Husband after 26th is gay

[Haley1826]

i just need to vent!!!
27yrs and now he comes clean…
what was wrong with me,
yes we had lots of up and down moments. He says we are best friends, yes I agree but how can I switch off the romance sexual feelings I have?
i feel worthless unloved and stupid that I didn’t see the signs.

Just wrt the advice I gave the OP to be STD tested - just to be clear here - are you actively suggesting the OP should not get STD tested?

Because if you are suggesting she should ignore the possibility of a threat to her health on the basis that it is better to be fucking kind and not think badly of her suddenly gay husband of 26 years, then shame on you.

You clearly know nothing of the world of casual gay hookups involving married men.

How do you suppose this man 'realised' he was gay?
Why the disclosure now?

I am truly sorry OP.

You are most certainly not worthless and deserve happiness. He has deceived you in the most cruel and selfish way.

Honestly I can't think of a worse reason for someone to leave a relationship. He has wasted your life in his own utter selfishness and should have remained single, not waste 26 years of your life.
I hope you can get past this and see that he is completely wrong here to have lied for this many years.

A LOT of people don’t realise they’re gay until they’re already married with kids. It’s really, really hard to just abandon a person you love and destroy your family because you have realised that you’re gay. It can seem easier to suppress it and try and make it work. Especially if you genuinely love your partner! You can love someone of the opposite sex and still be gay. People on here acting like because it was more socially acceptable to be gay 27 years ago, he should have just come out, are being really ignorant. It’s a really, really hard thing to go through especially if you’re going to cause hurt. He might have thought he could just continue with his marriage and genuinely wanted to, but in the end couldn’t. It’s a sad situation for both of them. I am not undermining OP’s pain, but he must be really struggling too.

I'm sorry OP. That's shit, you must be heartbroken. I agree counselling is a good idea to work through this, it is absolutely a betrayal.

PPs, I agree she has a right to be angry. But there's a lot of homophobia and lack of awareness on this thread.
'It was 1997 so whats the problem'....in many working class/rural/non British communities it was still very very difficult to come out, and in some cases it still is. 'Rainbow flags everywhere'.... nope. I don't think I've ever said this before, but.... check your (straight) privilege.

I repeat, it doesn’t matter if he’s gay, he’s married. If they don’t have an open marriage, he pledged to be faithful to one person, the OP. Now it sounds like he’s breaking that pledge because he wants to explore a different side of himself.

I wouldn’t blame the OP for not wanting to stay married who has effectively declared his intention to go elsewhere, probably already has, but let’s be clear who the injured party is in this.

A family member of mine has done this, he’s come out Gay after 18 years of marriage. I feel so very sorry for my female family member who really is the victim in this, 4 kids later.

It’s not widely known that he’s Gay, another family member let it slip to me. I believe they’re trying to working out a way forward for themselves and the kids.

having been round to their house since (they don’t know I know) it’s so hard to see the demise and exhaustion in my female family member’s face. Utter heartbreak and betrayal is written all over her. I can’t describe it.

have an STD test OP. Im so sorry.

Why all this pandering to the Husband cos he’s Gay? Fuck that. Sorry to see it black and white but she’s the one that needs prioritising here and yes goddam she needs an STD test, fuck him. No compassion - put yourself and the kids first OP. He can sort his own shit storm out. And trust I’m not homophobic, but I want OP to prioritise herself and her kids.

Get an STD test op.

Ah I missed discussion of the possibility she should stay married!!
Obviously she shouldn't, christ. She needs to put herself first, of course.

The 'it was easy to come out in 1997' narrative by some poster is bollocks though.

The majority of the LGBTq community is absolutely not in hiding in UK. That's nonsense.
And stop shutting the OP up. She has every right to be furious and deeply distressed that her entire adult life, her love life, her sexual fulfilment have been manipulated to meet this man's secret purpose.

i'm not gonna comment on any of your passive aggressive accusations, it's boring and comical.

I wonder though... how and when does anybody know if they're straight... i was under the impression you first have attraction and develop feelings and then act upon them and of course then they have to be reciprocated.

It doesn't matter if it was difficult to come out in 1967, [ and I would say that I knew lots of gays and lesbians ten], but he had no right to marry in bad faith, or lie to the OP , or use her as a shield. The latter term always being used in respect of trans women wanting access to female facilities.Using her in that manner is disgusting, she wasn't acting a part for his acceptance.

We don’t know that he married her in bad faith, many gay people have relationships with the opposite sex, sometimes long term, before they realise or come to terms with being gay. Sexuality is complicated especially when you add in internalised shame, homophobia, pressure from family, friends and society to conform, not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings etc it can lead people to not accept their sexuality or convince themselves they are straight when they are not.

I’ve been there (not married, but had relationships with men and had convinced myself I was straight) so I know, it would have been a lot harder in the 90s as well. Even when I came out in 2023 I found it very hard and my mum (who is not conservative or religious) reacted very very badly. OP’s husband may have loved her and convinced himself because he did that meant he was straight or that love was enough for him.

He isn’t necessarily some evil malicious liar who picked her to be his beard from the start.

That should be 2013 not 2023!

You're (obviously) absolutely right throughout this post.
Sometimes I think many people on here just can't cope with complicated.

Ah I missed discussion of the possibility she should stay married!!
Obviously she shouldn't, christ. She needs to put herself first, of course.

I’m not sure there was any discussion that she should stay married @napody but I was making a different point - perhaps badly!

The OP feels betrayed, and she has been. It might be a great relief to her DH to finally acknowledge who he is but causing her pain is nothing to be congratulated about. And if he’s been actively exploring his sexuality to come to the conclusion he’s gay, then he’s a cheat to boot.

I see you are neither owning your execrable remark wrt STD testing nor addressing my question to you.

Are you actively telling the OP she shouldn't get STD tested because that would involve thinking badly of her husband, and that is to be avoided at all costs?

You've backtracked quite a bit from your first post here where you emphasised the importance of being kind above all else. Now you're pretending that being kind will help the OP 'move on', whereas looking after her own health would impede the process of putting almost 30 years of being lied to behind her.

How do you suppose this man figured out he was gay?

Your assumption of a process of attration-feelings-action is nonsense. Are you not aware of the existence of prostitution?

Men are capable of having sex with animals, corpses, inflatable sex dolls, and - apparently this is news to you - bareback with complete strangers in well-known men's loos and other locations, whose location is easy to find via chatrooms.

He didn't have to come out in 1997.

He just needed to avoid pretending to the OP that he was capable of loving her as a straight man, and not propose to her.

She made the biggest decision of her life without knowing that the one piece of information she probably assumed she didn't need to be concerned about was not something she could rely on.

You absolutely are underming the OP's pain by suggesting there is reason for her to be compassionate toward a man who essentially stole her life and very possibly brought children into a doomed relationship.

Perhaps the husband could have been kind, but he probably selfishly thought only of himself.

But...but they say 'beee kiinnd'... does that not solve everything while supercilious amonishing soneone?

"wow... whatever the trauma is there channel your toxicity to yourself please. i see my opinion has struck a cord in you so you might want to work on that so you feel more at peace. This thread is about @Haley1826 Healey1826 and she needs to vent off and trying to make sense of things so please don't make this about you or me."

LOL. eraseddad the only projecting going on here is your own, mate. Your opinion didn't "strike a cord" (fyi it's chord), it was just utterly inane and facetious. Your further posts cement you as one of those god awful men who get all riled up at women getting uppity over men's atrocious behaviour, triggering you to come riding in here, urging us to see the error of our ways and "Be Kind"

No need to reply by the way, I see you are most keen not to make this thread about yourself 👍🏻

Hope you are ok Haley, I don't blame you if you don't come back to this thread but I hope you are getting help from your loved ones to process and navigate your way this

This thread isn't actually about the OP husband and his internal struggles/shame or anything else.

It's about HER and how she copes with the impact him 'coming to terms' with who he is will have on the life they built together.

If this thread is anything to go by he ll have plenty of people praising his strength and bravery in living his true self.

While his wife will be expected to shrug her shoulders and say oh poor him thank god he got it figured out. Now let's sit down and amicably sort out how you have blown my life to shit. She should make sure she has cake and tea to make it even easier and stress free for him.

It's highly unlikely considering she said she feels stupid for not seeing the signs that he realised last week he was gay. So it's also likely his thoughts on sexuality are not a recent thing and he has lied to her.

bye bye hun...

I'd be furious too. Co-opted in to being a part in his charade.