I Married A Gay Man

[CarolineOh]

My first husband was a closeted gay man.

When we first started dating, we were sexually active, and I had no reason to suspect that he was not passionately committed to the sexual aspect of our relationship.

But after we were married, he immediately shut off to me sexually. We did not even have sex on our Honeymoon.
For the next couple of years, there would be short periods when we would be very sexually active, but they always ended abruply. In retrospect, I think he was trying hard to prove something to himself.

Then, for a long time, nothing. I would try to initiate sex, but he was too tired, or he was distracted by work problems, or some other excuse.

I tried to interest him with novelty, by role playing, seeking to explore fantasies. Sometimes it would work. At one point, he confessed that he liked anal stimulation, and we began using buttplugs and anal beads, and again, for a short period, things went well, but once again, they stopped abruptly.

After seven years of marriage, I came home from work early one day. As I came into the house I heard noises from upstairs, from our bedroom. I went up, and walked in to discover my husband on the bed on all four, being fucked in the ass by another man.

I did not react calmly, to say the least, I yelled and screamed, I threw things around. I joke sometimes now that I wish I had hidden and watched awhile, but that is whistling in the dark. At that moment my whole life crashed down in pain and anger.

We sat down once, a few days later, to try to talk things through. I could not understand why he had been so dishonest with me. I had told him that I had sexual fantasies about other women, and I had made it clear that I was willing to try just about any sort of experimentation to make our sex lives fulfilling. I felt that he should have understood that I could have accepted his being bisexual, if he had only been honest with me. And at that time, he was describing himself as bisexual.

I understand now that there was no way that he could have not lied to me, for the simple reason that he could not accept the truth himself. After the divorce, he did come to realize that he was not bisexual, that he was only intersted in men, and that our marriage had been an attempt to eny that fact.

I have long since gotten over my anger with him, although, as with many divorcees, I will always carry with me a sense that I failed at something very important.

I did not come away from this experience with a negative attitude about gays. No, what I learned was how profoundly wounded gay people can be by our culture's refusal to recognize their humanity and nurture them as loved and respected members of society.

He is happy with a new partner, and I am married to the most wonderful man in th world, so all's well that ends well, but I felt like sharing my story here, because I hope that this nice new forum can be a step towards the healing we all need, gays, straights and bisexuals alike.

 

[oh21]

Thanks for sharing that with us! It's very cool that you don't carry any grudges.

 

[seXieleXie]

thank you for sharing your story caroline. it's ssad that our society so represses people that they will deny who they are as vhelmently as your ex husband did. i'm glad you've healed from the relationship.




on a completely unrelated side note: there is something creepy about you having the title "fertility goddess" justt above an avatar of a woman who is smoking. i just had to get that off my chest

 

[Queersetti]

I think your post raises a very important point. Discrimination and repression do not just harm their targets, they do terrible damage to everyone in society, not excluding the perpetrators themselves.

Thank you for sharing your story, Caroline.

 

[lilfrk]

I didn't marry a gay man but my mother's first husband (not my father) was. My mother doesn't talk about it very much. I don't even know exactly when they were married. I just know it was in the mid to late 60's. I'm not sure how long they dated I think it was a pretty quick romance, my mother was a virgin when she married him.

The only thing I do really know about the relationship was that they were married 8 weeks. In that 8 weeks, everytime he had sex with my mother he was drunk and afterwards he beat the hell out of her. To the point that she would miss work.

The whole thing ended when my mother finally went home and her younger brothers got a look at her. They went to the house my mother lived in with her husband and gave him an honest to god for real blanket party.

At that point none of them knew he was gay, they just knew he beat her. None of them found out he was gay until the court date for the divorce. My mother walked into a room and saw him kissing his male lawyer passionately.

My mother harbors no ill will to gays, but like Caroline she feels like a failure.

 

[glamorilla]

and i keep asking you to hook me up!

 

[CarolineOh]

Thank you, everyone.

Glam, sweetie, I'd fix you up with him, but those Grosse Pointe snobs inhis family would drive you crazy.

leXie, you are right, I hadn't really thought about that! I'll go change it. Lord knows, I have plenty of others.

 

[MaddyBaby]

I wasn't married, but I almost married a gay man.... and me being gay as well, I can't imagine how our marriage would have been.

Even as bad as my lesbian love life has been... I wouldn't want to even attempt to know what it would have been like to marry a man I was with for 5 years because I didn't want to accept myself.

If we all think about it... it's so sad that a person would do that anyway, just because it wasn't as acceptable in society, or our families.

I got lucky, though... my family is totally cool about it... they even go to the gay bars when I'm not there! I'm still a little weirded out about it though... hehehehehe.

 

[Andreina]

you are the sweetest polak woman in the world, caroline!

 

[Quint]

you are the sweetest polak woman in the world, caroline!

And we're all pretty sweet, so that's one helluva compliment!

T and I know at least two couples who are engaged but he is certain that the male in each couple is gay. Both of the females are some of the sort of person who refuse to even consider the legitimacy of homosexuality; they are ultra-Christian and quite happy to live with their heads up their asses (the two are separate characteristics, not necessarily directly related). All the same, even though the common consensus is "they're asking for it," I feel very bad for them and for whatever family they develop before the explosion. It's a terrible situation and leaves nobody happy.

 

[MzChrista]

you are the sweetest polak woman in the world, caroline!

Shes the pierogi princess.

 

[CarolineOh]

And we're all pretty sweet, so that's one helluva compliment!

T and I know at least two couples who are engaged but he is certain that the male in each couple is gay. Both of the females are some of the sort of person who refuse to even consider the legitimacy of homosexuality; they are ultra-Christian and quite happy to live with their heads up their asses (the two are separate characteristics, not necessarily directly related). All the same, even though the common consensus is "they're asking for it," I feel very bad for them and for whatever family they develop before the explosion. It's a terrible situation and leaves nobody happy.

Thank you Andreina, Quint and Christa.

Quint, the thing is, when you love someone, you don't see the real person, you see your hope for who they are. If you are lucky, that hope is fulfilled, but sometimes you realize, too late, that what you were looking at is a mirage.
I look back and I ask myself "How could I not know?" but it's not that simple, and the deception was as much my deceiving myself, as it was anything that came form him.
So I understand about your friends. But there really isn't anything anyone else can do about it.

 

[PoliteSuccubus]

I agree with C, when people ask if I still love my ex, I say "I still love the person I thought he was."

Doesn't mean that's who he really was. Or maybe that was only who he was when with me, but not the entireity of who he was.

 

[Quint]

You are entirely correct, C-oh, and I hope you didn't take my story as a judgment of why you married your first husband. I did not mean for it to apply. Each relationship is different and I really don't see you as at all like the females I described.

My point was more that although I am sure they are as you described, wanting to believe in something so much that they ignore all the evidence to the contrary (which I've done myself and so completely understand), they also have the added handicap of being blind to homosexuality in general. They really believe that gay men are just "confused." So of course they aren't going to see the warning signs in their respective fiancees, even if they were less rosy-glassesed. (Yeesh.)

 

[CarolineOh]

You are entirely correct, C-oh, and I hope you didn't take my story as a judgment of why you married your first husband. I did not mean for it to apply. Each relationship is different and I really don't see you as at all like the females I described.

My point was more that although I am sure they are as you described, wanting to believe in something so much that they ignore all the evidence to the contrary (which I've done myself and so completely understand), they also have the added handicap of being blind to homosexuality in general. They really believe that gay men are just "confused." So of course they aren't going to see the warning signs in their respective fiancees, even if they were less rosy-glassesed. (Yeesh.)

I didn't take it that way at all, sweetheart.