OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum / NYT Ethicist Column (gift link)

**Posted by walkbymyself** August 3, 2025 3:43 am

There was a letter in the advice column "The Ethicist" from a woman who suspected her husband might be gay (this should be a gift link). Someone in the comments mentioned this site.

I don't know about you guys, but I find things like this enormously triggering. This advice columnist (and many of the commenters) seems to believe that women are children, and that somehow she has no right to question the foundation of her own marriage. It's not just that his advice is wrong -- it's damaging, dangerous, and patronizing. And that's before you even get to the comments.

**Posted by lily** August 3, 2025 6:27 am

oh dear, it's sad isn't it. I don't know her name and I don't remember any details but I still remember the feeling of the person who wrote back to me when I first posted here and answered my question - why do straight women marry gay men - because they didn't know. It was like a hand reaching out and giving me a soothing pat. much appreciated, I hadn't even heard the term gay in denial before I came here and it's an important concept to get a handle of.

**Posted by walkbymyself** August 3, 2025 7:50 am

I didn't even begin to recover until after I discovered this site. And in the beginning I was convinced I could keep my marriage and all that. There's an awful lot of bad advice out there -- including the advice of this "expert" who (full disclosure) is a gay man. The comments run the gamut, but more often than not they misread the letter and blame the victim.

**Posted by lily** August 3, 2025 4:25 pm

It's invaluable, this forum - I can't imagine how I would have felt without the understanding I found here, well I can imagine it, all too well - to get to the point of reaching out for help beyond your marriage and to be blamed by people after decades of absorbing the blame from my lying cheating manipulating fake husband? it's not enough to say it would have crushed me, I was already crushed.

Maybe because they are older but the group of people I have got to know in my neighbourhood, we have a weekly get together and when I have told my story the most I have got is a sympathetic tut tutting - oh, they say you were too young to know better - nobody feels the urge to blame me! it actually feels comforting and helpful.

That's a while ago now and times change quickly. Looks like the age of the bisexual has come.

Doesn't mean to say there aren't still a ton of straights every day just starting to wake up to the fact that their spouse has been gaslighting them and yet still caught in the depths of confusion. I tell you when I think about it, how I felt back then, I just want to reach back in time and give myself a hug.

**Posted by Anon2222** August 3, 2025 7:22 pm

lily - I agree with you, this forum was a life saver over the years. I don't pop in as often anymore, as I needed to put some distance from the entire situation for awhile, but I do still pop in and out when I can.

I, too, look back over the years and oh how I wish I had been kinder to myself overall.

I have shouldered so much pain. I have questioned myself. I have blamed myself. I have felt humiliated and ashamed. I have wondered what I could have done differently, how I could have better protected myself, all the what ifs, and if only's.

I will never understand why he did this to me. And I will never understand how he could act like he did. But I actually loved him, and I truly have no idea what I ever was to him.

Without this forum, I don't know if I would still be standing today. Just knowing that I wasn't alone. And that there wasn't something wrong with me. And that I didn't deserve any of this.

**Posted by lily** August 4, 2025 4:32 pm

Hi Anon, nice to hear from you - you are sounding better - it is good to get some time for recovery after the end of such a relationship isn't it.

I loved my ex blindly and he insisted on keeping me while resenting me for staying.- the most he ever had for me was cupboard love and even that was worn away by the emotional toxicity of his resentment.

The emotional pain a straight spouse goes into is swept under the carpet of family life all the time but I don't think that helps and we would all be better off if it wasn't.

Last edited by lily (August 4, 2025 4:42 pm)

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** August 5, 2025 4:07 pm

Haha.....read it. It made me laugh. I looked at the picture of the journalist and immediately thought
"that man only has sexual intercourse with the lights off and under the covers with a woman who defers to him always"

He sounded like a man who sees women as 'there for the man'
I also pondered whether the article was more about a clickbait topic (sexuality) that is very much in the news, with the question actually asked by the journalist so he could give his personal pov.

Elle

**Posted by OutofHisCloset** August 8, 2025 7:02 am

WalkbyMyself: I might not have been the only one, but in the comments I recommended this site and forum. I thought Appiah's advice wrong, and unethical, to boot, ironic for an expert who has a PhD in Philosophy. (I met Appiah, who was a visiting prof at Cornell when I was doing my PhD there.) That he is himself gay to me helps explain his willingness in his answer to that letter, as well to at least one other I can remember, to counsel continued deceit of a spouse. One commenter took him to task for not understanding that there were very real consequences to the spouse, ranging from finances to health; I wished I could upvote it more than once.

**Posted by walkbymyself** August 15, 2025 7:18 am

I left a few comments, too. I was stunned at the number of people who wrote that she should mind her own business or else she might learn something she'll regret for the rest of her life. Which to me sounded threatening. And so many questioned her motives, like why all of a sudden now does she have to know?

I'm thinking "Because it bothers her, isn't that good enough for you?"

With all the stories I've read here, I feel like I've read everything, but not once have I ever read someone saying "I wish I'd never found out. I wish my husband had been better at lying to me. I wish I hadn't been nosing around in something that's none of my business."

I can't stand Appiah even on his best day, but this felt to me like a really toxic situation and he really missed the mark on this one.

**Posted by OutofHisCloset** August 15, 2025 6:40 pm

Walkbymyself,
Yes, I was struck by the fact that no commenter, including those who rushed to blame the letter writer for her years of silence understood that years of living with a closeted/in denial spouse who demeans, devalues, and who blames the straight spouse for no sex conditions that straight spouse to blame themselves, and to stay silent. I can just imagine how the letter writer felt after reading those comments. I hope she finds her way here where she will find real support.