Soon to tell, but there is hope!

Hi everyone, I've made two posts so far here and yall have been so sweet and encouraging so I decided to follow up a little bit.

Since my husband was reacting so calmly to me telling him that I believed that I was not actually bisexual, but had been suppressing total romantic/sexual preference for women, we decided to be calm and have several long discussions about it, my history, our history, and what we could do.

I'd never been so honest, never allowed myself to be honest with myself all these years. When I was a teen, my parents *were* very homophobic Christians, and when I joined the military in 2001, Don't Ask Don't Tell was alive and well (and I was threatened with it, twice.). I never realized how much I have been shamed and heartbroken the times that I attempted to have relationships with women, and how terrified I was of the way my family *used* to treat me about it, and how my career was held in the balance.

Talking with him about all the reasons I convinced myself to just find a 'nice guy' made me really start learning to forgive myself for not being one of the people who knew who they were and were out and proud from day one. He forgives me and is not angry at me.

So, there is now the question of what to do. Since I am in full time college and depend on his insurance for my disability, it would be disadvantageous to our family to divorce right now. We've decided to both go to individual therapy, because we both have our own issues to work out, and co-habitate peacefully (and not engage in any relationships on the side). I finish my BS in October, and when I get a good job that pays well enough for me to afford to take over the apartment, then we will separate. But he intends that myself and our children will not be punished for my orientation, and we will do everything to preserve our friendship and keep our family happy, healthy, and safe.

I have a lot of sadness and conflicting emotions about all this, but, I do get to go see an LGBT positive therapist tomorrow (she confirmed to me on the phone that she identifies as Lesbian, no mean feat here in San Antonio ) and with places like Empty Closets and therapy, I hope I can figure this thing out.

I just wanted to put this out there, that while I am conflicted by my sadness of the separation to come and giving up the idea of the person (and marriage) that never truly existed, there can be hope that it can work out calmly and peacefully for the best.

Of course, time will tell. This is only a few weeks into the process of coming out to myself/my husband. But there it is. Thank you everyone for helping me to stay positive.

 

Thank you Prairie Rachel and Wildside.

I say soon to tell because I hope with everything that it works out this way and nothing goes wrong in the plans, but I really hope it can go this way.

 

Thanks Aboutface. There's a story about why he is probably taking it this way.

His mother was a lesbian. His mother married his father very young, and dealt with her feelings of conflict with her sexual identity in a straight marriage by treating herself very badly and becoming an alcoholic. They lived in a small town and divorced after a few years. His mother had a few relationships with women afterwards, notably one lady in particular who happened to be butch and gave my husband the most attention than he actually got from either parent (probably also a factor in him being very positive and supportive of the gay/lesbian community). His father blamed his mother and his mother blamed herself. His mother died in her 50s, last year, probably a result of the alcohol and drug abuse.

He grew up in the midst of turmoil and seeing his parents broken and unable to give their children the care they deserved because they didn't get therapy, they didn't give each other or themselves forgiveness or acceptance, they didn't handle the situation to allow each other to accept themselves for who they were and have their kids grow up to see what happiness and self love is. So, my husband is in therapy for a lot of issues he has from this sad childhood.

But instead of hating me, like I think the knee jerk reaction of the straight spouse may be, he feels empathy and wants me to get therapy and save our children from the cycle.

We wonder if there was something subconscious in his choosing of a lesbian 'in denial', and my choosing him, somebody so accepting because his aunt, mother, and stepmother were all gay/lesbians.

Who knows?

The point is to get therapy, and save ourselves from that cautionary tale, and save our kids from that.

Our greatest fears are:

1. Losing our friendship, despite the fact that we can now admit that we never had any real 'romance' to our relationship, we have carried each other through a lot of traumatic life events and had children together; we are bonded and are afraid of standing on our own (hence the individual therapy)

2. Having the kids live in two households instead of one, the visitation type relationship, more stress upon me as a single mother (along with my disability) and a diminished role for him as a father

3. Future relationships - our own fears of not finding someone, my fears of having so much 'straight baggage' in my 30's trying to figure out the lesbian dating scene, or having jealous new mates who are intimidated by us keeping a blame-free coparenting friendship.

So there are a lot of reasons why he is reacting differently than a lot of straight spouses might, but at the same time we both are scared.

My best to everyone facing these issues too.

 

I'm going in a few hours to go see my LGBT+ positive therapist... I am very nervous and excited at the same time. I'll update how it goes...

 

Thank you Patrick I'm really glad EC is here.

So I met with the therapist, and she was really awesome. She actually told me that trying to pinpoint the label of my sexuality was not really the most important prominence at this moment in time; really what is more needed is to take the time to go through my relationship history and really examine what's been going on with the choices I made, to help me figure out how I got here, and when I can see clearly the hows and whys of my sexual and romantic decisions, then I can figure out more of what's going on how I identify, and what's also going to be important - what I want out of a relationship, what I can offer. She was really great. I also had no idea that so much of my past relationships were like pinballs of rejection and revenge pinging off of one another leaves a lot to chew on. Thank you for everyone who has offered support <3