40 Years of Denial & Suppression

*This post is the same as a reply I posted in another thread.*

A few days ago I thought I was alone in my destroying a marriage and family by revealing I had been living a lie as a straight married man while denying and suppressing my homosexuality.

But then, I found EC and specifically this sub forum.

I now realize I am among many guys that have the same basic condition to contend with: 1/do I keep what I have (hetero marriage and idyllic family) despite the depression, anger, suicidal thoughts, and hopelessness? Or 2/do I take the chance that I can feel whole albeit breaking my wife’s heart and possibly losing my kids?

Until last week, I was definitely going to stay in option 1. However, someone else forced me into option 2.


My story…

I realized I was gay when I was 13. It was 1983. Being gay was not an option. Besides, even at that young age, I knew I wanted the dream life; adoring wife to grow old with, beautiful children to raise and mentor, a house to host holidays for my future huge family in, a station wagon to haul the kids and their sports equipment around in (remember this is 1983-station wagons were still the family car of choice!), and the white picket fence to top it all off. This dream life was not an option in 1983 and there was no possibility that it ever would be.

So, I started 40 years of denial and suppression. Married my best friend and we had two beautiful kids. Now those kids are married and have kids of their own.

In a rare moment of self-realization, I told my wife that I had always been attracted to men about 15 years ago. Being in an in-depth marriage class at church at the time meant that we had tons of support and we could quickly move past this revelation. After all, the attraction was unwanted. I loved my wife and my life. She accepted it and helped me avoid triggers over the ensuing years.

2 years ago, I realized my attractions were starting to control me more. It got to the point that I wasn’t watching TV or movies because of the arousal I had when a guy on the screen pushed my buttons. I even made little groaning sounds that others in the room noticed when the right guy was on my big-screen.

I started therapy with a Christian counselor. Told her I had unwanted homosexual desires and needed help to get rid of them. She helped me find some of the reasons for many of my psychological deficiencies. But she couldn’t remove my wanting to be with a man.

In fact, she opened up old feelings I had for friends as a teenager and young 20’s guy. I realized I had fallen in love with two guy best friends. In both friendships I found a reason to end our relationship abruptly in order to avoid the pain I was in. I didn’t realize this at the time. I was so deep in denial. I hurt both of these guys by disappearing and I am just now trying to figure out how to forgive myself for how I treated them.

A year ago I told my wife that I was done trying to stop these feelings. We had spent so much money on therapy and I had cried too many tears to keep trying. I told her, “I am gay. I don’t want to be but I am and have been since I was 13. I have never acted on it [aside from a boatload of gay porn] and I never will. I love you and I hope you can keep loving me.” Because she is the most loving human ever to walk the Earth, she immediately held me and said it was all going to be ok.

As many others have posted in this thread, my desires kept getting stronger as time went by. Same here. Last week, I cheated on my wife with a guy. We masturbated each other. The very next day another guy I was chatting with online turned out to be an extortionist. He demanded $ or he would send my wife and kids pictures and videos I had sent him and screenshots of our very detailed chats.

The prospect of this terrified me. But I didn’t have the money and I knew he would never stop asking for more money. So, my wife and kids started getting phone calls and texts from this guy.

That afternoon I told my wife what I had done the day before with the guy I cheated with. And I told her what was causing these calls and texts. The pain I caused her in those 2 minutes destroyed 29 years of friendship and marriage. It completely broke my beautiful wife of nearly 27 years. It destroyed our planned future. It ripped apart my insanely close family. It sent me off on a rickety raft into shark-infested, stormy waters.

This revelation and impact happened 4 days ago.

My wife will not speak to me or see me.

My kids have told me they love me, but aren’t engaging with me.

We usually all text each other several times through the day. What we are doing. Strange or funny observations in our daily lives. Pictures of my grandkids doing something new and exciting. Simply texting I love you’s to each other. That has completely stopped.

I am alone living in a hotel. Trying to stop spontaneous sobbing outbursts and reminding myself to eat and sleep and do my job so I can continue to support my wife and family.

Highlander, if I hadn’t stumbled on this thread, I might have taken my own life by now.

But. I did stumble on it.

I have spent hours reading all the posts from yourself and all of the other guys going through this change later in life. It has given me hope that things will get better. I don’t have hope that I will ever be whole and happy, but maybe I will in time.

Thank you for putting this out there for others to feel connected to each other and to learn how to move forward.

 

Thank you, Rayland!

I start a new job in 11 days that includes mental health care. Planning to find an unbiased counselor as soon as I can!

 

Hey, mnguy.

I’m sure everyone’s experience is different. But, for me, in 1983 being gay was extremely looked at as being uber strange and dangerous. By 1983 when I was 13 and found myself attracted to guys, I had been bullied for 5 years. The bullying was from about 80% of the kids in my grade at school. I had been labeled gay when I was 8 by a mean-spirited girl in my 3rd grade class. At the time, I was unaware of sex completely. She was popular and soon most of the other kids were saying I was gay and calling me names. Everyday. For 5 years. It dissipated in 8th grade when I was 13. But the damage was done. I was labeled as something that I didn’t identify with (because I had no attraction to any gender prior to this) and had only a couple of friends that were more like acquaintances.

So, when I found myself staring up a boy’s loose shorts at his exposed genitalia (and being aroused by what I saw), I was petrified. I knew that if I shared my desires with anyone, all of that bullying would come back full force. And it would likely be much worse since I had been denying being gay for 5 years. Based on what I witnessed in my environment, the bullying would have become physical instead of just verbal.

My family wasn’t religious, but they were very bigoted about race, class, and especially sexual orientation. I would have been rejected by my dad, my brothers, and most of my extended family. I had already spent 5 years essentially alone and had no desire to do so for the rest of my life.

Our culture did not welcome homosexuality in 1983. There were a handful of celebrities that were considered gay and were still respected and rewarded for their artistic talents. But I’m the real world of suburbia, being gay meant you were a freak and you were ostracized.

Therefore, I forced myself to hide my attractions from everyone and anyone. I suppressed my desire. The same desire that everyone else my age was clearly expressing by dating and PDA all around me.

I dated girls. Never for very long because I knew they would eventually suspect something was wrong with me when I didn’t initiate or participate in anything besides kissing and holding hands.

There were several seasons in my life since then that I was actually able to forget my desire and just be asexual.

Some may see my decision to hide my true self as weak. I actually feel it was my only choice and that it showed intense strength to suppress, deny, and hide my true self for 40 years.

Nowadays, being gay is widely accepted and encouraged in nearly all social circles. I’m sure my decision would be wildly different today.

 

It’s a little after midnight of Friday night. Can’t sleep.
Tomorrow is a monumental day in my life. My wife of 26years, 11 months, and 3 weeks is moving out of our home. She decided we can’t be together and she can’t live alone in our house. Completely understandable on both counts. I hold nothing against her.

I have only texted with her since I revealed my cheating and my decision to stop hiding being gay. She doesn’t want to see me or talk to me. So, we have texted about logistics (money, living situations, the dog) only.

My kids have texted to say they love me. But our multiple daily texts amongst my wife, kids, and their spouses has completely disappeared. Gone are the texted pics of what the grandbabies learned today or pics of their amazing smiling faces. Gone are the simple connections with the most important people on the planet.

It’s now over a week since my revelations. I’m sure that my kids will once again want to be in my daily life. Someday. I hope my wife who is also my best friend and soulmate will also. But how many days until someday? How many sleepless nights? How many outbursts of uncontrollable sobbing? How many self-hate entries in my journal? How many firsts in my grandkids’ lives missed?

So, she moves out tomorrow. And I come back home. To an empty shell that once held intense love.

Thank God I get the dog! I plan on sleeping on the floor next to her with my hand under a paw or her head.

Really need to find a counselor ASAP to help me figure out this new lonely path.

 

Wow. I needed this right now. Thank you.

 

Thank you! I hope so.

 

Hey, EC!

I was just given a new quote that I think is going to help me go through this process.

“I’m fine right now.”

Thought it might help someone else out there.

 

Big update to share.

Wife asked to meet with me and talk. So, last night on Day 12 of being estranged from my family, we sat in the car and talked.

Basically, she wants things to go back to normal. We should go to a Christian counselor and get my homosexuality sin under control so it is like before. There but I don’t act out on it.

She says she wants to go back to normal and someday forgive me for cheating because of what we have lost with my cheating and my deciding I am gay. We have lost a lot. Our family was insanely close. Our kids, their spouses, she and I would text each other several times a day. We would see each other at least once a week, including each of our grandkids. We had amazing dreams for the future and warm memories of the past while we were living a great life in the present.

But, I was depressed, angry, sometimes suicidal, and just plain miserable. Faking how I felt every day. Not faking my love, faking my happiness and contentment.

I agreed I wanted things to go back to normal too. But that I didn’t know if I could go back to that person. So, this is where the counselor will help me realize I am not actually gay, she says.

I agreed to try counseling. I expressed my concern about having a Christian counselor due to the inherent bias. That I would rather have someone neutral. But, we are Christians, so we are going to a Christian counselor.

Could she be right? Could my homosexuality simply be a response to all the bullying as a kid and my friends and my dad rejecting me?

 

Yes I agree with you guys. But I am beginning to think if I don’t, my family will let me go. Haven’t seen my kids or grandkids in over two weeks. Crying at the moments I am missing. They don’t give me updates or pictures. Just silence. If I hurt their mom more by rejecting her idea I don’t think they will forgive me.
Day 16 alone. Last week’s numbness is becoming despair.

 

Feeling so alone and empty. Makes me want to back on sniffies and find a few minutes of ‘love.’