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Gay, married, and still committed to her...I think

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by preacherskid83, Sep 2, 2011.

  1. preacherskid83

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    Married, gay, out to anyone who cares. After i met an awesome guy, we (wife and I) agreed to end it after our lease was up in Jan. Then we (awesome guy and I) split, and the wife and I decided to stay as we are and just re-evaluate occasionally. But I feel like I'm never going to truly be happy becase I can't bring myself to hurt her, ergo I can't have an active dating life. I feel trapped. And depressed. Someone please help me here :'(
     
  2. s5m1

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    Hi and welcome back. I am sorry things did not work out with the awesome guy. Good for you for giving it a go.

    Having been married previously, I know you are in a tough situation. Here are a few things to think about:

    1. Regardless of whether you stay with your wife, you will still be gay. If you choose to stay together, will you be happy? Will you be fulfilled? If not, what will your relationship with your wife be like? How will your wife experience that relationship if she knows you are gay and unhappy?

    2. While I honestly commend you for not wanting to hurt your wife (I felt the same thing), is it fair to deprive her of a relationship with someone who can completely love her. While I have no doubt you care about her a great deal and probably also love her, do you think it is the same deep and meaningful love that a heterosexual man feels for a woman. I loved my ex-wife, but there was always something missing. Now that I am in a long-term relationship with a man, I realize the difference.

    3. While married, my depression only got worse with time, until I didn’t want to live anymore. I can only imagine what it was like for my ex-wife. If you stay with your wife, what do you envision your depression will be like in five years, ten years or even twenty years down the road? Will you be able to be the type of husband that you think you should be?

    4. Since coming out and living my life honestly, I have never been happier. I have seen a side of life, and experienced feelings, that I never knew were possible. I have developed deeper relationships with other people because I no longer am placing barriers up so they would not discover my inner secret. Had I stayed with my ex-wife, I would have missed all of this new-found joy.

    5. When you are at the end of your life and reflecting back, how do you want to remember it? Do you want to be able to say that you lived a happy and fulfilling life, true to yourself, or would you rather remember it as always lacking something because you lived it for someone else? For me, I realized that I have only one life to live, and I want to be able to say I made the most out of it.

    6. It took me four decades of struggle to finally accept myself and come out, so I realize how hard this is for you. For me, marriage was a lifelong commitment. Divorce was not an option. I gave her my word, and I was going to stick to it. I thought I was doing the right thing. In reality, neither of us was happy. Since the divorce, we have both developed wonderful, well-rounded lives, as well as new love interests. We are also very good friends. In retrospect, I did the right thing for my ex-wife by giving her the opportunity to find true love.

    I hope that this helps you in some small way. Please keep us updated and let us know how we can help.
     
  3. Chip

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    Great words from s5m1. I would further emphasize the notion of long-term happiness; I've talked to a lot of people in relationships they weren't happy with because they "didn't want to hurt the other person." My response to that was... "Isn't it a lot worse to stay with someone you really aren't in love with, and essentially deceive them?" Because even though your wife knows you're gay, as long as you're with her, there will be this hope in her head that maybe it's a phase or something and you'll be madly in love with her. And I think we all know that isn't going to happen.

    Brene Brown, my current favorite author/lecturer in the field of psychology and social work, puts it really well in one of her videos. She says that when we do things we don't want to do, we get resentful over time about them, and the resentment builds, and not only does it make us (and the other person) unhappy, it erodes our self-esteem and increases our shame.

    So her mantra is "Choose discomfort over resentment" and in your case, that discomfort is making the decision that may be hurtful to your wife in the short term, but will ultimately result in greater happiness for both of you in the long term.

    Now... all of this is predicated on your being pretty confident (which i seem to remember you already are) that you're gay and that you can't be happy in the long term with a woman. So, that being the case, your wife may end up best friends with you in the long term, but hopefully you can see that, assuming you are confident in being gay, that it isn't going to work as a relationship in the long term.
     
  4. scottsulli

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    Hi
    I am in the same boat, although I have not even come out to my wife, although that is coming soon. But I do read a lot of blogs and see your story time and again.
    In essence the problem is that you are currently between two lives. Your old live and your new one. You don't want to leave the old one and that's understandable - there's a lot going for being married and having a loving wife; but it seems to be the fact that until you make the break your emotions will just boil inside because at the end of the day you're gay and you shouldn't be in a straight marriage.

    It hurt, god I know it hurts, to consider making the break. But the experience of the blogs seems to be that until you do, you will be stuck where you are.
    Hugs. Scott
     
  5. maverick

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    I think you are dragging this out unnecessarily, probably to the detriment of both of you.