I've been away for a while. I put my own struggles aside while the family made some stressful changes. Things aren't settled yet, but I'm finding a little more room for myself over the past couple of weeks. So I posted here this spring about coming out to my wife. We have an almost-four-year-old boy, and my wife was pregnant. My wife was heartbroken when I came out, but generally supportive. Our marriage has never been great, but it wasn't bad either. Looking back, I would describe it as numb. In July, our second son was born. The last months of pregnancy had some very stressful complications, but once little man was born all of those complications ended. Mom and baby are both doing well. Around that time, I also changed careers. It's been a big change for me, and the timing was terrible, but it will be good for out family. We've been wanting this for a long time. It allows us to move to the city, close to her parents, gives me a more flexible schedule, and pays waaaay better. I'm on a roller coaster of coming to terms with my sexuality. Some days I feel completely at ease with it, can talk about it to my wife, have come out to two trusted people that I would sort of consider mentors. Some days, the thought of moving out of the house, telling my parents and my wife's, missing daily life with my kids, makes me want to take it all back, and I wish I'd never come out. I was in counseling, and couples counseling, but those have both been put on hold while these changes were happening. I think its time to start back again. I could probably ramble on here for pages about my feelings and my relationship with my wife. I'm pretty lonely and don't really have friends that I can talk this stuff out with. I'll save that for my journal for now. In summary, after I came out to my wife I felt confident and happy and ready to live an authentic life. If it wasn't for having a baby, I would have insisted that we move forward quickly to separate. As it was though, I put all this in the back of my mind and focused on my family. Now I feel much less confident, much less sure of what I want. One thing I know for certain is that we will eventually split up. This marriage isn't made to last forever. My wife thinks that we will be living like this, in some sort of platonic co-parenting situation and maintain our marriage for the next ten years. I've been open with her from the start that I don't think that I can live like my "old" self that long. I've said two or three years. Now that I am being honest about who I am, and have a little bit of an idea of what I want, I want to be able to be that person. Neither of us are interested in an open relationship. Two years seems like a long time. Ten years seems like eternity. There are some other big changes looming that force me to consider the long term future, like buying a house together, talking to our families, doing what's best for our kids. I had a clear vision of the future back when I came out, but now that I'm actually working on making it happen, the picture isn't so clear. We will be together for a while yet, a few years, because we need each other daily while our youngest is an infant. When is the best time for my wife and I to split for the kids? I kinda want to rip the band aid off and split, but they need so much attention when they are little. I want to live near my wife, be friends, and raise our children together. I love my kids like crazy! I didn't mean to come here to post a wall of text. It just kept pouring out. The point of my post is this: Would anyone else share how to deal with a delayed separation? When is it "ok" to split up my family? What ages were your young kids when you moved out? How do I bring my wife along on this journey instead of leaving her in the dust? How do I get through the next 2 or 10 years together and still live authentically? Nothing is stagnant in my life, except the thing I want to move forward with most.
I am amazed at how understanding and cooperative your wife is, this was unfortunately not my experience. Nevertheless, you have an opportunity: with a lot of hard emotional work, unrelenting honesty, and a decent amount of time to work out in excruciating (and documented!) detail how you intend to co-parent your kids (now and in the future), I think you can still make the best of a difficult situation. I would throw in a return to professional counselling, provided you have or find someone who understands the situation you are in and can help you appropriately; the pitfalls and traps are numerous and guidance is highly recommended. Do not be afraid to show your vulnerability, and be receptive to hers as well. Do your best to listen to her, and often, and give her the time and space to grieve. Forget about any clarity about the future, it is best to focus on the present and to raise your kids with all the care and attention they deserve. You will likely both know when the time comes to live the lives you are both moving toward, and deserve, it will happen, all you need is a bit of faith that it will. Take this for what it is worth: you have to understand that this is a tragic situation, nothing less, and doing the right thing, which likely means leaving the family, is part and parcel of the tragic element. This does not mean the kids have to suffer, in fact, if you do everything right, you may find yourselves one day not too far off, where both of you have found new loves, and your kids may, just may, find themselves with an expanded family that is able to model for them what loving adult relationships can be...which is far better than seeing two more or less numb people living as roommates who seem to stay together just for them.
Hey ARB, Your situation sounds very similar to what is happening to me. my wife and I have a two year old son and we are currently going through a separation. No matter what it is a difficult situation. To be honest, since you want to focus on living an authentic life, I don't think you and your wife should keep intertwining things together. The longer you guys melt your lives together, live together, and combine your incomes etc. the harder it will be to separate at a later time. Also, to be honest, the sooner you guys can separate the better it is for the kids. This is because the older they get the more comfortable to your present situation they will become and the more they won't want it to change. However, if you guys can separate while they are still young, the more normalized your more authentic life will be for them. Something that my therapist has been beating into me is that a separated home is not the same as a broken home. You obviously love your family and moving out isn't going to change that. It's really all about scheduling and making the time to go be with them. In my situation, I have been scrambling to find a night job because we don't want to put our son in daycare. Also having a night job allows me to be home and take care of him during the day while my wife is at work. Further, just make time to be with your family, show up for birthdays, holidays, go on family vacations together with just your core family. Show up throughout the week to help your wife with groceries, chores around her house, kids with their homework and just be with them. Your primary goals right now are to take care of your family and live your authentic life. You can't delay that for up to 10 years and you can do both but it's about taking the initiative and making the effort regardless of how difficult the situation. The most challenging and complicated aspect is the relationship with your wife. From her perspective she has invested everything into your relationship up to this point. She had kids with you expecting to have a family together. Then this situation regarding your sexuality is basically a napalm bomb going off. How you navigate your relationship together could either be really easy or painfully difficult but in the end it's going to be based upon how well the two of you communicate your feelings. I am in a situation where I still deeply love and care for my wife. I want my family to be together and I don't want to get divorced. However, there is also a clear disconnect between what I want emotionally and how I physically respond with things like sex. The older I have been getting, the more difficult it has been for me to maintain our physical relationship due to long running issues with my sexuality. In the end, the sooner you guys come to accept the inevitable new reality the better off you will all be in the long run.
The impression I get is that all of this is very abstract to you and that you haven't really dug into the nuts and bolts of separation and divorce (or perhaps you simply haven't commented about it). Thus were I you I would start to think about things like child-support payments, shared custody arrangements, what you will tell your kids, how you will concretely be both a single gay man diving into gay life while also being the dad of a couple of young children, how you will deal with likely negative reaction of family members, and the like. Try to temper your somewhat unformed vision of a new "authentic" life with some cold-hard facts and reality, and take your time to really think it through. I also think you need to take into account that how this situation plays out is not at all within your sole control ... for example, while your wife may be supportive or at least distracted by having a new baby her attitude may shift substantially once you get to down to the business of getting a divorce.
Justaguyinsf, I'm trying to focus parts of the concrete stuff. I haven't talked to a divorce lawyer, or anything regarding how our family will split, but I'm thinking about should I buy a house with my wife, or should we rent? I need a new car, how should I handle that with our finances splitting in the near future? Should we split finances now while we are still together? I have a plan about when, how, and the fallout from telling our families. I'm struggling now with how soon I can make these changes since I have young kids. A selfish part of me wants it to happen now, and the family man says I need to stay put for a while and focus on my kids. The new job and impending move are the first concrete steps down this path.
It seems to me that you should be talking to a divorce lawyer first and foremost, as you need facts about the concrete reality of what it would be like being a divorced gay dad. I also think you should be investigating gay culture and meeting other gay guys for nonsexual reasons (I'm not implying anything by that comment, to be clear) so you have a clear sense of what being a gay man in your neck of the woods in 2017 will be like. You speak of going "down this path," but it sounds, quite understandably, like you aren't really sure what is at the end of the path. Gathering facts is the way to get a clearer picture. By the way, it's not clear to me whether you've decided definitely to break-up from your wife, which would seem to be contrary to making major purchases and moves with her. If you are still on the fence about that, which would be completely understandable, then I would suggest you try to do what you can to make your marriage work ... counseling might help ... there are mixed-orientation marriages that work. If that ship has sailed, however, then I think you should be gathering facts and also (after you've seen a lawyer) talking to your wife as to how you two are going to make this transition together, all of which will probably make the answers to each of your discrete questions more clear. I hope that helps.
Maybe I'm not communicating as clearly as I think I am. My wife and I will be divorcing in the future. We disagree about whether that should happen in two years or ten years. As I mentioned before, neither of us are interested in an open marriage. You are right that I don't know what is at the end of this path. That's one reason I'm here looking for stories of people who decided to end their marriage, but not immediately.
So your kids are much younger than mine, but I've also taken a lot longer to figure myself out. My thoughts may not be popular and they may not be for you. Also in a rear or two I may be singing an entirely different tune. Here it is tho. I'm a gay woman, my husband has been instrumental in me giving myself the time and understanding I needed to figure this all out. I cannot bear to do the part time parent thing. Everytime I think about it I want to throw up. I adore my kids (9&11). We have a tiny little house, limited funds and two kids with special needs. Our solution has been to get an addition that would afford us four bedrooms. One per kid one per adult. Everytime I think about it, it is the conclusion I find myself in....except for my trips to see my girlfriend every six months, which has only been the past three years and 3-4 days at a time. I have never been away from my kids, other than that. I hate being away from them.... So this plan is what is sitting well with us. It won't be until next summer that I get my own room, but he is incredibly respectful and this solution sits the best with me for now. From what I know? Enjoy your babies, they grow up fast. Heterosexual partners who are willing to work through things are worth their weight in gold. My current husband has been my strongest supporter and I am happy as hell to be co parenting with him. Babies are fun, cute and exciting, soak as much up as you can. Be frank with your wife. About who you are and who she is. She'll appreciate that in these years. It's a beautiful thing to have babies and I know the timing is not great, just keep open lines between you and her. Be there for each other, infants -toddlers are fun and tough, sexuality is tough. Just remember even if you didn't understand at the time, you still chose her to parent with. There is a reason for that. You can still be parents together. Infants/ toddlers are a storm of adjusting to the adjustments. Be as honest and as loving and as aware as you can. Any decisions derived from that will serve all of you well. (Hugs)
