Hi all. Some will remember me having posted a little over the last year. Brief summary: I’m a 59 year old man, married 27 years, son 24, daughter 21. Two years ago I began psychological therapy for flat emotions and poor sex life after being nudged by my wife to do so. Opening up my feeling capacity in that work, I suddenly found there are men. And men in a way that makes me reel emotionally and physically. My wife knows this is happening but not in nearly as big a way as I’m feeling it. So here’s the setup to my question to you. And I apologize to those who’ve heard me ask a form of it before. As we broach this subject together, my wife tells me that if the outcome is that I have come to fully realize I’m gay, her life is over. She’ tells me she is millimeters away from suicide. If she survives that she will have to move away from our city for her sake, as she won’t be able to stand the pity party. She says angrily that our kids will side with me, that they’ll love me and isolate her because she’ll be so angry at me for a ‘wasted life’ (of course I feel that more likely I’ll be the isolated one). She tells me it makes her feel like I’ve just used her to have a family and live an ‘accepted family life in society’. Others on here have told me that I can’t be responsible for her behaviors, but I do feel very responsible. I feel I have robbed her of a future of later life years with a loving husband. I’ve robbed her of having an intact future family unit. I feel very responsible for ripping our family apart (having not yet done it) So, given her likely very angry response I’d really like to hear from others who had an experience like that and suggestions how to approach it and what it’s been like. This is, more than anything I think, holding me back. I’m so afraid I will be turning her into a bitter, angry woman who will never want to see me again and who will walk away from our kids. I know that if I try to silence this in me, I may turn in to, at worst, a bitter, resentful, emotionally flat and distant partner/husband….. but how do I live through her reaction and make life on the other side as best it can be? Thanks all. I value your experiences and support so much.
She's just beginning to mourn the loss of her marriage. She's entitled to be angry. What she's not entitled to are threats of suicide or the drama about moves, etc. She's using those to manipulate you, attempting to hold things together, right the ship as it were. Deep done she realizes what was cannot exist any longer. You both need to go to couples therapy together. She may go through all the stages of grief, she may not. You are not her punching bag for what has taken place. Most of us entered our marriages, because we loved the person we were marrying, took our vows seriously, and were in deep, deep denial of who we we're sexually. What you've done is honest and honorable. It's also hard as Hell. This will be an emotional rollercoaster for both of you so buckle up. You will get through this as will your wife. Always take the moral high ground through this. If you do, you will have your dignity and integrity. That is no small thing and can be a comfort when things are difficult. Your future is just as unsure as hers. There are no guarantees period. I'll keep you in my prayers.
It's a process, a difficult one, yes, but it needs a re-framing of the situation. It starts with you coming clean with her about everything, this will have the effect of short-circuiting her inevitable attempt at doing detective work and conducting an inquisition on you. This includes how you felt about her when you married, and how you held up your end of the bargain (fidelity, raising the kids, supporting your family, etc.). Next, and this is the hard part, the narrative has to change from: "this is what you did to her" to "this is what is happening to us". It is a crisis in the relationship, not something you did, but something that happened to both of you. Marriage has changed radically from what it once was. In many traditions, the bargain was to raise kids and support the family. Betrayal was always very painful, but it could be seen as outside the core purpose of the marriage. In many respects, such marriages worked because they were in the context of a community that could support social needs that the marriage, on its own, could not. Nowadays, a partner in marriage has to be everything to the other, best friend, confidant, lover, my right arm, etc. So when a betrayal occurs, or when there is the possibility of loss, the other person's entire identity is under threat. This is relatively new in marriage, but not surprising given our relative social isolation from communities. If you can succeed in the difficult process of re-framing your relationship, of re-negotiating the bargain, as it were, there may be hope. I would counsel that you both seek professional help, but seek (with that help) this re-framing of expectations between you. The most important work she has to do is to gain a new understanding of who she is and what she is able to do, with your continuing support, no matter the outcome. I wish you all the best on this difficult, but necessary, path.
Horizon55, you know as well as the rest of us, that your wife is in the "anger" stage of finding out that you are gay, with a thread of denial still hanging on, as though you can solve all her problems by continuing to pretend that you are straight, so that her illusion of who she is can be maintained at your expense. She is trying to make the situation all about HER, when it is really about your relationship with her, and how it affects both of you. I am happy to say that I have no example of how to deal with an emotional woman like that, because my experience has been the opposite. My wife took it as a fault of her own, saying that she would not be able to be the (male) person who could make me happy. My burden was to convince her that that was not true, that she was and is the person who makes me happy, and that I continue to love her, just as I always have since I married her, and that I would never leave her simply to enjoy the company of a man, even if I was attracted to him, just as I would never leave her for another woman if the chips had fallen that way. She never threatened me the way your wife is threatening you, and trying to make you responsible for her own out-of-control emotions. My only suggestion for you is to listen to what Greatwhale is saying and try to be strong and not feel "guilty" about that which you have no control. You are not responsible for how you feel, only for your actions and responses. You are in no way responsible for HER emotions; she needs to get with a therapist very soon, as she is being neither logical nor reasonable. Please don't fall into the trap of being irrational with her; there is only chaos and destruction at the end of that path.
hello op, this is my first post on this forum. to share im a mtf transgender and im in a marriage where my wife is like yours. when ever i have tried to come out she has held me emotionally hostage. saying things like. you ruined my life, and she has nothing and no where to go( not true at all). when i try to say that i will support her or what ever it takes if we decide to divorce she says im a liar and i wont do it and her life is over. and complicating everything is we have a child together., and i like her family who will likely not understand. its a rough situation.... yet her emotional storms and freaking out literally puts me in shock. i can feel her pain and my guilt is so deep that i scramble back inside my closet. so..you and me are in similar situations. what do we do.... i really liked the idea of reframing the situation as greatwhale suggested i had never heard it suggested this way. i also agree that no matter what there will be emotional pain involved. i suppose you have to be ready for it. perhaps to the point of having somewhere else to stay till she calms down. this is also a strategy I'm considering. i mean i really want to stay with my wife... but it may not be in the cards and if she is going to freak out on me and be completely irrational.. my only option may be to go to some place else for a day or to... and if she still cant talk to me, i may need to have an attorney in the plan as well. anyway..good luck to you, i hope you share your results here.
Thank you all. As some of you know, it has been just over a year now since I began the realization that I believe I'm gay. I still have no experiences (beyond a crush) to reassure me of this so stepping in to creating the 'angry' wife feels so uncertain. It's like bringing on anger for something I'm not really yet sure of. But after a year of trying to re-invest in my marital relationship, open the doors to more sexual experiences with her, I'm even more deeply torn about who I am. I just feel so unclear and awfully 'unresolved'. Am I gay, am I more asexual, am I bisexual...what am I? This is so frightening to head toward the latter part of my life in such a limbo. It feels so unfair with impending existential angst over looming mortality (I turn 60 this year). But thank you all... I hear what you say about not being responsible for her behaviour in my head, but deep down in me I can't resolve the huge feeling guilt that I caused it all. I will press on. Life 'in-between' feels like trying to swim in quicksand.
It is very important to distinguish the guilt from the pain you may have caused her, from the guilt you may feel by the possibility of becoming who you are. I strongly suspect that it is only the former that is causing you distress, not the possibility of finally finding the love that you have always wanted. I found a few quotes from Marcel Proust which are quite perfect for this: And this, from Ether Perel, whose recent TED talk on infidelity I will elaborate on in another thread:
Also by Proust: The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Greatwhale, you are right, what is crippling is the pain of the guilt I am causing her. It is overwhelming... makes me nauseated and panicked much of the time. This despite my regularly seeing a therapist. I do not feel I am feeling guilty about what I am becoming, only about it's meaning for those close... my wife and kids. If I had the sense of knowing they will get to acceptance, the turmoil might ease Thank you and Bi2me for the quotes...I have changed but wrestle with 'being' changed.
