Leaving married life with a husband and 2 children to be gay - incredible guilt

[WorriedWilma123]

So this has been going on for the last year or so - husband has been well aware of me being very confused.
I felt the only thing I could do was leave the marriage so as not to be completely selfish however my husband has taken this all very badly and my son who is 10 is really struggling with seeing his dad upset or angry about the whole situation.
He wants us to cohabit until the children are much older as he is a very devoted dad who has never spent much time away from them and I’m happy to do this if it’s the best thing for the children but I can’t shake this terrible guilt.
The saddest thing is I do really love my husband, I have the upmost respect for him and couldn’t have asked for a better dad to the kids - I just didn’t know I was gay and now have created a massive mess.

I think the sex of the other person is irrelevant. The only question is, do you want to leave your family for another relationship.

As you say you love your husband, I don’t think you should.

“ There really is no solution aside from him leaving which is won’t do until the kids are quite a bit older.”

“I’m not saying he should leave”

Which is it?

I guess I’m looking for the impossible answer

Oh ladies this is cracking the way you are now saying that he is emotionally abusing OP.
My goodness, I really don't think this would even be a conversation if the tables were turned and it was him who had decided he was gay and wanted outland was upsetting the DC.
The hypocrisy on here sometimes is astounding.

OP it's a really hard situation and I wish you and your family the best to get to a happy place after the dust settles.

You’re putting your romantic needs above your kids’ happiness. Lots of people do it. I wouldn’t personally. Your choice though.

@Itsalmostanaccessory

Oh, FFS. He isnt abusive. She isnt feeling abuse.

This is a person who has found out that his spouse had an emotional affair and then left him to be with that person. Anyone who has been married and had children and then gets cheated on, lashes out and gets upset. He isnt abusive. The OP hid/lied about/ignored her sexuality, married a man, had children and then left him for someone else. He will be going through heartbreak and confusion and is losing the family he thought they built together. Life is going to look very different from here in out and that takes time to accept. He is allowed to grieve the loss of the life he thought he would have.

Women post on here all the time about their husband's affairs and they derail their reaction; shouting, begging, guit tripping. They get support and told that he deserves to hear how hurt she is etc. But a man doing it to a woman who cheated is called abusive. This sit can be disgusting sometimes.

OP, you had an emotional affair and now you've left your husband. You cant make that sound nice. You're hiding behind the romance of coming out and meeting this woman and things just clicking but it doesnt change what you did. An emotional affair, then leaving your husband for someone else. He is hurt. You're going to have to deal with that. It will pass.

You cannot carry on living with him just because his finances support you. You'll have to manage just like everyone else. You leave, you figure out your own housing problem and you come to an agreement about childcare. He is an involved and loving father and he isnt choosing to leave so please dont even think about taking the kids and only allowing limited access because you think they need you more or whatever. Even time. Do your absolute best to put their needs first and make sure they get even time with you both as much as possible.

He wants you to stay because he probably hopes for reconciliation. You know that you dont want that. Staying is cruel and will prevent him from healing and moving on. He deserves to meet someone else and be happy, just like you have.

You need to divorce. You need to leave the home and find somewhere else and sort out contact with the kids.

You've found the awakening love. That's great. But you dont get to have that and maintain your marriage and keep his financial support (child maintenance is different of course). You need to go out alone now and do the best you both can for your kids.

THIS

I’m not saying he should leave, I understand he wants to be around his children every evening - I just don’t know how to live like it as living with someone who loves me one day and hates me the next is quite difficult for me to live with but maybe as so many of you are saying; it’s my doing.

What do you mean 'maybe it's my doing' ? How can it possibly be anyone else's doing? Did you think it would be easy to start a new relationship whilst still married and you'd tell your husband all the details and he would be thrilled for you? This thread is bizarre. You are a cheater that is feeling massively sorry for herself because your husband won't just disappear and continue to pay your bills leaving you with the children while he settles for a bedsit and every other weekend.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start taking responsibility for the consequences of your own actions. Find a new job that pays better, there are tons of remote jobs out there now that would allow you to be at home and work, start a side hustle, whatever but moping around feeling sorry for yourself isn't it.

I agree with Itsalmostanaccessory too.

I think you need to think about this another way. The deal was "Have and to hold, to love and to cherish, forsaking all others until death do you part..."

You have (for perhaps understandable reasons) broken the deal and destroyed the security of your husbands life - his wife, child, home and future earnings are now all in doubt.

Since you have broken it, you really need to come up with a new deal since you still need his cooperation -- but it has got to be one he is willing to sign. "Bugger off our of your home, give me money regularly and maybe I'll let you keep seeing our child" is not attractive. You may have no intention of denying access to the child or using the child as a weapon.... but given that has been done in breakups before, it will certainly have crossed his mind. How can he trust you won't given what you have already done to his life ? (Again, for perhaps understandable reasons).

YOU need to come up with a new deal that he would be willing to sign. Right now, he has no reason at all to go along with your new plan as there is nothing in it all for him. Spend a LOT more time looking into earning more perhaps with your mistress helping/supporting you in some way. Spend more time looking into housing, you have dismissed living with your mistress - but have you actually asked ? Have you looked into what pooling your resources might get ? Have you looked properly in to wrap around care ? Examined all the offerings from the school / other parents / private providers. I am not saying it is easy but is seems you want an answer from the heavens rather than the sweat from your brow.

Will highlight again - make a new deal that he has incentive to agree to. It is up to you, not him to do the hard work.

The only answer is that your lives have to change. We can’t advise you on exactly how to do that because we don’t know the exact constraints of your children and your career options.

Odds are that you are going to have to work more hours or find a better paying job. You have to start thinking about being a person who can fund a household. Even if your husband says he doesn’t want you to change your job, that doesn’t mean you can’t make changes. If he has to step up and do more child care or the two of you have to pay for child care, that is just what has to happen. Your husband is not a reason to work a reduced schedule, only your child’s best interest should keep you in your current position. You now have to balance his need for you to be at home with the need for you to buy groceries and pay rent. It’s an awful situation to be in, but it is the situation many parents of special needs children face. Maybe you could get a second job in the evening so the children are not in care? Maybe both you and your husband could get second jobs, but you could miraculously find a way to coordinate your shifts so one of you is home each evening with the kids while the other works.

The last 3 women I've known who had this dramatic "I'm gay and never knew it" realization during married life with kids...ended up in a whirlwind, difficult relationship with their new girlfriends, who invariably turned out to have very odd personalities verging on disordered. After the relationship with the woman in question, they went back to dating men -- well, two of them did, one's husband took her back.

Sometimes these "I realized I'm gay" things are legit. Other times someone is realizing they have some bisexual curiosity and a midlife crisis dawns.

* Wow you really are something. You’ve had an emotional affair, quite happily told your partner all the details and now you are planning on kicking him out of the family home so he won’t see his children everyday. You are the one that has met someone else so you need to leave.*

^This

OP I think a lot of people on this thread are expecting their job is to judge whether you are morally in the right, and also this tendency is what's driving your guilt. Is it actually that important here? It sounds like you cannot not do what your body/mind is telling you is right, and have told your husband. There's not much else you can do. I certainly don't think you have a moral obligation to go against your nature.

My ex boyfriend's parents had divorced after his dad had come out as gay when he was a child. It hadn't ruined his relationship with either, although his dad was happily living with a male partner and his mum always lived alone after the divorce. They got on ok, it was peaceful and happy (much more happy than the family of my now husband who stayed married but were supremely unhappy and now none of them speak to each other. Nobody knows quite what the truth of their problems were).

@loislovesstewie

It wasn't a big deal for us about 40 years ago to find out that some people were gay. Obviously I attended a really right on, left wing university, and that made a difference, but really we are talking about the 21st century not Victoriana ! The issue isn't that she has found out she is gay but rather that she seems to not understand that her husband is bound to be distraught. He is losing the person he married and who he loves after all.

You mean when section 28 was in effect and homosexuality was considered a mental disorder?

Hello OP.

I had the same thing happen to me.

Married with kids. Met a women in a bar, instant connection, love at first sight. Told DH, split up with him, pursued relationship with other woman (also married with know DS).

Oddly, both mine and other woman's husband's agreed, even accepted the situation. Like you, I loved DH, I just wasn't IN love with him. He still remains my closest friend. We lived together in cohabitation, married in almost all respects, as did my girlfriend.

Our situation was made slightly easier by the fact my girlfriend lived in a different country (as did her kids) so there was no possibility of us setting up home together.

It was a situation that worked well for the 4 of us. DH and I did separate later, partially due to my girlfriend becoming terminally ill.

What I'm saying is, it can work, IF it's what you want. It was what I wanted. I didn't want to leave my husband but felt I should because I was in love with someone else. It may have been different if there'd been the possibility of living with my girlfriend though.

All the best. It's really hard being blindsided!

“You have to start thinking about being a person who can fund a household. Even if your husband says he doesn’t want you to change your job, that doesn’t mean you can’t make changes. If he has to step up and do more child care or the two of you have to pay for child care, that is just what has to happen.”

I think this from Blossom is spot on really.
You can’t have everything you want in this situation, I don’t think.

Comfortsex
Did you continue to be intimate with your husband?
This is what he wanted even when he knew about my feelings but then would get upset and angry if he felt I wasn’t “ there “ enough and accused me of thinking about her through it etc which actually I wasn’t; I was just struggling with the guilt of her everything.

@WorriedWilma123

Comfortsex Did you continue to be intimate with your husband? This is what he wanted even when he knew about my feelings but then would get upset and angry if he felt I wasn’t “ there “ enough and accused me of thinking about her through it etc which actually I wasn’t; I was just struggling with the guilt of her everything.

This sounds awful - honestly OP he is not a saint in this situation, I think you should ditch any and all guilt.

On occasion, but not a regular or expected thing, only when the mood took (me). But DH truly accepted the situation, which it doesn't sound like yours does. It's what made ours work. DH wasn't trying to keep hold of me or keep me as I was.

@WombOfOnesOwn

The last 3 women I've known who had this dramatic "I'm gay and never knew it" realization during married life with kids...ended up in a whirlwind, difficult relationship with their new girlfriends, who invariably turned out to have very odd personalities verging on disordered. After the relationship with the woman in question, they went back to dating men -- well, two of them did, one's husband took her back.

Sometimes these "I realized I'm gay" things are legit. Other times someone is realizing they have some bisexual curiosity and a midlife crisis dawns.

I'm assume you didn't mean it this way, but your comment reminds me almost word for word of what a family member told me 15/16 years ago when I was closeted.

She said that lesbians were often emotionally unstable, manipulative women who tricked other emotionally vulnerable women into relationships. She would never admit to saying that now, but it's stuck with me for years, because it made me feel like a predator (and that even if I wasn't a predator, that my relationships would be perceieved this way). And I delayed coming out because I was mortified that it would all turn out to have just been a phase.

Fortunately, I went off to university and finally met other out lesbians who did not invariably have very odd personalities verging on the disordered (!).

I think you're trying to say that the emotional intensity of an affair/ epiphany (which might turn out to be false) can cause people to make bad decisions, especially when you've been feeling bored or restless for a while.

I'm sure the OP has considered that this and knows that if she does begin a new relationship it might not work out. But I'm not sure how her current marriage can continue as long as she feels that she's not just a bit bicurious, or even bisexual, but that she's incapable of being a wife to the person she's married.

@HumousWhereTheHeartIs
I imagine he is feeling lost, hurt and angry, but that will pass.

^
Not in my personal experience it doesn't. As the spouse (now divorced) of a husband who realised he was gay after 14 years marriage, I can assure you it doesn't pass. It messes with every part of your being despite over 2 decades elapsing, a happy marriage, children and career.
I agree entirely with @Itsalmostanaccessory. You've always known you were gay but have dragged someone else into your mess and broken their heart.

In the way I see this impossible situation - the sexuality aspect is irrelevant.
(It is to you, OP, I get it. And whether you are gay or bi is important to you, and one day you’ll figure it out)
But from a bigger picture point of view:

• You have two children who need care
• H is the breadwinner
• You provide childcare and not yet able to support yourself
• You are in love with someone who can’t afford to have a place for you and your kids
• H has accepted that you have fallen for someone and is proposing you cohabit (terms TBC) while kids need you both or until you can afford to separate

Hard as it is - it’s simple really. You can’t afford to leave your H to be with with Person X you prefer over your H. Not if you aren’t willing to leave your kids behind.
At this point you do need to make a choice, even if it’s a choice for a short term, while your son is still small.
It’s hard to imagine for you, but in a couple of years this will all change as he starts secondary school.

I think the only options that are feasible are:

• You figure out a way to co-habit and co-parent, negotiate some sort of relationship boundaries with your H - it could range from you actually being separated and cohabiting,

Or some sort of open marriage As it’s going on - you are slowly building up your earning potential to be able to be self sufficient jn a few years

• You move out but spend a lot of time with the kids in the house. You continue to do childcare - school pickups, etc. Just as H continues to support you all. The difference is - once kids go to bed - you go to you GF and come back in the morning.

None of those are great solutions, but as adults we have to face reality and make choices given the situation as it is

But I really didn’t know I was gay.
If I knew that I honestly wouldn’t have done this and upset 2 children along the way.
After the feelings for my best friend I honestly never gave it a second thought - but maybe it was just because I didn’t ever come across someone who felt similar so even if I felt something for a friend maybe my brain just didn’t register it - if she had not have told me I never in a million years would I have said anything:
As I said I have a very distant relationship with my parents, they are religious and set in their ways and I am everything they hate.
And this is just an added extra hence me not talking to them about any of it.
I am so sorry for what I’ve done to another person; people.

OK but you know now and your ex husband can never really know if you only knew after an epiphany or if your relationship with him was an attempt to repress your sexuality and 'play straight'.

He is reacting accordingly.