Yesterday my wife and I met at our therapists for my disclosure as my wife wanted to know about what I had “done” as a gay man during our marriage. There was the major lie of me not telling her before our wedding that I suspected I was gay. I didn't want to accept my gay attractions and I went into complete denial for years. Then there were the lies related to covering up my internet gay porn viewing during the past 15 years of our 21 year marriage. I have been faithful and resisted to the urge to be with “real men”, but that took more energy than I now have, and I have stated I want a divorce. Mentally I felt prepared as I wrote and edited my disclosure, so I am taken aback by the intensity of my feelings of loss and strong emotions, now that I have gone over it with her. I stayed married for 21 years and in the closed due to the shame of being gay. She of course got angry and knows how to push my shame buttons, basically stating that I am such a damaged person with my lying about who I am that I “will never be able to be in a relationship” (direct hit to the shame target!). These are my deepest fears, which kept me in my marriage for far too long. With the therapists help, I just sat there and let these angry statements wash over me, but although intellectually I know I can overcome the shame aspects, emotionally I am having a very hard time right now.
An important part of coming out is dealing with shame, it is probably the most important issue. You are still with her, which makes it difficult to create a distance between you, but you have done something important by recognizing the buttons she is able to push, this takes away a lot of her power over you, just being conscious of what she is doing and how you feel about it. As Brené Brown said, it is YOU in the arena, "daring greatly", it is YOU who has gone through the difficult, bruising adventure of self-knowledge. She is not there with you, and because she is merely a spectator, her opinion doesn't count. Further to what Brené Brown has said, reserve a seat for two or more more people in that arena: those that support you and YOU. You need to see yourself and what you are trying to do, YOU need to take PRIDE in what you are doing in that arena, your fight for your personal integrity is worth cheering and celebrating!
We never really know what the reaction is going to be, so we? From our wives OR from ourselves. This is a hell of a day for a lot of people here. We are in such a state of turmoil and change. Do we tell our spouses? If they know, do we stay with them? Are we being fair to them? Are we being fair to ourselves? It's a terrible, painful place to be. First things first. If being a liar could prevent you from being in a relationship, there would be a hell of a lot more single people in the world, gay AND straight! That comment really WAS aimed at your deepest fears and has NOTHING to do with who you are as a person. It's anger and fear and confusion being aimed at the most convenient (and most obvious) target. And anyhow, you are STILL in a relationship, even if it's one that is vanishing as you speak. A lot of us have gone into a rough place worrying that we will leave one relationship and never get into another one. That's really putting the cart before the horse. You have far more important things to think about than who you might or might not be with in a year or 5 years or 10. Second and even more important: you are not a liar. This is an assumption but I think it's pretty fair, since basically all the people on this Later in Life section seem to say the same thing. We may have had some awareness when we married that we were attracted to the same sex, but we were in no way able to bring ourselves to accept it or act on it. If you were lying to anyone, it was yourself, thinking that being gay was something you would be able to ignore because you found someone you loved and wanted to build a future with. I did it too. Your wife needs to understand, and hopefully with time she will, as mine seems to have, that marrying her wasn't some sneaky gesture on the part of a gay man to put on a mask and deceive the world. Very likely, if you go back to what you were thinking 21 years ago, you really believed that marrying her was going to propel you into straightness and being what you thought of as "normal". And it didn't take long to find out how mistaken you were. You are SO very not alone, Al. And you have nothing to be ashamed about, although you won't understand that for awhile. You are accepting yourself. In the end that's what we have to do, or else we will spend our lives hating ourselves--and in the end, even if you're IN a relationship, that is the first person who has to accept and love you. Keep talking. We're listening.
Choirboy really has this nailed, Al. So many of us here are in the same throes of redefining our relationships with ourselves, with our partners, with the world. There's a lot of guilt, shame, and grief involved in the process. This process, like growing old, is not for sissies. But we've set ourselves on this road. And the only way is forward. As Choirboy said... Keep talking. We're listening. /Ed.
The thing about your marriage is that it is better for both of you to be together than apart. Next your wife can only cope with so much; She being different to you and having a different value system and perspective . Try to stand back and see things as she does. Listen to beneath the anger and reaction to she is saying about her limits and life perspective. Then for her and your marriage make some compromises. Fall in love with her again. Be nice to her. And you Will! Find a way through this.
