In my circumstance, my wife coming out was a definitive  explanation for years of emotional abuse, gaslighting, and assorted other untruthful behaviors which left my head spinning.  To the outside world, she projected the perfect marriage, but on the inside, it was a torture chamber for me.  Her coming out gave me a way to finally explain to my family and friends exactly how f'd up the marriage was.   I could point to an actual explanation for her egregious behavior with me.  Once they understood she was always gay and in denial, they could finally start to understand that my situation was never what it seemed from the outside.

If this is at all like your marriage, then you might want to rethink the MOM plan.  However, if you have truly loved each other both outwardly and on the inside, then go for it and do what you can to make it work.  I am doubtful that she never knew about her own sexuality.  My guess is she has known the whole time and just couldn't tell you -or anyone else incl herself- the truth.  If you find that she has been lying to you for years, it may be difficult to put the marriage on the narrow path of truth necessary to make a MOM work.

 

I am so sorry you are going through this.  My main piece of advice is that it takes two people to make a marriage work.  If she's not attracted to you, has found somebody else and has suggested separation...?

The most helpful advice anyone gave me was to ask myself this question:  is this relationship acceptable to me?  Not the kids, but to ME.  I determined that it was not acceptable for me to be in a relationship with someone who had lied to me since the beginning of our relationship, conducted a secret girl-on-girl affair, and lied to me about so many things to cover up that affair and treated me like gutter trash in the process.  Accepting those aspects of our relationship would have been intolerable to me, and I would not have been modeling what a proper relationship looks like for my kids.  I would be showing them that abuse is ok, which, of course, is not ok.

I can say this.  Being on the other side of this is a beautiful thing.  You will likely realize that a true, genuine relationship with someone who loves you and is attracted to you and who feels the same way about you that you do about them is amazing.  Most of us Straight Spouses haven't experienced that before, and it's wonderful.  And with regard to my kids, it's far better for them to be from a broken home rather than continue to live in one.

Good luck.  We are here for you.

Blue Bear wrote:

And with regard to my kids, it's far better for them to be from a broken home rather than continue to live in one.

I wish someone had said this to me when I was struggling to stay with my GIDxW.  Her logic behind the decades of deception was that she had told me upfront that she had once had a single lesbian experience in college, and that I should just love her for who she actually is.  However, the way she had originally described it made it sound like she was just a little bit kinky.  She had left out the numerous lesbian experiences she had AFTER that initial encounter.  She left out the part where she was actively exploring her lesbian side during her stint in San Francisco.  She left out the part that it wasn't kink she was interested in.  She left out the part that she was actually a lesbian.

I would have been happy with a slightly kinky wife.  The decades of zero intimacy, however, revealed something else was going on, even if she would never admit it.  I stayed for my daughter until I just couldn't hack it any more.  My GIDxW made it so rough to be around her that when I could no longer be in the marriage, I was made to feel guilty about giving up.  Why should I be made to feel guilty about giving up my tormentor?

I hope your experience wasn't this bad, DAD1st.  But make sure you ask yourself if being a dad first means staying in relationship founded fundamentally on deceit.  

Rob is spot on.  I never realized just how much of me I poured into my ex-wife, and how little I got back in return, until the gay bomb dropped.  I'm happier than I've been in many, many years.  My kids are also doing fine in two households.  In mine, they get a happy dad who can give them the energy and time that they so richly deserve.

This is not me trying to make the best of a failed marriage.  It's me succeeding and finally thriving outside the confines of a marriage that was doomed to fail on the altar.