Do you regret marriage?

If any of us got married to keep up appearances, then we would be worthy of blame.

I am a rather independent guy, so keeping up appearances is usually furthest from my mind (though I fully acknowledge that the "independent self" is largely an illusion). It's the reason I chose my own religion; but having made that choice, I subscribed to a way of life that mandated marriage and kids. Thus, the subtle process began, where conformity to a set of rules (rather than to a set of people in a community) made deciding to marry somewhat automatic.

For those born after, say, 1985, you have no idea how impossibly difficult it was to acknowledge one's homosexuality or to live that life under the very repressive conditions of that time. Combine that with the fluidity of sexuality and the whole spectrum of hetero-homo inclinations, and combine that further still with the AIDS epidemic of that time, then you can perhaps begin to understand that getting married was much more complicated than a matter of keeping up appearances...

 

Yeah I do not know of anyone who got married to hide. It was just expected and I conformed to regret it as it is very unfair to ourselves and spouses. Of course many of us had children which for me is my shining light. None of this was even thinkable growing up. It is now so hopefully this "phenomenon" will start to end with opcoming generations. I'd like to think of a day when coming to terms that your gay is ho hum. Maybe that day is not to far off.

 

Yes and no.... I really didn't deliberately get married to keep up appearances. It was more because I didn't fully understand all the implications of being gay. I didn't feel comfortable with the gay stereotypes at the time and was too naive to realize that there were plenty of gay people who were quite different from those stereotypes. When I met my wife, and she was interested in me and I in her, I though she was proof that I wasn't really gay (or at least not completely gay) and I could live a "normal" straight life. I wanted children and I wanted to be accepted, and she was the only woman I had ever met in 30 years who I really believed I could have that happy, idyllic life with.

Looking back, I do regret that I was so blind that I couldn't see the reality that the marriage wasn't something I could sustain, not only because I was gay, but also because there are things about my wife that would have caused issues regardless of my sexuality. I chose to ignore them because I believed that love was enough, and some of our conflicting attitudes and emotional reactions and core beliefs would adjust themselves in time. Perhaps if I was straight I could have ignored them, but I'm not totally convinced of that. And she got plenty out of our relationship as well, so the blindness was not just on my part.

But do I regret it completely....no. We have two wonderful kids together, whose personalities are a surprisingly good blend of ours. I did get her out of an abusive and dangerous relationship, and in the 20 years we have been married, she had it far easier than she would have with her ex or just about any other guy. And I had more than enough time to accept being gay and make it a positive thing in my life, instead of a source of worry and insecurity. I was certainly working overtime to conform to all the standards of society, because I felt at the time that it was a positive thing. I was wrong, and edging out of my marriage has been a major challenge that has given me a lot of mixed feelings, but I have a hard time regretting a 20-year-old decision that really did seem right at the time.

 

Sustain is the operative word, it seems. The marriages described on here all get out of the gate just fine and then sputter.

I sort of agree with CB about a gay (or bi) guy not as easily overlooking what a straight guy might in a marriage. Straight married guys who are more happy than not in their marriages put up with the "honey do" list, having the chain yanked on them for sex, some verbal abuse, and even misuse of the money they bring home. But they are really into their wives, their families, and their marriages to tolerate it. I wouldn't tolerate it. I previewed all this from the outside, either through friends who got married or family friends who had those dynamics in their households. I decided it wasn't for me.

And, oops, sorry for responding on what was apparently directed to married folks. But, lol, just because I'm on a diet doesn't mean I can't read the menu.

 

I do not regret my marriage. I do wish that I could have provided what she really wanted and I think deserved; and what she thought rightfully she would get from me. I tried, I tried hard. Which means, my real problem in this is that I regret that I was too unaware and then too afraid to own myself sooner. As to my marriage, when I entered it I was really oblivious to so many things. These 12 years have been mostly bad. Yet I have two beautiful children and I have grown in many ways, good and ill, from being with my wife. There is no going back to make amends. There is only doing my best to deal with this all moving forward.

Regret is a slippery slope. It is a process on a road to realizing and facing deeper issues I think. It is hard to face those places where we might be culpable. To be accountable to ourselves, and perhaps our spouses, etc. I think they are important steps tho. To own mistakes, even deplorable ones, naive ones, innocent ones--they help us move forward in a way that has some integrity and even honor.

 

I don't regret my marriage, because it was the sum of my life experiences that made me who I am and got me to the place where I met my husband. Had I not got married, who knows what my life would have been like...

Sure, it would have been nice to have been able to provide for my wife the life that she thought she had found with me. But I couldn't. We have two beautiful daughters and we maintain a good friendship, and that's all I can ask for.

 

I regret mine- even though I owe her for my job, comming out. I asked for the wrong reason figuring I could live with it. She said yes even though she always thought I was gay.

 

I don't think regret marriage, but I do regret the harm it has done to my wife. I knew full well that I was gay long before we met. When we hit it off and I started to fall in love with her, I believed that there was a real possibility that I could have a "normal" life. I didn't want to be gay. I grew up in the 80's seeing the news and hearing at church just how disgusting "those people" were. I didn't want any part of it. I had a boyfriend briefly in college, but it was so on the down low no one knew until I came out to my parents. After that I dated no one and pretended to be straight for my job.

When I met the woman I married, it was the first time I had romantic feelings for a woman. Maybe it was just wanting to be straight. Even as much as I loved her I couldn't initiate intimacy. Ever. I participated and enjoyed it early on but over time I found that I would imagine being with a man to be able to finish the deed.

We have two beautiful children. I am grateful for the opportunity to have them in my life. I've been unable to connect with them as a father should since I was devoting so much emotional energy to keeping myself from accepting that I'm gay. Now I don't have to do that and find that I have so much more patience with them.

We both went into marriage for the wrong reasons, and stayed in it for even worse reasons. She was feeling unloved for years because of my detachment and lack of seeking intimacy with her. In time when I was only able to think about men I became even more detached and to an extent resentful of our marriage and what it represents. I thought of myself as a decent moral person but there I was using her to perpetuate a lie for myself.

I became more and more depressed about what I had done. I finally had to accept that I am gay and I have put her through emotional cruelty for years. She is hardly blameless in our failed relationship but the root cause is squarely at my feet. Each day we draw closer to the divorce being final and I look forward to building a better relationship with the kids.

So it wasn't conformity or keeping up appearances per se, but it was about doing what would make me comfortable with myself regardless of how it impacted her. I never gave the consequences of failure a second thought.

 

I'm still figuring out my sexuality so I'm going to write from my experiences thus far. The road I was going on before I met my husband was very destructive. I was sleeping around with a lot with men who were only around for one thing. When I met my husband I was ecstatic at this wonderful connection we had. I liked him so much and he liked me - we were great together.

It has taken my marriage to recognize that I have strong(er) feelings for women, and cannot maintain a lasting connection with a man. If I had not have gotten married, I would have continued to sleep around. I know this sounds kind of cliche but I sort of look at my husband as my "hero" and that's another reason why it's been really difficult to let go of him.

I honestly don't think I will ever fully let him go no matter what happens, he will always have a special place in my heart, we've grown up together, raised children, seen each other through so much. It's been so difficult having to go through all of this.

 

I don't regret my marriage. We were good friends, raised by our families to translate that into "step 2: date/get married" I believe. We have wonderful children. I have regrets along the path of our marriage, but I'm trying to keep in mind that everything in my past has made me into the person I am today. Regrets only waste more time. Better to learn from them but not dwell on them.

 

I try not to regret anything in my life as everything I did got me to where and who I am today. So not a regret.
But I do wish I lived a little before I settled down. I was a 16 year old virgin when I met my first husband. We brought our first place when I was 18 and married when I was 20. So so young!, far too young! I didn't have time to really explore who I was.

 

How can I regret a love that for so many years brought me great joy, contentment, and three beautiful children? I do regret the lack of trust I've instilled in my wife, the turmoil and the stress, the uncertainty that my coming out has caused. I remember fondly the 1st time we made love. I felt like we'd endure forever. It came to a point where I couldn't hide who I was any longer from her or myself. She made me a better person, and though she may not see it now, I hope she will in the future.

 

I regret mine. I wish we would have just remained friends and had kids, but lived separately. It would have been better for my children, and I would have possibly retained a friend. My best friend.

 

I don't regret marriage. I have always wanted to have children, and my marriage gave me that. I was up front with my wife about liking men from the start, so there was never an issue with sneaking around. The marriage is at its end, but my wife and I will remain friends.

 

Personally, I suspect it would still have taken me a long time, not to realize my sexuality, but to accept it.

My awkwardness and discomfort with the gay stereotypes of the '80's and '90's were major factors in my trip into the closet, but they weren't the only ones. I grew up in a large extended family that was close intellectually, but not physically or emotionally, so I never really saw a lot of affection shown to anyone. There were no single people and no gays to be seen. Sex was not discussed, and certainly not sexuality, although everyone generally got married in their early 20's and immediately started having kids, so there was plenty of it going on. I was the oldest child in the family, AND the first grandchild (of over 30!) on one side of the family alone, so I was programmed almost from birth to want a family of my own. I felt attractions to guys early on, but was completely clueless that it was any kind of a hard-wired orientation, and assumed very naively that all the confusion was something everyone went through, and would magically evaporate when I met the right girl.

On top of all that, around the time that I actually DID finally start to make some of the connection and consider the possibility that I was gay (well, bi was as far as I was able to admit at the time), I went through a series of major family events. My younger sister married and had a baby, my father had life-threatening surgery, I graduated from college and was on my own for the first time, and we had a rash of deaths in the family, including my mother, my only two grandparents, a teenage cousin and several aunts and uncles. In the aftermath of all that, I met my wife, who was going through trauma of her own, and we connected.

Given all that, my suspicion is that I would still have ended up married. But who knows? It's interesting to think about the "what ifs", but in the end, what matters is that I am where I am now, trying to make the best of the decisions I made many years ago.

 

This is something my counselor and I have discussed. I think if my family hadn't moved to the Deep South and become heavily involved in my grandmother's church, I'd have figured out I was gay much, much sooner. Where we lived before was much more varied as far as the people we lived near and came in contact with everyday and we didn't attend any type of fundamentalist churches before moving. So, if back then there were no issues with homosexuality and gay marriage, yeah, I think I would have figured it out. Looking back, there were clear signs of my sexuality that became suppressed and hidden in the first few years as we became settled in our new home.