Gay Boyfriend's Confession + Fight with Dad (Bi / Gay Story - Part 15)

Meeting my first gay boyfriend has made for a fun - and eventful - summer. But after last weekend (part 14) and now this weekend, plus a few more things I've learned about Brian, I don't think I'll be seeing him again anytime soon.

My Gay Summer Romance, Update (Bi / Gay Story - Part 14)

Brian and I regularly get to spend naked time together.

He's asked me to do favors for him, both when we're naked and when we're not.

My Gay Summer Romance (Bi / Gay Story - Part 13)

That guy who called me when I left my number on a bathroom wall at the local college?

I met him.

Here's what happened next!

Found a safe way to meet other young guys in the closet (Bi / Gay Story - Part 12)

With not a lot to do in the summer between high school and college, I'm on the hunt to find another young, closeted guy like me.

Wrestling my Hot, Straight(?) Crush /Senior Prom/ What's Next (Bi / Gay Story - Part 11)

I'm in the final days of high school and I am OBSESSED with Rick. I can barely think of anyone else. In some ways he seems 100% straight.. but why does he always want to wrestle with me???

The feel of his body pressing and rubbing against mine is driving me crazy!!

Straight Guy Flirting with Me?? / Acquiring a Girl(!)friend (Bi / Gay Story - Part 10)

Two complications of staying in the closet:

1. What do you do when a straight guy (your friend's boyfriend!) seems to be flirting with you?

2.  How do you avoid getting pushed into a relationship with a girl by well-intentioned friends?

Fifteen: First time sex! So gay. (Bi / Gay Story - Part 9)

Here's the story of my first time:

Fifteen: "For a BJ Call..." (Bi / Gay Story - Part 8)

For many of us, internalized homophobia and self-hate are part and parcel of being gay.

They have ruined lives and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, mostly by suicide.

I was 15 when my feeling of self-hate peaked, and like so many others, I was determined to kill myself.  Fortunately, I guess, I was such a pathetic loser that I didn't have the guts to actually do it.

Little did I know it at the time, but being pathetic at the key moment of a teenage, self-hating crisis turned out be the perfect vaccine for my internalized homophobia.  From that point onward, the potency of my self-hate faded.  I wasn't cured, nor will I ever be, but I was permanently inoculated from most of its harmful effects.  Lucky me!  (Seriously.)

This is good news for you too.  It means that instead of focusing inward, my story starts to involve others --- and that is where it begins to become less conventional.

----

Once I understood that death wasn't an option, I grew hungry to understand what being gay actually meant.  My local library was an invaluable resource is that regard, and it's where this episode of my "Staying in the Closet Story" takes place...

Fifteen: The Only Reason I Didn't Hang Myself on Monday (Bi / Gay Story - Part 7)

At 15, I had a firm plan for how I was going to kill myself and the conviction to do it.

Unlike many others, however, I never actually made an attempt.  This teen-angsty video explains why.

Oh the drama of being a closeted, self-hating homosexual at 15!

The good news is that this video shows the closing minutes of that drama.

Much more interesting things lie ahead, like, sex for the first time.

Fifteen: Hanging myself at school (Bi / Gay Story - Part 6)

Looking back, this all seems very dramatic now.

But at the time, it was very real.

Part of being gay is dealing with self-hate.  In a way, the hate is a disease.   Mentally, you can try all kinds of tricks to help you cope but ultimately a "cure" comes from deep within.  A place outside of our own control.

My self-hate peaked in a do-or-die month when I was 15.  I feel fortunate to have dealt with it then.  I know many men are still struggling with it in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

Fear, motivated by self-hate and homophobia, is what keeps most men in the closet.  Although I wasn't fear-free by 16, the purge of self-hate at 15 laid the foundation for the rest of my unusual story.

Fifteen: Outed & Gay-Bashed at School (Bi / Gay Story - Part 5)

The worst part of being gay is the fear of how people would treat me if they knew.  Bad things happen to gays.

I secretly and anonymously reached out to Sean (Episode 4) but I was so nervous that I made a huge, potentially life changing mistake.  I will pay a big price for this.  Consequences will come, I'm just not sure when.

I'm very, very afraid of what will happen.

Fifteen: Sean, the Cute Freshman Soccer Player (Bi / Gay Story - Part 4)

At 13, a day after I admitted to myself I was gay, I decided the best way to cope with it was to NEVER tell anyone.

About 18 months later I started wondering who else at my high school might be keeping the same secret.  I couldn't be the only closeted guy there, could I?

I was determined to find others.  A friend, at least.

I focused on one (cute) guy in particular - and I had a full-proof plan to find out if he was gay - with absolutely no risk to myself.

Thirteen: How I Realized I Was Gay (Bi / Gay Story - Part 3)

Continuing on with this riveting series...

Here's how I figured out I was a homo, at the age of 13.

It's 7 months of periodic self-examination shoe-horned into 10 minutes.

There will no be Oscars awarded for writing, acting, directing, cinematography, editing or craft service here.

Even so, you're a nice guy, right?  Click on it and let it play until the end.  Then leave effusive comments begging for more.

The next two videos, for age 15, are much more eventful.

And, in response to a thoughtful anonymous comment asking why closeted videos are relevant today, I say this:

Although homophobia (in all forms) was a contributing factor for my decision to stay closeted, it really wasn't THE reason. 

And, now that homophobia is less of a societal factor, other reasons for staying in the closet become more relevant. 

Those reasons aren't being publicly discussed, which is why I'm putting myself out there.  I'm trying to get a conversation going.

Being closeted is a story people *think* they know, but in many ways they don't.

Twelve: First Wet Dream (Bi / Gay Story - Part 2)

Do you remember the first time you had a sexy dream?  I do.

It was unforgettable, for a few reasons.  Most importantly, it marks the exact moment when I began to worry that I was very different from my classmates.

Thanks, as always, for your support.  Please let the video play until the end.  This pleases the YouTube algorithm and puts the video one step above complete obscurity on the site.

Eleven: Discovering What a Penis Can Do (Bi / Gay Story - Part 1)

Here is the channel trailer.  Feel free to watch it over and over....and always until the end.

Below is the first episode.  It might seem a little stupid but, hey, I tried to recreate my 11yo self, what's the best that can be expected???

For this video (and all future posts), you'll want to watch it several thousand times, always through to the end.  Then you'll want to make a few dozen always-nice comments on YouTube, as well as give it a Thumbs Up from all your Google accounts.

I'm wondering if I hit a new low-point in life by creating and posting this series.  Wish me luck.

A Return to Blogging - Sort Of

Hello Old Friends!

It's been three years since I last posted anything.  I stopped writing for two reasons.  First, I didn't have much to say.  Second, the rise of video blogs on YouTube pretty much killed written blogs here.

But now I'm back.  And, ironically, YouTube is the reason.

After spending years watching many hundreds of coming out videos - and noticing how dramatically their tone has changed since 2010 - I got the itch to contribute my own story.

The thing about YouTube is that it is not the open platform it once was.  The algorithm that directs users to content strictly controls what is seen, thereby leaving users at the mercy the YouTube Gods.
I knew this in advance, yet I was determined to persevere.

Using a new Google account, I created a channel and uploaded some videos.  Very quickly I came to feel like a grain of sand on a very large beach.  My viewership expectations were pretty low but I figured, if I was still getting 500 page views here a month after not posting for years (probably 98% bots), it would be reasonable to get half of that on YouTube.  Nope!  800 views in 15 months.  Even the bots couldn't find me.

For most of those 15 months I didn't post anything new.  Why bother?  And for most of that time, the strong impulse I had to tell my story by video was sated.  But here I am...starting again.

I keep asking myself WHY....why do I want to post my story on YouTube?  Honestly, who really gives a shit about my messed-up life?

The answer: because YouTube is full of young people giving each other advice and, when it comes to relationships, they often don't know WTF they're talking about.  There isn't a lot of meaningful real-life content out there, especially stories that draw you in and develop over a long period of time.  Of course I might be delusional, but I believe there is an audience for what I have to share.  I just need the Blessing of the Algorithm to find it.

Which is where this old blog and the four of you who are real people come in.

My next post on this blog will be an embedded video from YouTube.  If you would be so kind as to go to YouTube, let the video play its full-length, watch it 100 or 1,000 times (always until the end), as well as comment multiple times and subscribe using both your and your dog's YouTube accounts, I would be grateful.

That said, please keep your expectations low for the quality of the content.  Very low.  Compare it to watching an 11 minute video of a young gay couple living together where one guy pranks his boyfriend by ignoring him for 45 minutes.  104,000+ views in 9 days for that one.  Can I do better?  Absolutely not.  But I'll still greatly appreciate your dog's subscription...and yours too.

I hope life has been good for you?  Let me know by commenting below on YouTube.

Advice needed: married man thinking of cheating with men

I recently received the following request for advice:

I'm in my mid-forties, married with kids.

I had some guy experiences before marriage, but nothing since. 

I've been having some marital problems for a few years, and I'm also feeling very strong urges to be with men. 

I am considering going behind my wife's back, but I am struggling with the idea of being unfaithful. 

Keeping my marriage and family is more important to me than sexual gratification, but I really want some sexual gratification. 

What should I do?

Does any of this sound familiar?  It's not my story, but it is common to a lot of married men.

I asked the guy what he thought his options were.  He said he had three:

1.  Maintain the marriage but have discreet, safe sex with men.

2.  Remain faithful and find other ways to satisfy his sexual needs.

3.  Come out to his wife and hope she'd be understanding.

I suggested a fourth:

4.  Work to resolve the issues in the marriage, with the goal of feeling as fulfilled and gratified as possible.  If he became satisfied, his problem was solved.  If he couldn't be satisfied, he'd know much better if he wanted to stay married or not.

Does anyone have any other suggestions or strong opinions about how this man should proceed?  If so, please share them in the comment section below.

If you don't want to write a comment, please answer the poll question on the top right.  Let's see how much of a consensus there is for one "right" course of action.

By the way, the results for the previous poll "Is this man bi or gay?" were 70% gay and 30% bi.  I'll soon do a follow-up post about what the results mean to me.

In the meantime, let's judge Zac Efron's changed body...

Here is, circa 2010.  Not bad.

Here he is in 2016.  Is he too much of gym rat now?

Why can't bisexual married men be monogamous?

A straight wife says:

My husband recently told me he's bisexual. Now he wants an open marriage.  I'm pretty open minded so it doesn't really matter to me that he's bisexual. 

What I don't understand is why he can't be monogamous.  Why should being bi be any different when it comes to marriage than being straight (or even gay)? 

I understand that sexual orientation is not a choice, but monogamy definitely is.

How does a bi-married man make the case to his wife that he shouldn't be expected to be monogamous?

A guy who's had experience with both genders might explain that intimacy with a woman and sex with a man are completely different, and as such, shouldn't be confused with one another.  With women, you tap into your passionate side and connect intimately through sex.  With men, the experience is not emotional, it's physical.  If a connection is made, it's raw and primitive.  Affection is irrelevant.

A monogamously married bisexual man can't explain the difference between sex with men and sex with women because he's only been with women.  Instead he can describe how his unmet need to connect with men has been festering within him for too long and is making him miserable.  He can explain that, after many years of fighting it, he can't fight any longer, and he NEEDS to act on it.  This argument, of course, isn't an argument at all.  It's a plea: "Allow me some latitude - or I'll implode."

Many wives are unconvinced.  Why does he have this need all of a sudden?  If he'll "implode" without sex with a man, doesn't that mean he's gay?  Why can't he control his attraction to men the same way he controls his attraction to other women?  Straight married men look at porn, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, and any hot woman who walks by, but that doesn't mean they all cheat.  Being attracted to other women is normal, but looking isn't the same as acting.  Why should being bisexual be any different?

There are a whole host of psychological, evolutionary and religious reasons that explain why women, especially, value monogamy.  But valuing monogamy isn't the same as sublimating part of your sexuality.  To understand sublimation, you have to experience it yourself, and the way that most women experience it, monogamy is clearly, obviously and unquestionably a choice.

When confronted by the "monogamy is a choice" argument, I think most bi-married men who ask for an open marriage simply give up.  In their own experience, they KNOW they're totally capable of looking and not acting, both with women and men.  They've done it for years!  How can they effectively argue against their own behavior??  They can't.  Which means the only reasonable solution is to "keep on keeping on" - until they really do implode.

The way out of this paradox, I believe, is to reframe what sexual sublimation feels like.  It *IS* a choice but it's not the same kind of choice for bisexuals as it is for monosexuals.

For years I've been trying to think of a way to explain the difference in a relatable way.  Until recently, my best idea was to compare sexual sublimation to dietary restrictions.  Specifically, that a monosexual is like a vegetarian and a bisexual is like an omnivore.  If you can understand what it would feel like to see, smell and ogle over meat every day, but NEVER be allowed to eat it, then you can understand being bisexual.  You can eat vegetables, and your immediate hunger can be sated, but you're still tortured by thoughts of all the delicious meat you're missing.  And even if your hunger is quenched in the short run, in the long run you're still ravenous, only in a very different way.

Although the dietary restriction metaphor sometimes makes the point, I've never been satisfied with it.  I think it vastly understates the difficulty of permanently burying a fundamental part of one's self.  I actually don't think it's that hard to be a vegetarian.  Plenty of people do it without much angst. Being bi and living 100% straight, on the other hand, is far, far more difficult.

At long last, I think I've found a better way to explain what it feels like to live as a straight, monogamous married man, yet actually be a deeply frustrated bisexual:

We never think of it this way, but every day we make the choice to speak.  Speaking is not required to live or to be happy.  At any given time, any of us has the option to stop speaking entirely.  Doing so doesn't mean we can't communicate.  We can easily do that by writing, typing, signing or gesturing.

What's the longest you've ever gone without speaking?  Could you do it for a full day?  A week?  A month?  Until the day you die?  As with staying monogamous, not speaking is something that can easily be done on a minute-to-minute basis, but it becomes increasingly difficult the longer you keep at it.

So, to all the monosexuals out there who say monogamy is a choice and being bi and married is no different than being straight and married, I ask you to imagine living the rest of your life only speaking to your spouse.  Could you do it?

Certainly you could, if you chose to.

Monogamy IS a choice, but if you're a frustrated bisexual, it's far from an easy one.  I often think that if straight wives truly understood how difficult bisexual monogamy can be, many more of them would agree to an open marriage.

I also think many more of them would want to leave their marriages.

I say this because "monogamy is a choice" provides false comfort to many straight wives.  If they genuinely understood the struggle that many married bisexual men face, they'd realize that non-monogamy is inevitable, and that wouldn't be acceptable to them.

This means that, ironically, any woman who is married to a bisexual man and believes "monogamy is a choice" is not standing on the moral high ground.  Rather, she's creating her own future nightmare.  By not understanding how bisexual sublimation differs from monosexual monogamy, she's setting herself up for a very painful lesson one day.

And just to be clear, I'm not saying bisexual married men can't be happily monogamous.  They can.   I just see a very distinct difference between those who are happy being monogamous and those who are not.  The happy ones, overwhelmingly, never come out of the closet.  Why would they?  Only for the sake of being honest.  This means, with a handful of exceptions, that any man who outs himself to his wife as bisexual is doing so because he no longer wants to be monogamous.  It's these men who are frustrated, struggling and\or at risk of imploding.   Demanding that they stay monogamous isn't a workable solution.  Either accept an open marriage or accept that the marriage is over.  As heart-breaking as it might be, there is no middle option that works in the long run.

Straight Wife Needs Help: How did this happen???

I recently received the message below as a comment from an anonymous straight wife.  In it, she tells her story and asks if anyone can help her understand her husband's behavior.  What would you tell her?  Please share your feedback in the comment box below.

I am 45 years old and been married for 25 years to the same man, we have two beautiful daughters. I have been faithful to him in every way. My husband is 46, a tradesman who worked away for much of our relationship. Just over a year ago he came home on his turn around, we were having a wonderful day and all of the sudden he said "I'm leaving, there is nothing to talk about and I am not coming back". He packed his car and left. One month later came back wanting to come home. He had been drinking excessively for the last 3 years and I thought that was the problem for his sudden mood changes. I would not let him come back but told him I was not giving up on our marriage. 10 months after our separation (we were on speaking terms some up and downs but getting along well) he was at our home, I had moved out with our 16 year old daughter, I couldn't financially afford to live there and he was giving me no support. I showed up unannounced which was not unusual but this time he had a man there. I come to find out that he has been living (not just dating, has a home) with this man for the past 4 years, we were only separated for not even a year. He admitted to me that day that he was having a relationship with this man but when I went back the next day he denied everything saying he was just someone to communicate with. He continues to put the blame on me and I can't understand why. So I thought maybe you or another gay husband could fill me in on how he justify what he has done. Was he gay from day one, is every memory and moment of my past just a lie? Was I just a cover so no one would know? Was my life, my happiness not important? Did it repulse him to be with me?

Here's my response:

Anonymous - I'm very sorry to hear about your situation.  You've been blind-sided.  Not once, but twice.

Blind-side betrayals are traumatic events.  The pain can be worse then getting run over by a truck.  At least with a truck you get taken to a hospital.  After a blind-side betrayal, you're often left alone, wondering what the hell just happened.

The most important thing for you to know is that what your husband has done reflects on him, not you.   Sexual orientation is not learned.  Your husband has always been attracted to men, although he may not have been fully aware of it.  The fact that he decided to leave after 25 years does NOT mean you are an undesirable woman.  All it means is that he couldn't hold back his attraction to men any longer.  It's like holding a giant inflatable ball under water.  You can keep it submerged for a very long time...but, inevitably, it pops up to the surface.

Love and sex can be very complicated, especially for men who are not strictly straight or gay.  I can't imagine that your husband doesn't love you.  You spent 25 years together and got along well.  That has to mean something.  People can be fake-nice or fake-loving for short periods of time but not for decades.  This means that every moment of your past was NOT a lie, it just wasn't the full truth.

Were you a cover?

It depends on what you mean by 'cover'.  Some women want to know if their husband had a premeditated plan to use them.  They imagine their husband saying to himself, "I'm gay, but because that's not socially acceptable, I'm going to find a gullible woman to be my beard."

I can only remember one man ever admitting he did that.  Every other man's story has been rooted in wishful thinking or denial.  Wishful thinkers say to themselves, "My attraction to men will go away or won't be important if I marry a woman I love." Deniers don't believe (or don't even comprehend) that they're attracted to men.  In their hearts, their decision to marry a woman is completely sincere.

Based on what you've said, I don't know whether your husband was a wishful thinker or a denier.  I'm not sure that it matters.  You can't fake 25 years of intimacy.  He cares about you...but sexually, he's more attracted to men.

Was your life and happiness unimportant? 

This is a difficult question to answer.  Yes, your life is important, but human nature makes us selfish.  A hungry man may be willing to give his food to his starving wife for a long period time, but when does he start to hold back because he convinces himself he's more hungry than she is?

Long periods of denial often play out like a dam breaking.  Everything is fine and then *wham* it's total chaos and disaster.  From your husband's point of view, that's why he blind-sided you.  He wasn't trying to be cruel, or to intentionally ruin your life.  What happened was that his interior dam of denial finally broke.  Once that happened, he basically said, "Your survival is up to you and mine is up to me."  That's a shitty thing to do to another person, especially to someone you've pledged to care about more than any other person, but breaking dams cause panic.  There's no reasonable excuse for what your husband has done, but, it also wasn't something he did out of malice.  Weakness yes, malice, no.

Did it repulse him to be with you?

Probably not.

Think about this: if you, as a woman, loved another woman, but were not sexually attracted to her, would you be repulsed by her?  Lack of attraction is very different from repulsion.  It seems to me that if your husband was actually repulsed he would've asked for a divorce many years ago.

Anonymous, you might not fully realize it, but you're in a state of shock.  It's going to take time for you to adjust to what's happened.  During this very difficult time you need to take care of yourself.  Don't worry about your husband - worry about you.  Toward that end, please know that you are not alone in this situation.  Sadly, there are many other straight wives out there.  Only they can truly know how it feels to be blind-sided the way you have been.  Don't hesitate to seek their support.  A number of cities have local support groups, and even if yours doesn't, there are several places to go on the Internet to talk to other women in your exact situation.

Again, I'm sorry about what your husband has done.  As painful as this is, you will recover.  In fact, it's very likely that you'll meet a new man who loves you both as a person and as a woman.  Then you'll find true happiness, as Michelle (another blogger) has.

Cameron

Here's a link to a young video blogger, Ben Hobson, who came out to his wife after a few years of marriage.  He explains his thinking in several different videos.  She even appears in a few of them.

Here's a link to another young blogger who knew he was attracted to men, and had sexual experiences with them, but recently married a woman because he knew he couldn't live without her.

Your ex-wife says you're gay - but you're not

A straight wife says:

My marriage was "odd" from the wedding day forward, and I spent 20 years trying to figure out why. Then my husband got bored with the stuff he'd been doing on his own (which had given me an STD when we were young and I was pregnant) and started pushing HARD for me to have sex with other men for his gratification. He pushed for me to have sex with women, too, even though I have no interest in women. 

He manipulated me and insisted I flirt with, hit on and advertise online for men. Then he'd back off, and say it was just talk on his part and I should have known not to follow through on stuff he swore for weeks on end would make him happy and turn him on. Over and over again, he did this.It was a mindfuck of epic proportions, and it hurt like hell, and it also introduced me to the idea that some.men.are.users, and some men are not. Some men actually think women are equal to them, with rights and thoughts of our own that are just as valid as a man's plans for his wife. And some men like sex, and would like to try it with me. 

In the midst of all this, he was secretly recording my phone calls, tracking every keystroke on my computer, building a case against me with all of it that made it look like I was cheating on him, when I was not. I didn't realize that at the time. I thought he was just reading my mind. 

Eventually, I realized he was gay. I realized he was using me. And I realized I had to leave. Not all at once: It was like ripping my own body in in half with my two hands. Slow, agonizing, hard, but I did eventually come to those realizations. 

I also had a terrible self-doubt. What if he WASN'T gay? What if it was, as he insisted, all in my imagination? What if he was right, and I was just obsessed with sex and sexually aggressive toward him, and things would be the same no matter what man I might be with? What if, as he said, i was throwing away "a good man who loved me," because I was turning 40 and had no career because I'd raised our children, and I was just some silly woman regretting her life choices? 

I asked for a divorce. He refused. I asked him for space. I asked him to leave me alone. And he refused. He suspected me, and he imitated me online to get a man with whom I'd been having intimate conversations to send him a transcript of them.
He would call me from work, invite me to lunch, and pull out the transcript. "When you were talking to this guy, how come you said you think I'm gay? When you say here (and he'd point to some phrase he'd highlighted) that I am an abusive asshole, what did you mean by that?" and on and on, for months, going over those transcripts of my conversations line-by-line. He'd insist I get in the car with him and then he'd yell at me, and call me a whore. He'd threaten to leave, and tell me to go get his suitcases so he could pack, and then...the suitcases would sit at the end of the bed where I'd put them, for weeks, until i put them back in the attic. He had no intention of leaving. He was going to make ME leave. 

"I don't want to be the kind of man who can't control his wife, so he has to kill her," he said. 

I started to distance myself from him. I stopped hitting on him. That meant we almost never had sex, but by then I didn't want it. I started wearing multiple layers of clothing to bed, hugging the seam on the mattress, and telling my husband i was too tired, too stressed, too whatever for sex---a lot of the same excuses he'd given ME, for the first 20 years of our marriage. And I went to the tamest of the online sites he'd showed me and I found men. I had a few sexual encounters with men, and it was a revelation, a confirmation of all I'd ever suspected. 

At the same time, after long searching (crap economy, BA in English, 17 years out of the job market raising kids, stuck in a small town with only one industry, and that industry is engineering) I finally found my first full-time job in 17 years. And then he started forcing himself on me. 

Being raped by a gay man is very weird. It is painfully, OBVIOUSLY only about control because it was not exciting HIM in any way (even though he managed to get off). It was just him forcing me to do something I used to beg him to do.
The second time he raped me, as I lay there quietly sobbing, he said, "Every time we make love, I feel like I'm raping you. How can you be so cruel?" 

He finally accepted that I would not remain married to him, that I no longer wanted him or respected him, that forcing me to have sex with him was not going to make me love him again and that my repeated requests for divorce were not some bluff. He said that he would tell the boys that I was leaving. "You owe me that much, to let me be the one to tell them." 

And so he called all the boys into our dining room and said, "Your mom is leaving us because I used to drink. I don't drink anymore, so I don't know why she is leaving, but it is her choice, and as much as I want to save our marriage, as much as I love her and I always will, she can't forgive me for how I used to drink heavily in the past." 

Of course, he was still a drunk. He was also abusing both illegal and prescription drugs. But the boys hadn't seen much of that, aside from the drinking, which he can control if he wants to. It was all a lie, a farce, but when i started to speak he cut me off. He stepped up his gaslighting, and told the boys repeatedly that I wanted a divorce because I was 40, having a midlife crisis, emotionally unstable due to birth control pills, and that I was cheating on him even though he'd always been utterly faithful to me and treated me well. 

It was all lies, but I couldn't explain it to them. He is extremely articulate and cutting and fast on his feet. He can make anything you say sound like whatever he wants. I shut up. It seemed safer that way. 

I moved into our basement, and lived there for 19 months before I moved out. It took me that long to find a job that would, with my oldest son sharing the bills, enable the two of us to rent a small apartment. 

That was 10 months ago. 

I am moving on. I am dating a terrific (and straight!) guy who treats me with dignity, consideration, respect and love. I am in counseling. I am looking for a better job, so that I can afford this small apartment even when my son moves out. And I am counting down the days until the divorce is final. 

My sons don't know their dad is gay. Only the oldest sees that he is abusing drugs and alcohol. He figured my husband's constant "your mom is cheating on me!" was a lie, because he saw so many other lies and cruelties, big and small. But our attorneys insisted I not say anything negative about my ex-husband where the boys could hear it, so...I have not defended myself. I have mostly shut down, as far as those discussions might go. 

My other three sons, all late teens, live with their dad. The middle one won't speak to me, since I left. It breaks my heart, and it makes me angry that my husband can lie to him and use those lies to destroy my relationship with my son, because he is a fast-talker and I am only articulate in writing. 

A lot of people have said for years that I should tell the boys the whole truth. Others say I definitely should NOT, because it would be burdensome to them. But the way I see it, it is already burdensome. They have already been raised in an environment that looked like a marriage but actually was enslavement, that looked like heterosexual love but actually was me begging my gay husband to pay attention to me once in a while. 

Yesterday, I told my oldest son that if he wants to know the truth, I will tell it, even though it is ugly and complicated and doesn't always make me look perfect.
He's considering whether he wants to know. 

Am I wrong to tell my son, and then his brothers (once the divorce is final)? I don't know what to do, and at this point I feel too tired to even think.

Kind of a crazy story...which is one of the reasons I'm sharing it.

Another reason is that I wonder what other people think about it, especially women and men in a similar situation - women who feel victimized by their gay husband - and men who feel unfairly scapegoated by their irrational wife.

There's also the matter of answering the woman's question: should she tell her children that their father, the parent they live with, is gay, especially when he insists he is not?

Her friends say the information would be burdensome.  I wonder if they meant that in the way she describes.  In my opinion it would be burdensome, mostly because I don't think children want to be put in the middle of their parents' divorce.

What about her point that her marriage was not a good example of heterosexual love and that's why she should out her ex?

I've thought about it...and I disagree.  There are plenty of examples of heterosexual love in the average teenager's life.  Yes, their parents' relationship is arguably the most influential, but their parents' bad example won't negate other positive influences, especially those of close family members and friends.

I'm sure there are situations where men in denial take out their frustrations on their straight wives and the women unfairly suffer.  I'm also sure there are situations where straight wives out their ex-husbands as gay and they actually aren't.

If I compare those two injustices, I'd guess that there are many more men in denial than women who falsely out their exes as gay....and yet...I still don't see how outing an in-denial gay spouse does the children any good.  If their dad really is gay, they'll figure it out on their own eventually.  Having the kids figure it out is probably better for the straight spouse in the long-run anyway.  Kids don't want to hear their parents bash each other, even if what's being said is true.  In fact, kids are more likely to resent being dragged into their parents' nastiness than they are to be happy to know the true reason for their parents' divorce.

I've never once said anything bad about my ex to my kids.  Instead I make an effort to be complimentary whenever possible.  That really annoys my 14yo daughter...but I don't think she knows how awful it would be to have her parents constantly insulting each other.

What do you think about this woman's story?