I don't have enough posts yet to send messages. So this is an answer to a question I received about a precipitating event to cause me to come out to my wife. Precipitating event for me to come out after 21 years of marriage was that my wife caught me on the computer looking at gay porn. I had been doing this for 7 years or so and was becoming increasingly careless (I think I subconsciously realizing I couldn't go on with this lie). I felt shame but also relief at finally no longer having to pretend. I went to a gay therapist and over the next 4 months he helped me accept who I am. I have known for years, but denial can be a powerful thing. What has motivated me to continue this journey is the relief I feel by being authentic with myself. 37 years in the closet-so deep and dark I didn't even know what it was until around 4 years ago when I started admitting my feelings. Even then I thought I would take this to the grave and not speak about it.:dry: Life is better when you are honest. It can be really painful at times, but this is better than being the emotional zombie that I had become. My sons have noticed a different me. I am not out to them yet. My wife and I have a lot to discuss before we are ready to tell them as they will want to know what the future holds. Probably divorce on amicable terms but too son to emotionally handle this yet.
I wish you all the best on this difficult but liberating journey. The saying that freedom has a price operates on the personal just as much as on the national level. Jason Collins is showing the way for all of us, in the end you'll sleep better!
Congrats on coming out! I also thought I could keep it a secret, stay married to my wife forever and just do the gay porn thing and have sex on the side with some friends w/benefits occasionally. But turns out we don't have as much control as we think we do in terms of compartmentalizing, and it showed in the silences and missing things in our relationship -- not only sex but other stuff too. And yeah, emotional zombie, great expression, right on target. It was scary coming out to her but I'm so glad I did, same as you, a feeling of authenticity, being able to be myself, feeling great about myself, gayness included, for the first time ever. Sounds like your wife and you are working this out well. Keep us posted!
A123, your description of your precipitating events is exactly my own. After about 7 or 8 years of gay porn and occasional male massages my wife found my secret life on my computer. I was in shock. I went to see a therapist, who happened to be gay. After six months working through my denial I came to realize I was gay. I can almost laugh now at the process. The first months of therapy were me trying to understand how I could want to have sex with men. It was sex addiction! Then maybe, I was molested, although I couldn't remember anything close to being molested that could explain it. I talked a lot about my distant father and maybe how I just needed the love I never got from him... I talked and talked and talked and the therapist just let me deal with feelings I had buried so deep I didn't even know what they were. I was an incredible "emotional zombie." I have been my whole life. The denial was very deep. It really hadn't even occurred to me I was gay. That's hard for some people to understand. Sure I was interested in gay porn. Sure I had these "weird" penis fetishes and sure the pull to be with men was getting stronger and stronger but I was living a straight life and having sex with my wife. I didn't even think I was bi. I compartmentalized the gay experiences as "that thing I do." The denial was and is so deep that it worries me that when I do finally come out to everyone will I be able to accept myself? About 5 months into therapy I was rollerblading (kind of a gay activity!) and I just started to cry. I am not a crier. I was taught to never cry - or have emotions. I just started crying and I had to stop and go sit in the grass. I sat and cried to myself. The joy of being authentic hit me. I was gay. I found myself again after 35 years maybe longer (I'm 51). I couldn't control the emotion any longer. From that moment on I knew I was gay. I also know that the authenticity I felt was going to be a huge problem. I know now that I will have to divorce my wife and pursue the life I was meant to pursue. Not because I have to be with men. That's only a part of it now. Living a lie was killing me. I don't want to live like that again. I loved my wife when I married her. I still love her. But the feeling is too strong. I can't go back now... so like most of the people on this site I keep moving towards total acceptance and hopefully a happiness I have never known.
OMG! Finallyme, your post describes my experience to a T. Complete denial, bizarre conversations with my therapist on could it be sex addiction, compulsion, just sexual "tastes" that are not the same as orientation, etc. Anything to not be gay--you see these other issues can be "fixed", but not my orientation. I have now accepted who I am and after such a long time of denial the relief is palpable. I am crying right now as I write this because there are others (you) who know exactly what I am going through. I am happy to be more emotionally complete rather than living emotionally numb. The paradox is this has brought my wife and I closer together than we have been in years--but I am still gay and the desire to have sex with her is just not there. This is very difficult for her to understand. We are still going slowly through the experience of assimilating all this information (OK, I have had a bit of a head start on this....:icon_bigg) and are trying to figure out how to divorce with minimal impact on our sons. Difficult situation to be in, but necessary if I am to be true to myself and not create a situation where I am partly out of the closet but my wife is now in a larger closet for the both of us. We need to get this out in the open and move on with our lives.
You sound like you are in the exact same stage I'm in at the very same moment. My wife and I have had some deep emotional conversations of late - more honest than ever before -- and then she sort of shuts down to process the full meaning or deny the meaning of what I'm saying. I am so sympathetic to her that there are days where I just feel selfish and think I should just go back and live in denial - tell her I think I can stop the urges - but I know that will never work. Just sadness and happiness mixed everyday, every hour and shit, I have a job I have to focus on every once in a while too!
It sounds like a lot of us get caught watching gay movies/porn. I was stressed out from hiding my sexual attraction for men. It brought me great relief to be able to tell her the truth. My wife used to say I was her best friend, but I had too many secrets and she didn't really know me as well as she thought. I felt guilty for that. I actually think we can become closer as friends since I can be myself now. At present, life is like a rollercoaster. This week she's been really nice to me; last week she avoided me and cried. My biggest worries are how my son will react if I leave and how I'll feel not seeing him all the time.
Wow. My experience has been so very different from the ones I am reading about in this thread I thought I should write to share a different perspective. I am 46. Similar to most stories here I was in denial and thought I could keep the secret forever despite my attraction to men grew stronger over time. I kept the gay porn and later gloryhole sex from my wife for 8 years. Three years ago when I actually had sex with a man who wasn't on the other side of a wall with a hole in it I came out to my wife. And similar to many my Coming Out to her brought us much closer. But in the three years since then I have become an emotional zombie, withdrawn socially, abandoned all friendships except my wife's, and spontaneously cry for no apparent reason other than profound guilt for all those prime years of my life that I wasted passing in the straight world and missing out on the gay one where I believe I belong. I can't forgive myself for failing myself. I found no joy after Coming Out to my wife and thus have not told anyone else in my life. As we now have an open marriage I have been enjoying sex with men and no longer have the desire to have sex with my wife. I have no desire to Come Out to anyone else or "move on with our lives". I was much more social and fun and engaged in life before fulfilling a lifelong fantasy and having sex with a man three years ago. I am glad to hear so many have found relief and happiness and marked improvement after coming out to themselves and spouse. Oddly, it has had the exact opposite effect for me, except that the sex I have had with men is truly amazing and far exceeds the sex I ever had with my wife, even though I love her dearly.
iadsfo, sorry to hear your troubles. You're a young 46 years old! I'm 51. I still think I have lots of years left in the "gay world" and I'm looking forward to them -- and truthfully I'm not talking just about the sex. I'm talking about living honestly and openly out to the world. I hope you can turn it around and find some happiness. Good luck
Your story is not lot different to mine, only, I am 62 now and widowed, gay before marriage, married in my thirties, she knew I watched gay porn and used a dildo, but it suited us to stay together, just nice to read other stories
