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LGBT parents

This board is primarily for those whose children have LGBTQ+ parents to share their personal experiences and advice.

I’m married but I’m gay

38 replies

pullingtaffy · 24/11/2019 15:53

I’ve been married for 16 years, we have two dc. I was married quite young and have only ever been with dh. I’ve always thought I was bi but as I’ve grown older it’s become more like I’m gay.
Dh and I rarely have sex (like once in five years), not just me - he never instigates either, we don’t do anything together either. We just about co parent but dh actually spends little time with the children generally. Increasingly I’ve felt dissatisfied and unhappy, I’ve never been happy really.
I’ve met a woman and fallen head over heels. She feels the same way. I know this isn’t great by the way, but I would ask you to appreciate that not all situations are as black and white as we’d like them to be.
Ultimately I want to fuck up people’s lives as little as possible. This is going to fuck up dh’s life, the children’s lives, my parents’ lives (they will he horrified) but it’s that or continue to live a lie. It would be so much easier to keep living a lie but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so.
I feel so fraught with it all I’ve considered just taking an overdose. I don’t know where to turn or what to do. I’m an adult and these feelings are just overwhelming - I’m not a teenager when this should have happened. I have so many people I love and I don’t know how to navigate this without hurting them all. Would the children ever understand if I left my marriage and at some point ended up in a relationship with a woman? Dh will be devastated. He doesn’t really agree with being gay, he isn’t very kind about people who are. How would we ever get to a place where he wouldn’t hate me? We’d never ge to that place and I can’t really blame him but the children will be caught in the middle.

OP posts:
newsyoucanuse · 16/09/2020 18:06

Leave and be your authentic self, can you imagine living the way your are now for another 5 years? Or 10 or 15?

Pullingtaffy · 16/09/2020 19:15

No - but I can’t imagine leaving either. I feel hugely selfish. It isn’t the best thing for anyone else.

OP posts:
KirstyHasLeft · 16/09/2020 20:19

I have been exactly where you are now. And I left.
It was hard and quite awful, not gonna lie. But tomorrow is exactly 1 year anniversary of me coming out to my husband. In this year I have divorced and moved out with my two DC.
Looking back - I am quite shocked at me having the guts to do it and to actually divorce and move out. It was a very dark time for me and my exH.
However, I am insanely grateful to my past self for doing it. I have literally saved my life.
One year on - me and my ex are best friends and co-parenting wonderfully. Whilst everyone was shocked - no one actually died of shock. The life continues.
I haven't come out to everyone yet, mainly, because I don't believe in needing to declare that I now prefer women. It's no one's business. Most of my friends know, my exH's family know and that is enough for now. My own family don't know and I won't tell them until I really have to - they are quite homophobic.

I remember myself a year ago - I was almost suicidal. I reached a point where I couldn't imagine my life getting much worse that it already was and at that point I had nothing to lose. I remember how scary coming out was - I knew that moment was irreversibly life changing. But it is a good change in the long run.

You can PM me if you like and I can point you towards a whole hidden world of women who went through exactly what you are going through. :)

Gem128 · 17/09/2020 10:27

How do you PM people on here?

MaleGaleSale · 18/09/2020 02:43

HI pullingtaffy,

I somehow ended up on this forum and your post and decided to sign up and fire you a crack in hopes of lending you a helping hand.
I am somewhat startled at the amount of people telling you to head for divorce; it's an option, but definitely not the first in line.

The first point I noticed is that you are having significant issues with your DH. It appears you have had no sex in 5 years, and I am assuming there are probably a slurry of other issues involved here too which you may not have mentioned.
The first thing that stands out to me is your complete lack of communication. It sounds like neither of you knows how to communicate and are simply making do with what you have. Naturally, you will get frustrated, and many emotions will accrue over the years. You probably feel unloved, rejected, lost, confused and so on.

It is also no surprise that when a particular direction isn't working that you will naturally gravitate in another direction in hope that you may find some light. In many instances, things that you may have "buried" in the past might re-emerge in your conscious and appear to be that bit more tantalising - not because they necessarily are, but the rejection and lack of love is leading you down that path.
This invariably leads you to explore and now you have found someone who understands you. Maybe you feel that only another woman can understand your lack of communication, rejection and confusion since women understand each other better emotionally than men do. so it may simply be a case of "she gets me" rather than "I am gay".

But you see, this is all too deceptive though, isn't it ? The problem here is your lack of communication with your DH and rather than addressing that you are running away. This might feel like the solution but these behavioural patterns have a tendency to repeat themselves.
What that means is if things start turning a bit pear shaped with your new partner, then you will do exactly what you are doing now. Close off, lose communication and look elsewhere.
The fact that you have explored all of these things behind your DH's back is a testimony to how bad the pair of you are at communicating, lack trust, and openness and such a simple thing is having dire consequences.

The other thing is your children. You could jump ship but regardless it will effect your children. Children are very sensitive to these issues and there are many statistical psychological studies that show how single parenthood can have significant effects on a child's mental, emotional and material development. They are more likely to have mental issues, self harm, under perform in school and so on - divorce is NO joke. And if things turn really sour and one parent ends up disappearing then they will also have to deal with rejection, confusion, and sadness which will negatively effect them their entire lives.

I think a first cause of action is not to hurry for the papers but to develop you ability to communicate with each other and try to rebuild your relationship. Maybe a good start is to write all your emotions down on a paper so that at least you have some concrete representation of what you are feeling at this instance. You could either write to DH, or you can list the things you'd like to discuss with him and set a few hours aside to talk things through and discuss how you two want to move forward. You need to be frank, for your sake, but for your children's sake too. If lack of sex is an issue, you need to discuss it - why doesn't he want sex ? what could be going wrong ? maybe he's addicted to adult sites, maybe he's stressed out at work, maybe you aren't doing things that would make him feel more eager to want sex. There are so many possible causes and YES it may hurt to hear some of those things, but you need to if you want to move forward.

If that doesn't work, then you can always try couple counseling.

With regards to sex, one possible cause could be the food he is eating. If he eats junk, and has little fibre in his diet that could be killing his libido. There are many foods that can even increase libido, not just viagra. You see, these are things you need to think about and consider.

Life is hard, relationships are tough but working through problems that arise develops you as an individual, but also as a couple - running away is never a solution. Throwing in the towel after you have explored all options is something different however, but judging by your post, It looks like you may have some possible things to try before calling it quits.

JM10 · 18/09/2020 02:59

Have you read Untamed op? I'm not just saying that because the author talks about leaving her straight marriage for a woman, but because it focuses on how women are "games" and taught to put everyone else's happiness above their own.

Obviously your children will be upset if you leave your husband, their lives will need to change. But currently they have a mother who has considered suicide and no example of what a loving adult relationship looks like. They would adapt.

Personally, even if I wasn't interested in anyone else, hadn't just realised I was gay, I couldn't stay married to someone homophobic and I wouldn't want them pushing those views on our children. Perhaps if your parents had been more open you might have realised sooner and saved yourself a lot of pain.

JaffaJaffJaffpussycatpuss · 18/09/2020 14:47

@MaleGaleSale

HI pullingtaffy,

I somehow ended up on this forum and your post and decided to sign up and fire you a crack in hopes of lending you a helping hand.
I am somewhat startled at the amount of people telling you to head for divorce; it's an option, but definitely not the first in line.

The first point I noticed is that you are having significant issues with your DH. It appears you have had no sex in 5 years, and I am assuming there are probably a slurry of other issues involved here too which you may not have mentioned.
The first thing that stands out to me is your complete lack of communication. It sounds like neither of you knows how to communicate and are simply making do with what you have. Naturally, you will get frustrated, and many emotions will accrue over the years. You probably feel unloved, rejected, lost, confused and so on.

It is also no surprise that when a particular direction isn't working that you will naturally gravitate in another direction in hope that you may find some light. In many instances, things that you may have "buried" in the past might re-emerge in your conscious and appear to be that bit more tantalising - not because they necessarily are, but the rejection and lack of love is leading you down that path.
This invariably leads you to explore and now you have found someone who understands you. Maybe you feel that only another woman can understand your lack of communication, rejection and confusion since women understand each other better emotionally than men do. so it may simply be a case of "she gets me" rather than "I am gay".

But you see, this is all too deceptive though, isn't it ? The problem here is your lack of communication with your DH and rather than addressing that you are running away. This might feel like the solution but these behavioural patterns have a tendency to repeat themselves.
What that means is if things start turning a bit pear shaped with your new partner, then you will do exactly what you are doing now. Close off, lose communication and look elsewhere.
The fact that you have explored all of these things behind your DH's back is a testimony to how bad the pair of you are at communicating, lack trust, and openness and such a simple thing is having dire consequences.

The other thing is your children. You could jump ship but regardless it will effect your children. Children are very sensitive to these issues and there are many statistical psychological studies that show how single parenthood can have significant effects on a child's mental, emotional and material development. They are more likely to have mental issues, self harm, under perform in school and so on - divorce is NO joke. And if things turn really sour and one parent ends up disappearing then they will also have to deal with rejection, confusion, and sadness which will negatively effect them their entire lives.

I think a first cause of action is not to hurry for the papers but to develop you ability to communicate with each other and try to rebuild your relationship. Maybe a good start is to write all your emotions down on a paper so that at least you have some concrete representation of what you are feeling at this instance. You could either write to DH, or you can list the things you'd like to discuss with him and set a few hours aside to talk things through and discuss how you two want to move forward. You need to be frank, for your sake, but for your children's sake too. If lack of sex is an issue, you need to discuss it - why doesn't he want sex ? what could be going wrong ? maybe he's addicted to adult sites, maybe he's stressed out at work, maybe you aren't doing things that would make him feel more eager to want sex. There are so many possible causes and YES it may hurt to hear some of those things, but you need to if you want to move forward.

If that doesn't work, then you can always try couple counseling.

With regards to sex, one possible cause could be the food he is eating. If he eats junk, and has little fibre in his diet that could be killing his libido. There are many foods that can even increase libido, not just viagra. You see, these are things you need to think about and consider.

Life is hard, relationships are tough but working through problems that arise develops you as an individual, but also as a couple - running away is never a solution. Throwing in the towel after you have explored all options is something different however, but judging by your post, It looks like you may have some possible things to try before calling it quits.

Definitely agree with this. You will run into similar problems in a new relationship because the ones in the old one weren't addressed. Not saying you shouldn't call it quits with your current partner, but you need to see that communication is a problem and will follow you until you solve it. Best of luck with everything x
Pullingtaffy · 18/09/2020 19:44

I have untamed on my list of books I want to read but haven’t had chance to do so!

The problem is I don’t want sex with dh, it makes me feel quite horrified so there’s no point trying to sort that part out because I don’t want to.
The communication has failed because I am scared of him. He has at times had controlling behaviour and how can I talk to him about my sexuality when he talks about ‘dykes’ and says he doesn’t understand why women are lesbians because all lesbians look like men so why don’t they just have the ‘real thing.’
I don’t feel that communication would be a problem in any relationship going forward particularly - I think it is specific to this relationship.

OP posts:
Brixhambelle1 · 19/09/2020 01:13

I have been here. I lived a lie for nearly twenty five years. If I could go back in time I’d do things very differently. I waited through a very unhappy relationship until my child was an adult before telling them, they already knew. Now eight years later I’m out to all including my homophobic parents, who whilst not celebrating the fact handled it better than expected - do give them time to take it on board though.
I wish I’d done it sooner, I wish I’d never married a man. I wish I could have been brave.
When your time is right then leave, you can Co parent. When you are ready there is a world of us out there waiting to meet you and welcome you into the community. Just to reassure you, as I thought I’d be the only one, within my group of gay friends most have been married and had children but always knew they were gay, they just weren’t ready to do something about it. Don’t waste your life waiting.

Billi77 · 12/10/2020 23:32

Leave now. You are gay, you don’t know how to communicate with your husband, your mind is elsewhere (on the woman you’re in love with).
Try and have couples therapy to arrange the separation logistics. If you can’t communicate at home, maybe this will give you both a chance of saying what needs to be said, or venting what needs to be venting.
Staying there is creating a dangerous template for your children in how they will form relationships as they grow. Honesty is key.
People get divorced all the time, you will all be OK. And congratulations on coming out. Now keep on with the honesty.
I have never ever knows a broken marriage to be fixed. It doesn’t happen. People who say it does are deluded

SomeoneTellBorisHeHasDandruff · 12/10/2020 23:41

I would suggest you leave because it sounds like there is no love in the marriage anyway. Would it really be a surprise to your DH to say you are not happy and you want an amicable split?
I wouldn’t say anything to your DH or family about being gay as you say they are all homophobic.
Get settled with the DC’s and build a new life. Don’t jump into a new relationship straight away.

Biscuits101 · 12/10/2020 23:46

This is from last September!!

Lifebeginsagain2020 · 26/12/2020 23:18

I know this is an old thread now but wanted to share my story OP as I think our situation was very similar.
I lived a lie and it made everyone unhappy, I just plodded on looking after the kids and became a shell of myself. I worked school hours only so was not financially independent and that made me stay as well as not wanting everyone to hate me for being selfish and splitting up the family.
I tried to bury it but it would not go away.
I finally told him Jan 2020 and although the next few months were the absolute hardest and horrible times, we are out the other side. He bought me out of the house and I am renting now. The kids took it amazingly well and adjusted really Well. Ex has a new girlfriend, who makes him happy and can give him what he needs, that I couldn’t. I am taking some time on my own, first time in years and am loving it, I have a new job, everyone is happier and I am so glad I finally grew the balls to do it.
Please message me if you’d like. I’ve been there and was lucky to have a friend to confide in along the way.
For me it really was a short term pain for long term gain!!

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