I am a 53 year old married guy, no kids, and since my mid 40s have begun to suspect I am gay but have not discussed this with my wife. I have wanted so long to talk to other gay guys, face to face, to help me understand my sexuality and just by chance an openly gay couple moved in next door. After getting to know them casually for a few years I eventually decided that I should talk to them but felt guilty at involving them because I am married. I decided to send them an anonymous letter explaining that I knew them and that I was married and if they wanted to help they should let me know by emailing this 1 off address I had setup to hide my identity at which point I said I would reveal my identity. After a few weeks I had no reply and noticed I had made an error :eusa_doh: in the email address I had used in the letter so I did not know if they had replied or not, so I decided to send an anonymous text message explaining the error in the email address and if they wanted to talk they should message me back. Well I got a message back telling me to stop playing games and disclose who I was. I could tell from the tone of the message they were not happy. So not wanting to leave things as they were I decided to come clean and apologise for the message, I phoned one of the guys but got his answering machine so had to leave a message, I was a total wreck by then. I eventually got a text back on my phone agreeing to meet discreetly. When I talked to them face to face they told me they would never have guessed it was me sending the message and the reason they were a bit annoyed was that one of the guys is not out at work and they thought it was someone else trying to trick him out of the closet. I explained the reason for my anonymous approach was that I did not want to involve them unless they were happy to talk knowing that they both know my wife, but because of the email error and me just coming out on the phone I sort of removed their choice and forced them to become involved which I now regret. We had a long and helpful chat but since then they have seemed a little distant so I am thinking they would prefer not to discuss my situation again. So my question is: should I bring this up with them or just let things be. Sale Gay Guy
I admire how much you have gone through to try and reach out and how you resolved the miscommunication. It's great to hear after the initial confusion cleared that you were able to talk. Having community and someone to sort through what you must be going through is incredibly important. And giving yourself that nearby support is great and took a lot of courage, so I applaud you. In addition to friends, I think it would be very helpful to you to seek out a talk therapist/counselor to meet with weekly and discuss these things. Your friends, although obviously familiar with being sexual minorities, have their own experiences with being gay that will differ from yours. And although you may have shared ground, it sounds like this is a turbulent time for you and more support than casual understanding would be helpful and a way to release some of the tension that comes with this kind of secret. A talk therapist will also be able to give you more resources, time, and energy, and you can certainly get this help discreetly. I wish you all the best of luck!
I agree. Since you are in Manchester I would guess you have more resources available to you than the kid living in redneck city, Texas. Get your ass into some gay men's meeting groups. But I would not be surprised if you get a dinner invite sometime down the road from your gay neighbors. Just because they do not appear to be into your company right now does not mean forever. Couples are that way with other singles. You are sort of a single since your wife is not a part of this dialog.
Thanks for the replies Wandering I & Jeff. A few years ago as I was starting to feel that I may be gay I did go to talk to a LGBT councillor but I was also struggling with physical health problems and ended up needing heart surgery and then I managed to break my shoulder so I never got round to any follow up meetings. Last year however, after 8 sessions of counselling for PTSD, I did eventually come out to my therapist. I am a very graphic person and had created a diagram for discussion during the session to show all the external issues that were impacting my PTSD. To try and make sure that I discussed being gay I added a large photo of an elephant in the top corner of my diagram. I noticed my therapist repeatedly looking at the “elephant in the room” but he did not mention it, I was hoping that he would and that would be a lead in to me telling him I thought I was gay. With just minutes left in the session I told him that there was something else bothering me and that he must force me to confront it in the next session. He asked me just to give him an idea what it was so he could make a note for the next meeting , after a long pause I told him “I think I’m gay”. On the way home after the session I did feel like a huge weight had been lifted but to my surprise I only found it necessary to discuss my sexuality in 2 other sessions. I am thinking that since he was not a dedicated LGBT therapist perhaps he did not delve deep enough. So I will think about going to some dedicated therapist but this may have to wait until I have discussed this with my wife as I can’t find a suitable excuse for some clandestine meetings. Sale Gay Guy
