What’s it like to discover your husband is gay? Three women from three different generations recently shared their stories with The Huffington Post.
Susan is 51 years old. She says she originally thought her husband of 20 years had grown distant because he was having an affair with a woman, only to discover he was actually gay.
“I’d heard him talking on the phone to someone about dancing at a bar, and then somehow I figured out he was speaking to a man,” she recalls. “One night on vacation we were drinking probably a little too much and I asked him about it, his response to me was ‘I’ve always found men attractive.’”
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After sobering up, her husband refused to talk about his homosexual desires again and for years Susan quietly agonized over it. Then last year, she finally confronted him about it.
“I got the courage to ask the question, ‘Did you know before you married me that you were gay?’ and he answered yes,” she says. “There was a huge part of me that was angry and hated him, but at the same time there was just as huge a part of me that felt sad for him.”
The couple split up. Susan says still working on trying to have a civil relationship with her husband for the sake of their kids.
“I tell my children, in a perfect world, we could all spend holidays together, I’m just not 100 percent there yet,” she says.
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Amity is 87 years old. She and her husband were married for decades and had two children together. Everything, she says, was “wonderful” until the day he checked into the hospital for a minor surgery.
“I went to visit him while he was under influence of anesthesia,” she recalls. “He said, ‘I have something to tell you. I’m gay.’ I burst out laughing and said, ‘Are we ever in a soap opera?’”
Amity’s husband explained that he been with a man before marrying her, but his Catholic upbringing prevented him from living his truth. After absorbing the news, she began to question whether she was somehow to blame.
“Wasn’t I sexy enough? Didn’t I know the right lovemaking technique? You just wonder, ‘If my life has been involved in someone else’s lie, then who am I? My whole belief system went askew. It was rather obvious, it was like a prison for him.”
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The story then takes a very sad turn.
“One day he told me, ‘I don’t think I can go on anymore.’ I said, ‘Of course you can!’ The next day he took his own life,” she recalls. “I think he was depressed because [for] his whole life he wasn’t able to be himself.”
Finally, there’s Judith, who is in her 70’s. She knew her husband, Dick, confessed to her that he was gay before they ever married, but that she didn’t believe him. She asked him to get therapy, which he did.
“I was so drawn to him,” she says, “my soulmate. … He asked me to marry him and we got married. … I didn’t know that he was suffering. I didn’t know that he was thinking about men or fantasizing. We just didn’t speak about it.”
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She says the marriage was “rocky,” but that they never talked about elephant in the room. Eventually, they had a daughter together then split up. Judith remarried, but always kept in close touch with Dick.
“He was the most important person in my life,” she recalls. “It was never a problem with my husband until Dick died in 1986 from AIDS. My husband was surprised by my grief. I’ve never bonded with anyone that way. My whole youth and my young enthusiasm were bound with him.”
ryantbo
a college friend of mine found out her husband was gay after a few years of marriage. I never met the guy but talked to him on the phone once. She called me all upset asking why I didn’t tell her he was gay. I reminded her that we only spoke ONCE on the phone and even MY gaydar isn’t THAT good
Kangol
“Husband is a homosexual”; quick, Queerty, what year is it? 2016. Not 1966. Come on, now. “Husband is gay,” “having same sexual relationships,” etc. Let’s get with the 21st century!
Darson
Easiest way to know ladies….is your husband too hot for you? Married guy I once fooled around with was classic tall dark and handsome. His wife was 5ft tall and 5ft wide. Total mismatch. She clung even tighter once he told her. She knew she would never land another hottie like him again. Used the kids to keep him.
Brian
Huffington Post seems to be homophobic. These articles are pure reactionary nonsense designed to make women feel good and men feel bad. They are based on the idea that a man who has sexual feelings for both women and men is a danger to women.
Huffington Post needs to go away. Get lost, vamoose.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
@Kangol: Not so fast Judy Jetson! “Homosexual” is making a comeback and might even be the future. plenty of prefer the dryly dispassionate matter-of-factness of that term over “gay”.. and certainly over “queer” ..with all the political and cultural baggage they drag along..not least of them is the SGL crowd. There is no other (relatively) neutral term twhich can bridge the span of our communities.
highestbidder
@Darson: Remember Reese Rideout’s wife in that documentary?
Jack Meoff
I think it’s important to note that two of the women mentioned in this article are quite old and would have been married in an era when their husbands couldn’t come out easily and would have been pressured to conform. I think gay en marrying ‘beards’ was much more common in the 50’s and 60’s than it is now.
Brian
@Jack Meoff: Today, liberal wives are compelling men into the ‘false gay’ identity.
Chris
These kinds of stories are quite sad. Hopefully, as being gay, bi-, fluid and everything in between become more accepted, people will be open before getting married. ….. I feel worst for the women in their 70s and 80s who might feel that they wasted their lives. I hope they have people around them (their own children included) who can convince them that they did not. ….. But then, THAT is part of the problem, no? We live in this fantasy that a single person (husband, partner, etc.) gives all the meaning that there is to our individual lives. And that’s not true. It’s way more complex than that.
woodroad34
Well, these stories just prove the lethalness of the religious right’s assumption that gays should marry women….since that’s “god’s” will. That thinking has always caused damage if not death for more than one person.
Josh447
Fortunately people are seeing through the falseness of religion more and more each day. As a previous Pope once said “the Catholics have gotten a lot of mileage out of that story”.
ppp111
@Brian:
Tell me about it. I normally like Huffington Post but this bisexual/gay bashing is getting a little tired. I sometimes get the feeling male sexuality (whether gay, straight, or bi) is often vilified unfairly. Feminists rail against straight male sexuality while religious conservatives often target gay male sexuality. Tedious if you ask me.
ErikO
@Jack Meoff: Very true. It still happens today. A guy I grew up with who is gay and closeted is marrying a woman. He knows that I’m bisexual and other people that we grew up with who are bisexual or gay; but I figure it’s his choice to remain closeted and marry a woman.
Me2
Bisexuality wouldn’t get bashed if more people were honest and upfront with their partners about their attractions. When you hide and deceive your spouse into thinking that you’re something that you’re not, then you deserve to be bashed.