But I still love my wife and life.....

well, no shit about Ethier, Saraph! (LOL)

I have been pretty open and honest with my wife, and there have been occasions where she enjoyed the fantasy herself. I told her she's make a great gay man. But after a while, she got tired of that, so there were plenty of times when I didn't tell her what was going on in my head. And I suppose I was probably a better lover at those moments—more into it. I probably gave her more pleasure in those moments.

I used to have an employee who would put on her lipstick and sing a little song: "Oh, I'm a lipstick lesbian. . . ." She was a delight. I was deep in the closet at the time, but I very nearly came out to her.

 

Maybe just one more question for tonight, it is not clear to me how to phrase it, but let's try like this: Was it the fact that most of your fantasies were about gay sex or did you have to try gay sex before "convincing" yourself that you were gay/lesbian?

Maybe better like this, is it possible for me to clear that out without trying gay sex (is doing a therapy help to better understand, doing more reflexion by myself ,???)

 

I have never had sex with a man. I have just wanted to for my entire life. A friend of mine, an ex-girlfriend, asked, "But, how can you know without having actually tried it?" How can I know what gives me an erection? And what it take to satisfy that erection?

I read about a study several years ago in which they showed men gay and straight porn and did something like a penile EKG to study arousal. I thought the whole thing was rather silly, but it did reaffirm the fact that I have an involuntary response to gay porn that's way more pronounced than my response to straight porn. And likewise without porn: I'm aroused by sexual fantasies of men more than fantasies of women. I think this was probably true even when I was younger and quite interested in women (or thought I was).

What I said to my therapist last week is that, as much as I like women and find them beautiful and bond emotionally with them and fall in love with them, that deep inside I don't want to have sex with them and it's quite possible that I never really wanted to. It's impossible to know, of course, but I think that I may have always felt something not quite right when I had sex with women, that I wasn't making the connection somehow, if you see what I mean. It felt pleasurable, for sure, but it was seldom as insanely wonderful as I thought sex should be. When I fantasize about sex with men, I feel that amazing letting go.

 

To answer your point more directly, Samson, I think you can know without having had sex with a man. And, yes, therapy can be enormously useful. It took a long, long time for me to let go of a self-image that wasn't accurate. I thought I was straight (or on the straight side of bi)—or kept telling myself I was straight—for about 45 years. I was deeply invested in that idea and it wasn't easy to let go. But I finally did, and I feel happier for it.

 

Sympathy for you... Be well

 

Sorry to hear you've been outed like that...

On the topic of being alone, Arturoenrico, as you probably know, I'm in a very similar situation though I've come out totally at this point and am separating from my wife, although we both want to remain friends. But what I can say is that I also believed I'd be alone, never find anyone, etc. But turns out there are a lot of guys our age who are great guys and want to be in LTRs. I wasn't looking but a couple months after I came out to my wife, I met a guy about my age and we are currently in a wonderful relationship that is deepening by the day. I feel so lucky.

Based on the little I know about you from your posts here, you are an amazing guy, a deep, soulful, smart, incredibly ethical and attractive guy. You'll find a love, I'm sure of it.

 

maybe it'll happen when you least expect it... I know it did for me.

 

Same thing here. I'm married to a wonderful, supportive older man...and this eventual break up is going to tear him apart. I have to see how it goes...I haven't gone to my first LGBT meeting yet. (November) I think if I feel strongly enough about my being a lesbian, then I would have to move out and be on my own. Good luck to me - I've been out of the work force for 13 years. I've got two kids and have been fighting depression for decades. (I'm hoping that this will help with the depression - that the repression of my sexual preference contributed to it.) Taking it slooooooooooooooow.

 

Oh gosh. I'm an English guy over in London and have just discovered this site. I'll cut straight to it.
I've been with my wife for 15 years, married for 7. About 3 years into the relationship I broke down and confessed that I'd had sexual encounters with men. The s**t hit the fan, we did couples counselling and were effectively told to separate but we didn't. I went to Sex Addicts Anonymous for a few years. Our sexual relationship (already not that great) just collapsed. But everything else in our relationship blossomed. She was accepting of my sexuality so long as I didn't act on it (so, actually, not accepting) but she just believes that it doesn't matter who you partner with as long as you love that person and are faithful. I had a prolonged period of no sex with other men, we got married but then a year or so later the encounters began again.
The weird thing is, the more I have grown unhappy with my dishonesty and double-life, the happier she has become in herself. She has grown a lot as a person spiritually, she used to be angry a lot of the time, but now is a whole lot happier, and is very loving towards me and constantly tells me how lovely I am and how much she loves me. She can be very controlling and can "gaslight" ( to use the jargon) but we have a great companionship and she is truly my best friend. But to live without true honesty and intimacy with my best friend is a torment for me. Most days I get by just fine and on a day-to-day level all seems well. We love travelling together, are both self-employed in the arts and share a lot more enjoyable time together than most couples we know. We don't have children (she's never wanted them) but have many children in our life to whom we give love and support.

I went to see a counsellor (secretly) on my own and he essentially said that we should break up. I broke down and kept thinking how much I love her and did not want to break things up. So I have just muddled along. Recently I hit a total low when I paid for sex for the first and only time - a moral nadir and something I thought I would not do but in London and with the internet it's so easy to do. But this last week I met a guy ten years younger than me but very similar in his battle with his sexuality. He's a British Nigerian guy and has all the religious / Christian baggage that can come with that. I feel like I'm falling for him, the sex has been the best I've ever experienced and I feel at sixes and sevens. We talk and wonder why we have met each other at this time in our lives. Is it for him (he's never been married or in a relationship of any length) to see what his future would hold if he tries to suppress his homosexuality (he still hankers after a wife and family)?
As some people on this site have said, I wonder if to truly love my wife would be to let her go and hope that she might find someone who would love her and could make love to her. She's a very attractive woman but is not drawn to many typically straight men. And, I suspect, not that interested in sex. Whilst no Bette Midler type fag hag she has many gay male friends of whom I am the best one it would seem! She always says how much she loves our life together and, when she sees me unhappy and unfulfilled, puts it down to my less than successful career and my dissatisfaction with that. We've done well out of property investment together so the issues are not financial, but I sometimes feel that my dishonest life has kept me fearful and cowardly in other areas of my life such as my artistic career.
One realises, through the passage of time, the huge infrastructure of friendships, financial arrangements and family relationships that accrue around a long term relationship and it's SO intimidating to think of all that shattering apart and having to start all over again.
But I feel that I have become the kind of man that I never wanted to be. That I could have been a braver, greater gay man than the weak and dispirited man that I feel myself to be. My sexual behaviour - being furtive and superficial - negates all the political gay liberation-type principles that I believe in and speak up for as a "straight" man.
Oh, where now?

 

Welcome to EC JDCG!

Where now indeed? You have your ideals and you have reality, thankfully you have no kids...what are you willing to do for your integrity?

 

I think what I find most difficult is that she appears to be getting happier and happier in life. She always says "I love our life" and part of me loves it too but there's this other me that exists in some kind of parallel universe. She knows I'm gay, we often talk about men we're attracted to, but this doesn't seem to bother her. Almost the opposite.
We have gay friends who come to stay quite often. Sometimes she has even said, "Why don't you just tell people you're bi / gay?" and I wonder what would that actually mean. I'd happily come out to most of my friends and family (most of my family already know and wouldn't object) but what would that mean to our relationship. Surely it just begs the much bigger question (to both of us) of "Why are you in this relationship"?
I feel committed in all ways except the sexual, because sex between us has never been really good and loving. Well perhaps briefly. And she's not a tactile person really, doesn't like massage etc and I really do. But everything else has been really very positive.
And I often look at the relationships and civil partnerships of gay friends of ours and nearly always they're not monogamous. At least one partner is always the "promiscuous" one. But they still seem totally committed to one another. But my wife always is very disapproving of them whilst being totally approving of gay marriage etc.
She has sometimes talked about going to counselling again but I think she sees that as just a way for us to get our sexual relationship going. But I know that if we start with counselling then it will be the end of our marriage.
The worst part of it all is that all the guilt and shame etc, as well as preoccupation in the past with porn, has affected my sexual capacity across the board and I suffer from erectile dysfunction with the men I meet as well as, in the past, with my wife.
And whilst the thought of sex with men is very exciting, the thought of actually spending the rest of my life with one doesn't have enormous appeal - men can seem so indifferent and lacking in gumption compared to women.
I apologise for this long-winded unloading of negativity. There are many really good things on my life for which I'm very grateful. But I despair of the way forward.
Thanks for being here.

 

Hi JDCG,

Sometimes what look like facts aren't actually facts, but opinions. To generalize gay relationships as promiscuous, across the board; or to characterize men as indifferent or lacking in gumption vis-à-vis women is to paint broad strokes indeed!

To be honest, these opinions sound like convenient excuses to maintain the (non-sexual) pleasures and privileges that you now enjoy within your marriage, perhaps these are also "reasons" not to act. Perhaps these are the same reasons you are still in this relationship.

But I can tell you this: living with guilt and shame will consume you, and destroy your marriage, in ways you can't predict. Not a matter of opinion, just a fact. Cheating will not resolve anything, it will split your life into two compartments that appear airtight...until you fall for someone on an emotional level and the idea of spending your life with him will suddenly become more of a possibility. When that happens, the wall between these apparently airtight compartments will simply collapse.

Your wife's happiness is no less important to consider. It's the "old having your cake and eating it too" conundrum, you just can't have both and be happy.

Sorry if this comes out a little tough, but I've been there and I know of what I speak. There are simply better ways of dealing with this.

 

For people who are or have been married, you will usually always have your kids. If not now, then later. Blood is thicker than water. The road ahead may have bumps, but you'll find a support system and new friends. There are peers of yours going through the same things, and maybe 5 blocks away in suburbia. In fact, what you are experiencing tends to happen to suburbanites. Those living in town are usually there because they're young, uninhibited, single, don't have families and their own transportation, and stuff like that. Consider yourself lucky that you've gotten along with each other. A good personality on your end may have been part of that formula. So, then, if you have a giving personality, which it sounds like from the things you've listed you tend to, you'll meet more people going forward.

 

Thanks for this reply. No need to apologise for the toughness. It's true. I know that cheating has resolved nothing. Quite the opposite. Sometimes I think I do it to "punish" either myself or my wife for something that has upset me. All quite childish.

I know what actions I should be taking. But I dread her anger and her grief and knowing that I will be responsible for that, when now she appears to be so happy.
I fear also for the impact on my now very aged parents. I know they would love and support but the stress for them would be very difficult.
How do I start? It's the snowballing of consequence at a speed I can't control that scares me.

 

With apologies to the OP for hijacking this thread...

JDCG, I have nothing but compassion for you, because I've been there so please take what I have to say as coming from that.

There's a great EC signature quote that I learned from one of our members: it's from André Gide and it goes like this:

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

I understand how this may affect your parents, but again, and I'm sorry, but this sounds like another excuse not to act.

You and I both can come up with yet more excuses: you will lose face among your mutual friends, your colleagues at work will shun you, etc. etc. Rationalization and ego are your enemies and it is not in your best interest to pursue these avenues.

Now to your wife. Well she is most likely happy that things appear stable, there are definitely benefits (social and financial) to that, but she knows about you! Does that not make her at least somewhat complicit in the lie?

So to my original question: what price are you willing to pay for your integrity? (which is another way of saying: how much do you value your integrity?)

 

For what it's worth... I heard you. Thanks... While my situation is a little different right now, that path was potentially open.

 

I find it hard to reconcile between doing what you think you should do vs. what you honestly think of that you could do. It's hard to rush into things especially when every advice you have considered tells you to come out now