Quite the Pickle I have Gotten Myself Into

Thank you all for your comments. I read and consider them all carefully. That being said, I really could use more advice regarding the questions I posed; in particular, I need advice about Friend #1, and it is kind of an emergency.

Friend #1 is coming to town tomorrow and the next day, and he has texted me to ask to see me. I am am torn between 1) meeting with him, telling him the whole truth, and then telling him I can't talk to him anymore because I want to preserve my relationship with my wife, and 2) avoiding this text and all texts in the future with no explanation, or like I did before, a simple statement by email that I cannot be in contact with him anymore. I am afraid that if I do the first, and out myself to another person, I will destroy the bond I have built with my wife where this is our private secret and nobody else's. If I tell this friend, then it is me, my wife, and Friend #1 (and therapist), and I am afraid that my wife will take this as confirmation that I am not serious about recommitting. My wife recently told me that she does not want to be pulled into these personal decisions I make (like deciding who to come out to), but that she does not understand why I feel the need to pay attention to "strangers" who complicate or harm our relationship. If I don't tell Friend #1 the truth, it will bother me for a long time--it has been bothering me for several months now. Something inside me just will not let it go and I think I need to tell him the truth to gain closure.

You can't tell from blog posts how a person feels. Know that I am really torn up about this. It is interfering with my work. I have nobody to talk to other than a therapist and it is too late to make an appointment. I suppose I could wait until another time to make this decision, but I feel like this is it! Please offer done kind of help other than to tell me that I need to just leave my wife and deal with the consequences. Many of you have already given that advice in various different ways, and I am grateful for your comments. But now I help with this smaller sub-issue.

 

Friend #1 has left, and I never saw or talked to him. He texted me several times, but I did not respond. These last two days have been a struggle since I found myself thinking about him all the time, wondering what he was thinking/feeling about me, if anything at all. I got lunch at the food court where we used to get lunch almost every day, and I couldn't help looking around, wondering (hoping?) if he would show up. In his last text, he said that he had walked by my office a couple times and that it was too bad we didn't meet up. My office is in a spot where it would be hard to avoid, though, so this probably means nothing.

I told myself that if he would open up to me emotionally, even a little but, I would respond. If he showed me that he cared about me even half as much as I care about him, I might have told him the truth. This didn't happen, and it was probably just a dumb fantasy that he cared about at all more than just a buddy.

I don't know what happens next. Maybe he cuts me off like I cut him off; maybe he writes me an email asking what is going on, possibly showing a shred of emotion? What I do know is that without distance from him, I may never get over him. I know that I am married, he is married, and he has a child. There is no scenario in which me telling him the truth would do any good without it also doing potentially a lot of damage to my wife, him, his wife, or a combination of all three. I decided that the least selfish thing to do was to just cut him out of my life.

Next up is my mom. She is in town for thanksgiving. There is a whole different set if considerations surrounding the decision to tell my mom the truth. When she arrived last night, she told me, unprompted, that I could do no wrong in her eyes. My biggest concern is how my wife would feel about another person, even my mom, being let into the loop. I believe my wife is thinking, you kept your secret from her for 15+ years, what has changed now?

As before, any feedback you all have on this issue is welcome.

 

Aaaaaaaaand. I'm back. But I am not exactly the same "Link" that I used to be.

I am no longer in a pickle. It was on May 23, 2013 that I admitted to my wife that I am gay. It took my 10 months of weighing the pros and cons of life with my wife vs. life as a gay man to finally decide that I would not be able to recommit to my wife. Since then, my wife and I have begun the separation process and I have been coming out in a controlled, concentrated way. I am happy to report that, so far, everything is going very well.

Rough coming-out timeline: About five weeks ago, I told my wife that I could not recommit. Four weeks ago, we discussed divorce for the first time. Three weeks ago, we told my wife's family that we are separating and that it is because I am gay. The next day, at the airport on my way back to my hometown for a brief vacation, I called my mom to tell her that I am gay (I figured she should know before I started to tell others). That night, I sat my brother (whom I grew up with) and his fiancée down at the Red Lobster and told them. The next day, I told a friend from high school (we were groomsmen at each other's weddings) and his wife. The next day, I sat three of my best friends from high school (one of which is a gay man) down at the Olive Garden and told them. The next day, I told my brother's fiancée's sister and her husband. Then I called Friend #2 (see prior posts) and told him. Then I called an old colleague of mine from work (who is gay) and several other long-distance friends. I add a new person almost every day, so it is getting difficult to keep track!

Every single person has been totally surprised, and just about everybody has been very supportive. Also, every person has their own unique reaction. I think my favorite so far was my mom's initial reaction: "I find that hard to believe; are you sure?" My brother: "Oh really? Cool! (said in a genuine, I actually think that is really cool, kind of way). My brother told me that me being gay was exciting, not just for me, but for him: "It's like now I have something new and exciting in MY life!" The day after I told my best friend from high school (the one who is gay), he texted me and asked if I would like him and his boyfriend to give me a tour of the gay bars in the city I grew up in. I went with my friend, his boyfriend, and my brother! My brother has been over-the-top supportive. I can even talk to him about boys and he treats it as though we were two guys talking about girls. After listening to me and my friends check out and gossip about other guys at the gay bars (something I have NEVER done before with anybody other than myself, and very awkwardly, with my wife during the last 11 months), my brother is starting to understand the type of guy I am most into. A good friend of mine and my wife’s from college appeared to be very supportive of me. At dinner with him and my wife later that night, however, he began to focus more on my wife and didn’t talk much to me. My wife told me later that he texted her, “Are you really going to pretend that you are not furious,” and “If I were you, I would not be able to be in the same room as him.” This made my wife, who has been dealing with her grief, anger, and other emotions for the last 11 months, very angry.

This process has been very difficult for my wife. It is a complicated situation and I am not going to attempt to explain it in full here, but for me, I have been coming to terms with this decision for the last 11 months, and really coming to terms with the decision for the last 4 or 5 months. For my wife, she only really began to come to terms with my decision when I told her 5 weeks ago that I could not recommit. Should she have seen this coming? Maybe to some degree, but not really. I was very close to deciding to stay with her and keep me being gay OUR secret. In that life, I would have had a beautiful, loving wife who is my best friend, children, and the straight-based life I had built for myself. She was ready to recommit to me even after I betrayed her by withholding such important information from her and by asking her to marry me even though I knew I am gay. In my head, I had to weigh all the pleasures of my life with my wife against the very depressing reality that if I stayed with her, I would never get to have a loving relationship with another man. This was just too much for me to give up. The last 15 years of my life, and in particular, the last 11 months, I would see other gay men enjoying each other’s company, and it would send me spiraling into a potent depressed state. Sure, I would wake up the next morning having snapped out of the depression, but then something would hit me again not too much later. At some point, I just stopped believing that it was important that I restrain the gay in me. I don’t even remember why I started restraining in the first place 15+ years ago. Was it so that people would not think I am weird? So what?! Was it that I thought I would not be able to have things I wanted? I suppose that is still true to some degree, but honestly, do I need to have those things? Isn’t it more important that I am happy being the person I am designed to be?

I have decided that I need to do what I have to do to maintain a relationship with my wife, albeit a “redefined” relationship. I am doing whatever I can to support her. I told her she can have anything she wants, possession-wise. She is taking most of the good furniture and kitchen items, the car, and our dachshund (our pretend daughter). She found a new apartment close to her work and I helped her move in. Fun story: we hired a guy on Craig’s list to come help us move. When he did not show, I called up a friend of mine very last minute to ask if he could help me move my wife into a new apartment (understand, hardly anybody knows that we are even separating—we have been a happy, loving couple for the last 10 years). He had no idea what was going on but dropped what he was doing to come help. When we packed up the UHaul, he drove with me to the new apartment. In the UHaul, I told him everything. He said “I never would have guessed that.” He was baffled, but spent the next several hours helping us move. When he left, he said that I could buy him a beer sometime soon to thank him.
My wife has been absolutely wonderful through all of this. Incredibly so. She is very hurt, but is so strong that she is seeing past the hurt. She is an amazing amazing person, and I want her always to be in my life if that is something she wants as well.
I have realized that part of maintaining the redefined relationship with my wife is that I cannot start a relationship with another guy just yet. This has been very tough. I am ready. And I have already met several guys in just the last few weeks (one in particular) who I could really see myself falling for. I have dipped my foot into the gay pool here in D.C., and it is very welcoming and exciting. For all of you ECers who talk about not having gay resources in your respective towns, MOVE TO D.C.! Look me up, I will introduce you to some new friends I am making. Even though I am not going to start “seeing” another guy just yet, I am working on expanding my network of friends, more specifically, my network of gay friends. I told a colleague of mine at work (who is gay) my whole story. Now we are three times as good of friends as we were before I told him. He invited me to a party at his house last night that was chock full of young gay professionals like myself. It was wonderful. I was there until 1:30 am chatting it up with a bunch of guys. Then we went to a gay club in the city that I did not even know existed and stayed out dancing until 4:00. I made 7 new Facebook friends and have been invited to another party next weekend.

I could go on and on. So far, the experience has been for the most part positive, but I know there are bound to be rough patches ahead. Sometimes I have waves of depression different than the ones I described earlier when I think about what I am losing by letting go of my wife. I am losing a lot. I know one thing for sure though: I am gay and that is just the way it is. That is not going to change. In a way, I was never supposed to have the wonderful life with my life. The relationship I had was based on an unstable foundation. Now a have a stable foundation, but no relationship. But I am confident that things are going to work out. And I think I am on my way to being genuinely happy, maybe for the first time.