I am having huge mental issues about being gay and getting along with my life right now (i.e. getting a divorce and moving ahead). I told my wife that I want a divorce a couple of months ago after I told her I am gay (boy was that ever difficult to come to terms with—I am a people pleaser). We have both agreed to wait until after my eldest son’s High School graduation. Now that this is nigh, I am having all sorts of second irrational thoughts of perhaps I’m only bi and there is a way to work things out (who am I kidding…?!?!). Married 21 years with two teenage boys. Sex life pretty much died 5 years ago, and for the past 5 years I have been looking at solely gay porn on the internet until I was caught by my wife 8 months ago. I could not admit to my gay therapist that I am gay until I could separate the emotional consequences of coming out. I thought that I had managed to get that behind me. My struggles are back for the following reasons: 1) Really, really co-dependent upon my wife and don’t want to hurt her, or the boys. 2) It seems almost that all my thoughts and ideas over the last few months have just been fantasy, and now that push come to the shove and we are here near the deadline to actually split up I am getting cold feet. 3) When I was looking at gay porn, I never even thought or wanted to look at straight porn—and I certainly had the opportunity. But at the same time I never even considered hooking up with a man for real (at least while I am married). 4) I did have thoughts around if my wife should die before me that I would hook up with a man, but I couldn’t consider divorcing her. 5) Unlike some gay people, I didn’t know that I was gay until I began to admit it to myself a couple of years ago based on my penchant for only looking at gay porn, and noticing other attractive men on the street—I basically see most people the same way, but a few men are more interesting, and women are less so. Good to get this off my chest. I think I am feeling more fear of the unknown around the divorce than anything else, but it seems that any road block seems to push me back to questioning myself and motivations. Any advice?
You are growing. You are getting past your internalized homophobia. My advice... Keep working it and things will clarify for you.
I assume you have discussed all of this with your therapist. Yes? You are certainly dealing with some major life-changing events. Do you want a divorce so you can start seeing men, perhaps have a relationship? How does your wife feel about the divorce? As for the porn, etc. What led you to look at gay porn? Had you had homosexual fantasies for much of your life? There are some long-married men and women here at EC who say that they had never questioned their sexuality until recently. I'm not among them. I had been deeply conflicted about my homosexual desires since my teens. Sometimes I would acknowledge it to myself, sometimes not. Internalized homophobia was certainly part of the problem for me, but there was also the fact that I was (am) genuinely attracted to women and couldn't figure out whether I was straight, gay, or bi. It drove me crazy for years. It sounds like you are pretty clear about the fact that you're gay, but are quite anxious about divorce and the attendant upheaval. Understandably so. There are a lot of people here who have been where you are now and can offer sympathy, understanding, and maybe advice.
Whrla, thanks for your questions. I am discussing this with my therapist, and he sees several things. 1) I seem to have extreme fear about moving from a comfortable, but not terribly happy marriage to the unknown. I am still very emotionally enmeshed with my wife, and I still love her, but have been unable to have sex with her without using Viagra and even then for the past 5 years have been unable to orgasm even when fantasying about my prior experiences with men. 2) I am extremely comfortable calling myself “not straight”. I am either bi or gay and definitely leaning towards the men side of things. 3) I want a divorce because I know that my marriage is not working—it is not awful, we are effectively roommates living under the same roof, but there is no or little intimacy. I have not initiated much sex, and neither has she, and that lead me to start looking at porn—interestingly gay stuff in which I could imagine partaking in what I was seeing. I skipped right over the straight stuff as not interesting—I think that is telling. Over the past years I keep thinking “is this all there is?” I found myself imagining that if my relationship with my wife ended, I would be with a man in a relationship. I don’t seem to ever think of starting another relationship with a woman. So, yes, I do want to start seeing men. 4) My wife is not happy about the idea of the divorce, but since I have identified as gay to her, and we are not open to an open marriage, divorce seems to be the only real option. The other option is to stay married and not act on my desires (I think a very difficult thing to do over the long term). I am out to her because she caught me on the computer looking at gay porn. I identified to myself as gay several years earlier, but at that time vowed that I would always keep this side of me hidden. 5) I have had definite Homosexual fantasies since I had had great oral sex with a man in college graduate school after I turned 25. This was my first sexual experience, and several subsequent experiences with woman were “disturbingly” not successful in that I could not orgasm. At the time I wondered why, but then pushed the thoughts out of my head. When I look back at High School, I don’t remember attractions one way or the other so I really didn’t date much. I crushed on perhaps one girl and that was about it. I recognized the male form as interesting, but not much more and thought of this as me just feeling inferior to other men. I began masturbating relatively later at age 15, and did seem to have a penis fantasy that I suppressed. One telling event during my sophomore year was that I noticed the men’s underwear torso pictures seemed to be really interesting to me and I asked my mother if it was ‘normal to notice this”. The answer was everyone notices well built people of the same sex—which is true, but what I later experienced is that these are more interesting than the center fold of Playboy, again a telling observation. 6) When I met my wife at age 29, I was beginning to notice that I really did not get turned on by any type of lesbian or just female porn, and that for straight porn I was really watching the guy. At this stage I made a feeble attempt to meet some gay gays but my fears and homophobia were too much. I recall when I met my wife thinking that “if this relationship doesn't work maybe I’ll look into gay relationships”. Of course, I made sure my relationship with my wife did work after all. 7) Sex in the early years of dating and marriage was pretty good to great, but sometimes I would fantasize about my prior male experiences to orgasm. As time went on, I had to do this more frequently until about 5 years ago when nothing seemed to work—which she and I attributed to ED and getting older. But I do not need Viagra when masturbating to gay fantasies or watching gay porn. 8) What also lead to some awareness of my same sex attraction was recognizing men were more interesting at the beach or at the gym. While I noticed women, the memories I have of really interesting people (great figure, instant attraction) were to men. Again this is something I repressed as something all men deal with. Slowly over the years I began to realize that perhaps most men did not experience life the way I am seeing it. So looking at the above, intellectually it seems pretty clear that I am most probably gay, but emotionally I am having great difficulty with the idea of divorce and also moving toward an unexplored and largely unknown gay lifestyle that deep down I know I desire but struggle to accept.
Hi ... I know it must be a difficult time stepping into the unknown and leaving the comfort and security of what is "normal". It is scary when we don't know what is ahead of us. But in the end what does your heart tell you? I hope that you will be able to find a strong support group which will not judge but help you through this difficult time. I hope whatever decision that you decide in the end ... you will remain true to yourself and make peace with yourself. Do keep us updated ... take care bro.
A few things. First off, just to keep in mind, there IS no "gay lifestyle". Or more accurately, there is no ONE "gay lifestyle". Nothing really has to change from the way you're living now to start "living gay". Presumably, you won't be living with your wife, and presumably you'll be (at least attempting to start) dating guys. But everything else is optional. Your life doesn't have to have a huge drastic switch in every way imaginable, unless of course you want it to. It may be that you're a bit like me, in that you don't really process things visually as much as most people. I didn't realize I was attracted to guys until I was in college, and (as dumb as this sounds) actively tried to look at men in a sexual context. All my straight male friends were following large breasts around the room whenever they came in, but even if you had built my (physically) ideal man and dropped him in the room with me, I probably wouldn't have looked twice at him. But then I tried it out. I looked at guys I thought were passable attractive, and actively thought about it. "What would he look like naked? What would it be like to have sex with him?" And damn, it was kind of fun. But all the other times? They're just people. Other humans I interact with. Not would-be sexual partners. My brain just doesn't function like that. And honestly, I'm totally fine with that. It may in fact be a blessing - no matter how hot a guy is, I have no trouble walking up to him and chatting with him. It sounds like right now, you might simply be in devil-you-know territory. "It might not be ideal, but who's to say what's following might be worse?" But I think you're aware that the odds are great that what comes after will probably be more enjoyable, and more "complete", than what you have now. Lex
Thanks lostman and Lex, My heart is really torn, but in the end I think it tells me it is time to move on beyond my marriage. That is probably the reason it picked out a gay (and gay affirming) therapist as I was concerned that a straight one might have picked up on my ambivalence and made an already difficult discussion go in a direction I did not want it to go. I am currently playing the "undressing" game and it is rather fun. It was something I never did with guys or girls before--and now it is the guy that I want to mentally undress. Al
Hi Al123, Welcome to EC! I am one if those people whose life story matches up pretty well with yours so you don't have to feel alone. I'm married 23 years with kids 20 & 17. I told my wife about 1 year ago that I was gay, haven't acted on it yet in terms of a relationship, sexual or emotional. I was in a coming out group and have recently joined a gay men's psychotherapy group. I have been through some really rough times. There is so much to cope with its hard to know where to begin. My wife and I have always gotten along, we are good partners. I'm not sexually attracted to her. I had thought of an open marriage but she's not interested. However, like yourself, were not changing the living situation at least until my son graduates from HS next year. Although, it could happen sooner. I just told my kids about myself this past weekend; that was a relief as well as devastating. My son was great, mature, accepting. My daughter was distraught and continues to be, of course, not about my sexuality but about the impending changes to the family life. She doesn't want any of us to be sad or lonely. Unlike you, I've known that I was fascinated with men and their bodies from like age 4, but I didn't connect that knowledge with telling myself I was gay. It was like a dissociated thing. I was asexual in HS. I had a brief gay period in my twenties, which my wife was aware of. Anyway, enough of me. My advice is to find other gay men for friendship and activities; you need a support network. Don't isolate. You are just trying to be authentic and be who you were meant to be. The road is not easy. Hang in there.
I think is the coming out to my kids that really worries me. My eldest probably will not have an issue with it, but my youngest @ 16 may well. I am less concerned abut the gay aspect, but the idea of dissolving the family as they are (and I am) used to it will be very distressing. My eldest also is on anti depression meds due to suicidal thoughts so his fragility also concerns me. I am a people pleaser, so it is very difficult for me to stand up for who I am and not deffer to other's needs as more important than my own.
I told my kids last weekend. My 17 year old son was amazing, mature and supportive; my daughter was traumatized, distraught, overwhelmed. For her, she's devastated at the fact that family life may change, although we not changing anything immediately. She was not upset that I was gay, but upset about the possibility of change. She also verbalized worry that either myself or my wife would be sad. Regarding your older son, I would probably speak to his therapist or doctor before discussing it with him, if you can. He has to be able to handle the news. Certainly understand about being a people pleaser, but you need to be pleased as well.
Hi Al123 .... many times we stress ourselves so much over what others will think ... how the other person will react ... We worry for them about how they will feel etc ..and we always imagine the worst scenario.... but as arturoenrico mentioned ... their response might surprise us ... I think in the end .. we just need to be true to ourselves ... and not think for the others ... let them react as they would .. you get what I mean? I mean I am guilty of it .. I tend to overanalyse for other other person. You already have a supportive wife... I tell you .. kids are very observant ... and many times we think that they don't know and we think that we can hide it well ... but they can already figure out that something is not right .. so give them a chance ... you have taught them well to be adults. Give them a chance to accept you. Keep us posted and all the best.
Both of my kids were surprised; my daughter was shocked. I thought my son had an inkling but he said he really didnt know. I'm a good fooler of people, unfortunately.
Thanks for all the feedback. I have really come to the terms that I want to spend more time with people like me, and I can't do that in my current relationship. I will have to work with my son's therapist to make sure what he can handle, and how the divorce should best be communicated. I have spent too long denying who I am to my self, and time keeps ticking. I never mentioned that I was confused about my attractions when I met my wife--so it seems that I have at some level been hiding / processing my same sex attractions for around 25 years. Looking back at all those fantasies and experiences, gay I am, but with still some internalized homophobia to work out. In graduate school I was named the "minister of couth" by several others as I never felt comfortable partaking in all the female ogling and making comments about those curves. Just a few days ago I was with several of my wife's friend husbands, and they were all making similar comments about past observations; this time I knew why I did not have much to say--because there is not too much to say about something I am not interested in. Now, lets discuss the ideal male form......
