Re: Sexual abuse as a young boy and TGT -- Straight Spouse Network Open Forum

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Date Posted: 13:46:38 05/19/16 Thu
Author: Patti (..but you do)
Subject: Re: Sexual abuse as a young boy and TGT
In reply to: Casseopia 's message, "Re: Sexual abuse as a young boy and TGT" on 12:43:20 05/19/16 Thu

You don't "have to do this".
You can continue to live with a cheat and a liar.

I'm so sorry for your pain. I lived it. I was willing to do almost anything to fix it, fix us.
My husband wasn't broken. The marriage was.

He isn't the man you believed you married.
He's been performing; an actor in a play of his own making. He didn't want to be gay. Who would.
He is, alas, gay.
Heterosexual men DO NOT have sex with men. They just don't. (If that therapist is suggesting otherwise, he is doing both of you a huge disservice.)

I prayed every night that I would die in my sleep for weeks after disclosure. It has been 19 years since he told me he was gay. I still shed tears once in a while.

This is the best/worst thing that ever happened in my life.

I will share with you what our couples' therapist told us, at our last session: "Sometimes you have to love each other enough to say, 'enough'. "

You said that you didn't want to move forward until you "understand". Stop. Stop immediately. That is completely unrealistic and simply not possible. None of us can ever "understand" this. We are not them. We did not choose to put ourselves in this situation as a result of our self-loathing, our families of origin, our societal and religious pressures. There is no way we can or will ever "understand". In the same way, our spouses, can never understand what this does to us.

Support is not being told what you want to hear.
Support is being told what you need to hear. There is wisdom here that cannot be quantified. It is based upon, not only, individual stories, but the collective experiences many of us have come to know from hundreds of other str8 spouses.
He is gay.

I would recommend that you find your own therapist, if you don't already have one. I would also strongly recommend that you read "Codependent No More". If possible, find a codependency support group. Most of us are Fixers. I didn't realize just how self-destructive that was until more than fifteen years post-disclosure. What I learned is that boundaries are critical in the healing process. Your posts are filled with the (nearly) invisible need to somehow fix him and change the reality of the past and the present and what will likely be the future, if you aren't willing to save yourself.

Unless or until you can allow yourself to acknowledge the simple truth that this man you married is gay, I fear that you will not be able to make any of the decisions that are in your own best interest.

Please save yourself.
He's an adult. Let the professionals deal with him and his issues. Again, if they're trying to somehow couch his past behavior in terms that do not recognize that he is a gay man, they are doing more damage to him and to you than can ever be countered.

Patti in CA

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Replies:

Re: Sexual abuse as a young boy and TGT -- Sue (thank you), 19:47:55 05/19/16 Thu