As I said in a previous article, there are a lot of people who come out later in life. This could be because they were too afraid of rejection to do it before, they thought it would change over time, or they really didn’t know. Whatever the reason, this guy married you with the idea of staying with you. No one marries with the suspicion of divorce.
We all idealize the future when we are young. The day you get married, you think you are going to have the best marriage of your life. You tell yourself that your marriage is going to be different; It will be heaven on earth. Over time, you get older and you realize that you are not the perfect wife and that the man you married is not the perfect husband. Maybe even consider a divorce or go to couples therapy to avoid the downhill road. Then you start to understand the reality: life is not perfect, but it is okay, it is good enough, and in many ways you are happier than many others. Other parts of life work roughly the same; His job, his kids, his hobbies, they’re not perfect, but they’re good enough.
Then it comes to midlife crisis. It can happen from the late thirties to the late fifties, in some cases even the sixties. You begin to wonder the meaning of all this: why am I here? I succeed? what was my dream; I reached it; Am I on the path towards the goals I had or am I on the wrong path? This is the age when some men change jobs or spouses, the perfect time for a career change or a divorce or even both. It is also the age when people who knew they were gay and thought they could change, realize that it did not happen and that they are entering their last chance to be happy: the age when adults come out. .
If you find yourself in the situation where your husband comes out, you have to understand the following:
- He probably didn’t try to cheat on you when you got married; he thought that it would change and that everything would be fine or he did not know.
- Everyone comes out of some kind of closet in middle age. The doctor realizes that he actually wanted to be a plumber. He became a doctor to please his father and thought it would be fine, but it is not. You decide to make a change, because this is your last chance to be happy.
- You may think that therapy could cure you, but unfortunately there is no therapy that can change your sexual orientation.
The fact is that you are married to a gay man and that leaves you both with the following options:
- You could get a divorce so he can live the life of a gay man and get someone who really wants to be with you. It doesn’t have to be an ugly separation; in fact, it can be a win-win move in which you both wish happiness for the other. After all, they got married because they really loved each other, and loving also implies that they want the best for each other.
- You could settle, as many do, with an open marriage in which both of you are dating other men. I don’t think there is anything more destructive than this choice, but it apparently works for some people.
- You could decide to stay married while you know he is gay and he does his best to accept the idea that he would never live the life of a gay man. Unfortunately, many people settle for this choice, but the husband is not really happy and the wife never knows if her husband is faithful to her or not.
In my case we settle for the first option. I was more than ready to pick the third for everyone’s sake, but we decided we wanted something better for each other and we never looked back. Today, years later, we are still best friends and we still love each other very much, but not as husbands should.
You may choose one of the other possibilities, but it is something that you will both have to agree on. One can never force the other to make a specific decision, because that is doomed to failure and destruction.
