Husband gay but in denial. How do I help and survive this?

[Tired_of_being]

I guess my title says it all.

My husband, best friend and person I knew has finally faced up to years of cheating. While floored by the betrayal of monogamy and the trust issues, I want to know how I can help him. This is doing my head in. I don’t care about the sexuality, but the lies and hurt he has caused has stripped my confidence and self worth to 0.

We live in small country area and he is widely known (also all his mates know as he has tried it on with some of them). He keeps saying he loves me and wants to stay married, we don’t have sex or intimacy. But he has cheated with only men and our gay friend believe he is gay not bi.

Ive looked for somewhere to be supported and help my husband through this. I know our marriage is ended, but this should not have to end badly. How can I help him, while ensuring my anger at the betrayal of trust is reined in?

We are both around 50, kids, etc.

[Definitely_Otherwise]

Living a life starved of love and authentic intimacy where it can never be reciprocated the way you want is absolutely devastating Tired of Being. I feel so sorry for you.

I was used by a straight women, who lookng back, used me as a shoudler to cry on over her man, while she pretended to be a progressive, sexually daring and edgy person, at the expense of my broken and shattered heart. Would you believe I actually truly loved her. This has confused me, how can I fall in love with someone who is intrinsically not able to return it. I provided her with the softness of the feminine while she worked through the hurt of her man, trying to minimse feelings of abandonement and rejection. I think some women toy with the idea of a same-sex partnership becuase they think that they can escape the hurt of a man, we won't sleep with our 20 year old secretary, and we are apparently safe some how. All I did was give her a Husband Holiday, a soft place to fall, lovely meals and going out to restaurants and a shoulder to cry on about her man, or the future men she is scared to take a risk with because she is a bit of a has a deep seeded fear of rejection and abandonement. I'm so angry at myself.

I agree with your last line, you compromised - but he used you, and the used the security your relationship gave him. Like you were a secure base camp while he explore his true self .It is a god awful to be used.

Maybe scroll to the top of the screen and see what you wrote again. You said your confidence is 0!! You really need to have no contact with him, because if you loved him, he will reel you back in over and over again. Your won't be able to meet someone else until you build up your condfidence and self respect. I can undertand that intellectually, but what I find so hard going forward in my life is the trust issues. I was sold so many lies, and now I'm too scared to risk my heart again.

I really hope you're braver than me Tired of Being and take a risk. We only have one life, and you have been starved of intimacy for too long. It will be an awful process getting through the divorce - but you will get there, I promise you!!

I hope you find the strength to get the wheels in motion, and it is not drawn out too long.

Let's hope is not too late to find love again. He will have an emotional hold over you for some time, as you exit this marriage, but I think the healthiest path is to have nothing to do with him. Tough when there are children.

Def

[Definitely_Otherwise]

One last thing ToB,

I think I realised what you mean. When you said "Sorry to be harsh, but long term you have to look at what is best for you. I have been working with professionals to deal with the negative feelings about myself. ?Why me? Maybe I can save this and have my husband back- even if it means that i dont have sex.......I compromised and so did he.

While he may have used you, and got a lot out of that, ironically he has also let authentic relationships and opportunities with men pass him by, that he can nevery get back. Chances of something real - may have passed.

Don't carry his life regrets. They are his regrets.

Too much empathy is not good. I am guilty of the same disease.

Be careful of too much empathy at the expense of your own happiness Tired of Being. If he has missed out, he's and adult, and has to come to terms with that on his own.

Def

[Ruby__2]

Hey Def,

I really appreciate your insight to my situation.

It has been quite a learning curve of late.To answer how he disclosed-well it was during psych admission. Everyone else around( nurses,doctors etc) knew but me.He blurted everything out during a visit(our eldest was there as

[Ruby__2]

Hey Def and tired of being,

Just wanted to know how everyone is fairing?

We have come to a compromise of sorts.For a start ,I am not interested in starting a new relationship with anyone .

He appears to not be interested in any form of intimacy with anyone.

I have been concentrating on work and family( eldest just got engaged)

A different life to what I planned-manageble though.

Hate to let the youngsters know-but sex is not the most important thing in a relationship 🙂

[Definitely_Otherwise]

Hi Ruby,

Your situation is very complex with your husbands health problems, he's been given a big fright. I'm sure he's looking at his life differently now. But if you guys have come to an agreed compromise there's no such thing as right and wrong - more just doing what is right for you guys.

I bet you & your daughter got a shock at the hospital. I can't imagine staying closeted, but at the end of the day that is what feels right for me in my skin and in my cells. But for other people, they are happy enough in their marriages. Being gay isn't the biggest hurdle I've had to face in life. It's kind of faded into nothingness now in the broader perspective of everything I've been through. That's not to make light of how hard it is to come out of the closet, its really hard for some people - more that other life experiences have trumped being gay, ones that change your whole view on life.

I guess like lots of things in life, the desire for physical intimacy occurs on a spectrum, and some people are down low, some people up high and some inbetween. I've had young friends tell me they have very low sex drive, so sometimes age isn't a factor. Often it is, but not always. Some people don't need much affection while others need a lot. I guess it comes down to finding someone your compatible with, and also accepting that it may change over time. Finding a compatible person is the tough part - I still haven't.

I hope it works out for you and you enjoy the wedding. Next you'll be a grandma-ma Ruby. Back changing nappies again!

Def

[lonlyeE]

Hi Tired of being.

Sorry for your pain. A lot of posts here, so sorry if I overlap etc.

I wouldn't worry about the STIs. Just get tested. I get tested every few months (I'm a gay male). I've had some STIs, got treated, no harm.

What you're dealing with is very complicated. From the sounds of things (your friend's opinion, sexless relationship etc), he seems gay, not bi; but you would be the best judge.

You ask 'why me?' Be assured there is nothing personal in why you ended up in this situation. The reasons are bio-psycho-social. Despite (very recent) marriage equality, homophobia is still rife, especially considering 20% of the population didn't bother to vote, and nearly 40% of those who did voted No. At any rate, you're not to blame.

You can't have your husband back, not as a husband, and not if you think you can't have sex. That's not authentic living, and since your kids don't care about gay sexuality, there's no reason to 'sacrifice' yourself.

The best you can hope for is an amicable friendship. But please, please, don't torture yourself. There's no need. You are not to blame. And whatever emotional connection you have with him may still live on in some form. What you are experiencing is the fallout of homophobia, albeit internalised.

Every week I see men like your husband on dating & hookup apps. And if society took homophobia seriously enough, they wouldn't be online. In the case of genuinely bi men, they are even worse understood, by gays and straights alike. I have almost never met an out 'bi' man, and all the bi men online are anonymous. They live a closeted life, misunderstood by others and themselves. Such a shame.

[Tired_of_being]

Thanks everyone. I have finally reached the point where I just don't care whether he is gay. We are currently having a bitter custody battle. I have finally realised that we never compromised and I spent the whole time together trying to help him. The real reason the marriage/relationship ended was that he was emotionally, physically and financially abusive to me and our kids.

For me the depression and self hate I felt was not because he is gay/bi/straight. It was a matter of how he treated me.

I wish I could have separated this from the whole sexuality issue earlier.

He still is hung up on the whole sexuality thing. He has been living this life for as long as we have been together and now he is single he is free to be and do what he wants. But he still tries to use his sexuality as the reason i do not want to engage with him. He cant seem to get it that i don't care about his sexuality. The only thing I care about is the person who you are - honest, truthful, calm, caring etc.

After all of this, i just wish he would have told me. I may have been ok with staying in the house as friend. BUT this is not true. I think that I would have continued fooling myself into believing it was my responsiblity to fix his depression.

I would have loved for him to be honest. I could have still maintained some form of respect for him. if your relationship is worth anything - the partner should be able to accept it (eventually). Otherwise you do not need people who judge people by sexuality.

[Definitely_Otherwise]

I'm not the sort of person to wave the rainbow flag just cos someone is gay like me. Even if he was straight you should leave this relationship, surly you know this. He does not respect you and his run around town making a fool of you, that's an awful feeling and takes such a long time to recover from and you carry the hurt for a long time. Compromise, patience and understanding are wonderful traits to have and he has been so lucky to have you by his side. It sorta irritates me to read that even after having told you that he loves sex with men and men only, he still wants you around as some sort of nurse-maid/mother-like person who can rehabilitate him, and put him back together because he can't find that sort of care from a bloke right now. Like he wants to hang onto you until he meets a guy who takes care of him as good as you do. Self-sacrificing seems to be really strong in you. Instead of trying to fix him put your energy into yourself. You won't be able to do it alone. Do you have any friends that are going thru an ugly separation where their partner treated u in the category of dv? If you do they will be worth their weight in gold having them in your life right now to talk to and guide you, they can do more for you than a therapist in lots of ways. Latch onto them, mimic them even, I really looked up to the women that have made it thru their csa, or at least are trying to, and I guess copy catting could be seen as teenager like behaviour but my therapist said mentor like friends are powerful allies to have on your recovery journey and it forms kind of like a tribal healing circle. Sometimes other people are just better at articulating complex emotion than I am, and just better with words like some people are better at maths or chemistry. Hopefully if you open up you will be really surprised that a tonne of other ppl have been through similar like breakups. I get the impression he's had you on a very short leash for along time and he doesn't want to lose that control. I suppose he is losing control in other areas of his life, such as his public face, so he wants to hang onto the ppl and things he has always had control over to feel steady, at a time when everything is unsteady.

You deserve a future that is free of being scared and free of guilt and responsibility that isn't yours. He's an adult, he doesn't get to have his cake and eat it too. It will be like withdrawing from a chem substance leaving this relationship but u can do it.

Def

[Despondent]

I'm not qualified to give advice or would've known to give one to myself but happy to share my story if it resonates with you, hopefully even provides some hope going forward. We are unique creations and have unique stories to tell, so here goes mine. As a young man I've only ever been in one serious relationship which I entered into at the age of 22; my (female) partner was 1 year my junior, my life partner and later on my wife for the next 17 years. We led honest life devoted to each other and our family unit. Although unfulfilled sexually, our married life together produced two wonderful children and to the outside world we looked perfect. Once kids grew up a litle and the focus on them no longer needed to be as intense as when they were babies, the time was perfect for my wife and I to start paying more atetntion to ourselves. Instead of finding again whatever little intimacy there was between us before, we drifted apart even further. To make it clear, she always wanted me, it was I who didn't feel the need for intimacy, not just with her but anybody. Neither of us ever cheated on the other, we just went on living a routine life that mostly focused on the kids. Eventually all intimacy between us literally dried up and after a year of co-existing like that, now at the age of 39, I had unexpctedly, in a routine run of the mill type event, experienced emotions I had never experienced before. Love at first sight comes to mind although I don't know how to define what I felt in the moment other than that my heart was racing, I felt light headed, ill to my stomach, all this accompanied by a sense of enormous shame. It was the the worst out of control feeling I felt to date, or since, and I certainly don't wish it on anybody. This was my reaction to a man, a complete stranger who had no reason to be in my path that unfortunate day and who, in hindsight, I wish hadn't been. But the fact is, it had to happen because it triggered the events that ultimately saved my whole family from livig a life of misery. 6 months later, for the first time, I had sexual affair with that man which ended badly but it allowed me to discover myself, explain sexual emptiness in my marriage and more imporantly, come out to my wife. Times following were tough yet love for our kids kept us going. We eventually divorced; my wife accepted the outcome and is in a happy long term relationship. I've been unable to navigate the life of a gay man and decided on being alone, 16 years so far.

[Tired_of_being]

Thank you for your story.

I cant believe that so many of us are playing the role of happy couple, but not happy, I fooled myself into believing that the years meant years of solid background of love, friendship and trust.

I wish he would have let me be happy. Instead he used me, abused me physically, emotionally and financially, He is really good at lying, Lying about who he is, why we separated and just about everything that I thought I knew as truth. He had fallen in and out of love with men while with me, had hundreds plus hook ups on sites, and only kept me around for the image of married man.

i am still hurting as he is a naracist and now is telling people he left because I chased him out of the house. The truth is much more boring, police escorted him out as he was threatening harm to me.

I am so devastated that 27 years boils down to me being crazy and violent. Neither is true. He makes statements that are so outrageous that no one checks. So I am just walking away, I just never want to hear his name or know what he is doing, I don't even care about our joint assets, He will lie and get everything as in the end there is no reason for honesty with this man. I have spent my life protecting and loving who i thought he was - only for the abuse to continue via legal means. The gay thing is his shield, making out that i am homophobic, and no on . They assume I am and he laughs at how easily he can manipulate people.

People just focus on the 'gay' label when they talk about his behaviour. It really gets to me, as I suffered in silence 25 years of domestic violence. People still grab onto the sexuality thing and i want to scream at them, cant get that the only thing they take out of my situation is his sexuality, when he was abusive all these years. I can't understand and it makes me wonder how evolved we really are.

I am really sorry for the negatives.