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"NOW WHAT?"

Started by Faithlooksup, December 23, 2010, 06:42:36 PM

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Faithlooksup

Hi Everyone!!!! and Merry Christmas...
OK~~I was not certain where this one should go~at first I thought Gab Bag but it is also about my Sons~~I just dont know!!!LOL :)
Anywho are you ready for this one...Never a dull moment.  A few days ago  I bumped into a long time friend, we have not communicated for so long, but we never forget one another and are fast with the Hugs and smiles when we meet.  Well, she tells me that my X has come out of the closet and has now admitted that he is and has been Gay all his life....Of course I am always the last to know.  Well, I stood there with my mouth hanging open and I laughed.  He has had 2 wifes since 1994 god only knows how many girlfriends and now he is Gay.  OK.  So, I emailed my DIL about this and she confirmed this as well.  Apparently, my youngest son asked him back in Jan 2010 and he admitted to him~"yes I am."  My Boys are not upset with him regarding this (that I know of .)

But, what about everyone whom he has lied to and fooled and maniplated, including himself for 50 some years~~how do you respect that?   Personally what ever he wants to do in his life or love is his choice.  I guess what I am feeling is how dare you lie to so many people and for so long?  Are you proud of that?  Just what have you taught and shown our Sons for all these years????? :-\
I guess I am just a bit lost here with this new thing going on..funny I see this on Lifetime all the time and now I am staring in the role.
HELP!!!!!!!!  Hugs, Faith

Nana

Faith

I am so sorry this is happening to you.  Sometimes people come out of the closet as gays and you cannot believe it.  Of course they lie.  They are not ready to come clean with the truth.   I understand how you feel....I would feel like you, angry/confused.  Young people are more open to this kind of situation.   

Just relax.....this is his problem.  He is and he was.....nothing you can do.  You are not with him anymore so that is good. 

For whatever you are feeling....I will keep you in my prayers. 

Love
Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove:
Shakespeare

Faithlooksup

Thank You Nana for the prayers and advise which is always appreciated...Merry Christmas to you and yours...Love and HUgs, Faith :)

luise.volta

He may have been lying to himself, as well, and may have had trouble respecting himself.  It's probably not an easy line to cross. Sending love...
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

kathleen

Faith,

Do you think you are lucky you found out?  Would you have preferred not to know?  Doesn't it explain a great deal to you?

I say this in all sympathy and I can relate to your shock.  I had a business relationship with a man, and eventually he invited us to his home for a meal and to meet his wife.  I liked her tremendously.  Then she died very young from cancer.  We attended the funeral.  A few months later I communicated with a mutual acquaintance and asked about the husband.  To my utter shock she said he was now living with a man and had "come out."

I wonder if his wife ever knew before she died.  Having known and liked her so much, I felt a sense of loyalty to her.  I felt some anger and outrage on her behalf. 

They had two children.  Supposedly the kids were "OK" with him coming out, but I wonder. I really wonder if they are OK, not so much about him being gay but about his marriage to their mother. 

I don't know if the wife was lucky she knew or lucky she didn't know, depending on her knowledge or lack of it.  What do you think?  I have always wondered how he could stay married to her for so long when this was in the background.  Could he really have covered it up their entire marriage of forty plus years?  Or did she know and accept it? 

I have known other women who married gay men and it didn't work out at all.  I agree with Luise that it is hard to "cross over," but still, there seems something selfish about using a woman to prove you are something you aren't.  What about her?  What about you?  So I agree with your
sense of betrayal.  That's exactly how I felt about this man I knew, and I wasn't even close to him.  It seemed disloyal to his dead wife, somehow.  It's a very confusing subject.  I realize that all too often our society shuns gays and worse, but somehow, a wrong done to you doesn't make it OK to wrong someone else.

And I, too, am sorry this happened to you.  It has to be a shock and very upsetting.  But don't lose faith.  This was his behavior, not yours, and not everyone in the world would do something like this.

Kathleen

Faithlooksup

Hi Kathleen, Thank You for sharing what you did.  In all honesty, I dont know what I am feeling about this--if anything at all.  We have deen divorsed for 21 years so what ever rocks his boat shall be.  We were married for 14 years~~did I ever suspect anything, the answer is NO, but then I did not look either~for his main problem when we were married was his BiPolar Mania.
But, before I go on I had to comment on the couple you know.  That was sad and wrong of him to stay hidden for all the years they were married~its such a horrible Lie to keep hidden from "People you say you Love."  I feel that if a wife knows her husband is Gay--please show him where the door is, and lock it.  Good Grief he could be playing around on the side with another man and bring home a disease~No Thank You...Kathleen, may she rest in peace...

Nothing surprises me anymore~nothing...The only thing that upsets me are his lies. dishonesty and no respect to anyone especially to our Boys.....Apparently he told them "I was afraid to tell you for I did not want to loose your Love."  But being dishonest and lieing to them all their life--about who he really is, what kind of Love is that??

I am sorry, but I am at a loss of words here~~I cannot express what I am feeling and not for myself I am thinking of his 2 other wives~the other women and MOSTLY my Boys.  I am feeling for my boys--here they are 28 and 30 and they now know their father is gay.  Oh I am certain that they just shrugged it off and said "what ever" for this is 2010 and anything goes...But in my Heart of Hearts I know them better than that.  And then on the other hand-there is so much of this going on in our world--gay rights, marriages, it is acceptd in our society, in our world.

I dont know--thank you for listening...Love to all...Faith

Faithlooksup

Quote from: luise.volta on December 24, 2010, 07:55:06 AM
He may have been lying to himself, as well, and may have had trouble respecting himself.  It's probably not an easy line to cross. Sending love...
Luise, Thank You for your insight which has brought a question to my mind.....being that he has been lying to himself along with disrespecting himself for all these years~~is this the reason why he has been lying about me for 20 some years to our sons as well as lying and being disrespectful to many others?  How he has looked at the speck in everyone else's eye, but not his own????  How he has blamed everyone else for everything~~but no, not him, he has done nothing wrong~nothing has ever been his fault, everything was my fault, it was even my fault that he walked out on us..... And now he comes out of the closet and announces he is Gay.....
What am I missing here, I know it something~~but I cannot put my finger on it.......HELP.......Faith :( ::) :-[ :-\

luise.volta

My guess would be that his survival depends on his hanging on to the idealized image he has built up of himself.  If everything is conveniently everyone's fault, he has nothing to feel bad about. He doesn't have to face imperfection (like the rest of us) and guilt...(what's that?) He's just fine and you're a mess. All of you. Not his fault.

A mothers is the best target...weren't your supposed to protect him from everything and "make it all better," especially life?

My eldest son had endless "documentation" regarding why I was the root cause of every problem he ever had. He died of a sleep apnea caused stroke at 52, still firmly convinced that was the case. He loved me "in spite of my glaring imperfections"...but it was a tenuous love. He was a brilliant man and highly successful man but he used his brilliance to fool himself.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

Faithlooksup

Hi Luise and Thank You for your posting I especially had to laugh with your comment..."Guilt...(whats that?)  It is so true!!!!!!!!
I am sorry to hear about your son, I did not know.....Luise may he now rest in peace......
Hugs, Faith

Pooh

Hey Faith.  Bless your heart...I know you are shocked and angry over your boys.  But I will tell you a personal experience with this.  My best friend and I met when we were 12.  We were always so different but got along very well.  She was the original "loose woman" (trying to say that nicely) and I was always goody-two-shoes.  We spent every moment together on weekends, at school...you name it.  She slept with every guy we ever met and got pregnant at 16.   She had a beautiful daughter and I was in the delivery room with her.  She got into drugs and alcohol badly and her Mother sent her to numerous mental facilities during these teenage years.  She was so rebellious and unreasonable to everyone, but me.  After she found out she was pregnant, she stopped all the drugs and alcohol.  She was a wonderful Mother and when we were 18 and graduating in a month, she attempted suicide (she came close to succeeding, heart stopped twice and they had to revive her).  I was so mad at her because she had been the model Mother during the last year and all of a sudden this.  Her Mother took over care of the daughter while she entered a mental facility in another state for 6 months.

I was not allowed contact, and frankly...I didn't want any.  I was soooo mad at her.  When she returned, she showed up at my house and wanted to talk.  I allowed her to, but didn't really want to hear her out.  I was still to mad at her.  During this conversation, she finally looked at me and said, "Pooh, I am gay."  I was totally shocked and in denial and made comments like, "You are not.  You have slept with probably 200 guys.  You have a daughter.  You like guys. Etc.."  Long story short...I threw her out and told her never to contact me again.

I was so embarrassed for myself.  All I could think of was, "We have spent the night together at least 1000 times over the years and now she says she is gay?  What will people think of me?"  Now, I had no clue.  She had never given me or anyone else any indication.  I convinced myself that she was lying and trying to get attention.  How could she do this to me? I did much soul-searching over the next couple of years and it wasn't easy.  I was still so angry, but I missed my best friend.

So I finally decided that it was me that was embarrassed over it and if it was true, it was truly her that was having the harder time. (This was the 80's and not excepted like it is now.) She didn't do this to me.  So I called her and asked her to come over.  She did and we cried together for hours.  She apologized over and over again.  We talked about it and the main thing she said to me was, "I have known for years that I was attracted to women.  But I was in denial.  I did not want to be gay.  So I thought the more men I slept with, the more attracted I would be to them.  So I slept with every guy I met trying to convince myself I didn't like women.  I used the drugs and alcohol to escape. After my daughter was born, I realized that it didn't matter what I did...I was who I was and I became very depressed and decided I didn't want my daughter to ever know...thus the suicide attempt.  I have been given a second chance, and I love my daughter.  I can not hide from it any longer and I need to face it to deal with it."

Faith, I told you all this to say, she didn't do anything to me.  Yes, it felt like it for a long time and I was embarrassed and hurt.  But in reality, she had an issue and was doing the best she could at the time.  She made horrible choices, but was trying to survive her own horror at what she was going through. She never meant to hurt me, her daughter, her parents...no one. She said that she did everything she did, so the world would accept her as normal back then.  And in doing so...she lost herself.  She said that most gay people do the same thing and try to be someone they are not.  She calls herself the best actress ever.

Now, 25 years later, we are still best friends.  I accept her for who she is, she accepts me for who I am.  She changed her life around and is a successful business woman and has been in a loving, caring relationship with a women for years.  Her daughter, loves her with all her being and also accepts who she is.  I would have missed out on a great friendship if I had not listened and accepted.  None of this may be the case in your Ex, but if he is truly gay, he has probably been fighting these feelings for years and didn't want to believe it. 
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -
Joseph Campbell

luise.volta

Wow! There is a lot to learn in that post, Pooh! Thank you so much~ Sending love...
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

cd1029

It is always a shock to learn something about people close to us, normal to feel betrayed that we didn't know:  that they didn't tell us or that we didn't figure it out.

But it is their story, their journey and we are just people they meet on the way.

If you feel shocked you didn't know, imagine how shocked the person was to feel one way and have to live another way to be accepted in this world.  Even though gays are more accepted now, they are still not completely accepted in that 'it doesn't matter.'  In some places, it does matter.  Gay bashing still goes on, kids are still being tormented and hurt, it is still very much an issue.

Even the govt has just repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell ...

The fact that your children are okay with their dad's coming out is a testament to the way you raised them, loving and accepting.

Pen

Excellent post, Pooh.

I understand the frustration, anger, and sense of betrayal one must feel, but also the pain of the party who has struggled with his/her feelings for years before finally coming out. My thoughts are with you Faith, as you and your family get used to this new information and family dynamic.
Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.
-- Annie Gottlieb

Faithlooksup

WOW Ladies, Pooh, CD & Pen,  Thank You so much for your wise words...A light at the end of the tunnel...All your posts made a great deal of sence, an awakening!!!!   
Actually with all the garbage which he has shovel on me these past 21 years, I would not even mind sitting down with him over a cup of coffee, and telling him how sorry I am that he had to live with this so long, to hide whom he always was it not an easy thing to do.

I do have to bring something up Pooh regarding your friend.....She never hurt you tho, meaning IMHO, yes, she was not truthful about herself to you due to her fears.  But she did not lie about you to others, she did not turn others against you, she did not belittle you in anyway...She ONLY hurt herself with her own destruction.  That is where our story is different~~my X has done all of the about to me he even truned my own sons against me...His finger was always pointing at me-instead of himself....Yes, I can handle the fact that he is Gay---but now, he has to fix all of his lies and stop pointing fingers which I can only pray that he does...
Thanks everyone....and may we all have a Great New Year....
HUGS and Peace..Faith

Pooh

You are right to a certain degree Faith.  Technically, she never did any of those things to me that your Ex did to you.  And frankly, what he did to you was terrible and uncalled for.  No excuses for him treating you that way. 

But, I lived my own personal hell being friends with her throughout the years.  I would lay awake at night worried about her every time she ran away.  Sometimes it was a day, one time two weeks.  I defended her constantly to everyone at school.  I was in one fist fight my entire life, and that was because of her and some girls that were picking on her.  I would take the phone calls from her, at 3:00 in the morning, when she would escape her room at the mental institute and call me crying.  I went through 10 weeks of lamaze class with her (in a time where we got stared at the entire time) by the other "couples".  I would drag myself out of bed after working 14 hours on a Saturday, after being in bed for one hour to go pick her up in a ratty area of town because she was so high and drunk that she barely knew where she was and didn't remember how she got there.  I had to defend myself to my parents constantly because my Mother saw what all she was doing and worried that I would start doing what she was doing.  And then when she almost died, it was the worse heartache I had ever felt in my life, right at graduation which should have been a happy time for the two of us.  All of this while I was a teenager. 

So that was what caused me so much pain when I found out too.  I kept thinking, if she had only told the truth and had not fought it all those years, I would not have gone through any of that.  My teenage years would not have been full of the drama and worry she caused me, had she only told the truth.  That was what took me two years to come to terms with.  It took me two years to let go of those thoughts and come to the realization that she didn't mean to do any of that to me.  That she had not purposefully hurt me and that no matter what it had put me through, it had to be so much harder on her.

That doesn't excuse your Ex's behavior towards you and other people.  He still needs to step up and make amends and sincerely feel bad for what he did to you.  I just wanted to share the other side of the coin, from my friend.  She never saw what she was doing as lying to people, because she was still lying to herself.  So as long as she could convince herself she wasn't lying, then she was telling the truth.

And you are one classy lady to be able to say you would sit down with him and tell him how sorry you were that he had to live with this so long after all he has done to you. 
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -
Joseph Campbell