My husband is gay. And I am angry. Furious even. Understandable, right? Wrong. As I have discovered, even though anger is one of the commonly accepted stages of grief, most people see anger as a negative emotion. They fear it. That is because anger often leads to abuse. However, anger as an emotion and without violence is natural. Yet, repeatedly, I am made to feel my anger is unnatural, and that angers me even more.
When I discovered my spouse was gay, many emotions flashed through my mind – shock, fear, incredible sadness and anger. I stayed angry for a while but behind my anger was always incredible sorrow, mostly because soon after he told me, my husband began avoiding me about anything and everything that did not concern our children.
It was as if he thought we had our couple of weeks to discuss and now, presto, there were other more pressing things to do now.
We went to work. We took care of the children. Once the kids were in bed, he went to bed. I stewed. I ended up doing too much work and not getting enough sleep. I needed to talk and he was not giving me that opportunity.
So my anger came out in other ways. When we were with the children I would throw nasty comments his way. Sometimes we would have little arguments. My husband would later bring these disputes up during our couples counseling sessions and of course the therapist would say it was not good to fight around the children. To a degree I agree. The only thing I remember from my parent’s marriage was them yelling at each other while I hid behind a chair clutching my teddy bear and waiting for things to fly. Nothing ever did fly, to my knowledge, but as a two year-old you can have a vivid imagination.
However, this did teach me certain things about what not to do in a relationship. My angry outburst by no means matched my parents’ and even though it should not be a constant theme among parents I think there is some value in children seeing their parents argue. How else will they learn to resolve a conflict if they do not have a model to compare it too?
Regardless, on the counselor’s advice I curbed my anger, and my husband made himself more available for discussion about our future. This helped – a bit. But the anger has not fully gone. I still get emotional when my husband and I talk; I either get angry or I cry. So he stops the conversation. Not helpful. He does it because it makes him uncomfortable. After all, these emotions are because of his actions. He cannot deal with causing so much pain to someone. Deep down, even though he no longer shows it to me, he is a sensitive man.
Other times I express anger during counseling. Our therapist recently noted, judgmentally I might add, my anger has not yet dissipated. But she does not walk in my shoes. I have every right to be mad!
Which is what brings me to the simple question: Why can’t I be angry? The counselor thinks I should no longer be angry even though only five months has passed. My husband thinks I should be over it by now, because this is what the men he has met who have done the same thing say. And then there is my mother-in-law who notes I am angry but figures I should just suck it up. What about what I think? It has not even been a year!
My husband would prefer I move on and no longer blame him for my unhappiness. He is ready to move on, he wants to have his experiences and explore his new life. I have requested he not date while we are sorting things out. He agreed but then does what he wants anyhow. His mother wants me to move on because she wants to be the proud, supportive mother of a gay man. She even bought him rainbow suspenders to prove it!
I myself want to move on. I have seen the effects of decades of anger toward a former spouse and the bitterness it breeds. I do not want to live that, but we need to be realistic. If he had cheated or if he had died people would at least grant me a year, not a few weeks. I had a friend tell me that the grieving process should equate to 10 weeks for every year you were together. So that would give me 120 weeks, which is 2.3 years! I need to take whatever amount of time is necessary for me to get over the deception, the broken dreams, and the realization that despite my best efforts to pick the father of my children well it did not work out as I had planned.
Looking back I realize if I felt I needed to ask my husband if he was gay before we got married, a question to which he answered no, then deep down I always knew the answer. I should have run then. I know now some of my anger is directed inward and before I can truly get over this I first need to forgive myself for my mistake. What I need is more time.
August 8th will mark six months since my husband disclosed he is gay. Ironically, this would also have been the 14th anniversary of our first date. Time can also be cruel. Over the last few weeks I have been wavering between calm, sadness, and anger. Everything is fine when his sexuality does not come up.
We go about our daily business, take the kids on outings, and do things that a “normal” family does. Then he will go out to an event I am not invited to, where he meets his new friends and where he explores his new life. This reminds me our set up is only temporary and eventually we will be living in different places and living different lives. This makes me incredibly sad. But feeling so is only natural.
Hi, I am so sorry you are going through this. My father was gay and my parents divorced when I was very little. Back then, it was a psychiatric disorder to be gay, so I can only imagine how hard it was for my father to “come out,” and how much harder it was for my mom to suddenly find herself a single parent. It sucked for her, to say the least!
yes, you are entitled to your anger. I think the therapist and people involved cannot truly understand what you are going through. I think it wise to shield your children from your anger, i’ve learned the same thing in my terrible divorce, and it’s not easy.
I guess, I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone and i’m sorry this has happened to your family. let yourself grieve and be angry and let it run its course. eventually it will lessen as you move forward. you cannot be the ‘normal’ family for much longer…and i know how much that hurts, to let go of what was ‘supposed to be.’ while my ex husband was not gay, we were a ‘pretend’ family before the divorce, in that he hid his violence from the world and leveled it only at us and his own mother (who protected him in court).
I am looking at the reasons WHY my husband of 33 years left me the way he did, left me sleeping on the living room sofa for 6 months while he slept in the master bedroom with our dog, and now chose a new career-driving big rig trucks and living in his truck-at age 55 years old,
While discussing this all with my girl friends, we came to the same conclusion-my huband might of been gay, and all through our 33 year marriage, in which he deemed very robotic when we made love, or I always was asking him “do I need to make an appointment with you”? Of when are we going to do it?”, not seems to me to be my own “AHA” moment. Not that it matters to me any more, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he left me without a clue or talking to me about his feelings. I think it also wan’t the fact that he was having a mid-life crisis either.
But, it no longer matters to me anymore. He is out of my life, and I am happy he is no longer ‘sucking the life out of me”.
OBTW: Plus, only 4 months after my husband walked out on me, my brother David called me here in WA state from NY, to tell mat while he was cleaning out our father’s apartment, because he was no longer capable of living alone due to his having dementia-my borher found a metal box with a lock on it. He opened the box and there he found MY ADOPTION PAPERS!
Wow, at age 56 to find this out that i was adopted and neither my brother nor I had a clue or was told about it, I haven’t stopped crying for 10 months. I was born to a Fremch woman in Baumholder, Germany, while my adoptive father was stationed in the U.S. Air Force in the 1950’s, and then naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1962. I was given another name of Darlene, but my parents changed it through the French courts,
I am now in the process of putting together and writing a book about my life. It will be called :My Journey, My Life.
Hi Kasey, Last August it became clear that I needed to divorce my husband of 31 years, who is gay. I had known for 15 years but hadn’t fully understood how much he hadn’t said or shared, or how sexually active he had been. I am still angry and crying on and off, though feeling much more settled about who I am than a year ago at this time.
I got a counselor for myself, someone who specialized in lesbian and gay issues. It has made a world of difference. I also am getting quite a bit of support on line. There is an organization called Straight Spouse Network that has saved my sanity more than once.
You are right, your feelings are important, and processing them will take as long as it takes. Please honor your feelings and your experience even if your husband can’t give you any support while you work through all the stuff that goes along with your discovery. Unfortunately though, as you are finding out, many people in your circle won’t be able to provide the kind of support you really need. Your journey is not one they have taken. But there are fellow travelers; I hope you find some quickly. Thanks for sharing so much in your post.
Anger is looked down on because we associate it with inappropriate actions. But I believe that healthy anger lets us know when we are being harmed or our boundaries are being crossed. How we express it is up to us. You may never get the closure you’re looking for from your husband and it sucks that you’ve wasted years with someone who didn’t have their sexuality figured out (or tried to hide it behind a heterosexual relationship). Take your time to process it and don’t rush things, like you’re under pressure to do from outside forces. But one day you will have to let it go… Just not now.
You have a right to feel your anger until it dissipates. People are scared of anger, even therapists. That is their problem, not yours. Feeel it, then one day you will heal. I realize this post May be too late for you but I hope it helps someone else.
I feel your pain. I was married 44 yrs. when my ex left me for his boyfriend. He walked away from me yrs. ago, but always denied he was gay. He has been lying to me since before we were married, but I guess I so earnestly wanted to believe he was telling the truth; that he was a normal male. HE WAS NOT and is NOT….marrying someone to hide whom you are is cruel beyond words. He has never been happier w/his life than he is now, but the sorrow I feel with being abandoned has left me in a dark, dark place.
I never thought I was going to be in a situation like this.. i really do thought that love exists… i got married about a year ago and my ex-husband had to move to Texas for work I was going to follow him and I did… he bought this nice house for us so could have a nice family he started the re modulations. I in the mistimed had to commute home twice a month because of my family business been my business too. He was ok with that and then i notice things were chanching sex was not the same, and i stated to feel different and on June i came back home from one of my back home trips and there he was with his friend boyfriend that he met in my absence it took him seriously two months to deside that he was gay I guess I wasn’t enough for him and of course my heart got broken because I thought he was the love of my life and to believe the fact that he was gay it was even worse…. I got hurt so bad and I don’t know how not hate him… for what he did………. I need help