SusieK77
Mar 19, 2011, 07:45 PM
I have been with my husband for 7 years, married for 2 1/2. The first 5 years of our relationship were better than most any other relationship I had been around. We got along great, never fought, had a great sex life, and were always happy to come home to each other. We always commented that we were the loves of each others lives, the best sexual partners we each ever had and we felt so lucky to have found each other. We got married after 4 years of dating (I never ONCE pressured him) and shortly thereafter he went out of the country for a year for work. It was tough while he was away, but we saw each other a couple of times during that year, and we both said we felt stronger for getting through it.
A few months after he got back, we went through a lot of stressful times and probably settled into a 'rut,' where we stopped doing all the little things we used to do before we got married. During this time of strain, he ended up going out of the country again for work, this time for 2 months. During this time, he ended up developing a 'close friendship and a mutual attraction' with a girl there that 'all the guys were crazy about.' When he came home, he immediately told me he 'felt like he was changing, and wasn't sure if marriage was for him, and maybe it was a mistake that we got married.' He said that 'when he realized he was having feelings for someone else it made him wonder how he could love his wife, and being with her made him realize everything that is missing from our marriage.' Wow. You could have knocked me over with a feather. He then proceeded to undermine everything about our entire relationship, and to question 'if we ever really had the passion we thought we did.' And continuously asked, 'What is our connection?'
Ok, now you're probably wondering why the title of this is 'Is my husband bisexual or gay.' Here's the deal. I'm getting the feeling that this 'female' stuff might be a cover and compensation for what's REALLY going on. Ten years ago when he was in college, he had the 'lowest point of his life.' He told me early on in our relationship that he had an eating disorder, but I didn't find out until recently that it was bulimia, and it was apparently about 'control.' To his credit, he was overweight as a child and felt very self conscious about it. When we met he was an exercise maniac. He looked great, but he would get up at 4:30 am, work out for 2 hours, and then work out for 2 more hours after work. It drove me crazy and was very anal, and after a year or two of dating, he toned it down to once a day, but was always really serious about it.
The other weird parts: Gay men seem to notice him a lot and there have been at least 2 that have been what I call 'obsessed with him.' One hated me when he and I started dating. Another (who's bisexual) was actually the counselor who helped him through his hard time and they remained friends. (Which is really weird to me). I always felt uncomfortable around this guy and even had to call him out one day because he and my husband were talking in a really intense way that creeped me out. When I said something, the guy said, 'What, he doesn't talk to all his friends this way?' No, a$#hole, he doesn't. That same guy went home one weekend to visit my husband's family because I couldn't go and my sister-in-law told me there's something very weird about him and it's as though he's 'actually in love' with my husband. I confronted my husband and said, 'He clearly wants to have SEX with you, does this not bother you?' He told me that they had been friends for a long time and that the guy knew his darkest secrets and had helped him at the lowest point in his life and that they would always be friends and he wasn't worried because nothing was going to happen. Ok...
So after getting back into the country and telling me he doesn't know if marriage is for him and that 'he's always had commitment issues' (great, would have been nice to know this 7 years ago, and BEFORE we got married) & that he doesn't think he ever wants to make the sacrifice to have children, he finally told me he wants a divorce. Not ONCE, in the time since he's gotten back, has he actually TRIED to work on our marriage at all. It's like he made up his mind before he even got home, flipped a switch, and that was IT. Unbelievable.
Anyway, the other thing I didn't mention is that before we got married (and things were great, at least as far as I knew), he asked me if I would ever consider an 'open relationship' because it was 'just sex, and didn't mean anything.' I flipped out and said absolutely not, and that he needed to decide if that was important to him. If it was, fine, but I would leave him. Harsh, yes, but it was how I felt and still feel, and I WOULD have left him. We brushed it off, moved on (or so I thought), got married, and here we are. (I don't think he ever got over it, I think he repressed it).
Also throughout our marriage, especially in the later years, he was very much into porn (male and female) and would watch it even when I was in the other room. It really didn't bother me much at the time, but now I think it contributed to the problem. I also found out that my husband met up with the girl I mentioned previously for 3 days, during which time I'm pretty positive he cheated on me with her. When I confronted him, he was very defensive, didn't really deny cheating on me, and said, 'They couldn't help their feelings for each other.' Things quickly went downhill from there and then I found out he was on a sex website soliciting for casual, random sex 3 weeks before he told me he wanted a divorce. This is coming from someone who I have always considered to be 'the best person I've ever met.' Everyone has always thought of him as being the 'perfect' guy, and the most honest and trustworthy person. As I said, for the first 5 years, he was the ideal mate, and I could not have been happier. We really did have a good sex life, at least until all of this started happening, although admittedly, I was getting kind of bored, so he probably was as well. He would just start watching porn on his own, start jerking off (excuse my French!) and expect me to come in and be on the same page.
Anyway, this behavior is all mind-blowing and now I feel like he's an absolute stranger. I seriously look at him and my husband being two completely different people. It's unreal. When I've asked him about it, he admits that he feels like 'he's in a very dark place right now and that he feels like two different people.' He says that he 'can't bear to talk about anything that could hurt me more and that he has a lot of grief and hates himself sometimes because of it.'
Recently he told me how he went to a bar with the bisexual counselor I mentioned earlier and told me that 'the weirdest thing happened.' One of his co-workers was there with a bunch of guys who looked like marines. The guy came up to him and asked if he was okay knowing that they were all gay because only 2 other people at the office knew. My husband is a very unjudgmental type of person, so he said, 'No, of course not.' But he told ME that it was weird and that 'things aren't always what they seem to be' and that he would have never known that guy was gay. This struck me as very odd, because it didn't seem to be a story that I would feel the need to tell people as 'something weird that happened to me.'
Anyway, I'm really at a loss, and wanted to hear what other people's thoughts were on this. Does it sound like he just lost the passion for me and found it in this other girl (about whom he wrote in a note, he feels 'so in love he feels powerless and out of control and it's become like an obsession that changes his behavior'-at least I ASSUMED it was about HER)? And do the other things I mentioned about sexuality seem weird, or is that just me grasping at straws, trying to make some kind of sense of this? Besides the things I've mentioned, and the faintest hint of questioning if it was a possibility before any of this even came up, there has never been anything that would obviously scream out that he's gay. I have NEVER seen him check out other guys or look at gay porn, and when I looked on his computer, there was tons of porn, but it was all females. Also, he is not homophobic and, pardon the 'too much information,' but he has never shied away from giving oral sex, which I often hear gay men will just not do. I would greatly appreciate any opinions. Thanks.
A few months after he got back, we went through a lot of stressful times and probably settled into a 'rut,' where we stopped doing all the little things we used to do before we got married. During this time of strain, he ended up going out of the country again for work, this time for 2 months. During this time, he ended up developing a 'close friendship and a mutual attraction' with a girl there that 'all the guys were crazy about.' When he came home, he immediately told me he 'felt like he was changing, and wasn't sure if marriage was for him, and maybe it was a mistake that we got married.' He said that 'when he realized he was having feelings for someone else it made him wonder how he could love his wife, and being with her made him realize everything that is missing from our marriage.' Wow. You could have knocked me over with a feather. He then proceeded to undermine everything about our entire relationship, and to question 'if we ever really had the passion we thought we did.' And continuously asked, 'What is our connection?'
Ok, now you're probably wondering why the title of this is 'Is my husband bisexual or gay.' Here's the deal. I'm getting the feeling that this 'female' stuff might be a cover and compensation for what's REALLY going on. Ten years ago when he was in college, he had the 'lowest point of his life.' He told me early on in our relationship that he had an eating disorder, but I didn't find out until recently that it was bulimia, and it was apparently about 'control.' To his credit, he was overweight as a child and felt very self conscious about it. When we met he was an exercise maniac. He looked great, but he would get up at 4:30 am, work out for 2 hours, and then work out for 2 more hours after work. It drove me crazy and was very anal, and after a year or two of dating, he toned it down to once a day, but was always really serious about it.
The other weird parts: Gay men seem to notice him a lot and there have been at least 2 that have been what I call 'obsessed with him.' One hated me when he and I started dating. Another (who's bisexual) was actually the counselor who helped him through his hard time and they remained friends. (Which is really weird to me). I always felt uncomfortable around this guy and even had to call him out one day because he and my husband were talking in a really intense way that creeped me out. When I said something, the guy said, 'What, he doesn't talk to all his friends this way?' No, a$#hole, he doesn't. That same guy went home one weekend to visit my husband's family because I couldn't go and my sister-in-law told me there's something very weird about him and it's as though he's 'actually in love' with my husband. I confronted my husband and said, 'He clearly wants to have SEX with you, does this not bother you?' He told me that they had been friends for a long time and that the guy knew his darkest secrets and had helped him at the lowest point in his life and that they would always be friends and he wasn't worried because nothing was going to happen. Ok...
So after getting back into the country and telling me he doesn't know if marriage is for him and that 'he's always had commitment issues' (great, would have been nice to know this 7 years ago, and BEFORE we got married) & that he doesn't think he ever wants to make the sacrifice to have children, he finally told me he wants a divorce. Not ONCE, in the time since he's gotten back, has he actually TRIED to work on our marriage at all. It's like he made up his mind before he even got home, flipped a switch, and that was IT. Unbelievable.
Anyway, the other thing I didn't mention is that before we got married (and things were great, at least as far as I knew), he asked me if I would ever consider an 'open relationship' because it was 'just sex, and didn't mean anything.' I flipped out and said absolutely not, and that he needed to decide if that was important to him. If it was, fine, but I would leave him. Harsh, yes, but it was how I felt and still feel, and I WOULD have left him. We brushed it off, moved on (or so I thought), got married, and here we are. (I don't think he ever got over it, I think he repressed it).
Also throughout our marriage, especially in the later years, he was very much into porn (male and female) and would watch it even when I was in the other room. It really didn't bother me much at the time, but now I think it contributed to the problem. I also found out that my husband met up with the girl I mentioned previously for 3 days, during which time I'm pretty positive he cheated on me with her. When I confronted him, he was very defensive, didn't really deny cheating on me, and said, 'They couldn't help their feelings for each other.' Things quickly went downhill from there and then I found out he was on a sex website soliciting for casual, random sex 3 weeks before he told me he wanted a divorce. This is coming from someone who I have always considered to be 'the best person I've ever met.' Everyone has always thought of him as being the 'perfect' guy, and the most honest and trustworthy person. As I said, for the first 5 years, he was the ideal mate, and I could not have been happier. We really did have a good sex life, at least until all of this started happening, although admittedly, I was getting kind of bored, so he probably was as well. He would just start watching porn on his own, start jerking off (excuse my French!) and expect me to come in and be on the same page.
Anyway, this behavior is all mind-blowing and now I feel like he's an absolute stranger. I seriously look at him and my husband being two completely different people. It's unreal. When I've asked him about it, he admits that he feels like 'he's in a very dark place right now and that he feels like two different people.' He says that he 'can't bear to talk about anything that could hurt me more and that he has a lot of grief and hates himself sometimes because of it.'
Recently he told me how he went to a bar with the bisexual counselor I mentioned earlier and told me that 'the weirdest thing happened.' One of his co-workers was there with a bunch of guys who looked like marines. The guy came up to him and asked if he was okay knowing that they were all gay because only 2 other people at the office knew. My husband is a very unjudgmental type of person, so he said, 'No, of course not.' But he told ME that it was weird and that 'things aren't always what they seem to be' and that he would have never known that guy was gay. This struck me as very odd, because it didn't seem to be a story that I would feel the need to tell people as 'something weird that happened to me.'
Anyway, I'm really at a loss, and wanted to hear what other people's thoughts were on this. Does it sound like he just lost the passion for me and found it in this other girl (about whom he wrote in a note, he feels 'so in love he feels powerless and out of control and it's become like an obsession that changes his behavior'-at least I ASSUMED it was about HER)? And do the other things I mentioned about sexuality seem weird, or is that just me grasping at straws, trying to make some kind of sense of this? Besides the things I've mentioned, and the faintest hint of questioning if it was a possibility before any of this even came up, there has never been anything that would obviously scream out that he's gay. I have NEVER seen him check out other guys or look at gay porn, and when I looked on his computer, there was tons of porn, but it was all females. Also, he is not homophobic and, pardon the 'too much information,' but he has never shied away from giving oral sex, which I often hear gay men will just not do. I would greatly appreciate any opinions. Thanks.