manipulate. They think that your misery is their pleasure. It “justifies” them somehow. Many more SHOCKING realizations came to mind AFTER I realized that I have only been his “mock” wife. An example was when he had me sign a waiver when he retired to waive my rights to military survivor benefit insurance. He said he’d have insurance for me, and I trusted him!
This sick and diabolical person was content to keep the truth from me all-the-while being too selfish to understand what love is. He stayed married until our children were grown, only to blind-side me now. The realization that this man took me as his wife because he was too cowardly to go through life the way that he should--as a gay man--has been indescribably traumatic! So now after investing years of my life trying to make the best of a bad marriage, I am now faced with the nightmare of having to start over. I am still unable to concentrate. I’d like to know how long before I can stop incessantly playing the broken record in my head that holds me prisoner every waking moment since I first discovered that ‘he’s gay!’
It has been six months now for me, and I only have momentary reprieves of other thoughts in my waking hours. Sometimes I just want to scream if one more person tells me it is time to move on with my life. I know I have to move on, but it is a constant struggle. I often feel paralyzed and am still deeply saddened. For the last eight months, I’ve cried almost every day, living in a daze of disbelief and going through the motions of living, still in a state of confusion and depression.
The best years of my life have passed in front of my eyes– years where I could have been living a life without deceit, contempt, rejection, and abuse. And now I look around and realize that I can’t get back what I have lost – 28 years! If I would have had a true partner from the beginning, a man who was nurturing and supportive, rather than a man who was just standing in as a husband, who knows where my life would be now. It’s just tragic. Larry stole my life and soul and he did it without thought, notice, or especially remorse!
Knowing that Larry has been hiding his true identity has left me with an inability to trust my judgment because it has destroyed my own sense of being able to make decisions. I keep asking myself how I could have been so blind… stupid… misled. I start to wonder what else happened in my life that was an illusion. My husband didn’t “appear” gay, but yet he was!
And so now Larry’s in a big hurry to lead his new life, while I’m still trying to recover from the news. And I’M THE ONE STUCK ON HIS FARM now, while he has begun living his “new” life. I, too, would like to be able to move on and reclaim my life, my soul, and my inner peace. Unlike Larry, however, I feel that this will take me many years. Not only have I lost 28 years with Larry, but many more to come for my recovery.
It's difficult to think of myself as not being defined by his criticism - not as someone who isn't as perfect as he thought I should be. This is a new way of life for sure, but a much healthier one. I hope that one day the pain will be gone.
PROFILE #3: SALLY T. - 58, Texas, married 31 years, divorced five years, two children, departmental secretary at a university.
Red Flags
Looking back to my years growing up, I cannot remember ever discussing or even knowing anyone who was gay. I grew up in a small community of cotton farmers in West Texas and was very isolated from the real world and especially from such issues.
I met my husband at a university after graduating from high school. We had a wonderful relationship and marriage for about seven years. We had two beautiful daughters. I had no clue there was a problem and thought I had the perfect husband and life.
Our sex life began to change after our second daughter was born. He became distant as well, and I remember crying at night because he never came to bed with me and he would stay up late. I rarely had any of his attention. His excuses at that time were that he was taking care of our older daughter because I needed to be with the baby. He also told me that we fight so much that he didn’t feel like making love.
He became very depressed and complained about his unhappiness with his job. We had been married 17 years when he decided to transfer to another city. His depression had become worse and I thought this was a good idea. He moved into an apartment to start his new job and I waited behind for our house to sell. It took about six months for the house to sell and he had still not found a house for us to move into. The girls and I moved into an apartment waiting for him to find a house in the new city. Not long after that, he announced to me that he was unhappy in the city that he had moved to and he felt that the girls and I would be very unhappy there as well. The city was large, the traffic was horrible, and he wanted us to stay behind. He gave the excuse that the schools were better here and he would travel home on weekends, which resulted in him coming home about every three weeks or longer.
We began our long distance marriage, and I was very unhappy. He came home less and less. I cried so much that even today the girls remember my crying more than anything else. He said he loved me and didn’t want a divorce and we remained in the marriage for 14 more years.
As I look back, there were years of depression for him. He seldom came home. He was unwilling to find us a house. I believed everything he told me, and I believed all of his excuses. Even later as more red flags appeared, I continued to ignore them. I was depressed as well and could never figure out why he wouldn’t or couldn’t talk to me.
He found a roommate to save money and moved in with another man. As the years went by, I accidentally found out that this roommate was gay. Our sex life became more and more non-existent and he preferred positions where he couldn’t see my face, which now makes more sense to me. I never caught on to that before either.
To add to the misery, I asked him several times if he were gay. He denied it and was disgusted that I would think such a thing. He asked me once why I thought that, and I told him that it would make more sense.
Even though the red flags were everywhere, some of them alone would not indicate that a person is gay. If you put them together, I think you would see clearly that he had a deep dark secret. Keeping that in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to just list as many as I could think of, but remember my husband was not home much. The list included:
