Found out DH is bisexual and a liar - can I ever be happy with him?

[eskimomama]

DH and I have been together 10 years, we have a DD who has severe autism. I'm a SAH mom to be full time carer of DD, I do 99% of the childcare and household chores, while he's busy being the breadwinner and full time complainer.
First of all I must say I have been madly in love with this guy, I really loved him and still do, so what will follow is really a huge shock to my system.

2 months ago I discovered that DH was bisexual, because he had gay porn on the computer and gay chat apps on his phone. It was a massive shock to me as I had absolutely no idea. I know nothing about bisexuality so first I thought he was a repressed gay and I had just been used as a cover for his need to conform.
It caused me massive anxiety and had to confront him after 5 days, I forced him to admit it. It was a very emotional talk where he promised he never cheated, would never cheat or do anything to hurt me or DD or destabilise our little family. I trusted him, he really sounded sincere.

Yet just a few weeks later I started having negative thoughts again, I spied his phone again and was horrified by what I found : he had contacted a male prostitute!! He wrote to him "my wife agreed that this would be my outlet"!! To which the guy replied if I wanted to participate and he answered "probably not if ever, sorry"... WTF!!

How could he promise to be faithful with big tears in his eyes and 3 weeks later contact a male hooker???

I had to confront him again, I didn't mention the spying and what I discovered, but said I had had a very bad gut feeling and wanted him to reassure me he wouldn't cheat. He got angry and aggressive, saying "will I have to repeat the same thing over and over again for the rest of my life"... I told what I thought of promiscuous gay sex behind my back, told him to look me in the eyes and tell me the truth : He looked me straight in the eyes, his face didn't twitch, his eyes didn't blink and he LIED to me. He said he wasn't planning to cheat and that I should calm down. That's what I wanted to hear but I knew it was a lie, what an AWFUL feeling.
On top of that he started mixing up all our problems : special needs child, isolation because of it, he said "we don't have a relationship" bla bla bla, to which I said it was very offensive and unfair to me, as well as sounding like he wanted to justify future cheating.
(for what it's worth we have sex 4-5 times a month)

The next day he had deleted the chat with the prostitute on his phone. Which at this stage doesn't mean anything to me. I'd say only 50% chance he didn't meet him.
I told him I'd be ruthless if I found out he has cheated and exposed me to STDs.
I do NOT think he gets the point.

How did I end up with a man who is completely different to what I thought? On the outside he's mister charmer, everybody loves him and finds him kind and caring. His family would never believe it.

I've been reading lots about bisexuality and I just can't make up my mind. I can hardly find any husband with some sort of mental stability. I find 3 types of marriages :

• those where the wife allows the husband to have sex with men every now and then or simply an open marriage both sides : totally NOT for me. I just cannot bear the thought and can't believe that's what he wanted all along
• those who split because the bi husband just cannot live without gay sex, even though he knows his sexual urge will destroy his family
• those who stay together because the husband has made a rational, conscious decision that his family is worth more than casual sex for the rest of his life, and is happy to stay monogamous - those seem very rare.

I need some help. I haven't told anybody and I am lost, and extremely anxious, which I really don't need as my stress levels with DD are already sky high.
Please don't tell me to just dump him because I am financially dependent on him and that would really not be easy. Maybe I will have to but I want to explore other options first.

Is there any hope that I can make him realise he just wants to have his cake and eat it? And that he is seriously hurting me and making me massively insecure?
In all evidence he says one thing and thinks another, so I can't have such conversations anymore.
Does anyone have experience with this kind of crap?

thank you

I didn’t read Math’s last post, so eager was I to make point. So, indeed, shame on me.

Math, yes, personal experience is sobering and excrutiatingly painful and I am sorry that you have gone through what you have. Clearly this is a very sensitive issue for you and for many women experiencing this type of revelation. However, it is a separate issue to what we were discussing regarding a particular attitude to bisexual men.

I hope that your recovery is progressing and I wish you the very best.

Anyway, I wanted to respond to Math having read the post referring to my shameful response, but apart from that I am out. As I said, the discussion is now getting personal and, frankly, abusive.

I think the strength of feeling on this post, and the cries of homophobia and bigotry come from the sense that "because he is bisexual he will have a drive or need to have sex with another man" which feeds into and perpetuates the misguided belief that being bisexual means you can never be satisfied with one person, irrespective of gender. This simply isnt true. Being bisexual simply means you can and do find both men and women sexually attractive. It does NOT automatically mean you will actively seek another sexual partner when in a monogamous relationship. That is the behaviour of a cheater - irrespective of their sexual orientation. Labelling all bisexual people dirty, STD riddled, cheating liars IS offensive and it's that predjudice that is bring challenged.

wildbluebelles My separation agreement with my ExH was exactly as I have described. So it's not bullshit. And why on earth are you swearing at me? Perhaps you didn't have a SHL. I certainly did.

Husky dear, I AM an SHL (if I may say so myself). The issues I have with what you said are;

your "D"H has to pay you the cash equivalent of half of his pension pot, if you split?

No, no, no. On divorce, the court has jurisdiction to make orders in respect of any individually or jointly owned property. This includes something called a pension sharing order, which would give one spouse a share of the other's pension on retirement. Depending on what the assets are, the court might order one party to receive a larger share of liquid assets in return for not receiving a share of the other's pension. Definitely not a hard and fast rule.

Normally this would come from any equity sitting in a pot, after the sale of the marital home. If you rent, I guess he would have to get a loan

This is total rubbish. No, they would not require a husband where there were no available liquid assets to get a loan to pay a cash equivalent of half his pension. Just would not happen. They may order maintenance though if appropriate under the circumstances e.g. in a high income but low asset case.

You also get extra in any settlement, if you gave up a career to care for DC, and he didn't. This is called "economic recompense"

That term does not exist in English family law. You might be referring to 'compensation' which has been used in some big money cases. However, it has been made clear by judges that compensation will not be a factor in smaller money and more modest cases. Here, the most important factor is the needs of any children and the needs of the parties.

A shit hot lawyer would draw up a separation agreement working all of this out

Um, 'separation agreement' by its very name is an AGREEMENT. You cannot force an agreement on someone. Sounds like you had quite a reasonable ex who agreed to the terms you wanted. Had he not, you would have had to go to court (and may not have considered your lawyer as shit-hot anymore).

Family law is inherently discretionary. You have to work with what is there. If your DH is a billionnaire, of course you will get a decent settlement and feel that your lawyer is 'shit hot'. If there is barely enough to go around, you will not. That does not mean you did not have a good lawyer, simply that money cannot be produced from thin air. That is why it is always so unhelpful when someone thinks that what happened in their case is the rule and uses it to give false hope to others.

Normally this would come from any equity sitting in a pot, after the sale of the marital home.

Was also going to add that for most people, there will be no 'equity sitting in a pot'- every penny will be spent on re-housing both parties. That is if it is even feasible to sell the matrimonial home. It might have such little equity that sale has to be delayed until the children have grown up.

wild I'm in Scotland, maybe the law is different? I honestly thought it would apply UK wide.

We did have quite a bit of equity. Iirc, it was about £300k. The house was put up for sale, but we couldn't shift it, due to the recession. So we did the calculations as if we had sold it, and my ExH bought me out by getting a second mortgage. Luckily he is a high earner, so the mortgage application went through fine.

Regards the pensions, we both had one, but as I had been a much lower earner (part time too), mine was much smaller than his. The Sol added both Pension values together and divided by 2, in order to calculate what extra cash I should get. So, we both walked away with the same sum, but his was more pension/less cash, and mine was less pension/more cash.

The calcs were all apportioned to the period of the marriage. But it was quite simple really, as we'd gotten together in our teens, when neither of us had a pot to piss in, and we were married for 17 years.

I didn't pursue the "economic recompense" side of things, as I was happy with the calculations without pushing for more cash.

My ExH did sign the agreement, so it didn't therefore go to Court.

I think the Pension Value of the Op's DH, is probably much higher than hers, as she is a SAHM (iirc), so this could tip the scales and make it affordable to leave. I certainly could not have afforded to leave my cheating ExH, had the pension not been taken in to account in the calculations.

Husky Scots law is indeed a bit different (but has the OP even said she is in Scotland?). However, Scots law is also a discretionary regime. Therefore, while you can tell people what principles a court might apply etc, if you tell them that there is 'a rule' that you will get X or that you will always get more for being a SAHM, that is incorrect. It may apply to some cases, but not all. Additionally, parties can always reach agreement on their own terms (as you did in your case). This does not mean that a similar division of assets can be forced on a person who is unwilling to agree. The only thing that you can realistically advise the OP is to go and seek legal advice.

Apologies if it sounds pedantic but I was on another thread in legal where a very frequent (non-lawyer) poster authoritatively told the OP that she was not entitled to remain in the family home because she was not a legal owner and was unmarried. In fact the OP could apply for an occupation order to remain, but this poster assured her that she could not. Whilst in that case, people luckily corrected the facts, that advice could have resulted in serious hardship for the OP.

There are loads of myths on MN about family law, including:
-if you're a SAHM you will always get to keep the house
-if you're a SAHM, the asset split should be 70/30 and anything less is because your lawyer isn't good

• you will always be compensated if you give up work and then get divorced
• the court will never order sale of the house until the DC are 18
• as a wife, you will always get long-term maintenance

These myths all come from people who had this happen in their own cases and now think that it's a general/universal rule that applies in every other case.

Yes, I can see tat some of those things wouldn't be standard.

Re the Pension pots though - is this enforceable in every case?

If one spouse has worked Part time or become a SAHM, to care for DC, thus enabling her DH to carry on up the career ladder and earn a full time wage, and a bigger pension.....it would seem very unfair if she walks away with a crappy pension and he gets to keep his whopping Pension....after all, both Pensions were coming out of family finances for the duration of the marriage.

This was my saving grace, I think it could be Op's too (if she does choose to walk away)

Sorry you can't deal with my personal boundaries Iris.

I make no apologies for where I draw them.
I don't owe any bisexual person or gay person an apology for what I felt and sometimes still feel.

Sex between men very often involves anal penetration just as sex between men and women often does. I deal with that my way. You deal with it by telling people who know how the digestive system works that they are homophobic to bear that in mind when evaluating a sex partner.

You want me to preface my remarks about my sexual preferences with a disclaimer that will pander to your feelings here. This thread and my posts here are not about you and I don't have to pander to you or your feelings about bisexuality or anal sex in my posts.

Labelling all bisexual people dirty, STD riddled, cheating liars IS offensive and it's that predjudice that is bring challenged.
Nobody has done that, WantingMuchMore.
Your partner cheats, you get STD tested.
Your partner may have had anal sex with another man, and you are entitled to whatever feelings that creates in you, to draw your own conclusions and to take whatever future decisions work for you, based on that.
Women are entitled to their own personal boundaries and to their personal feelings.
You are a woman who can never offer your partner the satisfaction of penile penetration or other aspects of sex with a man, and therefore the worry is realistic that at some point your partner may wish to enjoy that experience.

The lived experience of thousands of women who are partners or former partners of gay or bi men cannot to be dismissed with blanket denials, or silenced with accusations of phobia.

Iris
personal experience is sobering and excrutiatingly painful and I am sorry that you have gone through what you have. Clearly this is a very sensitive issue for you and for many women experiencing this type of revelation. However, it is a separate issue to what we were discussing regarding a particular attitude to bisexual men.

Thank you for your sympathy, but if you were discussing a separate issue, why were you doing it on this thread, which centers on the experience of a woman who has found out her H is cheating on her with men?

It really is not a separate issue, however.
You have conflated the personal with the political and accused posters who have personal boundaries and certain feelings about anal sex of being homophobic.

Nobody should be told that they need to overcome personal feelings that apply to the way they arrange their own sex life in order to prove a political point, or told that their personal preference makes them a homophobe.

Re the Pension pots though - is this enforceable in every case?

Pensions will always form part of the total 'pot' of assets that are then divided. A pension sharing order will effectively give the other spouse a pension- it is not a liquid asset. It will start paying out when she retires. A pension sharing order will not be made in every case- sometimes it makes more sense for one party to receive more of the liquid assets at the point of divorce rather than a future pension.

If one spouse has worked Part time or become a SAHM, to care for DC, thus enabling her DH to carry on up the career ladder and earn a full time wage, and a bigger pension it would seem very unfair if she walks away with a crappy pension and he gets to keep his whopping Pension after all, both Pensions were coming out of family finances for the duration of the marriage.

I agree. But sometimes, she might receive a larger share of the equity in the home for instance, to offset the pension. For instance, if she can receive sufficient money now to buy a property outright, she might take that option rather than a share of a pension that will not pay out for another 30 years. It depends in every case.

But even with pension sharing orders, SAHMs are more likely to face poverty in old age than their husbands. Even if a pension-sharing order is made at e.g. age 40, the husband still has another 28 years to build up his pension. A SAHM who then goes back to work in a low paid, part-time post due to having taken a long career-break does not have the same opportunity. Family law is moving more and more towards individual autonomy- pre-nups, clean breaks, expectation to maximise earnings and only short-term maintenance.

Math, I am sorry that you had such a terrible personal experience and youre right in that this isnt the place for further conversation about deeply held predjudice and misinformation about what being bisexual really means. I will say this and back away from the thread, as the last thing I want to do is cause anyone further distress. There is a tendency for all of us to say, "I am right, I know I am right because this happened to me" and I know I have certainly been guilty of this in the past however, just because somrone is bisexual does not mean this statement

You are a woman who can never offer your partner the satisfaction of penile penetration or other aspects of sex with a man, and therefore the worry is realistic that at some point your partner may wish to enjoy that experience.

Is true.

If you take anything from my comments, please understand that bisexual men (and women) DO NOT need sexual interaction with BOTH genders in order to be satisfied and fulfilled. Many, many can and are in very happy monogamous relationships. Being bisexual doesnt mean youre confused or greedy (both labels we have to suffer) just that we are less concerned about the sex organs of our chosen partner than a heterosexual or even a gay person may be.

I wish you all the best.

How are things for you, OP? Have you been able to tell anyone IRL yet? I think it might help you. Even your GP or someone, confidentiality?

Wanting - I have seen the posts of hundreds of women on the one forum I used to post on, describing their Hs or Ps need for m2m sex and deciding to risk everything to experience it. These men did not cheat with other women.

In searching for the extent of my exH's lies I found a few sites where 'happily married men' met others seeking m2m sex. One in particular appeared as 'golf chat' on my exH's history. There were hundreds of usernames, hundreds of arrangements made, many apparently very popular venues I would never have suspected. I opened a lid on a world I would never have believed existed.

It may well be that bisexual women behave differently, in general, than bisexual men. It may also be that many men who claim to be bisexual are actually gay. I got the impression from some allegedly bisexual men's posts in my travels on the internet that the label 'bisexual' meant in their minds that both sexes found them irresistible.

It may also be that many men who claim to be bisexual are actually gay. I got the impression from some allegedly bisexual men's posts in my travels on the internet that the label 'bisexual' meant in their minds that both sexes found them irresistible

Yep, I’m certainly aware that those men exist. I just disagree that it’s the majority of bisexual men - I know plenty of bisexual men who don’t behave like that, and the men that I am aware of who do seek out random gay men for humiliating sex insist that they are completely, fully straight and not bisexual at all. They just seem to like wielding power.

I don’t know if they are closeted gays or straight-but-getting-off-on-the-depravity (their behaviour seems to me to be closer to that of married men who use prostitutes because it’s exciting and dirty rather than average gay or bisexual men - if you read the UK punter forum it is creepily similar).

How can you say something like "People are saying there is a high risk of a bisexual man cheating because a woman is not going to fulfill all of his sexual needs." and pretend you're not homophobic?

Zombie thread.

Hi OP, found out my OH was a bi lying, cheat after 25 years together.

People on here will try to persuade you that it's not a bi issue because they're bi and they don't cheat - and I agree it's not a bi issue, it's a bi men issue. When I first found out, I looked it up and found that research had found that bi men were the most likely to have cheated out of all groups, more likely than gay men, straight men, bi women, gay women or straight women.

Of course that's not to say every bi man ever has always cheated - but I certainly wouldn't be taking the risk after my experience and what I've read.

If it's a bi men issue then how is that not a bi issue? Assuming negative traits about people purely based on their sexual orientation?

Evening, everyone. This thread has been resurrected from many years ago. We're going to close it to new posts now as we aren't sure there's more to be said that will help the OP at this stage.