Finding out, or suspecting, that their husband/ wife is gay. Or an ex husband/wife. I'm becoming quite fixated with this aspect of my marriage and wonder if anyone's in a similar boat.
I want to share my story somewhere with someone and I can't bring myself to do it in real life. Why not? I don't want to out my husband. I have no proof. I don't want to look stupid, (how could I not know?) I don't want to confide my suspicions to a friend only to have her confirm my worst fears - that everyone else suspected it. Or feel like a fool for putting up with it. I simultaneously want to open a can of worms, and am terrified of lifting the lid.
In my case, we are divorced anyway. I just grew unhappy with this and some other unrelated aspects of the marriage. And he will never come out of the closet, of that I'm quite sure. I am desperate for closure, even thought about looking for him on Grindr, just to make sense of the marriage. Because the long term effects of the gaslighting are crazy.
Over the course of 10 years the sex dwindled and I just thought it was me, and just him, and just the way we were. I now think, if was he gay, I was never going to float his boat. It would be both a relief and devastating to think this was the underlying issue. Relief because it would explain why I never felt desired or fancied. Devastating because we married and had a child. Was it all a lie? All my memories, and there were happy ones in there too. He had many nice qualities.
It bothered me. I knew it was important. I tried to bring up the lack of sex and sexual interest in me many times and he brushed it off, or placated me albeit unconvincingly. Or suggested I was obsessed/a nymphomaniac (for wanting sex more than once a month; actually sometimes it was way less than this). Or just shut the conversation down. My needs didn't matter. In the end I stopped asking and just did countless Google searches for "gay husband" and "lowtestosterone" (he never refused to get checked out, made the right noises but ultimately never did get checked out), with tears running down my face. I wondered if he had been abused as a child, but didn't dare ask.
I never found any evidence, his movements were always accounted for, he didn't really have any friends, just wanted to stay at home with me all the time.
On the other hand he HATED the rare times there would be a gay kiss on tv, looked away, like he wanted to vomit. But actually he was a prude generally with sex scenes, would almost want to fast forward through them or pretend he had to cover my eyes like he was my parent.
On a drunken night out with friends one night we were looking at photos we had taken earlier that day and in one, he and our male friend were posing alone together holding the friend's new puppy. It was a lovely photo actually but the friend's girlfriend and I were laughing, saying what a cute couple they made, like they were a gay couple out with their fur baby. He was seething. The other guy was laughing along but my husband just flipped and stared at me and said "Fuck you" quietly, coldly. Language that was quite out of character. Needless to say, that was an awkward moment to share in front of friends and kind of killed the party vibe. I mention this because it is one of my biggest clues. Is it even a clue?
I feel like being gay would be my ex's biggest nightmare, hugely shameful for him. Culturally. And he's from a formerly very religious background; his family would not to support or understand homosexuality.
Sex and kissing were there at the start of course. In fact he was in many ways, technically speaking, a good lover. Stamina, erections etc, no problems there. And I never stopped fancying him, ever. The kissing died away within weeks, he said he actually hated kissing, felt it was unhygenic. I have seen various threads on here over the years where many other posters have said the same, so I guess he wasn't unique in that. But it was a source of sadness for me. I love it and missed it/ miss it so much (I'm single, have had no other men since).
I feel like I was used to present an image of a macho man to the world and to himself. I lost all sense of what it must feel like to be desired. And was too mortified to tell anyone, even now it's over.
There is more I could write..I mentioned how I never stopped fancying him. It's like he never started fancying me. I mean he said he did, when asked, but I never felt it was true. One last thing that breaks my heart and I'm not saying it to be self-deprecating or faux humble. I was punching above my weight looks wise. Objectively I'm pretty sure I was and I always think everyone else must have thought so too.
Another reason why I got hooked in and stayed in - I couldn't believe my luck. The irony.