Hi all! New to EC (yay). I do have a conundrum at hand that may be commonplace here. I am married and have been for nearly five years now. I do have a sweet daughter who is nearly a year old. I'm sure we know where this is going.. Having a volatile childhood, any homosexual aspects of my mind have been suppressed as a survival mechanism. These feelings came every once in a while (coupled with guilt and fear) and until recently I have continued to suppress. This is taxing. I want to be true to myself and my family. It feels right and fair. I met my wife when I was about 12 and we became best friends. I did marry my best friend. I do love her very deeply. I always will no matter what happens. I recently got a new job post-uni. The job is perfect, but when interviewing it was apparent that my boss is gay. I knew that if I took this job there would be no turning back. I knew that my tendencies would resurface and I wanted that. I was right. Now, I am just really on the arduous road of self realization. That being said, I don't know exactly what I am. Bi-ish, mostly gay. Some sort of multi faceted or fluidic sort of thing I assume, but mostly gay. I don't know unfortunately. I did come out to him last night as he dropped my off at the train station. I am happy I did. I have never had anyone really to talk with about this. He gave a plethora of encouragement and support. I feel somewhat clarified. I really want to tell my wife. I'm not proud to admit that I am afraid. Not for me really. I will be ok I'm sure. The situation with my daughter will be ok too. I don't expect any sort of anger driven withholding of my daughter. I feel horribly for my wife. She's a good person, sweet. I don't want to cause any pain or strife. I do realize that that is not possible. I feel so bad for her. I know her esteem will suffer. I just don't know what to do, when to do, or what will come of me coming out in terms of our relationship. Let's talk this through. Defiantly need some others to talk with. The song Apartment by Young the Giant won't stop playing in my mind, it's just about perfect (in my opinion) for this situation.
I think this post may belong in the Welcome Lounge. I am not one percent sure. You can ask one of the moderators or administrators of this website. I am not trying to criticize you, I just want you to be able to get the responses you would like, in the correct category of the forum this post belongs in.
Hi, and welcome to this forum. You have some tough choices before you. Probably the first step is to refine your understanding of where you are at in terms of your orientation. If you have been attracted to both men and women, and are still attracted sexually to your wife, then your choice is really whether you want to stay monogamously married to her, or try for some more unusual arrangement with her. But if your current attraction is to men in general (not just your boss) then you are probably going to end up in a different situation than married to your wife when all of this has been resolved. You are the only person who can answer that orientation question, and it sounds like you have mostly decided that you are gay, which implies that you are no longer sexually attracted to your wife, even though you have not come out and said it in your post. If you tell her "I am gay", you are as much as telling her you are not sexually attracted to her. Of course this is going to have a negative impact on her self-esteem, and may launch her into the usual stages of grief. There aren't very many ways to sugar-coat the reality of that kind of announcement, no matter how you say it to her. In terms of helping her, and probably you too, there is a book "Over the Cliff: Gay Husbands in Straight Marriages" written by Bonnie Kaye and Doug Dittmer which would be a good read for you right now and her after you disclose your orientation to her. It will help you realize that you are not alone in this discovery about yourself after being married, and what some others have done to deal with the situation. In addition, you will find shorter descriptions of this same problem in the LGBT Later in Life sub-forum, because that is when your type of situation most often occurs, later in life. If you feel strongly that change in your situation is necessary, then you need to get prepared for the possibility of immediate denial and then anger after you tell her about yourself. This might include serious depression for her, and may include her asking you to leave your home if you have been indiscrete enough to act on your homosexual urges with another man, and you tell her about this. If you have NOT cheated on her with someone else, then you still have the possibility to discuss this as a revelation and work with her cooperatively to resolve what the two of you are going to do about it. You also have the option to take steps to dissolve the marriage without bringing your orientation into the discussion at all, go through a no-fault legal separation and divorce, and defer your "coming out" process until after you are divorced; whether this option would be appropriate for your situation and cause the least trouble for her is for you to decide. Whatever you decide to do, it is not your wife's fault that you are gay, nor is it yours; the only "fault" would be if you knew it before you married her and married her anyway for your convenience or cover, which doesn't sound like it is the case. Otherwise, it is just an unfortunate situation which you are both going to have to deal with, when you are clear with what you want to do, and are ready to proceed.
