My married friend told me that he's gay...

[Anonymous]

OP here -

Thanks for the helpful responses. I've spoken to him at length and he's less "on the edge" than he was a few days ago. He's at his therapist appointment now hoping to get a bit more clarity about how he should move forward.

[Anonymous]

You are still so weirdly involved in this situation. And seem very invested in your friend leaving his wife. I can't help but wonder why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are still so weirdly involved in this situation. And seem very invested in your friend leaving his wife. I can't help but wonder why.

Subtlety is not your forte.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are still so weirdly involved in this situation. And seem very invested in your friend leaving his wife. I can't help but wonder why.

Subtlety is not your forte.

Sorry, I got lost and thought I was in DCUM. Where am I?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would YOU want to stay married to a gay man? I certainly wouldn't want to stay in a marriage with someone who loves me, in a way, but would never be sexually satisfied with me and would be either fantasizing about having sex with men or making himself miserable trying to suppress who he really is.

He really needs to come clean with her. Chances are she'd prefer to let him go and let him be a loving, involved co-parent rather than a suppressed, suffering, closeted-gay husband.

+1

Let her have a chance to be happy w a heterosexual man.

-DW married for 10 yrs.

It is the wife's decision to make, not the husband's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are still so weirdly involved in this situation. And seem very invested in your friend leaving his wife. I can't help but wonder why.

Perhaps you have 0 friends who you feel comfortable discussing your issues with. Not my problem. I'm invested in him leaving his wife? Not sure where that's coming from other than your own disgusting mind. I'm invested in him finding a resolution that will work for his family.

[Anonymous]

I would not want to divorce my husband if he were gay. I would much rather live together as roommates and have outside relationships than break up my family. My children would be crushed. My husband is a good guy and a good father and I wouldn't want my kids to lose him to weekends or split households. I don't understand why people say families come in all shapes and sizes yet encourage divorce. I would be ok with shifting things around to keep my family in tact. I would not expect my husband to hide who he was. I love my kids too much to hurt them with a divorce.

[Anonymous]

If I were you, I would stay out of it completely given the very high stakes and the innocent people who will be devastated by this. The gay/straight thing is almost irrelevant. He needs to talk this through with a professional.

You should also steer well clear of encouraging him to follow his heart and his sexual needs when there's a wife and two young kids in the picture. I'm as pro-gay rights as anyone, but I also have a family, and I think he really needed to figure this out BEFORE getting married and having children. So sad that he didn't. There's no solution to this that makes everyone happy.

Also, maybe I'm misreading, but you sound a little like you're enjoying this a bit for the intrigue ("We've been talking and texting about it non-stop") - step back. This isn't your drama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are still so weirdly involved in this situation. And seem very invested in your friend leaving his wife. I can't help but wonder why.

Perhaps you have 0 friends who you feel comfortable discussing your issues with. Not my problem. I'm invested in him leaving his wife? Not sure where that's coming from other than your own disgusting mind. I'm invested in him finding a resolution that will work for his family.

My disgusting mind? OP doth protest too much, methinks.

[Anonymous]

OP is overly involved for sure. My humble opinion - if a gay man is married to a straight woman with children, they should divorce and not put on a show to try and convince others what they already know is true (the husband is gay).

Husband and wife are BOTH culpable in this scenario as they BOTH knew about it from the beginning. She from the porn, he from himself.

Friend - STOP IT. I simply cannot see why you are so overly involved unless you are a man and the husband's love interest.

This whole thread is sick and I hope the man finds the strength to come out and be happy (after all it is the 21st century and we live in Washington, DC) and I hope the wife realizes or comes to terms with the fact that her husband prefers to sleep with men. I hope she moves on to find a happy life for herself and her children.

I've posted before in this thread and have known men that have come out with wives and children and it's been a happy ending for all. But everyone has to be honest. All of you people advocating that they stay in the marriage and PRETEND are CRAZY!!!

[Anonymous]

What's with all the "over involved" nonsense? Talking to a friend and suggesting he see a therapist, looking for outside perspective is over involved? You people are fucked up.

[Anonymous]

No really, PP you are F*&^ed up! Seriously - you might want to consider counseling yourself. You are either a woman and waaaayyyy too attached to your "straight maybe gay friend" (who is really gay) or you are the man and the love interest.

Call me Nancy Drew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who ARE you OP? Are you the man? Are you a student? Are you the boyfriend of the man in question?

This is all so crazy since once again it is the year 2014 and it is NOT 1950!

I do not care how religious anyone is (and OP, you did not say where you were posting from). If your friend is living in the middle of nowhere or perhaps on Mars where no one has ever heard of homosexuals before then perhaps I can understand his distress.

Maybe he is living in an Amish community somewhere in Pennsylvania?

This all sounds so far fetched.

Good luck with your science experiment.

You're obviously not gay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whenever I hear of a gay person marrying a straight person of the opposite sex, it often comes off as though the sraight person is being used just to have children. If my husband did this to me, I think I would feel he used me to pop out some kids for him.

In this case it sounds like the wife knew he at least leaned this way. She might be less surprised than he imagines.

My ex-husband absolutely used me to have children, the house to attain the appearance of being 'normal' to his law partners, family and church community.
Unfortunately, I found gay porn 8 years on the family computer 7 years and 2 kids into the marriage- I was devastated because the life I thought I had was a complete and utter lie. I hate when people assume the wife knew and blame her. However, one friend out of many family and friends that met my fiancé did ask me if my fiancé was gay. I point blank asked my fiancé and he said no. We met at church and he was very religious. My fiancé seemed interested in me, responded to me sexually etc. Flash forward and six months into the marriage he is less interested in sex (begging off with excuses that medication is making him tired, coming to bed later than me) but starts saying he wants to start a family a year after we are married a year. We have two kids and my sex drive goes very low, so sex wasn't an issue until we got out of toddler phase...husband goes to doctor gets prescription for Viagra (?!!) hoping it will increase his sex drive but it didn't...one night 7 years into marriage everything clicked, his preoccupation with gay couple across the street, his love of certain Broadway shows, and I asked him if we was attracted to other men and he said yes before I could finish the question. I was hysterical and inconsolable and ashamed that my relationship and marriage was a lie. He said he was sexually molested as a child and that he was sexually confused and didn't want to have same sex attraction issues. He agreed to go to counseling to work through the childhood issues, and he did for 3 months. But once the secret was out btwn us he became very mean, verbally abusive because I was making him acknowledge the truth which he preferred to hide. I began to realize that he'd put on a show to everyone, his family, friends, etc. and I was damaging the image he wanted to project. Like I said in year 8, I found the gay porn on the computer after his counseling, after he said he was devoted to me etc...so I filed for divorce and took the kids and left him. He talked about and trashed me to anyone who would listen because he didn't want his secret out so he tried to ruin my credibility in case I told anyone. In reality, I told just a few close friends who were helping me during my separation because I was ashamed that I had been used. He dragged out the divorce, made it unnecessarily contentious and continued to wear his wedding ring(?!). I hate that my husband was closeted- this is D.C.,so it was unnecessary and he could have been open and out- but I hate even more that I was used by a narcissist. I have moved on but this was a very painful chapter that I've learned and grown from.

I'm sorry this happened to you, but your ex does not represent all gay men. And it does seem like the signs were there, dear.

[Anonymous]

The man is GAY. He cannot force himself to be sexually attracted to his wife, just like you can't force yourself to be sexually attracted to someone of the same sex. He obviously married her because he was closeted and in denial at the time. This want him being selfish, it was him figuring out a biology that goes against the norm, and is a huge fucking deal in the conservative religious community.

Some of you saying that him having an emotional affair with a man is the same as having an emotional affair with a woman, have your heads up your asses. It's NOT the same. As a straight women, I would not have an emotional affair with another woman -- if I did, then I would have much deeper marital issues considering that my sexuality is part of my identity.

For the love of god, people.