ExDH came out as gay

[Hostageslikethis]

Hi, not too sure why I'm posting but I don't feel I can say anything to friends yet.

DH and I met at 18 and 21, married at 22 and 25, then 8 years later had 2 boys who are now 14 and 16. We divorced 4 years ago, the chemistry was gone, we weren't happy. It was all very amicable, we still spend Christmas/The kids birthdays/mothers & fathers day together, there is no bad blood. We do week on/week off with the kids so it is truly 50/50, everyone is happy.

On Sunday I took him out for a fathers day meal with the boys, his week to have the boys so I dropped them off, he invited me in for a coffee. The alternative was going home alone to an empty house so I was grateful for the offer.

He then told me he needs to tell me something before he tells the boys and that news is that he is Gay, he has been in a relationship with a man since November. If I'm honest I cried!
I don't want him back, but I'm devastated, I feel lied to. He swears he didn't really know as he had never allowed himself to explore that side of himself out of shame. He claims he was attracted to me but doesn't feel like he is currently bisexual and feels gay fits better.
He told me the man he is seeing was also married to a woman, now a widower, has a 15 year old DD who he is going to tell soon too and they want to meet each others kids/introduce the kids to each other if they are ok with it.

I came home and I can't help but feel betrayed, lied to. I don't know how the boys will react.

Any advice? AIBU to feel like this?

I'm hoping MN continue to delete the vile posts but

It doesn't matter if he is planning to tell them. If you tell then first you are outing him. Simple

You weren't raped or abused. Don't worry about STIs (it's been 4 years, you'd probably already be aware)

There are prior indicators, feelings - something lurking in the background of your psyche. It is extremely unusual for someone to suddenly "wake up" gay or bisexual at 50. That may be the age they acknowledge their sexuality but to have absolutely no idea? Not true.

IMO the difference is that if you are essentially the “Wrong” sex for someone that is something neither of you can overcome and eventually that will likely end the relationship - and it’s built in from the start if they’re even dimly aware they’re gay. If I met another man and left DH he’d be devastated but he probably wouldn’t be questioning the whole of our relationship like he might if I left him for a woman and told him I was a lesbian.

You are bisexual then and not gay. It’s not the same thing. Hes said he’s now gay. Not bisexual

He might be saying he's gay now as he can't imagine going forward into another heterosexual relationship in the future. He feels gay fits him better now, but it doesn't mean it did 20 or 30 years ago, and also lots of people have fleeting or even explored bi feelings in the teen years (I have so many friends in this category) who then felt they settled on being straight, but now are not so sure in middle aged.

I know three women and one man who have done exactly this, and all frame themselves as lesbian or gay now, but had mostly happy marriages with children until it just didn't work any more.

If you need therapy yourself to work through how you feel, and you need to talk to him more about what happened in your marriage, fair enough, but it is not disgusting to be gay and ultimately that's the children's dad, saying he's wrong/disgusting/a liar is associating them with that and they will feel it. It is time to be mature towards him as a co-parent, and I would support his new gay relationship (even through gritted teeth), and work through any other feelings of betrayal and anger, which are normal when you are shocked and when you divorce anyway, in your own time and in your own space away from parenting.

So? He can say what he likes. It’s totally up to him how he defines himself. It doesn’t say anything about how he felt 20 years ago.

So glad @Badgersbum2024 posts have been deleted. I’m shocked people are this hateful still but I guess they are.

It’s not unhelpful at all. It’s the truth. It may have been difficult for him for years but he still married the OP and had kids in a relationship that was never going to last as he is gay. The relationship was always doomed from the start as he likes men! He did lie and if he was straight their relationship may of had a different outcome.

Not sure about you but when I had my kids I had them with a man who I thought wanted to stay with me for the rest of my life and I’m sure the OP did too but instead he was living a lie and wasting the OP time. Hes had his kids so now he can jump ship and mess around the kids too!

People don't always 'wake up gay', but I would say probably more than 50% of the people I know are not straight straight, in that they have had crushes on the same sex, flirted with the idea of same sex, had same sex experiences, pondered if they are bi and so on (many men also get up to all types of things that their girlfriends or wives might be astonished to hear about in terms of 'games' with other men), these are not unusual happenings especially in the teen/early twenties time. I am unusual for being very very straight! Sexuality is so much more fluid, and also depends on life stage and who you are presented with. I have many many friends who have had gay relationships who are now married/in straight relationships and vice versa, they don't all describe themselves as bi to please some other people, partly because being 'bi' is something many people are very judgemental about.

I would be devastated too. When you get married you assume it’s for life. By getting married knowing he was gay (I absolutely do not believe he didn’t know, that’s just a blatant lie) you now find yourself divorced. I’d be bloody furious . He must have known long term that it couldn’t last because he was living a lie.

If you are gay then you are gay… hes just been living a lie for 20 years and messing others around with something that was never going to last.

How do you know exactly? There is no evidence that he lied unless you believe it’s impossible to come out in later life and not know for sure you were gay all along. Which is rubbish.

You don’t have to agree… but you don’t just wake up 20 years later with no idea you fancy and want to shag men. It’s always there.

If I fell in love with a woman I might well choose to define as lesbian. That doesn’t mean I have always defined that way. People can choose how they define their sexuality- it’s not proof that this is how they have always felt.

A very dear friend of mine with 4 children was married twice ( to men) when she split up with her second husband she fell in love with a woman. She’s now married to a lovely woman, her kids are not devastated / traumatised whatever, they are happily living with their mum and her wife. The oldest child is old enough to leave home if they were affected but they are not. My friend says she never “felt gay” while she was married.

You are not a lesbian if you like both men and women. 😂

So how do you know this? Personal experience? Because so many people have told you their own experience that yes, you can.

I remember reading an article about two women who had left their husbands for each other. They were both adamant that they weren’t gay and if they ever sp,it up would go back to relationships with men.

@Hostageslikethis your feelings are absolutely valid and understandable. It's a huge thing to get your head around, as it brings up so many questions about the past.

You know your ex better than any of us do, so in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it doesn't seem implausible that his account could be accurate. It's not uncommon for people to re-evaluate aspects of their sexuality or sexual identity/preferences following a major life event - people often ask themselves questions like who am I and what do I want, and sometimes those answers are pretty big changes.

Regardless of what happened in the past, your children are going to need support with this if your ex is considering telling them soon. What are his thoughts on it - why now, what's the objective for telling them?

I know at least two women who identify fully as lesbians now, in lesbian relationships, bringing up their kids from their marriages. Shall I ring them up and tell them they can't call themselves lesbian because 20 years earlier they might have felt more bi?!

These are definitions that are approximations of a feeling and behaviour, and they aren't separate categories, you can't tell someone else they are not a lesbian if they are in a lesbian relationship and think it very unlikely they will ever have sex again with a man. Similarly, I'm guessing the OP's ex is saying he is very much into men and sees his future as a gay man, it doesn't mean that's how he felt or acted, although he may have hidden being bi earlier on, like a lot of women do, because it all feels very stressful to mention it and it's heavily stigmatized, so it's easy to write it off at that stage and get on with being straight. In fact, more women have had same-sex encounters than men and I'm betting a good amount of them don't mention that to their marriage partners either because at that stage it doesn't feel relevant to the future- until it does.

If your marriage breaks down it’s because you’re wrong for each other, regardless of sex/gender/sexuality.

You can define yourself however you feel best suits you
People define themselves as straight then bi then gay/lesbian as they settle into who they are

You can define yourself however you like but if you call yourself gay yet you like men and women then you are in fact not gay but bisexual 😂
But you can prance around making people call you whatever you want, doesn’t make it true 😂

It matters because it's how you define your own sexuality.
Your own
No one else can dictate what you define yourself as

It's like telling someone they must call themselves blind because they reach the legal definition of blindness even though they themselves would still call themselves partially sighted at that point.

Your feelings are completely valid but I wouldn't let it ruin the great co-parenting relationship you have.