Do you regret divorcing and/or coming out?

It is human nature to be scared on the cusp of such a major change in your life. Of course the same goes for your wife. Coming out is not easy especially for those of us older and having lived in a heterosexual relationship for many years. For most we reach a point where we can no longer pretend or do we want to. Reaching that point requires action and those actions have consequences for all involved.
I can only tell you that for me coming out, leaving my straight relationship and living openly as a gay man in a loving relationship has been the best decision of my life. That is not say there hasn’t been pain, sorrow and second guessing however that is natural. In the end living gay was well worth the journey. I have never been happier, content, and living a life of pleasure I never imagined possible. Life is short so you need to live the way that is satisfying to the real you.

 

Come to ECs anytime and as often as you need. We understand.

I consider the above quoted material to be one of many ways to go. I've read here on ECs gay men living with their wives happily.

For me personally coming out was not a choice. Coming out was something I had to do to get my sanity back.

Actually at this moment my life is the same it's always been. But I have gained peace and understanding. What do I understand? For example why I stared at this cute guy when I was 17 and always tried to do things with him but was "taught" my lusting for him was wrong. Well I was not wrong and this is how I now have peace. (I have hundreds of examples like the one just told.)

Yes.

Not in a heartbeat.

Well I was never married. And this is how I've gotten peace for now I know why I was never married. I'm gay. So now I no longer feel there is something wrong with me for never getting married.

 

I am going through a divorce and I believe that suffering and staying in the relationship would be horrid for the rest of my life. I could stay and never had come out but I would be miserable the rest of my life. Now that I am leaving it seems the feelings I have now are temporary until I let go a little bit at a time. It will always be with me but I'm trying to make the best of what I have right now.

 

Hi @JToivonen -
Good on you for reaching out here! Yeah, post often, say what you need to say. There are lots and lots of supportive people here who are ready to listen.

I'm bi, right in the middle of the gay-straight thing. I came out to my wife almost a year ago, and it's not clear to me whether it was the right thing to do. My hope is to stay in my marriage and keep my family (4 kids) together. I cherish my family, and I don’t think I'd be any happier living a gay life than I am in my straight suburban life. My wife struggles with depression, anxiety and abandonment issues. My hope is that by me being authentic and open, there will come healing and well-being in my marriage and family. But it may be too much to ask of my wife.

There are a LOT of us non-straight guys in straight marriages. And, everyone's story is a little different. The best advice I got was, don't rush. It's natural to want to get everything straightened out right away, but it's better to proceed methodically and deliberately. The other really helpful advice I got was to keep posting, and keep reading other people's posts. It has REALLY helped me to be a part of this on-line community.

Best wishes!!

=Sevn

 

I think what I just wrote on your “should I divorce her?” post applies here- but I’ll say more

It does seem that some mixed orientation marriages work. How things are in my process, I think my husband and I could. But it’s not what I want personally. I want to be able to be with a person whole-heartedly, and I don’t think I can do that long term in an open marriage (which is what my husband and I have agreed on for the time being). But I’ve spent months getting here. I went back and forth about whether I would ever tell anyone of my revelation. I went through phases of deep sadness as I mourned the future I thought I was going to have with my husband (and with our two daughters). Sometimes, I’m still sad. But just in the last week I have started to truly see the other side. I can just start to see a life living openly and happily gay. And I now see that divorce is most likely for us. That’s just my place, though.

The thing is, your wife isn’t accepting it. So no matter how scared you are about this all being a big mistake (I still regularly have those thoughts) it’s all out there now. You can’t take it back. Life is going to change for you. You are the only one who can decide what form that change takes and whether you choose to be freely you.

 

Personally I would have stayed in my marriage regardless of my sexuality if the marriage itself worked. My sexuality was not the main problem although my wife and I would have had to deal with it eventually. The problems in my marriage had more to do with my wife's compulsive spending and erratic mental health, which I would now have handled somehwat differently (but of couse I was not as experienced in life then). And if you have kids then you should really consider the effect of divorce on them as I think that is often ignored or brushed aside on the basis that kids always are going to do better with less conflict, which isn't an issue if you're not in open conflict; overall, I think divorce is generally a negative for kids. As far as whether "coming out" will lead to a better life for you, I think it depends on what you're looking for and how likely you'll achieve your goal. Many folks here (and in the gay community) are happy just to have come out and express what they feel is their "real" selves, because they felt that were hiding something (that they are gay) that they were compelled to tell others. So if you feel that way then coming out can be a goal by itself and give you a sense of relief. If you don't feel that way (like me) then you might have a goal of something more like a solid, stable relationship with another man but otherwise not really being a part of the whole gay "scene." That is a much more difficult goal to attain because there are very few gay men around compared to straight men, and many (probably most) gay men are not interested in traditional relationships ... they prefer hook-ups or open relationships, if any, and they sort of unthinkingly adopt the predominant values of the gay community. I think things may be changing, but very slowly. So keep asking these types of questions, keep investigating, and decide what is most important for you as an individual.

 

This was exactly how I felt just before I came out as gay. The thought of having to try to be intimate even one more time was too much. I had lost the desire and then the ability to be aroused by a woman. I only wanted out so I could be with a man. Haven’t looked back, don’t miss it, don’t even think about it any longer unless discussing it like this. Now the idea of intimacy with the opposite sex seems so foreign and wrong.

 

Actually, thanks for asking! Just before I found Empty Closets I January 2018, all I could think about was sex with a man. But as I became more authentic, first here on Empty Closets, then last summer with my wife, and now last week with my sister, I'm more OK with the status quo. It's as if that gay voice inside me doesn't have to scream so loudly anymore in order to be heard. I'm not a strongly sexual person. I'm faithful to my wife, and monogamy is a value for me. Enduring my unsatisfied desire for a man's body is manageable.

 

Coming out was the best thing I ever did.

I'm separated from my wife for nearly 7 months now. Financially it's hard, we both had good jobs but now I have to watch what I spend. I live alone.

I've had a few hook ups, some successful and some not.

I feel free and very liberated.

I smile and laugh every day. Many people comment that I'm a completely different person now for the better.

I'm open about my sexuality.

I now run up to 54 mins, I have a personal trainer, lift weights.

Changed my clothes and keep changing my beard. Never had a proper beard till recently at 43!

I co run my own local LGBTQ group, 52 local members.....

The only downside is the guilt, what I put my ex wife through. But she has a partner now.

The grass isn't greener, it's different. I could have become a victim but I chose to become a survivor.

Jon

 

*didnt mean to post like that but

I love your post !! Questions!! Post as much as you like !!! TO ANSWER your question!! I was outed to my mom and aunt by my own sister / but was a able to come out to other family and friends . Do I regret coming out ? No! Oh God No!! I was so depressed.. I was dating this guy at the time .. he was so great .. perfect but I felt something was missing in my life I couldn’t love him the same ... he begged me to be with him.but it wouldn’t be fair to either of us ..Anyway we are both happy now and I. D.o.n.t feel there’s a hole in my heart anymore.. I still come out everyday to people who automatically assume I’m straight due to my appearance “ fem” but I feel free.. I wish I could of had the guys to come out in high school actually !!! so I could of explored my sexuality more. Also My family are so supportive !!

 

I've never regretted coming out but I also never married a woman. In some respects I think my coming out was more difficult because of the timing. I came out over twenty-five years ago--when I came out a lot of people I knew had literally never met an out gay person. On the other hand when I came out it was much easier, again because of the timing--I came out right after college, I didn't really have a life to derail. I was just starting out in life and this was the life I built. In some respects I've never really had another one. I dated women in high school and college, was actually a bit of ladies man, as weird as that seems now. But even back when I thought I was bi I never even considered marrying a women, it just felt like something I couldn't do to someone I cared about.

The fact of the matter is that I haven't regretted coming out for even a moment, ever. My only regret in that regard is that I didn't do it about four years earlier. But the fact of the matter is that it's all worked out pretty well for me. I've been active in the gay community from the beginning, for more than twenty-five years, and I've loved it. My experience of the community has been one of brave, beautiful funny men and women who woke up one day and decided love and truth were worth losing everything. Being out even brought me closer to my family in the end, despite them being really quite conservative and devoutly religious (I grew up Mormon). I remember my Mother commenting that it was like I was "finally really there" and how could they have not noticed all these years that I just wasn't quite "there". Being out and gay has brought me family, friends, comradery, love, a sense of comfort and peace. My husband and I have been together for over twenty years and every night I go to bed thinking I can't possibly love anyone more, and then I wake up and somehow I do--every day! I still have really close friends I met the very first time I went to a gay bar. I experience a sort of shock of recognition whenever I meet other gay people, that sense that I've never met you but you're one of us. And I've pretty consistently had that experience returned. The fact of the matter is that most of the gay people I know have had similar experiences, different challenges to move through, but sort of arriving at the same place in the end. We kind of grew up together--laughed, cried and danced together and sort of all made it to the same place. Most of us are married and I think for the most part most of us are happy--and frankly live lives more like the best parts of our parents' relationships than we ever would have thought. To a large degree we kind of move about amongst ourselves, I guess there's a whole group of gay people that we kind of don't encounter: we make them uncomfortable, they make us uncomfortable, we don't go to the same places or do the same things. To be honest I'm not sure I really realized there was another way for this to go--until I came here to EC.

But it can go different, and to some degree I guess I learned that here. The fact of the matter is that being gay and out does take things from you. There will be people who you won't be able to be close to, people who will be uncomfortable, people who just flat out won't like you despite not really knowing anything about you. You will find that a lot of people are small-minded or mean-spirited and, to be frank, even that knowledge is itself a burden--there are people I know that about that I'm not sure I would know that about if I wasn't gay. It's easy to say that it doesn't really matter, that you wouldn't want to be friends with people who are small-minded or mean-spirited--it's easy if you feel like there's some sort of compensating factor, like there has been for me. Because the fact of the matter is that the things that I said gay life has given me in large measure (family, love, friends, comradery, love, a sense of comfort and peace) are the same things that being out takes from just about everyone in small measures. And if you're not getting anything in return the things it takes from you probably don't seem that small. The fact of the matter is that one of the things I would really look at is how you feel about other gay people, not how you want to but how you really feel.

Before I came here to EC I think I would have said that coming out is the right decision for everyone--and it certainly was for me. Now, maybe I'm a little less sure. I still think it's the right decision for everyone who is willing to embrace it. If you feel like it's something you can truly embrace I think it can go wonderfully--I've seen it over and over, frankly it's the main way I've seen it go for people. If you can't, well I just don't know...

 

I'm at the end of my divorce. It's an abusive relationship so I am glad it's ending. I don't regret it ending. I was pretending when I was married. I'm only somewhat out. Knowing I could have stayed and suffered just makes what freedom I'm about to have sound so good. It's hard but I am happier. Not extremely happy but I'm working on it.

 

I've never been big on regrets. I've made decisions, good and bad, but I made them based on what I knew at the time, and what I felt was the right thing to do. There are no do-overs; if the next person in line at the gas station buys the $400 million lottery ticket, you may wish you had let someone go ahead of you, but regretting buying the ticket you did will not give you the magic opportunity to switch places.

I married my wife knowing that we were both difficult people with baggage, but I was fully invested in being a good husband in every sense of the word, and making the marriage work. I wanted the family life I grew up with and wanted to be a dad; I also knew that I had feelings for guys that I thought would gradually fade into the background after a few years in a happy marriage, and I was OK with leaving them as fantasies in the back of my mind, like the fantasy of being a famous actor or living in a giant mansion. We all have things that we would like, but we know aren't likely to happen, and I fully expected that a relationship with a guy would be one of those things.

Within a couple years, I realized that her emotional scars and problems were a lot more acute than mine ever were, and I also began to realize that she wasn't going to change, and the best I could hope for was that they might mellow a bit. After our second child, I came to the conclusion that those two wonderful girls were really all I was going to get out of the marriage, but I was going to have to stick it out awhile longer if I wanted a relationship with them. So I did, and finally came out a decade later, not so much because I was desperate to be out, but because that was my trump card for ending the marriage. Our finances were pretty dire and I agreed to wait till our youngest graduated from high school (which is in 2 days!), which at the time meant another 5 years, so we could work on the debts and not mess up their lives. Then a couple months later, I crossed paths with a wonderful guy and the plans changed. I've been living with him for almost 4 years now.

I don't regret ending the marriage. Had she been a more stable person who saw a relationship as both parties putting effort into a loving partnership, I suspect we would have made it work, and my gay fantasies would have remained just that. Being gay is a part of who I am, but I have never felt it was the #1 primary characteristic that colored everything I do, and if I didn't get out of that closet I'd go crazy or fool around with guys on the side or something. Ending the marriage was hard in the sense that I felt I had failed to keep it together, but it was also never only my responsibility, and even though we have still maintained a sort of friendship, even that is totally dependent on my effort, and will probably fade away with time.

As far as coming out goes, a lot of people suspected I was gay anyhow, and I am happy that I don't have that little check in my behavior that I had before, that made me worry if people might think I was gay if I did 'x' or said 'y'. Now, if they want to know and if it matters to them and the situation, I \say whatever I like without fear. I mention my partner as often and as casually as other guys mention their wives, and I don't even think about doing it And I will say that every single average day with him is as good as the handful of the very best days I had with my wife. Is it because he's a better emotional match for me, or because he's a guy? Some of both, certainly. So in the end I don't regret coming out either, because I had reached a point where in my heart, I knew it was the best thing to do. I hope that helps.

 

I have absolutely no regrets in coming out and ending my marriage. The shadowy straight life was unfullfilling for me and unfair to her. My wife is now free to find a man to love her as she deserves. I am poorer financially but finally free to live the gay lifestyle I could only dream about. At present I am in a wonderful relation with a guy. I am so happy. But even if I had no one, that would still be better than living back in the closet.

 

Yes what you write makes sense and "still hiding inside a straight persona" resonates with me. The new challenge is to start dating. To date one has to find a guy to ask out and thats the new challenge.

Per my limited understanding @greatwhale started the dating process by immuring himself in volunteer work that put him in contact with gay people. This works for him because he lives in a large city.