the most difficult convo of my life....this weekend.

Hello EC,

I've been reading posts on here for about a month and it has been extremely helpful in understanding myself and my feelings. So thanks, to all of you.

Quickly -- my story, which thankfully, after reading posts here, is not completely out of the ordinary. I've lived a hetero life, got married at 32 to an amazing woman, who I thought I would be married to my entire life. So, after living overseas for the last four years in difficult places, we returned to the States this past summer. By November I was dealing with some deep depression and possibly some PTSD, so got some drugs and started being able to think more clearly, maybe 50 percent of the time. And then I was completely stunned when on December 23, in the middle of the night, while driving and my wife was sleeping, I had the epiphany. It was like a voice in my head said it -- I'm gay and I have to tell my wife. It scared me senseless. Since December 23, I've been through the worst anxiety I have ever had -- but also my mind has been "unrepressing" things from my past. These memories are getting stronger and there is no shame or guilt attached to them -- which is nice and relieving. I've always known that I was gay, but have been able to separate those thoughts and feelings from my consciousness -- to my detriment. My wife and I are good friends, but are not intimately close and haven't been in a few years. All my fault -- but now I know why and its pretty liberating. I don't have any sexual or relationship experience with guys and the future is pretty damn scary; at least I feel more authentic just admitting it to myself.

So, my wife and I are talking this weekend and I'm going to tell her. I owe it to her not to wait any longer. I know I'm moving quickly -- since I've only admitted this to myself less than a month ago. But, I don't have any doubt about myself and I feel like delaying this is only going to hurt her more. I don't know what the future holds and I don't know exactly why I'm writing all this -- although it does assuage the anxiety some to be sending this to an empathetic crew, like you guys. I'm scared about the future of coming out to others and actually having relationships with men, but telling my wife is the first big step.

If you have any positive comments to get me through this coming weekend, I would appreciate it. And any advice on how to go about this conversation with my wife would be great. I have so much I want to say to her, but keep self censoring the script in my head -- mostly to soften the blow to her. Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks for the support. Married six years and no kids. Up until the 23rd, I was going on as usual, planning a future with her. We planned to have kids, but with our overseas experience it hasn't happened. I don't understand how this happened so suddenly--I now know that I knew this all along, but the suppression, repression, excuses to myself were so strong. I don't know what triggered this realization on that night, but I'm glad it happened. I started seeng a therapist last week and came out to her. That felt good afterwards, but the anxiety about telling my wife and my whole life changing/coming apart is all encompassing. She is such a caring, generous, amazing person and I hate that I am doing this to her....too many emotions to process. I come from a family that doesn't talk about feelings or emotions, so I'm not skilled at it, not even thinking about/analyzing my own. I just hope that after talking to her, things will be clearer and some of the anxiety goes away so I can deal with the next steps. I know it won't be easy.

 

Thanks again for all the words of encouragement and advice.

SiennaFire--very helpful list, thank you.

JohnnyWisdom -- thanks for the advice. I think they'll be more crying than anything. She doesn't really get angry, at least I haven't ever seen her really angry about anything. But I guess you never know.

I'll update you all on how it goes.

Wishing I had some Xanax,
WFW