered you a branch with which to pull yourself out of the quicksand.  He knows that when faced with the fear of drowning in mud, you'll grasp for that branch instinctively - even if it's being held by a hungry lion.  That is NOT the only way your marriage can continue, though.  How about you offer HIM the mandatory conditions under which the marriage may continue?  Most notably, remaining faithful to you and you alone.  If he's not prepared to do that, then he must not be willing to do what it takes to have a marriage with you.

At the end of the day, you need to think about what marriage actually is to you.  And I don't mean what it could be in order to keep it intact.  Really ask yourself what the definition of marriage IS.  Is it two people who continue to live together and have a legal contract between them that says they're married?  Is that enough?  If so, how much "living together" is enough?  Is it enough if he spends 5 out of 7 nights a week next to you in bed?  Is it enough for him to spend holidays with you and some time maintaining the house and family? Is it enough that you reside under the same roof when he feels like it?  How much time is enough for you?  For me, I want it all - I want my husband home with me every.damned.night unless we agree that one of us needs to travel away from the other.  I want us to have healthy hobbies and friendships outside of the relationship.  But they should be reasonable on ALL levels - the amount of time spent away, the type of person they're hanging with, and the kind of relationship that's being experienced.  Our main focus should still be on the marriage, and our family.  Things fit around that base - they do not replace it in any manner.

I'm hoping that your counseling this week will offer you some relief.  Don't expect immediate revelations - this is a rat's nest that needs to be untangled, and you may need to think over concepts that you've never had to visit before in order to figure out where you stand.  But know that you don't have only two choices - getting divorced or staying married on HIS terms.  YOU can set parameters and boundaries too - and require that HE meets those.  If not, then you know that you will always be at his mercy otherwise.  Once he realizes that you'll do ANYthing to maintain being with him on some level, he will abuse that to the worst degree.  Because he's in this all for himself at this point.

When a man loves a woman and wants to be with her, he will want to know her requirements for being with her.  He can then decide if he's capable and willing to give her what she requires in order to be with her.  If he cannot or does not want to meet those requirements, he can/should walk away.  You have every right to say "These are the requirements I have set for being with me", and let him decide if he really wants you badly enough to meet those requirements.  It shows that you know your worth and value.  If he values something else more (like sleeping around), then LET him walk away.  The fact that he's trying to make it look like you need to meet HIS requirements is just bullshit.  You two already decided on the requirements a loooooong time ago - when you got married.  He doesn't just get to switch it up now and demand that you meet him where he's traveled to.  It's okay to stand firm in your place and say, "THIS is where we are supposed to be.  If you move from this place, then it's YOU leaving the place we agreed upon."

Best to you -

Kel

Kel wrote:

I know others here might disagree (and that's okay), but I don't view and open marriage as a marriage. 

Totally agree, Kel. As I see it, an open marriage just means they get to run around as they please and use you like a Plan B security blanket...because you know, our lives don't mean anything if we aren't at their service.