Can I have a temper tantrum? I don't want to be gay. I just don't.

Let me ask you this.

Imagine for a moment that you were completely 100% straight, but in addition for some reason you've fallen out of love with your husband.

You know he's a great guy still, and he is a good father and supports you with whatever but you just don't feel anything romantic for him any more. Instead you are starting to notice other men. Whatever it was you two had is just gone.

What would you do in that situation?


The reason I ask is because you appear to be setting yourself up for something very damaging.

What you seem to hate is the results of a marriage that can't work any more. The shame, the disruption to your family life and the effects it will have on your children. The envy of other people who do make it work. The feeling that whatever you do people will talk about it when your not around.

You acknowledge that you can't change who you are, and yet you seem determined to tell yourself that you should and will for the sake of not having to go through these things.

All those things you mentioned are horrible, I mean they are just awful. It doesn't matter that divorce isn't seen as being as shameful as it was 50 years ago it still hurts. All those things make YOU feel like you've failed, and that is a horrible way to feel.

But you are completely justified in hating those things, because those things are awful. NOBODY enjoys those feelings. But what you are doing (not necessarily intentionally) is turning yourself against the one thing that can actually be GOOD for you.

Accepting who you are means you and your husband can move on. If you sit there and tell yourself that you hate being gay because it caused all your problems, you won't move on. How could you, you would have to embody the thing you've told yourself you hate.

With the best will in the world, you DON'T have that perfect family and neither do they. None of your friends do. Any happy family is going to look good to you because right now you feel like your ruined yours. You haven't. YOU are not breaking it apart.

When you say 'breaking it apart' you automatically think of destruction. You think that you are destroying your marriage, that you are aggressive and doing something bad. But you aren't. Don't get me wrong, it'll hurt. It'll hurt you AND your husband, it will, but if it needs to happen it needs to happen.

 

How old are you?

I personally believe no one asks to be gay, it'd about accepting it and embracing it eventually. No rush in your own time.

 

sage advise there Valerie.(*hug*) all the best

 

I've had this emotion. I'm not sure that this is helpful advice but I would be careful about trying to fight your feelings about this; although you may try invoking yourself to 'just accept yourself', it's not that easy, and we all know it.

Your feelings are not wrong. This is a real loss and you must grieve it. It is, I think, a necessary grief and - as a phase rather than a permanent state - it is healthy and will move you forward.

Even the jealousy you seem to feel for those 'perfect families' is not irrational; it's understandable. And yes, they have something you don't. But you have things they don't, as well. For so long I would look at guys my own age, with beautiful girlfriends etc. and wonder why couldn't I be like them? I no longer do that. Life is complicated.

IMHO, take it easy and try to go slow.

 

I have these emotions... not around a family, just about my life in general. Things were moving right along and now this monkey wrench of someone coming into my life that I am attracted to and having to ponder my sexuality.

I want to dodge and avoid it ... and boy am I trying. On some level I know I just cant.

 

Valerie, I don't know if this will help you or not, but I am going to share it with you anyway. I think I know, at least partly, what it is you are feeling. You can see that your marriage is coming to an end, and you want to somehow save it. I went through a period where I too felt almost helpless to face the knowledge that my marriage is coming to an end. For me it's been as if I've been watching a friend slowly die right in front of me, knowing that it's been by my hand. Not that I've done anything wrong. I never hid the fact that I like men from my wife. She knew it going into the marriage. But I still feel guilty because I'm the one telling her that the time has come for our marriage to end so I can be free to just be a gay man instead of a gay man in a heterosexual marriage. The fact that we're friends and always will be friends seems like little comfort in the face of the realization that the life I've spent the last 27 years living is in the process of being dismantled. It hurts. There are times that I think about my marriage dying and I can't help but cry.

However, what I'm slowly coming to realize is that what I'm feeling is normal. In a sense, I am going through a mourning process. I can't allow myself to fear it, reject it, push it away, or any of those things because it's part of what I need to go through to become who I have always been destined to become. When those feelings of fear, sadness, and anger come my way, I don't fight them. I allow myself to hurt. Otherwise, I will never get to where it is I need to be. And you know what? Little by little, those feelings that hurt so much are starting to be replaced with feelings of excitement, wonder, and self-acceptance.

I don't know if any of what I've said will help you or not, but what I gathered from your post is that you see the darkness coming your way and it has you frightened. Just remember that darkness is always followed and overcome by light.

 

It's nothing magical.

Tears.

Tears do it. Bleeding it out through tears.


(*hug*)