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How I Made My Husband Gay:The Stories of My Women

PROFILE #1: EMMA B., 44, Wisconsin, married 9 years, in process of divorce, one son five years old. I’m an Accountant by trade but became a stay-at-home Mom when my son was born.

I had no idea my husband was gay. He was definitely the pursuer when we first met. He was so head over heels in love with me. I actually broke up with him once when we were dating because I was dating someone else when we met. I was married the first time for five years. My first husband left me for another woman. We had no children. I was 33 when I went through my first divorce. I met my second husband--the gay one-- through a friend while I was still happily married to my first husband. She told him I was not available as I was married. He was very disappointed. However, when my first marriage broke up, the friend told him I became available and we dated for two years before marrying.

My co-workers who knew him while he was courting me thought he was a diamond in the rough. They are were envious of me because of how he courted me, sending me flowers at work on all the special occasions and always buying me the nicest jewelry on birthdays and Christmas.

I was 36 when I married the second time. We tried to have a family right away. After a lot of fertility workup and treatments, I finally got pregnant at 39. My son was a miracle baby. He was born prematurely, weighing less than three pounds. We are very fortunate that he (now five) is a healthy, bright, and an amazing special little boy.

I always thought my husband and I had a good sexual relationship. The frequency wasn’t as much as what my first husband wanted. I just thought maybe he had a low sex drive. I made sure we had sex around my fertile time as we were trying to conceive. I always felt that I was the one that initiated the sex; he didn’t do much of the initiating. He was a horrible kisser. I hated the way he kissed, but he knew how to please and satisfy me. He was a very giving partner when we had sex. I’ve often asked him why we couldn’t kiss more. He would say because it would lead to sex. I guess that should have been a red flag. I didn’t think so because there was nothing gay about him at the time. He was a good husband, always went along with whatever I wanted, and gave me nice jewelry for presents. He always came straight home after work; I always knew where he was. He was attracted to women and has crushes on several female movie stars.

From the very beginning of our marriage, we definitely had communication problems. He grew up in his household where his mother and father would not talk to each other for months at a time. They finally divorced after almost 50 years when they were 69 years old. From early on in our marriage, my husband definitely avoided conflicts and did not communicate well. I had kept a journal and looking back in it now, our marriage was definitely headed for trouble due to his inability to communicate. Again, I never saw any gay tendencies from early on.

My husband was a neat person, very particular about his clothes (he always ironed his own clothes and polished his shoes), and hated clutter. I had always thought that this was due to his Army career for 20 years which was why he was very good at taking care of his own clothes, ironing them, and keeping his shoes polished. I don’t know if I should have seen that as being a gay tendency.

The other things about him that might have been different, but nonetheless didn’t think they were gay tendencies were the fact he always liked to bake cut-out cookies and decorate them at Christmas time. He also was a better cleaner than I was. He believed in spring-cleaning, taking everything out of our closets and cupboards to do spring-cleaning. He was the youngest of five children: three older sisters and one older brother. His siblings are much older than he is, so he was practically raised by his one sister. He is also very close to his Mom. He grew up baking Christmas cookies with them and helping them do spring cleaning so again I didn’t take that as signs of a gay tendency either.

The Start of Our Marital Problems

I think we would both agree that we had a pretty decent marriage for the first five years of our marriage. He would never end a phone call without saying “I love you!” He was very attentive and supportive during my pregnancy with our miracle baby. He even read baby books and magazines in preparation for our son’s arrival. Because of my advanced age when my son was born, I knew I wanted to try for our second child shortly after.

During the first year when our son was born, he was a great dad and continued to be a loving husband. When our son was about 18 months old, I remembered that was the first time I had a gut feeling that he was unhappy. He told me if it weren’t for our son, he would “walk.” I was very surprised he felt that way. Because our son was born so little and we didn’t have families near by, we did not really use a baby sitter. We didn’t get out much as a couple, though I didn’t have any problems with that. I so truly loved being a Mom and wasn’t missing out on “going out” at all. We did go to marriage counseling and most of our issues had to do with my husband not communicating and avoiding conflicts.

Still, we continued to attempt to conceive again. We proceeded with IVF to try to get pregnant but due to lack of eggs, the IVF cycle was abandoned. Nonetheless, we continued to try “naturally” on our own to get pregnant. Again, it felt like I was always the one initiating sex during my fertile time but he never complained about it.

Red Flags

About two years ago, my husband started to work out at the Y near his work. He also joined some exercise classes that was taught by a gay instructor, Adam. For two years, rain or snow, he would get up at 5:15am every day to go work out before work. He was very proud of his progress. He kept a log of his exercise routine. After a whole year of working out with this instructor, my husband bought him these special “breathable” exercise socks as a Christmas gift. Also about this time, my husband became quite close to a gay co-worker, Rob, at work. I had met Rob and his live-in partner a few years back and thought nothing of it. They’ve been to our house for dinner and vice versa. My husband’s workplace is very liberal and they have a large population of open gay relationships. During the last two years, they went out to lunch together quite frequently (at least once or twice a week) and always sent each other instant messages. In this last year, my husband told one of my good friends that Rob had become his Best Friend! I was surprised to hear that. Maybe I was just oblivious but I didn’t realize their relationship has gotten so close.

In April of last year, while I took our son to visit some friends for two days, Rob took my husband shopping the first night we were gone. He bought a whole new outfit that consisted of a shirt, jeans, shoes, belt and even a new pair of sunglasses. They were clothes of styles that my husband never had before. Looking back that was one of the first signs that something was changing…

Last summer, there were several more scenarios that should have raised some red flags but I wrote them off. One time he took his gay exercise instructor Adam to an INXX concert and they ended up at a gay bar after the concert. My husband had bought the tickets from one his female coworkers, who is heterosexual and married. She and her husband were meeting a gay friend at the gay bar after the concert, so my husband told me that was how he ended up there. He came home telling me about his night out. He seemed excited and sounded like he had fun. He said it was “funny” watching people at the bar. However, he never said he was grossed out or uncomfortable being at the gay bar.

On another occasion, my husband took Rob, his supposedly newfound “Best Friend” to a Josh Turner concert. He actually asked my friend to get him two tickets, telling her they were for him and me to go. He later just told me since I don’t know any of his songs anyway, he would take Rob instead since he helped us moved into our new house and it was a way to say “thank you.” Call me stupid, but I trusted him, and I didn’t think much of that either.

He did buy birthday and Christmas presents for Rob. I was even the one that wrapped them. I honestly thought they were just good friends. In September, he took Rob out for his birthday and I said I hope you don’t take him out on his actual birth date as that should be reserved for his partner or Dave would be mad at you…

Shortly before Christmas, my husband and the gay instructor, Adam went to the hospital to visit another gay instructor that was admitted to the hospital for an anal abscess. That night, he didn’t get home until almost 11pm. That was the first time he has stayed out late other than when he went to the concerts. He said they went shopping and grabbed a bite to eat afterwards. My husband came home with four bags of clothes from the GAP and Banana Republic, stores where he does not usually shop. He said Adam helped him pick the clothes out because he said my husband wore his clothes way too big--one size larger than he should.

Looking back now, I must have been just so naïve because still at that time, I didn’t speculate that there was something going on… although the signs were there. My husband would giggle and acted like a kid whenever he talked about Adam or Rob.

Two weeks before Christmas, my husband loaned Adam, his gay instructor, his SUV to drive 1,000 miles to pick up something he had bought on EBay. I was a little annoyed and upset that he didn’t consult with me first, but rather he just told me that he was lending his car out. On the night that my husband was meeting his gay instructor to give him the car for his road trip, he packed him a “care package” with a bottle of water, some fruits, and some homemade Christmas cookies we had just made with our son. Looking back, I guess no straight man would think of putting together a little “care package” for his gay friend!

We spent seven days for Christmas on the East Coast. My husband seemed pretty irritable. In the meantime, I was researching for a cruise for our annual February mid-winter vacation at my husband’s request. He wanted to get away and was mad that it was taking me so long to “book” our vacation.

On New Year’s Day, after just getting back from our Christmas holiday with my family, my husband was measuring to expand our son’s and our master closet after having just moved into our new house in November. He was planning on going to Home Depot that day to get the supplies needed for that project. As usual, my husband’s enthusiasm wore off and he never did go to Home Depot or start on that project.

How I Found Out

The day after New Year’s when he went back to work after having been away for a week, he found out his best friend Rob was let go from his job. My husband was very upset. He told me he was more upset than Rob was about it. They gave him two weeks notice. His last day would be Friday, January 12.

My husband was even quieter than usual coming home after work during those two weeks leading up to January 12. He said it was just a really busy week at work. During this time, I was emailing him at work with various options for our cruise vacation. He told me he had a big project coming up and now not sure if he could get away in February as he has originally wanted.

On Friday night, January 12, (incidentally it was also my husband’s “best friend” Rob’s last day at work), while I was putting our son to bed, my husband called out and asked if he could go to the mall. I assumed he was going to make an exchange for something. I said fine as I couldn’t ask him more questions since I was reading a bedtime story to our son. After coming out of our son’s bedroom and smelling my husband’s cologne in our bedroom, I found it strange that he would put cologne on just to go to the mall. I was also getting ready and preparing food for my husband’s Mom’s and our son’s joint birthday celebration the next day. I thought it was odd that he chose that night to go to the mall (something he rarely does) when he should be helping me prepare for the party the next day.

I decided to call him on his cell phone and asked why he was out when we had a party to get ready for and when he was going to be home. He told me he didn’t know what time he would be home. Then I pressed, “What is going on?” That’s when he dropped the bomb and said “I am filing for divorce next week!” I was shocked!!! What? I had no idea and did not see it coming at all! He said we could talk about it when he got home and hung up. Two hours passed by and I called him again inquiring when he was coming home so we could talk. He said he didn’t know. Two additional hours went by, and this time he wasn’t answering his cell phone.

Needless to say, I sat in disbelief just waiting for him to come home, anticipating an explanation. He finally walked in at midnight. When I inquired where he was, he said it was no longer any of my concern and that there was nothing to talk about. He said he had taken his wedding ring off for two weeks, and I never even noticed. I asked him if there was someone else and he said “NO!” Right at that moment when I looked into his eyes, that’s when I KNEW there was someone else, AND THAT IT WAS ANOTHER MAN!

He slept on the couch that night. I didn’t sleep at all that night. Finally at

5 a.m., I knew my son would be getting up soon, so I went to the living room and asked him, “Are you GAY or Bisexual? How could this have happened? We have a child together!” All these questions I had, but he would not say a word or answer me. All he said was “I’ve been lying to you. I’ve been pretending. I only acted like I was having a good time when we just had a dinner party the week before.” He also told me he went to see a therapist three times that week, and that he couldn’t eat and was throwing up. I do believe that was the week he admitted to himself that he is in fact gay.

The next day, he packed a duffle bag of clothes and left. Each time he came back to see our son, he would take carloads of his clothes, and now he has pretty much taken all his clothes and personal belonging. Two weeks later, on the weekend of our son’s fifth birthday, he served me with divorce papers.

Denial

That “Bomb Drop” was about five months ago. To this day, he still has not come out to admit that he is gay. I have repeatedly begged him to please be honest with me for the sake of us being able to work together to co-parent our son. He won’t. He is a coward, a man with absolutely no integrity, and I have lost all respect of him for how he has handled this situation.

The Truth

At first, I thought his relationship was with Rob, but during these past five months, I found out he has been living with Adam, his gay instructor. He took Adam to San Francisco during Spring Break Week. Adam was still in school at the time studying to be a nurse but just graduated this month. My husband has become quite the Sugar Daddy. He is 42 years old, and his boyfriend just turned 30. My husband makes a very good salary, and we have had a very good standard of living. Since he left us, he spends all his money on Adam and won’t even provide my son and me money for food and necessities. Our divorce pre-trial is coming up in two weeks.

My husband has bought a whole new wardrobe since he left, with styles of clothing that he never wore in the 12 years that I knew him. He has lost about 25 pounds and dropped down two sizes from his normal Large or XL to now a Small in size. He also has a new hairstyle. He used to wear his hair super short and cut it every 6 weeks, but now he leaves it curly and longer at the top. He has trimmed down in size and wears clothes that look very homosexual to me, not feminine but just boyish like.

The Blame Game

I have to say one of the worst parts of dealing with my husband being gay is the blame thing. He honestly believes that I am the blame for everything! It saddens me that he twists things to make me out to be a horrible person, and that I was a bad wife that didn’t work with him or loved him. He tells me I am the reason why he had to divorce me, and that I had control issues.

I begged him to be honest with me, to come clean and explain to me what happened to him so that I can have closure and to be able to better deal with him and to co-parent with him for our son in the future. He won’t. Instead, he talks to me belligerently, full of anger, blames me for everything and treats me with such hostility.

I walked on eggshells around him for many years with the silent treatment, and he always snapped at me. I couldn’t make him happy no matter what I did. He would complain how long it took me to do grocery shopping. I would race home when I thought I’d been gone longer than one hour, speeding through red lights just to get home so he wouldn’t be angry with me. He complained I talked too long on the phone with my best friends from my home state, even though I would do it after he and my son went to bed so it wasn’t during our family time. I stopped talking to my friends all together. I lived like a prisoner in my own home. Even though I was a successful professional woman when I worked before my son was born, I lost all of my self-esteem from all his years of criticizing me. He became a non-loving and non-supportive husband. His betrayal is horrendous and unimaginable.

He said to me “You have been so controlling of me, and so unsupportive of me as a husband that I really don't know why I did not do this earlier. He said I was manipulative and that I drove him away! He told me he finally made the choice of being happy and not continue to fake a loving relationship that was so one-sided. He is even claiming that the love was his side! He said I was not a partner in our marriage. “If I had really felt that we were a mutually contributing couple then maybe I would still be with you today.”

This is an excerpt form an email he sent me after he filed for divorce. “The counselors said you were controlling and that if you did not change you will lose your husband. Guess what -you lost me. You ask what I have become. Really it's a happy person. I feel so bad about having to leave our son but I am so sure that this is the right thing. Granted there are two sides to this but if you could have been a better "partner" this would not have had to happen.

“ He went as far to say, “If I am gay, bi or whatever, it has nothing to do with me filing for divorce no matter what you may think.”

Self-discovery

Through therapy, I learned that even if I did everything the way he wanted, he still wouldn’t have been happy with me because he is gay. I learned that I didn’t make him gay and I didn’t drive him away to be a homosexual. I am still struggling with how he could be so angry with me. I do honestly believe that he didn’t know he was gay when he met me, fell in love, and married me. I believe he realized how comfortable and happy he was once he met Adam in the past two years and came to realize that’s who he is and who he would rather be with. I always thought he was a great dad and he does love his son, but his need to be with another man far outweighs his love for his only child.

PROFILE #2: DOLLIE W., 54, Washington, married 28 years, separated, two children, Annie, age 22 and Marc, age 16. I’m from a Catholic religious background, and was from a good family. I went to an all-girls Catholic high school and didn’t date at all in high school. I dated very little in college. I went to a ‘commuter’ college, so I didn’t make a lot of friends at school. In my early 20’s I dated more, but still didn’t have a long-term relationship until I met my gay husband.

Red Flags

The first red flag that I should have picked up on was when we were dating. I’d want to hold his hand, but his palms sweated so badly, we both gave up on that. I just thought it was a peculiarity of his. But he was always distant. Even his friends from work commented to him that he’s a hard one to get to know. When he proposed, he never said the words, “Will you marry me?” He said, “I care for you deeply,” showed me the ring, and asked me what I thought about it. I couldn’t believe it when I saw Dina McGreevy’s interview on Oprah! She said her husband said the same thing to her when he “proposed” to her! My husband told me that he talked with friends of his in the Air Force, and he told them that he wasn’t sure if I’d accept. They asked him why. He said, “I don’t know.” Looking back, it was probably because of the “love” thing. He couldn’t bring himself to tell me that he LOVED me, and he was wondering himself if “I care for you deeply” would cut it. I just thought he was shy.

So we got married. At first everything was fine. Then he started getting in little digs at me. First, he called me stupid when I went to the store and didn’t get the right thing that he asked for. Next, he told me how beautiful his sister looked on her wedding day. I told him that he never commented on how I looked on our wedding day, even though I told him how great he looked. Then he said, “You looked nice.” Then there was, “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my sister.” Their typical manner is throwing you off-guard every chance they get – making you “second-guess” everything they say. So I’m thinking, “Well, he married me, so I am assuming that he would feel the same way about me.”

Six years went by, and I was pregnant with our daughter. I told him then and before that I loved him, to which he replied, “uh huh.” After our daughter was born, he was absolutely NO HELP! I had post-partum depression and an undiagnosed thyroid problem. I was exhausted because of both AND was up at night with the baby. He never once got out of bed to help unless the baby was sick and throwing up in her crib.

I felt like he gave the orders, and I had to obey him, as if I were a child. My opinion didn’t matter to him at all--ever. I realized he was narcissistic, and he made me very unhappy. He never joked; everything was serious with him. He had frequent ‘hissy-fits” and temper tantrums. His behavior got worse with time.

On day when I was pregnant with my second child 17 years ago, I was cleaning the closet and found condoms in his jacket pocket. I confronted him and he told me that he had been to some xxx rated movies and jacked himself off, using the condoms to catch the mess. Gay didn’t even enter my mind. Yes, admittedly I was naïve, but I thought our marriage was based on truth, so I believed him. I do remember one thing he said at the time, and for some reason, it stuck in my head, after all these years. During our conversation, he said, “It just feels so natural.” I thought then, “Hmm – what feels so natural – masturbating?” It just seemed odd.

All the while, I kept thinking that if I tried harder, he would “get better,” until he moved our family on a farm three years ago. He used the farm as a tax shelter and used me to be his farm hand while he was away during the week, coming home on weekends. He needed a tax shelter because he was going through so much cash, and he had expensive charges on credit cards. Just before he asked for a divorce was when his behavior got really weird!

Blame was the Name of His Game

Larry’s behavior began getting ‘twilight-zone’-like, when we were on our family vacation in June, 2006, in Hawaii. He dumped our daughter, son, and me off at one beach while he went to a nude beach. He came back to pick us up four hours later, when it was dark. He hiked to the nude beach on another day while the children and I were at the beach next to the nude beach. I stayed to watch our children while they swam in the ocean, and while Larry walked to the nude beach. He got up in the middle of the night and used his computer. He went on other solo excursions while leaving us alone in the condo. He went on some excursions with us, but never got in the water. He was disconnected. It appeared like he was looking right through me, never walking with me, always well ahead. He didn’t fly over there with us, and he departed a day after us. He said he couldn’t get the same reservations as my son and me because he wanted to use his frequent-flyer miles. I noticed after we got back home that he had a tattoo on his ankle.

He had lost weight, grown a beard, and spruced up his wardrobe. He told me that a female captain at work told him that she liked his beard, and he should never shave it off. Okay, there’s another woman, I thought.

In early October 2006, Larry said he wanted a divorce. He told me, “I don’t love you and I never have. I don’t have empathy, and I don’t know where to get it. We were never meant to be together. We’ve grown apart.” I made it quite clear that I didn’t like “his” farm, while he left me during the week, expecting me to water 400 blueberry bushes. Then he would come home on most weekends, only to work out in the field, and then leave again for another week or more. So he made ME feel like “we’ve grown” apart, because “I” didn’t like his farm. He also added, “You should find someone else now.” He told me multiple times, “There’s no one else.” He also told me about a guy at work whose wife had a stroke recently, and now that guy has to take care of his wife! He was concerned that something similar could happen to us. I simply could not believe what I was hearing!

Prior to this, I asked him to please go to counseling. He said he went to counseling and talked about getting a divorce. I even asked him if he was gay at the request of a few friends of mine who suspected it. He answered, “No,” even with a chuckle!

All those hurtful words didn’t make sense at the time. How could this person I married be so cold? It was like he wanted to hurt me on purpose. It wasn’t until the VISA bill came that I saw that he had charged $3,500 for an attorney. Until I opened the bill, I thought from what he told me, that he was going to mental health counseling. Larry couldn’t even tell me that he had retained an attorney. I had to find that out when I opened the credit card bill.

I began to go for counseling. I tried one counselor then switched to a different counselor. Both counselors told me that Larry would fall under the heading of Narcissist Personality Disorder, which is a recognizable personality illness that is deeply resistant to therapy. His endless criticism of me never ceased. I was reduced to cook, maid, errand girl, and more recently, farm hand. That's all I was. That's all I was worth to him. This is a very painful reality.

I was forced to tell our son, Marc, that his father wanted to divorce me. Larry couldn’t and didn’t tell Marc. He has probably known all along that some day he would muster enough courage to divorce me for his “secret life”.

Why didn’t we at least move near his family in Oregon? Why Washington? We know no one here, and his job wasn’t even here. As usual, my opinion did not matter. He said we would buy it now, and in a few years, we would retire here. This was his excuse for commuting to Las Vegas from here, shuttle to PDX, courtesy of me, for the first year. Then he was able to transfer to Seattle with his company, where he began renting a room during the weekdays. After talking with locals here, they told me that Chehalis/Centralia are mid-point cities between Seattle and Portland, where many gays meet in local hotels. So now the move here finally made sense! He wanted to be close to Seattle AND Portland. I searched on the internet for Portland’s tourist info and found www.travelportland.com/visitors/tours.html. I noticed on the left of the website was a link called “Gay Portland”. I clicked on it, and one of the slogans on the page was, “Keep Portland Queer”. Well, my gay husband is doing his part to keep their city queer, all right!

Most weekends he drove home. I wonder what his employer thought of his constant requests for moving! Larry told me in October 2006 that HIS JOB wanted him to move to ABQ, by Jan. 1, 2007. I called his boss and found out that this supposedly mandated move to ABQ was at LARRY’S REQUEST! Later I found out that his “boy toy” lives in ABQ. Obviously, he got mad that I had called his boss. This was my first task at my new job as detective.

But instead of moving to ABQ, he got his boss to agree to allow him to work part-time (with a pending divorce) from his residence, now in Portland. He requested this because his father, who lives in Salem, is terminally ill, and he wanted to live close to his father for a while. So why didn’t he move to Salem? Well now we know! Portland has the gay life, not Salem! Even though during our marriage, I asked him if he wanted to go to his father’s place, for Christmas, and he said, “No.” I asked why, and he said, “I don’t want to go there.” So now he wants to LIVE near him? Huh! If nothing makes sense in your life, HE’S GAY!!!

I wonder now how many other moves have we made unnecessarily? In 1993 when we lived in ABQ, Larry knew he would be a top-contender for making the rank of full colonel, because Larry worked with a general who Larry thought surely would and could promote him. Then at Larry’s request, we moved to Saudi Arabia. Why? I didn’t know. When the review board met, while we lived in Saudi, Larry did NOT make full colonel. The general in Saudi was unable to grant Larry the promotion. Tell me, why would Larry want to move to Saudi when he knew that if he stayed in ABQ, chances would be excellent to make full colonel? Nothing EVER made sense, living in this fraudulent marriage! There had to have been a reason for him to leave ABQ; one that I will probably never know.

Marc, our son, is a wonderfully compassionate young man, whose personality, and behavior are a result of my efforts alone. Marc never connected to Larry, due to Larry’s lack of presence and effort with him. Larry told Marc on one occasion, “I know it doesn’t SEEM like I love you, but I do.” When a parent is absent MOST of the time, it is very hard to have a relationship of any kind, and expect the child to be well adjusted. Marc told me that he didn’t FEEL Larry’s love. After I told Marc about the divorce, he emailed Larry and said, “Why are you doing this? I can’t concentrate. My grades have gone way down. I’m so depressed.” Larry replied, “I do care. I just wished everyone else cared too.” What a narcissist! Marc was looking for compassion. He only heard a selfish remark from his father!

How I Found Him Out

After living in “the fog” of unreality for two months, trying to make sense of why Larry wanted to divorce me, and internalizing the blame because that’s just the way he made me feel all along, I made my discovery. It was in early December 2006. I was able to have a copy of his cell phone records mailed to me. I HATED to have to play detective. Marriage is SUPPOSED to be based on trust. I always thought that he wouldn’t lie to me, since I TRUSTED him. I have never lied to him! I called one particular number from ABQ, NM that stood out, and got a message recording which said, “Hi, This is Steven…” I confronted Larry, and asked him how many Stevens have there been? He looked right at me, and said, “None of your business.” In a legal document, Larry wrote, “I have recently admitted to myself and to my family that I am a gay man.” He never admitted anything to me, our grown daughter, or to our son except in this document. In fact, I never received the truth, understanding, OR an apology for any of his actions during our marriage. I don't believe he would have EVER told me the truth on his own. Yet I know that I deserved his honesty.

Sex Tells It All

Well, I REALLY let him off the hook easy on this one! It was below my personal dignity to beg for sex. Actually, we stopped having sex soon after my son was born. Even though I didn’t know what Larry was doing behind my back, how can you help but not “feel” it? Call it woman’s intuition, but I knew something wasn’t right. I knew I didn’t love him any more because of the way he made me feel – finding many faults with me and my family, discounting my opinion on everything, just his “authoritative” personality – never nurturing or compassionate, so I really didn’t want sex with this person that he had become. He couldn’t even hug me. Once in a while I’d give him a hug, and he inflated himself, making his chest hard, and gave me a side-hug. His kisses were mechanical as sex had been with him all along. I think about the “oldies” song called “The Shoo-op Song.” It goes like this: “If you wanna know, if he loves you so, it’s in his kiss – that’s where it is.” Occasionally I see other couples holding hands and this serves as a reminder of what my hopes and dreams were for married life. I have been cheated of all of this. My gay husband robbed me of my dreams, and he doesn’t care. I feel the rape of 28 years times 365 days = 10,220 times, to my inner self!

The Truth Behind His Lies

I have lost who I am in this marriage as I tried so hard at solving the insolvable. I believe that he thought that my role in life was to serve him and our children in exchange for his meeting my most basic physical needs like food and shelter. What I will never understand is how Larry destroyed my life, yet he continues to be angry with me. I simply don't get it! His logic is so twisted!

This has not been a marriage. It has been fraud. After finding out his secret, it doesn’t change the years of emotional neglect or abuse I have experienced, but it does explain it. Last spring he wanted to plant 100 more blueberry plants, and he showed me how to make the rows for planting them by hand using a hoe. I walked away. He got mad. I didn't care any more. I guess I became numb and dealt with it. I was so totally resigned to life without love and affection. I was not educated at all about gay men; I never thought I had to be because who would have thought that a gay man would have any interest in a woman!

Now I understand that it is because some gay men prey on anyone they think they can 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:

Determination to go out with the boys at least once a week (he met his partner during this time)

Around age 30, he began tanning and working out

My daughters remember him laying out to get a tan in a Speedo

He lost interest in kissing

He lost interest in holding hands or showing any affection

His not having an interest in sex, making excuses

His not looking me in the face during sex

His wanting the behind position

His having trouble having and keeping an erection

He would not perform oral sex

His not wanting his family to move out of town with him

His not wanting his family to come to visit him in the other city

His making excuses that the house he lived in belong to his roommate and he didn’t feel comfortable with us coming in to stay

His treating me like another daughter, no intimacy

His avoided coming home if his daughters weren’t going to be there

He avoided being with me during possible times alone

His refusing to talk and answer questions

He got upset and mad and left if I asked him what he was hiding

He could not sleep and stayed up smoking when he did come home

His depression

He had some OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) such as had to have clean cars at all times, wanted a clean house, was a neat dresser, etc.

He was interested in design and decorating

He chose everything for a house we built (carpet, wallpaper, counter tops, etc.)

His never accepting any blame for any of our problems

He didn’t mind shopping with all females

He liked to shop and help pick out clothes for his kids and me

He denied that we ever communicated well during our marriage

I found out his roommate was gay *

He decided to retire and not move back home *

His family was not invited to his retirement party *

* FINALLY registered and I eventually filed for a divorce

Blame Was the Name of His Game

My ex had a way of turning things around on me. If I complained about him not ever making love to me, he would tell me that we were always fighting, and he just didn’t feel like making love when we are mad at each other. Many times he would just fall asleep in his recliner and not come to bed until very late.

I never got along with his mother, and he sided with her anytime there was an argument. We had a big argument one Christmas because she felt we should come on Christmas day, and not afterwards. We had two families to go see, and she was always demanding priority. My ex asked me one year to leave my parents early to go see her, and he would tell her that Christmas was over on the 26th and we would just leave. He seemed upset with her and I agreed. Leaving on the 26th and him saying anything to her never happened. It was all forgotten because he did not want to bring it up and ruin the holiday. He was furious when I exploded and told them both what I thought. I believe she knew for years about her son being gay. I was blamed for that awful Christmas and how I acted.

Throughout our marriage, I was to blame for anything that went wrong. During the divorce, he did not want to let me keep the house, and he told me that he could force me to sell it and we would divide the equity. He did not want me bringing in another man to live in HIS house. He also told me that I favored my family and he hated to go see them, and I never wanted to go see his. This was quite funny to me since he and our daughters loved going to see my parents. My mother adored him and my family liked him. My mother often cooked his favorites instead of mine! He had supported her many times during her difficulties she faced with her own parents and siblings.

Our daughters loved going to the farm and enjoyed seeing their cousins when they would visit. My ex had no siblings to visit; it was just he and his mother. To this day, he has never acknowledged any blame.

Perhaps not being in the same town and in the same house, I was one of the lucky ones. I didn’t have constant abuse from him directly. I felt alone but I stayed busy and didn’t allow myself to think about the real problems. I didn’t turn to drugs or alcohol, and I didn’t feel the need to seek therapy. I certainly knew he would never go for counseling. I have felt very sad for wasting so many years of my life with this marriage.

Happily Ever After – For Real

After the divorce, we stayed friends for a few years and then he admitted he was gay in an email about three years later. I became angry and decided to be mad for a year. During that time I never dated and had no love interest at all. Even though I knew he was gay, hearing it from him was a shock and I became determined to talk and write about my life, hoping to help others.

An old classmate from high school asked me out on a date last year and we became very close. I began realizing I could love and be happy again. He made me realize that there is life after being married to a gay man, and I will always appreciate what he did for me.

I am searching for my true soul mate, and I believe I will find him. I am a happier person for moving on and not feeling sorry for myself.

I am a happy and positive person now, and you can be too. Just believe in yourself and know that none of this was ever your fault.

PROFILE #4: Charlotte M., North Carolina, married 30 years, divorced 18 years, one son and one daughter both professionals.

Red Flags

I was a naive 20-year-old virgin when I married my ex. We had a long distance romance mainly by letter back in the 1950s. I had arrived from overseas for a two-year stay and I am still here. He was very charming and a professional, and I was impressed. We were married six months after our first meeting.

He was thirty and I thought that was strange as most guys were married before then.

We tried to have sex once before the wedding, but it was a disaster; he said it would be best to wait. On the honeymoon I was miserable and had nightmares about rats under the bed. We were very uncomfortable with one another but I thought that would get better. It never did. I became pregnant almost right away and then had a second child 21 months later. He kicked me in my back when I was pregnant the second time. I was really depressed after the birth and things just kept going downhill from then on. I told him I wanted to go back to Europe and he said that I could go but the children would stay with him. I did not argue and stuck it out for years until the children went to college. I then thought sex would be better and looked forward to time together. But that was not the case. When I got back from a weekend trip to the coast he had moved out of the bedroom saying his snoring was keeping me awake. So there was no sex for the last few years of our marriage.

It all came to a head when a co-worker of mine told me that my husband had accosted her son, who worked for him. Of course he had not mentioned this to me. I told him I needed to talk to him and he finally came clean and did not apologize. I discovered later that he is a pedophile who likes 16-year-old boys. He admitted to sleeping with one and that he had affairs in service and in college. He blamed his family for being molested by siblings and had known since age eight that he was gay.

As you can imagine I was horrified by the trouble he had caused his employees and their parents. None ever complained to me. It is true that the wife is always the last to know. At the same time I was so relieved because for the first time in thirty years, I knew it was not my fault .He had always given me the impression that there was something wrong with me.

He lives a couple of hours away from me. We do not speak. My children keep in touch with him. Neither of them has children, and I wonder if their Dad is the reason. The really sad thing is that he is a homophobic homosexual who is now a lonely old man. He is lucky that he was not taken to court. I learned later that one mother almost did file charges but she did not want her son to go through the trauma.

I mostly have gone on with my life and have had a few relationships but nothing serious. I mostly do not think about it anymore but like now it all comes flooding back.

PROFILE #5: Bethany S., Texas, married three years, divorced two years, one child, Teacher

Red Flags – Signs I Missed

When I first met my husband Mabrey in 2003, I remember thinking, “Wow! I can’t believe he’s single.” He was a tall, handsome, friendly, church-going great guy. He was divorced from his first wife and had two children. He had been married ten years and divorced nearly two years when we met. I remember thinking that he was “out of my league.” I had just recently gotten divorced and thought I wasn’t possibly good enough for him. People always ask me, “Didn’t you see the signs?” But no, I truly didn’t. Looking back, of course, hindsight is 20/20, and now I totally see all of the red flags/missed signs that were so recognizable. But, at the time, it is truly the furthest thing from your mind. You are completely, genuinely not even entertaining any thoughts about the man you are dating being ‘gay.’

I wasn’t too alarmed that my husband didn’t hunt, fish, golf, or play sports…some men aren’t into those things. But, he didn’t even like to watch any sports. So much so that he set the favorites channels setup on the TV’s in our house to skip all of the sports networks completely. Normally if a woman walks through the den on a Saturday and her husband is on the couch watching television, he’s watching a sporting event. Mine would watch the “gingerbread cookie baking contest” on the Food Network. I always said, “He was a great girlfriend-just not a husband.” He loved to go shopping with me and was a great ‘girlfriend’ type companion. He was extremely vain – staring into the mirrors a lot – constantly grooming himself. He hated the hair on his back, and he would go and get it waxed off. Once he even had his eyebrows waxed. He loved pedicures and manicures too. When he would sit, he’d cross his legs like a woman. He was very animated while talking and full of lively conversation. He loved visiting with the ladies in the neighborhood too – totally fit right in with ‘girl’ talk.

I was extremely naïve and didn’t realize till much later that in fact, my husband had only married me to keep up the presumption of being a heterosexual male – with a wife and child, etc. I truly believe he never did love me. To him, I was just what he needed; a single, hardworking, educated professional from a good family that could offer the perfect ‘front’ for him. My sister told me, a year later, that the first time she and her husband had met Mabrey that they turned to each other and asked, “Do you think he’s gay?” I remember when I told my father that Mabrey was gay, he responded with, “Well, that doesn’t surprise me.” No one seemed to be surprised. It’s like everyone knew and saw all of the red flags, except for me.

Blame Was the Name of His Game

Being blamed unfairly by your husband for his being gay is one of the hardest things. It truly does a number on your self-esteem. My husband was a very negative person, constantly putting me down. Nothing about me or anything I did was right. It was always my fault. He always made me feel as if I was never pretty enough, skinny enough, smart enough. He did everything he could to belittle me and blame me unfairly for his depression and sadness for not being able to live authentically and be honest about who he was.

At the time when your husband is blaming you, you do truly believe that it’s your fault. Looking back, it is ridiculous to think about how I believed for a second any excuse he gave me. But while you are living it, you take it hook, line and sinker – and allow it to chisel away at your self-esteem piece by piece until you feel no self-worth. It’s a little embarrassing to admit now the excuses he gave – that I actually believed – but it’s important that I share openly so other women in my position will realize how ridiculous the blame game can be.

While we dated, my husband and I shared passionate French kisses, just like most couples do. Literally the night after we were married – the French kissing stopped – completely. He never would French kiss again, never. I mean seriously, no open mouth whatsoever. He just puckered lips closed for a peck on the lips or cheek from that moment forward. Of course I found this extremely odd. I would try to kiss him passionately, but his lips would remain closed tightly. Finally after numerous embarrassing attempts, I asked him why he would not French kiss me anymore. He replied, “Well, it’s because you have bad breath.” I reminded him that I had tried to French kiss him numerous days/times and he wasn’t willing. How could my breath be a problem when he’d never mentioned it before, ever? He again said that I had bad breath and with that he never, ever, ever French kissed me again.

Basically from that moment forward the only type of kiss I got was a quick, tight-lipped, ‘peck’ on the cheek. Then if I begged for a kiss on the lips, it was a quick, tight-lipped, ‘peck’ on the lips – with both of our lips closed.

Sex Tells It All

I have always considered myself a very sexual, loving, affectionate woman. I always enjoyed intimacy, especially in the context of an intimate, loving relationship. I had always hoped to be in a marriage where my husband enjoyed making love to me. There was obviously some chemistry when I met my husband and we enjoyed what I thought was a normal, dating relationship. When we married, our sex life changed almost instantly – or should I say almost ‘ended’ instantly. It was so bizarre. My husband immediately began making excuses why he would not even sleep in the same bed or room with me. He said that it was because I snored at night.

That was his excuse – it was all my fault. I snored, so he started sleeping in the guest bedroom, and we didn’t have sex. If I would ask him to come to bed with me, make love, then he could go sleep in the guest room there was always another excuse; he had a ‘stomach ache’ or a ‘headache’ or he was ‘too tired’-- all the classic excuses. He even started blaming me more – trying to make me feel bad – saying that I had too strong of a sexual appetite that he just couldn’t satisfy. I was thinking, “A strong sexual appetite – are you kidding? I’m only asking for sex a minimum of once a month – we’re newlyweds.” It was so bizarre. I was made to feel like some sex addict while he never cared to have sex again. It made me question myself and feel guilty for asking him for intimacy.

How I Caught Him

I was nine months pregnant and two weeks before delivering our baby. My husband had me sleeping in the guest bedroom that summer, since he couldn’t sleep with me in my ‘condition.’ I was up and down to the bathroom while he needed his rest for work each day. Besides, we had slept in separate bedrooms since we married because he said I snored and he couldn’t sleep with me. Sometimes when I would wake up in the night to go to the bathroom, I would see his bedroom light on from down the hall. If I walked in and saw him at the computer, he immediately would jump and click ‘home’ to get off the webpage he was on. The next day I decided to get online on the computer and see if the ‘history’ would tell me what website he was on when I walked in late at night. In my thoughts I remember dreading finding out he was looking at pornography – naked women or men/women having sex. Boy was I in for a surprise… I would have loved to have only seen naked women on the website he was viewing – instead it was only naked men in sex acts with each other. My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. Surely this was an “accident” and not something he looked at intentionally. Not my husband… the one who never kissed me or wanted sex…The one who never participated in any sports, hunting, fishing or golfing. Not him – how could this be?

As I studied the history on the computer Internet, I was so shocked to see that night after night, for hours – he was viewing totally gay pornography online. He obviously didn’t know about the “clear history” choice on the computer. I was able to see days, weeks and months back of all his viewing. I wrote down all the different website addresses – there were probably about 30 to 40 different ones. I wrote down the dates, times, and for how long he viewed each website. Some of the websites required paid subscriptions. WOW! Can you imagine, two weeks from delivering our baby and I am sitting at the computer viewing this – realizing that my husband is obviously “gay.” However, I knew that if I confronted him that night he would simply deny it and claim it was a one-time mistake. So, I decided to clear the history myself (after recording everything on paper) and pretend I knew nothing. I pretended that nothing was wrong or that I had found out anything.

Each night I would say good night to him, I’d go to the guest bedroom and he in the master bedroom with the computer – all the while knowing he’d be up viewing his gay porn. Each day after he’d go to work I’d log online, view the history from the night before, record the website addresses, times, hours he viewed, and then clear the history again. I did this everyday for two months. I knew then that I had plenty of proof that this was not an accident, and I was ready to confront him.

We had a two-month old baby. I was on maternity leave, a brand new mommy, and breast-feeding. He lost his job, and I would have to cut short my maternity leave to go back to teaching to support us. I told him that I needed to talk with him that night and that he shouldn’t waste any time trying to lie or deny anything – that what I was about to ask him about I had proof was something he’d been doing awhile and not an accident. I did that because I simply wanted to avoid the lies and denial. I wanted to cut to the chase. When I told him what I had realized that he’d been doing, and what I’d been tracking and recording for months; I simply asked him; “Why?” His first answer in response was “curiosity.” I told him that curiosity is something that someone typically satisfies within a quick time period, not months and months of re-viewing something. I told him I knew that was a lie – it wasn’t because he was “curious.” His next reply was that it was a “fantasy.” I realized that obviously he is being honest now and truthfully telling me he ‘fantasizes’ about naked men and sex acts with men…homosexuality. I asked him how long he’d been doing this and he admitted about three years. I asked him if he had already acted on his fantasy and had sex with another man and he said no.

At that point, I wasn’t sure whether he was lying or telling the truth. My husband had lied to me so many times in our short marriage that it had become very hard to believe him. I guess I’ll never know truly if he had already had sex with another man at that point in his life or not. If he hadn’t, he surely did want too and was killing himself by hiding in the closet. My husband would not come out and admit or say the words, “I’m gay,” but I knew he was deep in denial and living in the closet. At that point, he probably had not admitted to himself that he was gay.

I told him that since we had a new baby, I was a new mom, breastfeeding and needing to wean our child and go back to work early since he lost his job, that we would have to just ‘table’ this for now. Basically I was juggling all the plates that I could and wasn’t physically, emotionally or spiritually able to confront his ‘gayness’ at that moment in time. I told him we would table it and go to counseling the next summer when school was out. We agreed to continue to sleep in separate bedrooms, like we had since we married, and simply pretend – for now – that everything was ok. He loved that – pretending – he was quite good at it. He’d been pretending his entire adult life.

He wanted to stay married and continue to keep up the front at church, work, with friends, by having a wife and new baby – how could anyone suspect he was gay? He wanted us to raise our child together and just pretend to the world that we were a happy, normal couple. For me, it was very depressing and draining – living a lie – everyday knowing that my husband down the hall is gay. It was like living with your guy cousin – but worse – because I was so angry with him for being gay and being the cause of the demise of our marriage. When the summer arrived I scheduled counseling for us to meet this homosexuality issue head on. To my surprise, the counselor basically turned things around to ask me, “What would be wrong if your husband is gay?” Then my husband started private counseling with the counselor. I was left completely frustrated with zero self-esteem again feeling like I was to blame. It was so hard to try and continue on living this lie with my husband day to day.

By Christmas I decided that I wanted him to leave and wanted a divorce. I basically realized that I would rather be lonely alone then in a marriage to a gay man while allowing him to use our child and me as his props to appear heterosexual. I also thought about what it would be like when our child started kindergarten someday and mentioned “Mommy’s room,” and “Daddy’s room,” and how that would affect her. I also realized that it was horrible for her to grow up seeing a Mommy and Daddy who never touched, hugged, kissed or were in love. I didn’t want her to think that is what love is and that it was a loving, normal relationship when parents don’t share a bedroom. I decided I had to do what was best for our child and me and divorce him.

Happily Ever After – For Real!

Happily Ever After for me has been not dealing with the constant negativity and tearing away at my self-esteem by being married to a husband who is such a coward and cannot be honest with himself and live an authentic life. No, I have not moved on in regards to dating or relationships whatsoever. In fact, I haven’t dated at all.

My concentration has been on trying to regain my self-esteem and be the best single parent-working Mom I can be to my toddler. It’s taking a long time to feel like I can finally truly talk about what has happened with my marriage. I pray that in the future I will begin to love myself and heal from the wounds this ordeal caused. I don’t regret meeting/marrying my husband, because I wouldn’t have my precious beloved child if it weren’t for him. However, that is truly the only good thing that came from our union.

PROFILE #6: PATRICIA P., 58, Illinois, divorced, on disability. I am an only child. My father was an angry alcoholic, and my mother suffered from depression all of her life with two suicide attempts as far as I know. She also suffered from OCD, washing her hands countless times a day. Their Draconian drama was a battle for control. They played off one another like Laurel and Hardy except that it wasn't amusing. I spent all of my childhood with a knot in my stomach and walking on eggshells because I never knew who was going to drop the day's bomb first. One thing my parents did agree on was that they wanted a boy instead of a girl. Early on, I learned to put the FUN in dysfunctional or else go out of my mind.

I have been married twice, and both marriages ended in divorce. The first ended because he had an affair and the second because I was on the rebound and married the wrong man for the wrong reasons.

My father was Catholic. My mother was Jewish, but her family converted to Christianity in Germany (massacres and all). She attended a Lutheran church. I was raised Catholic but left the church in my 20's. Today, I am a non-denominational Christian and have been for about 15 years.

Red Flags - Signs I Missed

I first met Chuck when we were both sophomores in high school. There didn’t appear to be anything gay about him at that time. But then, I didn’t even know what “gay” was. After graduation we went our separate ways. He found me after 39 years after tracking me down on the Internet. He didn’t know it, but for all those years I was still in love with him. We were not married; we lived together. In retrospect, the signs were everywhere:

He told me hadn’t had sex “with a woman” in 18 years. I thought it was strange but, of course, rationalized that he was a man of high moral certitude. Yeah, right.

He has a brother who is gay. This is important since homosexuality tends to run in families.

He spoke like a hard-core homophobe, pontificating that homosexuality was a choice and that gays would burn in hell.

He deified his mother and his daughter to the point of extreme.

He had an overall negative view of other women. In fact, I would say he was a misogynist.

He had no interest in sex with me.

He paraded me in front of his family and friends like a trophy, repeatedly telling them that I was the only woman who could love him.

He constantly contradicted himself.

He claimed to have a “special” relationship with God in which God supposedly excused his behavior. That behavior entailed bashing and trashing me as a woman and as a human being.

He was secretive, angry and depressed. Oh look, he was actually my parents!

Sex Tells It All

Or should I say, “No sex tells it all?” The following are the reasons Chuck would give me for not wanting sex:

Premarital sex was a sin worthy of eternal damnation.

He did not find me attractive.

All I thought about was sex.

His stomach was upset.

His intestines were abnormal.

His ears hurt.

His back hurt.

His instep was off balance.

There were demons in the neighborhood.

He had a sore throat.

He was busy thinking.

His sinuses were clogged.

He wanted to sleep in his recliner.

On the handful of occasions that Chuck tried to exhibit what I can only call sexual charity, he failed miserably. He could not maintain an erection long enough to have intercourse. Even if he could have intercourse, he only wanted to enter me from behind. He did not want to see my face. Sex, to him, was just that - it was sex with no intimacy. The most sex we ever had was me masturbating him. Yes, it was all about him. He was not in the least bit interested in giving me pleasure.

How I Caught Him

Chuck had been spending more and more time away from home. Come on, it doesn’t take five hours to buy a power cord at Radio Shack. One morning he went to extreme lengths to get himself all dolled up because he was “having a watch battery replaced.” He smelled like a whorehouse. As he was leaving, I asked him if he was seeing someone else. Of course, he denied it. He didn’t return until about seven hours later. He bought me a present. It was a huge, framed print of a portion of the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

He made a big production of how he had to spend all day hunting high and low for the perfect gift for me. I knew he was lying. This was a man who thought he splurged when he once bought me a $3.00 nozzle can of something resembling cheese.

I asked him why he bought the Serenity Prayer for me. He said it was because he wasn’t going to change, that he only wanted a brother-sister relationship with me, and that I needed to accept it.

All of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks. I said, “You’re gay like your brother, aren’t you?” He just smirked at me and said he was. He became belligerent and told me he didn’t care what I or anybody else thought of it. He went so far as to say he was proud of it. He claimed that I drove him further into homosexuality, that it was my fault. When I asked him if he was having sex with other men, he said he could not imagine being homosexual and not having sex. He then laughed at me for being so naïve.

Chuck left that night. He only took his personal papers. I have not seen him since.

The Truth Behind the Lies

When I asked Chuck why he called me in the first place, why he moved in with me and why all the deception, he told me that he thought I would be able to rehabilitate him into being straight, but I had failed. Chuck had, unbeknownst to me, placed a burden on me that I would never be able to carry. He had expected me to be his Messiah.

I had been suffering from major depression when Chuck came back into my life. By the time he left I was emotionally paralyzed. In addition, the stress triggered the onset of Celiac Disease which is irreversible. I was my own victim as well. I fell for his lies hook, line and sinker. The Cinderella in me made Chuck her Prince Charming, a role which he could never, ever play, at least with a female.

Happily Ever After - For Real

It’s not “happily after all” for me, not yet. I sunk about as low as I could. My self esteem was in the gutter, and I’m still clawing my way up. How could I allow this to happen? I loved him, and love can sometimes trick the mind. It’s like being on drugs.

If Chuck had been honest about his homosexuality in the beginning, I really do believe we would have had a fine relationship as friends. But he was on a desperate downward spiral and had no qualms about taking me along for the ride. What he did was unconscionable and without excuse. The same goes for me. I had no right to allow myself to be emotionally abused, to make excuses for my abuser and to forfeit my self respect.