A good friend of mine has just discovered that her husband of many years thinks he might be gay. He’s apparently having sex with some guys while he “questions his sexuality” He doesn’t know that she knows, yet. She wants to stay married, once everything is out in the open, unless he wants to leave. Any advice for her on how to tell him she knows his secret, and what type of counseling she should seek…any books she could read?
How did she find out?
She should probably stop fucking him. If he’s sleeping around with a bunch of guys, who knows what diseases he might have? Sure, maybe he’s being safe, but maybe he isn’t.
They haven’t been sleeping together for a long time, so no worries there. Some suspicious activities and attitude change prompted their child to do a bit of internet snooping. And then there were the condoms and lube in the jacket pocket.
In the Netherlands I know of a selfhelp group, Orpheus, that exists for couples exactly like your friend; Wife straight, husband discovered gay. I don’t know what is the usual outcome.
A friend of a friend was married with kids and discovered he was gay. After a lot of long talks, he and his wife moved to a bigger house where he had his own part of the house, could receive gentlemen callers, but had acces to the part where his wife lived with the kids.
It somewhat worked, but his wife kept resenting him, and AFAIK she stilll does, but bottles it up for the kids.
What?
WHAT??
How the hell did the KID find out about the ‘suspicious activities’ and ‘attitude change’? Has mum been prompting kid to do her dirty work on the 'net?
And apart from that, why should the kid’s say-so be taken as gospel? Who found the condoms and lube?
Something fishy here…not sure what, but something smells off.
How old is the kid? One thing she needs to do is not let him/her become the unofficial PI. If their child’s an adult, she can’t stop it, and it sounds like he made the initial discovery on his own but she shouldn’t ask him to dig up anymore dirt.
ETA: Or, what **Kambuckta ** said.
No…adult (older teen, actually) child. Got worried about some odd things her dad was doing, that my friend passed off as just moodiness…long story, will finish later. To be short, she found a MySpace page for him on his computer when he forgot to log off.
I am still really dubious. A MySpace page sounds really stupidly obvious for your average married bloke trying to maintain a marriage AND to covet gay affairs! Not to mention that I have sometimes been on one of my kids’ MySpace page/s as an observer, and it appears that I am ‘logged in’ or whatever.
Again, something ain’t right here.
I think your friend needs to confront her kid way before she starts accusing her husband of being gay and defrauding the marriage. I get the feeling that the kid has some added agenda here that needs addressing!
Why would a straight woman and a gay man “work” as a marriage?
They can be potentially fabulous roommates but that doesn’t fit my idea of marriage.
Much like no one would use text messages to contact prostitutes, especially if he was a former prosecutor who used texts and e-mails to convict prostitution rings. Couldn’t happen. 
Sex makes people stupid.
People who marry someone and have kids only to “discover” they’re gay really ought to do the “discover they’re gay” part first. Why do they have to fuck up a wife and kids?
Text messages and public profiles like MySpace and/or Facebook are very different things. I’m not saying that it didn’t happen, just that my Credibility Meter is running a bit skewy at the moment.
I’m still curious as to why a kid who found her dad’s behaviour a bit weird would even THINK about checking him out on the net, and when she did, report to her mum that dad had a profile where he was soliciting male sex. Any evidence that he actually ‘owned’ this site or that he followed through on any of the propositions? Any actual evidence that he is gay and not just fulfilling a mild fantasy??
I have an inkling that the daughter has a hidden agenda, and I have a real itch that mum is looking for ways out of the relationship that don’t reflect back on her…but that’s just my vibe, and I might be wrong of course!
Wow. I was expecting a different question. I have a friend (a woman who probably identifies herself as asexual) who is married to a gay man. The big difference is that they new he was gay before they got married. Everyone knew,except maybe his dad, which some of our circle speculates is why they got married instead of being roommates.
As wrong as the husband in the OP is for going outside the marriage for sex, I think there’s some culpability on the wife’s part for snooping, or encouraging the snooping. If they can work through that and still live together the marriage could work.
I think that when there was more stigma associated with divorce it was not uncommon for people to weather infidelity and arrive at some sort of arrangement (along the “don’t ask, dont’ tell” lines). As long as the terms are clearly defined and both can accept them.
The kid being involved makes this all a little weirder to navigate. If the wife works through her own issues and stays with the husband is the daughter going to accept that choice?
It’s interesting to me how many people are calling the daughter into question. A couple a years ago I would have been aghast to think anyone could suspect someone so young and innocent of having an ulterior motive. I read a book about a girl whose motive was so ulterior she didn’t even know herself what it was, but she ended up making (false) accusations that destroyed her family. My guess now is that sort of thing is not as uncommon as I would have thought, and people here who are suggesting that the daughter might have an agenda are a little more clued in than I was.
It’s not a marriage i’d want for myself either, but i’m not especially interested in prescribing or proscribing what other people should do.
And this is precisely why we should define marriage simply as two consenting adults who decide to make a life together and formalize the relationship, whether they’re men or women, gay or straight, or whatever. Hell, as far as i’m concerned it doesn’t even have to be 2; as long as everyone in the equation is truly a consenting adult i’ve got no problem with polygamy either.
I actually know of at least one couple who have been together for about eight years now since the husband came out. They’ve struggled a lot, but they’re both committed to maintaining things because they legitimately love each other. It can work, but they both have to be devoted to working it out.
You’re kidding, right?
^^^ What Inago said…
Does any rational person really go into marriage thinking they will have a couple kids and a few good years then come out as gay?
I don’t suppose it helps that many people think it’s possible for a person to un-gay himself by trying really hard to be straight (including the getting married part).
No, but way too many go into marriage lying to themselves about why they’re doing it.
Not just gay ones who don’t want to accept it, but also people like my aunt who married a momma’s-baby son of a bitch in order to escape her parents… didn’t work, either as a marriage or as an escape. Or people whose relationship is a-shambles and who think some words from a person in a robe will magically fix everything.
(I was answering FarmerChick)