For 30 years I was the wife of a gay man

Email sent to us by Viviana, the volunteers of the Gionata project respond

Maybe mine is a story like many others... but every day I feel the need to tell it more and more. I'm almost 59 years old. I carry the rot of my life inside me in every action of the day, every day my thoughts come back to retrace the past in bursts.
I was the wife of a gay man without knowing it for 30 years. I had children with this man. I read words of understanding on your site, but I only feel hatred. A boundless, uncontainable hatred.

He married me when I was 20… hiding his true nature from me. He lied and faked his life. After 4 months of marriage he made a mistake by leaving a written trace, a response to an advert in a pornographic newspaper.
But it was an unfinished message, not explicit enough to give me certainty. And here the ordeal began. I should have packed a suitcase for him and I should have put it on the landing but I was too young and the discovery too devastating for me.

Una vita di domande, di richieste di spiegazioni che si schiantavano contro un muro di gomma. Nessuna risposta mai, anzi dopo i primi tempi in cui probabilmente per il terrore di essere smascherato, giurava e spergiurava che era stato un pensiero momentaneo, cose del passato. Ma nessuna chiarificazione.

Aveva studiato in seminario, poi aveva lasciato. Ora so perché. Alle mie richieste seccato diceva che non erano fatti miei. Come non erano fatti miei??? Ma chi avevo sposato io??? Avevo diritto di sapere.  Ero giovane, cresciuta in una famiglia felice , dove fra i miei genitori c’era amore e rispetto. Non potevo raccontare alla mia famiglia cosa stava succedendo, i miei dubbi. Quindi ho tenuto tutto dentro cercando solo di ottenere da lui i chiarimenti di cui avevo bisogno.

Mio marito ha condizionato la mia mente, mi diceva sempre che ero io a vedere cose inesistenti, mi diceva di smetterla di fare domande e di lasciarlo in pace.
Creava in me sensi di colpa. A volte pensavo veramente di avere inventato tutto. Ma non era così. Abbiamo avuto figli ma i suoi atteggiamenti nei miei confronti erano sempre distaccati, senza amore.
Poi per vicissitudini della vita abbiamo cominciato a lavorare insieme e li io ho scoperto tutto. I siti pornografici che consultava, le conversazioni che intratteneva sul chat gay. Cosi ho avuto la conferma ed è cominciato l’inferno.
Because even when faced with the evidence of the facts, he denied being the author... he blamed other people... Thus we arrived at the separation, always without admitting the truth.

It has left me in precarious economic conditions and I have to work hard to cope. The only good I have are my children to whom I have never fully told the truth. The older ones know something, the smaller ones know nothing even if they are now men.
I only feel hatred for that man who purposely ruined my life. I served him to create a mask of respectability. It was more comfortable to get married and do like everyone else, rather than living his homosexuality. It deprived me of the possibility of having a normal person next to me and living a happy life.

I know it's Christianly wrong but I will never forgive it. I was stupid to believe his lies, to give him the chance to decide my life. The past is too heavy and I can't do it.

Thanks for listening.

Vy

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The answer….

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Dear Viviana, how can we not understand your suffering... not sought, but suffered by your husband who, to escape his nature, began to hide in a sea of ​​lies. How much strength, how much suffering is yours.
But now that your ex is far away, the time has come to bury the memory of him and move on, you have to do it. You have already suffered too much from his lies, his absences, his fears.

Hai fatto bene a parlarne perché è il primo tassello per chiudere una porta e ricominciare a vivere. Te lo devi.

un abbraccio forte forte da tutti noi