You're absolutely right. Trying to make someone not be gay is rather like trying to make a brown-eyes person have blue eyes. It's the way you're hardwired. Ironically my husband has a cousin who is gay and because of the ultra-conservative religious nature of his family, they have disowned him. He's a wonderful man who just happens to like other men instead of women. Yet in another branch of the family there's a grand-niece with a serious drug problem and they just keep enabling her by paying for rehab after rehab after rehab and letting her come back home to live.

I could accept my husband being gay; I just can't deal with the infidelity.

I have a friend who just went through a particularly bitter divorce where her husband tried to claim her pre-marital assets she'd inherited from her first husband when he died. She had wonderful things to say about her attorney. I think the word she used was "barracuda." I think I'll get that attorney's name and see about an initial consultation.

Likewise I need to call my doctor, who is also my husband's doctor, and schedule the STD/HIV testing. Any idea how long it takes to get results on these tests?

I don't remember how long it took to get the results, but it wasn't THAT long. You need to get tested twice for HIV infection. Lot's of fun, I know.

I would guess that he has done this all of his life.

The lies and deception and the total lack of respect is what really hurts the most. Not the sex.




It's within a week. Believer is correct - you need 2 tests.
Not just HIV.
Also get Hep C tested

Let me warn you ahead of time what your H will say after you confront him:

"I did not have sex with you to protect you from HIV."

There are a number of ways to respond, but my favorite way is:

"Are you saying you lied to me for (number) years to protect me?"

My friend that I wrote about, her H was HIV positive for years before she discovered he was gay.

Claire:

Pep has been giving your good advice. (I say that alot around here...)

Your WH is gay, and has been having random encounters his entire life. His little "Chat" with your "John Doe" persona indicated that.

Early on in his marriage, he had to be VERY Discreet to connect with these other men. Now, with the internet, and the travel of his position, he can schedule his "trysts" well in advance.

And recently, in the past year, he no longer feels that he has to hide it much, and/or no longer feels that you CARE about what he is doing.

You just had NO IDEA.

He's been lying for so long, it has become second nature.

So, what to do?

Your personal financial sitch will change, obviously, if you get divorced. You will get alimony, you will get a chunk of the family assets. Go see a lawyer. Take copies of bank statements, brokerage reports, and titles to cars, property and any other assets you know about. Know exactly where you stand with legally your your states laws. You will survive. You have children. You can live with them or by yourself. You have been living a fraudulent life for so long, that the freedom you would have going forward would be astounding.

Or you can continue to live the life of a "beard". (Interesting term, thanks Pep) This would entail you still going to the lawyer, and finding out what your entitled too. Then you would continue to collect your evidence.

Then, one day in about a month, you have your WH meet you in your attorneys office, and then you tell him what the new terms are.

1. He continues to be disceet. Nothing local any longer.
2. He contributes an amount of cash to a checking account for your personal use, with out any questions on it use. You and your attorney have determined what this amount is, beforehand.
3. You continue to live in your home, and your WH continues in his job, supporting the lifestyle that you have grown accoustomed too.
4. Since there is no SF in your relationshp anyway, none would be required, and your not interested in his extra-ciricular activities.

Your like your lifestyle. This would continue it. You don't agree with what your WH is doing, but you connot stop it, so you minimize the effect of it on your life.

Or you have the SAME meeting in your attorneys office with him, and lay out the divorce plan, and you sepearate as far from this guy as possible.

The choices he has made have come home to roost, and he will find himself disgraced before his family and others as well he should.

The plain statement that you know everything, and that you will get all these assets, may shock him into flying on the straight and narrow going forward. Maybe not. This has developed into a lifestyle for him. This is not "sudden thing" and he's going to go back to being "Normal" This IS his "normal"

It has been recommended that you seek out an attorney, and know your options, and then start working out your plan. This is excellent advice. Make no rash decisions. You can make the nuclear exposure of your WH at some future point, if you really want to recover your marriage. If you think that you will ever get to a "normal" marriage. Your choices are Plan D, Plan BEARD, or Plan recovery. All three plans have major emotional trauma attached to them. And until you are fully appraised of your legal options, you can not really make headway on any of them.

LG

Medical tests -- check
Attorney -- I have the name of an absolute barracuda divorce attorney and will call her next week and see if perhaps she will take a small retainer and let my husband pay the rest when he finds out what all I know.

Lousygolfer has come up with an interesting scenario -- one I'd pretty much decided was best for me. And I'm the only one who matters at this point. Divorce is out of the question. I will not be relegated to living in a cramped apartment or heaven forbid crashing in on my children. One is a grad student barely making ends meet and the other has a wife and child in a two-bedroom house. Aside from not wanting to burden them, they have no room.

I see no reason why my life should change because he's a promiscuous slut. What lousygolfer laid out will work for me.


He can also move out of the master bedroom and into the guestroom or the room over the garage. It has a bathroom attached. He already has a mini-fridge up there; I'll buy him a microwave and he can fix his own dinner. If anyone asks, his snoring just got to be too much.

I've been gathering evidence -- emails, screen captures from the websites where he finds his one-night-stands, the chat log from the night he chatted with me posing as John Doe. It's not enough yet, I know, but it's only been 10 days.

I'm headed out now to watch him wait in a parking lot to meet someone who doesn't exist. Late last night after I posed as a different man, he went out to his car. When I checked the bathroom this morning, his big enema bulb was gone. That only means one thing since most men don't give themselves an enema at work.

Thanks for all your help and support. I've been reading other posts in here too and gathered good info from them.

Yikes! Good luck. I really think you have plenty of evidence and LG gave good advice.

I picked a spot at a busy intersection where I could park across the street in a restaurant parking lot and watch. He was there and waited for 45 minutes for his "friend" to show up. He even emailed from his cell phone and asked why he wasn't there.

It was dark so I couldn't take photos and even if it had been light, it was too far away to be able to prove for sure it was him. I just have a little digital cam.

But I have copies of the emails that set the liaison up.

Still gathering evidence and have a doctor's appointment this week. I've continued to pose as a man on the hook-up website he frequents and have exchanged a number of emails. In them, my husband has confessed that he is indeed gay and not bi, but only began acting on the urges a few years ago.

He said he went to a psychiatrist who basically told him to keep his mouth shut and play it straight. I knew he was in counseling a few years ago but thought it was related to a bad work environment he'd been in combined with a crisis with his mother's health.

First, that psychiatrist should be disbarred for giving such terrible advice. It's only caused my husband more guilt. I can deal with gay; I can't deal with him being a promiscuous slut.

In his emails he also said he loved me but not in a passionate way. We are more like roommates than spouses. He said too he wished he could confess to his wife but didn't want to hurt her. Does he not consider how hurt I'd be if this became public? Or if he picked up someone who turned violent? Or contracted an STD or HIV? Or was arrested for having sex with a minor? And not only would I be hurt, but so would parents and siblings, our children, children-in-law, their families, our grandchild and friends.

He's let the little head do the thinking and I wonder if it leads him to this behavior to numb the emotional pain and guilt.

It's definitely been a long two weeks for me and it was all I could do to remain on an even keel when we went out to dinner for Valentine's Day. He joined some work friends for a camping trip today. I have a very good idea what they're doing in the tent.

Thank you again for letting me rant. I have nowhere else to do it.

Hi Claire...

Just thought you might like to read an excerpt from Dr. Harley's book Defending Traditional Marriage...


Mrs. W

Nope, I haven't read it and after reading what you posted, I don't plan to. If you can be "cured" or "switched" you were never homosexual. Some people play at being gay, but true homosexuality is hardwired and unchangeable.

I go back to the doctor for test results on Friday and since my husband and I have the same doctor, I'm going to tell him everything. I know my husband's medical records are privileged info, but since my health is now in jeopardy, the doc needs to know that the Cialis he's prescribing for him isn't so he can perform with me; it's so he can perform for his twink du jour.

Claire, what do you mean by "true homosexuality?" Is there such a thing as "fake homosexuality?' And what exactly does "hardwired" mean and how is that determined? Is there a medical test for that?

I agree with you Claire.

Sexual orientation is hardwired, not chosen.

Glad you are seeing your doc and hope that everything is okay.

believer, what is this belief based upon? Is there a TEST that determines if you are "hardwired" either way? Where would one go to get the test?

I know that most people are hardwired to sin; for example I come from a long line of alcoholics and am probably predisposed to alcoholism. But I still have a CHOICE about whether I drink or not. I have been sober for 24 years on April 27th. I didn't choose to be predisposed, but I sure as hell CHOSE to drink. And I CHOSE to STOP.

Here is what Dr. Harley, a clinical psychologist with 35 years experience says. He has failed his political correctness indoctrination but makes some pretty good points at times:

"I have treated same-sex affairs the way I treat heterosexual affairs. And the results are about the same. The biggest difference is that the BS usually gives up sooner because they feel they can't compete if their spouse is same-sex attracted. But if they stick it out, the affair usually dies a natural death in a relatively short time. Lesbian relationships last about half as long as gay relationships which last about half as long as heterosexual relationships. So there should be optimism when as spouse is in a lesbian relationship. "

Actually there is "fake" homosexuality. There are people who are so driven to have sex that they'll do it with anything regardless of gender. A "true" homosexual is only attracted to the same gender.

There's not a test you can take, but scientific studies have been done and show discernible differences in the brains of straight and gay men. When I say it's "hardwired" I mean it's permanent, like eye color. You can't change either.

The debate on the homosexuality issue is interesting but Claire, what is the latest with the H? Have you come across any more new evidence? I hope the tests come out with all being negative...

Claire, just keep in mind that Dr. Harley is a clinical psychologist with no agenda and he has had just as much success treating those in homosexual affairs as those in heterosexual affairs. There is no valid reason to think your marriage can't be saved:


"I have treated same-sex affairs the way I treat heterosexual affairs. And the results are about the same. The biggest difference is that the BS usually gives up sooner because they feel they can't compete if their spouse is same-sex attracted. But if they stick it out, the affair usually dies a natural death in a relatively short time. Lesbian relationships last about half as long as gay relationships which last about half as long as heterosexual relationships. So there should be optimism when as spouse is in a lesbian relationship. " Dr. Willard Harley

He has a practice that earns him money. THAT is an agenda.




Alcoholism is not a sin; it is a disease and yes there is a proven predisposition toward substance abuse. My husband is the son of an alcoholic and has often said one reason he doesn't drink is because he fears becoming an alcoholic.

I question a psychologist who says he/she can cure homosexuality. For one, this person is flying in the face of scientific evidence. For another, he's simply drumming up business for a treatment that's destined to fail. That is as unethical as the snake oil salesmen who hawk cures for cancer online and say only they have it because the FDA won't approve it. Remember Laetrile? The treatment for cancer that the government wouldn't license? People shunned known treatments for cancer in favor of this treatment and most died.

Gender preference and religion must be kept separate. Most faiths would have you believe homosexuality is a sin based on a Bible verse. The Bible was written by mortals who often used it to explain things they didn't understand. These same faiths will tell you the Bible is the infallible word of God. If so, how do they explain these:

2 Kings 8:26 says "Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign..." AND 2 Chronicles 22:2 says "Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign..."

1 Kings 4:26 says "And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots..." AND 2 Chronicles 9:25 says "And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots..."

In each case the passages contradict. How can this be if it's the infallible word of God? More likely it's the word handed down through generations and the victim of honest error.

I find it more than interesting to see how homosexuality is handled by evangelical Christians. Take Ted Haggard. All the while he was preaching about the sins of homosexuality, he was engaged in sex with a male prostitute. Now he's spinning some sort of drivel about being sexually confused. And just this week, homophobic minister TD Jakes' son was arrested for public masturbation in an area known to be frequented by gays. He did it in front of an undercover cop. While Jakes has released a statement about his son, he failed to make any mention of homosexuality.

My husband was raised in a repressive religious environment with a domineering mother. Both used to be considered "causes" for homosexuality, which was partly in keeping with Freudian theories. Now, however, studies have found that compared to straight men, gay men are more likely to be left-handed, to be the younger siblings of older brothers, and to have hair that whorls in a counterclockwise direction.

To wit, my husband is left-handed and has an older male sibling. I don't know about his hair because he's bald.

But that doesnt make sense. If there is no medical test to discern if one is "hardwired," then it cannot be logically asserted that one can't change. People can and do change and we have no way of knowing if they ARE hardwired.

Why yes, drunkeness is a sin, just as homosexuality is a sin. The Bible is very clear that both are sins.

And yes, there may be a "predisposition" in alcoholism as far as it tends to run in families. But so what? Doesn't mean we are damned to a life of drunkeness. Behavior is a CHOICE and we CHOOSE to drink or not.


I question why you are trying so hard to defend an agenda that wrongly says that people cannot change. Sure they can. They do it all the time. Many psychologists, such as Dr. Harley have treated them with success.

Claire, instead of giving into tired old politically correct social sterotypes, why not call the Harleys directly for advice and see if they can help you? They have helped others, perhaps they can help you.

I am starting to wonder if you have an agenda here to defend homosexuality?

This is all gay agenda propoganda. I think we are being played here when taken in context with the GAY PORN SITES you posted earlier.