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The Perfect Storm

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by MLArmageddon, Feb 19, 2016.

  1. MLArmageddon

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    Reading through the threads there seems a commonality to many of our experiences.
    We mostly seem to be the 'golden' child that felt he/she couldn't do anything wrong or anything to disappoint our families.I know all I wanted was to 'fit in' and 'get on' in life.
    After a bit of experimenting when we are younger;we get married and settle down to an ostensibly 'perfect' white picket fence life +/- kids we adore & spouses whom we love & our best friends. In fact to the outside world it seems we have those fabled perfect marriages.
    Most of us seem to be 'bisexual' enough to manage the early years of our opposite sex marriage & dating. Would it have been easier if we didn't have any opposite sex attractions and would that have stopped us getting into relationships & marriages that whilst might have brought some joy have also brought pain & loss both to ourselves & our spouses/ kids?
    Thereafter we seem to manage to repress our same sex attractions whilst we are busy with young children & the halcyon early days of marriage.Sex reduces/stops in the marriage and we exist with our spouses as friends/ companions. Then to paraphase Taxodium we reach 40s/middle age and we all get 'run over' by the freight train of our undeclared true sexuality or same sex needs as our kids develop their independence and we are faced with a future we don't want but cannot seem to escape from.
    I know it may seem like cod psychology but is it the toxic combination of our need to be loved/ please those nearest to us, low self esteem & being just bisexual enough that leads us into this perfect storm & will the same thing happen to younger men & women now the ground rules have at least changed somewhat in terms of acceptance of gay & lesbian relationships.
    I know I would not wish this pain on anyone else if I could help them to be strong enough & true enough to themselves to avoid my mistakes.
     
  2. SiennaFire

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    This is a great synthesis of the threads into an archetypical coming out story. Bravo!

    The current generation is growing up in an environment that is more accepting of the LGBT community such that there are fewer lessons from society, church, family, and friends that being LGBT is wrong or bad, which translates into more acceptance of LGBT relationships and fewer people who are forced into the closet. Unfortunately there are still pockets of homophobia throughout the world, where our LGBT brothers and sisters still live in fear in the closet. While things are getting better for this generation, we must continue to be vigilant and fight homophobia wherever it exists.
     
    #2 SiennaFire, Feb 19, 2016
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2016
  3. Iowan1976

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    I agree with both of the previous posts.

    1. At least for me (Being in my late 30's), being anything but straight was not acceptable where I lived. I remember a teacher (Yes, a teacher) who said something in a human development class that people who have gay tendencies have something mentally wrong with them and there are places for them. Well, as a high schooler who knew that I was attracted to guys that just put me deeper in the closet. So I did what the other guys did, I dated girls. What was different is that I went through the actions with no emotional connections.

    It is so exciting for the LGBT youth of today. I am so excited for them. They are going to enter a world that is so much more accepting. They are going to be able to love whoever they want in the open. I feel like the emotional and mental torment that I had to go through with trying to figure out who I am and that there is nothing wrong with me was worth it.
     
  4. MLArmageddon

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    I'm getting to the point where I know I'm going to have to come out fully to my wife & ultimately our kids.
    At the moment guilt, fear & sheer blind panic are eating me slowly from the inside.
    So far, I've dunked a toe in the water & told her that I've been having fantasies about men but she knew I was bisexual before we married, so she thinks that's OK as long as I don't act on them. Maybe I should have gone the whole hog and told her the truth from the beginning. 'I like men only now, I want to be with a man, I love you as friend but that's it'. Maybe it just hurts more to rip the scab off slowly....
    I guess I don't know how long I'm going to be able to keep to this and try & hammer the door shut on my closet again.
    So much torture over something as simple as the gender of the people we have sex with and want to love. I just don't know if it's even worth the pain it will bring to everyone but I'm getting into a darker & darker place and I know it's all going to fall to sh*t if I don't do something.
    I don't want to be on my own, away from the kids & my wife but i'm not going to cheat & feel even worse than I already do. Seems I've only got once choice but help me god it's hard...
     
  5. JohnnyWisdom

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    MLArmageddon, I can relate to your situation.

    Last March, I went through the first stage of what would become a full-blown crisis of belief. I called one of my closest friends and came out to her as gay. In the meantime, I told my wife I was having strong urges to be with another man after 12 years of marriage based on my being a monogamous bisexual. When I talked to my wife, however, I couldn't go all the way and hoped maybe she would guess the rest herself. Instead, she began talking about opening our marriage and what that would look like and how we could/should proceed. It was a brief respite from the guilt and panic I'd been feeling, but once I settled into the thought of having an open marriage or some sort of three-way, I realized that would never do. I didn't want two people in my life, I only wanted one - another man.

    Throughout the summer, my wife explored open- and mixed-orientation marriages online and grew sicker and sicker with the dread of telling her I wasn't interested in her any longer. It got to the point that I considered killing myself as the only viable option. I spent the month of August in one of the darkest places of my life. It was only her love and support that brought me through it to the place where I finally told her last September that I am gay.

    I hope you are able to skip the dark place and just open the door and step out of the closet. Once I told her, telling my parents, my brother, my three kids, all became monumentally easier. After years of dreading telling my parents, they both took it in perfect stride, accepting me no matter what. My brother had suspected years before but I'd spent so many years married, he'd given up on that idea. Our kids were the most surprised and upset, more by the thought of divorce than by my gayness.

    Since then, my life has become so much better - it really does get better, as they say. I have a gay therapist who is the best thing in the world. I have several new gay friends and this summer I will be moving with my wife to Houston to start a new life together but separately. Our youngest is only 10, so we're going to live together and co-parent, but have separate bedrooms and, to whatever extent possible, separate lives.

    Feel free to ask me any questions you might have, so far things are going very well for us.
     
    #5 JohnnyWisdom, Feb 20, 2016
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2016