Struggling to see way ahead after coming out to wife

Thanks for the supportive words everyone, I appreciate the time you take to reply.

ukguy - I know how that feels. Right now I'm not in a position to move out, but in the New Year that might change. It's not that if I had the money I would just walk out - I am torn between doing the right thing for my kids and doing the right thing to keep me sane and not turn me into a snarling, angry man that feels trapped.

So, more conversations last night. She has been for counselling and I think it has helped for her to talk to someone neutral and not connected with either of us. So, the talk got round to giving 'us' a go. That, maybe the shock of me coming out has overwhelmed me and that if I come back into bed with her we can get close and maybe find that closeness that we had before. Part of me wants to, because I don't want to be alone and I feel like I'm in limbo in the spare room. But at the same time, I'm scared that if I do go back then I'm somehow betraying myself as I want to be held by a man, kiss a man and feel the warmth of a man. It's not that I don't love her - I do, but she doesn't make a fire burn inside me like it does when I think of the guy I met. Or even the feeling I get seeing a good looking guy walk past.

So I end up fudging around the issue, trying to tell her that it's not a case of me really remembering the good times and seeing what I could have again if I just allowed myself to get closer again. I want to say to her that I love her, I don't want to hurt her, but there's something just so powerful going on inside me that makes me desire to be with a man. And it's this overpowering sense of what I want that overshadows everything. It makes me scared that it's an obsession and that if I leave and end up living on my own, I'll suddenly stop feeling like that and realise that I made the biggest mistake of my life and have hurt or destroyed my family in the process.

Part of me thinks I'm not sure about everything; not sure that I shouldn't stay; that I could stay for the sake of the kids; that I could learn to be affectionate and possibly even have sex again (I did enjoy it with my wife, although I was 95% of the time, the initiator, and it was as infrequent as hell); but I know that all the time I will be feeling unfulfilled; that I'll always think 'what would it have been like'; that I meet a guy who I'm attracted to and can't resist the urges that I know will overwhelm me? I feel like an adolescent teenager at the moment. I have all these feelings, raging inside me and right now I can't see any way of putting them back into their box and I don't know if they'll subside.

Why is everything so complicated?:rolle:

 

Why do I feel the way I do about the guy in my life? He's the same age as me but he's involved with a guy in his late 20's. They argue and he feels that they have lost whatever it was they had in common. He feels like his partner treats him more like he is his dad and wants things sorted out for him and so on. He feels he's the one doing all the 'taking care of' and not getting much 'getting taken care of'. We share a lot of common ground in terms of our upbringing, or early life influences, our career path, general likes and dislikes, sports, and so on. But I am married, he's in a relationship, and we seem to be in this limbo where one of us needs to make a move out into the cold. We made an agreement that we'd give each other space to sort out our personal relationships. So I sit at home feeling crap, missing him like hell, wanting to get some text message from him to let me feel he's still thinking about me. And nothing. And then here it comes, through. Telling me he is missing me. And my heart soars.

I have this overwhelming sense of protectiveness for him. I see him and my heart jumps, I miss him when he's not around and I want to see him or speak to him. My eating pattern is all over the place. I am getting back into a sleeping routine, but for a time I couldn't sleep at night. I find when we speak on the phone I am smiling all the time, and just thinking about him gets me hard (sorry, that's maybe too much detail... ) Is this just infatuation, lust, or just the rush of something very new? I'm scared that in a month or two I'll just not feel the same and I'm terrified of making the wrong choice about something that will affect my whole future, and that of my family.

Sorry, for the multiple posts guys. It's just good to get this down in writing somewhere where I'm not going to be overly judged!

 

@link4816 - thanks, and I understand what you're saying about weighing things up. I am trying to do the same. I do love my wife, but I look back and find that things over the last year or two have become a bit difficult. I look back and feel I had begun to become more distant and irritated by the little things that wouldn't have maybe irritated me about her. I don't know whether that's been the stress we've all been under with the illness of her parents and eventual deaths - maybe.

@iadsfo - I think that's true. My two kids are so open minded. We've brought them up to be tolerant and have never lied to them when the say they're going to marry their friend (who's a boy), or marry me!, and never told them they can't marry a man (other than their dad and brother!). They live in a open minded, tolerant home and if I do one thing out of all this it'll be to remind them to be themselves, and love themselves for who or what they are.

I sit and look at my life, my home, my kids, the 'routines' at various times of the day, kids bedtimes, kids getting up and their warm, soft cuddles - their unconditional love and expectation that their lives will just remain happy as they are just now: and I feel hopeless guilt at the feelings of unfulfilment, dissatisfaction with what I have, and an imbalance between what I have currently and the prospect of living my life being sexually fulfilled and being 'me' rather than having to hide who I am away again.

I struggle as the kids are young just now, but they're not going to be young forever. In 10 years they'll be teenagers and then they'll be young adults - who knows if they're going to want to stay at home until they're 30! If I stay because of them, I'll be over 55 possibly when they leave. Can I wait that long to fulfil myself?

If I'm honest, although I love my wife I don't have the fire or passion that I have with him. But when I look at her I feel guilt, I feel sad that I'm breaking her heart and then I end up feeling protective and want to stop her feeling like that. Is that the same as loving her enough and being a faithful, loving, sexually connected husband to her? I don't know.

He got in touch last night - he's away on business and with his partner - getting messages from him telling me that he misses me. That he struggles to see what he has in common with the guy in the same room as him. He sounded really low and I tried to get him to see what he has just now. I don't want either of us to leave our partners for each other - but it's becoming clearer by the day that the depth of feeling he has for me is matching mine for him.

I have never felt this attracted and connected to another person, let alone a man, before.

But, do I try and weigh things up practically - I have a home, financially okay, two great kids, a wife who still loves me and is practically begging me to stay, we do things together as a family and enjoy holidays and outings with the boys, we go out for food together and as a family, my sex life with my wife was good when it happened...BUT...

All the time I knew that I was attracted to guys. I'd grab porn online when I could to satisfy the sexual tension, I'd fantasise about meeting a guy and what life would be like living together, I'd look back and wish I'd come out in my early 20's before I married (but I have no regrets about my life since getting married other than now that it's fully out that I am gay - I haven't lived in misery as a 'straight married' man), I'd see guys in the street that I couldn't take my eyes off, I'd end up undressing them in my mind. And then I meet someone that blows me away and on a night out, after a couple of glasses of wine, he asks me a couple of direct questions and destroys the defences that I'd spent my life building up around me. At that moment, I admitted to him and myself for the first time in my life that I had feelings for another man. I can't go back. But I'm just afraid of going forward.

Thanks for reading this - I'm finding it really helpful to get my feelings down, and hearing your positive, supportive replies.

 

Thanks ukguy, it's good to know there are others going through the same experience as me.

My wife doesn't know about him. She has suspected that there might be someone else I have got close to. She might also guess who it is as she knows of him through other people but has never met him. To be honest it would be simpler if she thought I had fallen for someone else. That way it would be easier to justify why all of a sudden I announced these feelings.

I think it's inevitable that I'll move out. I just need to make sure that everyone is safe and secure for the future. Whether the future is a life with him or not it's inevitable that I will end up being attracted to another man in the future and struggling with the same feelings I'm currently experiencing.

I'm sorry to hear about the additional pressures you're facing through work. It must be so intense I can't imagine what that must be like. Puts my own minor issues into perspective.

 

@cassie29 - your words struck a chord with me. I've had the conversation you described. I've wasted my life, why didn't you tell me when we first got married and then I could've found someone who really loved me, my life is destroyed and I have no dreams left. It all serves to make me feel like a total b*****d; and then the guilt kicks in and I think, 'okay, maybe I could stay, maybe this could work, maybe if I just kiss her again, sleep with her again, I'll start to feel like I did before despite my longing for something that at that time I couldn't have and never thought it possible that I could have. Now I see that I can, and it's not about casting people aside, it's just that sudden realisation of who you are, that you've been hiding and it has just exploded out there. The tale is cool - I have tried to adapt it to my own situation, and my wife and I I hope will still be friends and close and caring for one another. But, and this will take time and may never be truly healed, I hope that she will one day accept that I made the right decision for her, me and our children in coming out and being honest with everyone. I have promised her that I will still be there for them all if I am not here living with them. I love them all so much, but I need to love a man to be totally fulfilled.

@DesertTortoise - I think I knew this, but for me it's the next 'admission' I need to make and I need to get used to the thought. And it's going to cause more hurt to my wife, who I still love, but the feelings I have are so definite, long in the making, and have no intention of going back into the box quietly.

@Freddy - I feel as if I am betraying myself if I stay and ignore how I feel. I've felt like this for most of my life, to varying degrees of strength, and although the thought of the future not living with my family scares me, the thought of denying who I am again when I've admitted this to the key people in my life is something I just cannot do. I'm not saying I want to shout it from the rooftops, yet, but I want to be able to make that choice when I want to and not feel that I need to hide away who I am. If I stay, it means never telling anyone that I'm gay, or if I do then having to explain why a gay man is still living with his wife...

Thanks everyone. Your words of support really make me realise that I'm one person sharing an experience that so many others have gone through already. Thanks.

 

@Spaceman, I'm sorry to hear that your wife has taken things the way she has. While mine is okay at the moment - we are going through are 'calm' period just now - I've no doubt that when I tell her that I can't see a way through this and I am leaving (I still can't believe that I think this is reality) it might be different. I downloaded the book some of you have recommended and it makes very interesting reading. Especially the sections on the stages of love. I really connect with the situation I am currently in with the guy in my life in relation to the Call of the Wild. It scares me that it's short lived and that, taking the fact I'm a gay guy in a hetero marriage, it doesn't look good for me and him as I apparently need to get involved with more guys to get over my gay adolescence, and first time gay love doesn't last... Taking all of this, I wonder if I should just stay with my wife and carry on with gay porn to relieve me It's been an odd kinda day.

Hope to see my guy tomorrow and looking forward to that, although now tempered with what I've read, I worry that I'm just behaving like an gay adolescent and finding things that he and I have in common....

 

So, an admission. I met him for the first time in over a week as he's been away and the feelings I got seeing him, touching his hand and kissing him were overwhelming. So overwhelming that we had sex and it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. He is wholly more experienced than me, but he is sensitive, careful and I felt incredible being held by him. I really feel that I am getting in deeper and deeper - my feelings for my wife are confused to say the least. I look at her and I feel sad, but I still care for her and love her but I can't see a way around the feelings I have for him. I know that I've breached some internal barrier by sleeping with him, and that now it's happened it will happen again and again until I stop it or he walks way. Neither of us appear to want to do that.

He's away overnight tonight so I'm not going to see him for days again. I am just starting to get sick of having to make excuses to get out to see him - which is only once or twice a week. I know I have to make a decision: stay and get over my urges, put the feelings back in the box and commit to my wife, or make a break and accept the hurt to her and my kids that me moving out will bring and hope that he and I can get to know each other better away from the guilt I feel every time I come home and lie in my bed at night after seeing him.

I know in my heart that I am gay. That I have little or no sexual urge towards women generally, but that I have enjoyed a sexual relationship with my wife until I met him and he blew away any hetero defences that I had built up around myself over the last 30 years. It stripped away any kind of pretence I had created that my feelings for men were superficial, that I could never really act on them and that if someone made a pass at me I'd run a mile. That all changed when I met someone that I clicked with, had chemistry with, and I felt completely 'normal' and guilt free when we kissed for that first time.

Is it selfish to leave simply to live my live without feeling that I'm pretending now to be something that, inside, I know that I no longer am?

It's a big risk to take and a heavy price to pay if I get it wrong though isn't it?

 

@Choirboy - you are so right. It's one of these things - do I do what I want, or do I do what I should. Part of me says stay, pack it all away and you can just get on with it and perhaps rediscover the affection for my wife that seems to have been smothered to some extent.

The other part, says not to be so stupid. How can a guy who loves having sex with other guys, and is falling for a guy, put aside these feelings, lock them away and be a faithful, husband for the rest of his life.

The difficulty is that she does think that what I've given her has satisfied her both emotionally and sexually (I did actually enjoy sex with her, but have never thought of it with another woman as being something that I was particularly attracted to). But looking ahead, she wants to be able to re-set our lives back to what she believed she had before I came out. It's understandable, but I keep telling her it's not so simple to just erase the last 6 weeks and I can't just forget what I am. She responds by asking me to give her options to think about.

These are a) I stay and we just get back to what we had before. This doesn't feature me being able to be me and be open about my sexuality, so it would be back to gay porn when my wife was out, no stealing a look (even a glance and I'd feel like I was slapping her in the face) at other guys if I was out - she said she'd never seen me do that when we were out so I must've hidden it well.

b) I leave and set up home nearby so I can be heavily involved with the kids, and her, to give them support and do family things. It would be hard financially, and emotionally on all of us, but I live my life honestly and we can all move on from where we are now.

c) I stay and we have an open marriage where I am able to go out and meet guys (a guy) and satisfy my gay sexual needs. This isn't something I really think of as being realistic. I don't want to rub her face in it - I'd rather make that break and allow time to heal it, rather than going out and leaving her to think where the hell I am and who I'm with and what I'm doing.

Part of me feels it's about begin true to myself - eventually, after 30 years of hiding and pretending and lying, and feeling guilty and feeling like I've a shameful secret to hide - and I get quite frustrated when I get the feeling others are trying to force me to hide it away again. At 40 I'm not the little teenager getting bullied at school for being a little gay boy. I feel confident, and I feel strong about who I am and I think I need to be careful that I don't take that adult aggression out on the people who are close to me just now and who just want all of this to disappear and go back to 'normal'.

Not sure what this says about me and where I am on my journey though.

Thanks for your advice - it makes total sense