Hi,

I’m so sorry you are here.

The news and shock leaves us all frozen and unable to move. I have been in your shoes and still have my days. Most of the time I am in disbelief and it’s been 1 1/2 years since I was blindsided with the news. Not only is my ex now a trans women but prefers men after 17 years together.

I always tell people when you thing you have it bad, someone has it worse. As in my story and not to say your trauma and betrayal isn’t gut wrenching.

To answer your question I found it’s called being a sociopath! No empathy for others and the damage it causes others. As well as being selfish to only compartmentalize the hurt they caused so they can live their life to only benefit them.

The wave of emotions they cause us in finding their secret and begs and cries of “I love you” is not the same as our interpretation. I told my ex you do not love me, you do not know what love is because you aren’t capable of loving someone when you hide who you are and feel it it okay to do so. Love does not hurt and not based on lies.

Take care of yourself and hope you have family and friends who you can trust to speak with.

Hugs,
Lost

BrokenArted wrote:

......He's moved out and is temporarily in a hotel. I am living in our home. He is planning to find an apartment and move out as soon as he can. .....

You're in the right place 🙂 and welcome. I wish I had been as firm and determined as you seem to be and had moved on...out and away from all this but I have forgotten how to live my life as me, and not us.
 
..these men don't deserve our wish to understand who they are and why they do what they do. They are cold and self-serving simply because they can be. Super-compartmentalists who separate who they actually are from how they wish to be seen by others.

Elle

BrokenArted wrote:

.....I feel so pathetic for trusting what he led me to believe.

You can only allow yourself to wallow in the way you're feeling for a finite period. The fact we trusted in the wrong people will never change... so it's us who have to. It's hard, man is it hard! There are ups and downs, potholes galore but if we're to come out of this with a semblance of our former happy selves visible we need to, kind of, separate who we are now from who we ultimately want to be
 

Trusting isn't something to be ashamed of. The shame rests on the person who abuses the trust of another.

Welcome. So sorry you are here.  And I very much feel you right now.  I'm two months out from my husband of 19 years telling me he is gay.  We've had a sexless Marriage for 10 years (that I blamed myself for because I wasn't attractive to him because of medical issues and weight gain) so I didn't have to worry about the STD stuff.

Narcissist and Selifsh is how they do it.  They have justified their secret for years and something triggered them into coming out.  Be it they get caught or something tips the scales and they want to move on.  He knew I was suffering yet didn't do or say anything...and now has moved into gaslighting and blaming me for things.

The "have the straight cake and eat it too" I get.  In the aftermath of him telling me I numbly went along with his your my best best friend, I love you as a best friend, so we can just keep things as they are and take our time.  Raise the kids together.   He wanted all the benefits of me as his wife both in the facade and basically what I do.  Running the house, taking care of the logistics of our life, taking care of the kids, being his emotional support and sounding board.  Being that dudtiful wife that supports him and his hobbies and boy that is a whole can of worms I threw into a dumpster. 

Fast Forward to today and I WANT HIM OUT OF MY HOUSE!  We can't afford to do that though.  Our local housing market is out of control so selling and getting two separate homes isn't in the cards.  I am working on options that will secure a home for me via mediation.  But until we get there he's in the MIL suite that I thank god every day we have.  So I am very envious that you have the ability to physically separate now.  Because as time goes on its harder and harder to have him here.  You deserve space to heal and I can say from experience.  Once he moved out of the master bedroom I turned it into the room I have always wanted, pink, flowers, bling, the art I want, whole bed to myself and my fur babies with no snoring.  

Since he came out I hardly recognize the man I loved and married. He is frustrated that his fantasy of coming out isn't meeting the reality.  And I'm a miserable anxious mess.  But he only shows those cracks with me and his parents.  His co workers don't have a clue.

Most of these guys have built themselves a support network that enabled, justified, and encourage their lifestyles.  Be it who they were hooking up with to how to maintain the lie to those around him.   We have this group and close friends or families supporting us...they absolutely have the same.   I now know my husband has two of those he found at the gym.  He has many all across the country online.  He gives the tell with "My friend said that...."

You focus on taking care of you.  And that is hard, being with them as long as we have our knee jerk is to take care of them.  When his dad was screaming at him over the phone after he told them I held my husband as he cried.   But while I am his wife on paper still I am not emotionally his wife and he has not seen me that way for a very long time.  As a result I no longer need to expend my emotional real estate on his ego and making things better.  He lost that privelage with his decisions and lies.  

Some days will be better than others.  There are days were I cry in bed (Friday is our anniversary so I am sure that will be one of those days).  While others I am making lists, doing research, crunching numbers, and actively working on the separation.  Give yourself grace and time and remember he's had years of a head start on all of this.