Thankful

I just wrote a massive update/response, and my laptop died. Short version - THANK YOU EVERYONE! I have a lot of grieving to do, but we are and always will remain best friends and family. We are (I know this sounds fake but it will make sense when I post next) closer than ever, will likely divorce in the next few years, but are in no rush, and honestly I've never had such a satisfying or intimate evening than tonight was. I'll post the full deal later, but basically life hurts like hell and is INCREDIBLE all at once. It's incredible what having been best friends for 17 years before we married can do for us. Thank you thank you thank you. More to come.

 

Oh, and because things feel super stable and wonderful right now, Katladee (let me know if you want me to take your name off), oh yes. I cook. Any recipes you want at the moment?

 

I don't actually know any of you, haven't met a one of you, but I love you folks! Thank you so much for helping me through the most painful day of my life - without you all I would not have been in the right place to come home to my wonderful wife and reach such a wonderful place as where we are now. Again - I'll explain in full when I have more time.

To clarify

To be clear, I have no illusions that she'll "try the lesbian thing" or "get it out of her system." Human sexuality doesn't work like that. Nor would she EVER be willing to actually act on her attractions until our marriage was over and over. I'm more open to that than she is and, well, let's just say I'd rather set the house on fire (though I wouldn't). It's more that I find myself hoping it's a phase similar to what a preadolescent goes through rather than a 'phase' that the parents of those in the LGBTIQ community hope their children will 'grow out of' when they're in denial. Most likely though, I'm just in denial.

Update: Oct 7 - totally in denial. She's gay. Done and done. Poop.

Wishful thinking

I'm weirdly still unable to let go of the hope that as she continues her work with her counselor she'll somehow find an attraction to me as the exception to the rule or that this is the apocryphal (and, if I'm honest, horribly intolerantly minded) 'phase' she's going through before discovering she's hetero or that it's like what I went through when I was 8 or so and was attracted to any and everything just because WOW, TESTOSTERONE! But I think I know that none of those fit. After all, we've got everything else in place for a nauseatingly idyllic marriage - so it would make sense that as her sexual identity is forming she'd form a sexual/romantic attraction to me along with, if not instead of, anyone else. After all, if she's not truly a lesbian, how on earth could some stranger on the street who's attractive compete with best friend/spouse for the last for what amounts to our entire lives. Thanks for letting me vent a bit more.

Is it becauseof weight loss?

I wanted to address this one directly. There are some of you who are aware that I weighed 415 lb a a year ago and, at last weigh in, am down nearly 200 lb. I've gotten a few emails asking if maybe my new body is what 'caused' The Socialist to be gay. Nope.

I've always been heavy, but thankfully The Socialist suffers from face blindness - a portion of which being that she actually can't tell by looking at someone if they're overweight . But yes, weight loss absolutely changes things - here though I think it was more that our life was finally stable enough for long enough that she felt safe enough to actually explore her own sexuality in ways she was not able to do as a child in a particularly yucky home.

 

And yes, thank you for the other words - listening is what I'm trying to do. But as we've always told one another absolutely everything, I'm struggling not to unload my own grief on her in the meantime while searching for a new counsellor for myself. I know it's slowing her process, but it's where I'm at for now.

The plan for tonight is, once our little guy goes down (assuming he goes down before 10), to try and hang out as friends and focus on enjoying, even reveling in our friendship rather than the grief/despair/etc I feel or the shame she's feeling.

In response to emails & comments

I know I'll get through this, but I feel so deeply that the world should just stop spinning, how can anything normal carry on? But it does. 

Sure, I know I could love again blah blah blah (I don't buy the one-and-only soulmate stuff), but I think I'd always feel like I was emotionally cheating on my future spouse should I go that route because deep down I'd always be longing for my current wife and best friend rather than really deeply loving newspouse the most.

To clarify, although I just want it to end and have this vague sense of "Can I just die please?" I am not in any way suicidal, experiencing suicide ideation, or considering self harm. I just reread my post and realized I would be concerned were I not the author and so wanted to clarify.

Thank you, emailer. Every comment like yours is a buoy for the next 3 minutes. It's almost pathetic (I know it's not really) but after 3 I need another - so thank you for being this one.

I don't actually think we'll ever stop being friends or loving one another - I just don't want to be only friends, you know? I've craved her as my life partner since I was 5. But I want her to be happy, truly happy, and to be able to love her partner as I've loved her, even if that means that partner isn't me. One the one hand I know one of my two my 'nonnegotiables' through this all is that I need for us to both be loved and to love fully and to feel all of that love. The sucky part is that the other nonnegotiable I've got is that I need to stay partnered to her    . I guess that's why this takes time.

Excruciating is exactly the word. And I feel so guilty for my own pain because I know it's so much of what's hurting her. Thank you!

Oh, and we have a kid with special needs - that doesn't throw a messy wrench into the whole debacle.

Horror and Joy

Hi All,

 

I need an outlet and some support. I'm not looking for advice or condemnation of my wife, just support and listening ears, and maybe a bridge if anyone on here has gone through something similar. It's a bit of a long story, so thanks for reading.

 

I met my wife in kindergarten - by the end of September, I'd already proposed. Curiously, she said no. I tried again in December, again, she said no. In all, I think I proposed to her 8 times before we had finished second grade, I asked her out throughout middle and high school, and then, during her senior year of college, after having been best friends for most of our lives, she finally said yes. My dreams came true.

 

Our marriage has been wonderful, she always has been and always will be my best friend. But sex, romance any sort, was never particularly satisfying - I loved it, but knew she wasn't getting much out of it and wasn't attracted to me sexually, romantically or physically. It was hard, but our relationship was well worth it. She wasn't gay, we thought, she may not have been attracted to me, but she wasn't attracted physically to anyone. Maybe she was asexual. We put sex on hold a few years ago.

 

Two months ago, we decided together she should pursue counselling to help her work through her own sexuality, to help her know if she was asexual, or repressing her sexuality as the result of some childhood trauma that I won't get into, or something else altogether. We put all the remaining physical intimacy we had (cradling, hand holding, etc) on hold to give her the space to go through her process. It was hard, physical intimacy is very important to me and to lose what little remained was terrifying, but she's worth it. I never really imagined that what happened last night would come.

 

Last night she said she wanted to give me an update on her process. "Smye," she said. "I wanted to let you know that in the last few weeks I've felt some stirrings of sexual attraction for the first time and it's scared me really badly. But it's absolutely been happening."

 

HELL YES, I thought. FINALLY!

 

Then came the bomb. "And I want you to know, Smye, it's only been towards women. I'm not going to put a label on it yet, I'd give anything to have attraction to you, and maybe I still will. But so far I'm only attracted to women."

 

S***, S***, S***. I love her, she's still my best friend. And I'm thankful as hell that there's no affair going on to deal with. 

 

I wouldn't trade the 7 years we've had as man and wife so far for anything. And I know she still loves me as much as ever. But it hurts like hell, I don't have a clue what's next, but the research I've (perhaps foolishly done) suggests that only 1/6 of mixed-orientation marriages survive more than 2 years after disclosure. I don't want to lose my wife, I don't want to lose my best friend. But, even if magically she wakes up tomorrow and is attracted to me as the one man she finds attractive, the marriage I thought I had is dead. No matter what happens, I know I need to grieve that. 

 

And I've reached out to the straight spouse network. But while I'm waiting to hear back, having no clue what's next or how I'll even survive the next 10 minutes, I know I need to tell someone and come out of my own closet, so to speak. Has anyone else here been through something similar? Or do you have words of support? I do NOT want "it's god's will" or "it'll be okay" or "it all happens for a reason" etc, nor condemnation of my wife, my marriage, etc. I trust her implicitly, know that this blindsided her as much as it did me, and know too that our marriage was/is based on an incredible friendship that still exists. So don't go hating.

 

Neither do I want advice. I don't have a clue what it is I'm asking for exactly, but I hurt like hell, I'm terrified, and I know I ought to reach out to keep myself sane. Thanks!

 

ADDED AUG 26

To everyone, thank you again for your support! This is still very much a work in progress and I will be keeping everyone here up to date - for my own therapy if nothing else. A quick note though before lending me your love and support (unless you just want to say 'I hear you, I love you, here are some digital hugs, and take care/let us know if you need anything' - then go for it.)

 

I HIGHLY recommend you read the entire blog up to this point before commenting yourself or sending me a message, I know how therapeutic this has been for me. I've received several PM's from folks about how your responses have helped them and/or given them grace for a loved one they didn't previously understand and even one from a person who is considering whether or not to come out to his/her partner him/her-self. And there's also the selfish reason I'd like you to read it all first - the few responses I've gotten that have felt more hateful towards The Socialist and, despite the authors' intentions, hateful towards me and my choices as a result could, I think, have been prevented had the author had the entire up-to-date picture.