My husband confessed to me that he is gay. What do I do?

Email sent to us by Giulia, replies Alessandra Bialetti*, social pedagogist and couple and family consultant in Rome

My name is Giulia and I am 59 years old, I have been married since 1990 for almost 27 years. My problem begins in 2010, more precisely my nightmare, when my husband confesses to me that I have attended gay sites and that I have attempted approaches with guys, men, homosexual type.
It confesses to me that I am attracted to this type of relationship perhaps due to an approach that he had as a homosexual boy, I don't know what to think and try to help my husband get out of this thing.

Everything seems to go normally until 2013 when he confesses to me that he has fallen in love with a much younger boy and even takes the car and makes a hallucinating journey to Perugia at night. At that moment, it should be considered that I had lost my job and I was really in crisis, if I have to say it all I felt a m ****. To date I feel suck, a missed woman, a person who has no sense of existing! After almost 27 years of marriage this is an unbearable situation, especially as a woman. I would probably accept more if he had betrayed me with a real woman, I have no attributes that can compete with this inclination!

I don't know what to say and above all I don't know who to talk to it, I would like to sink and, surely, I'm trying to kill myself. I now believe I am and to be able to consider myself an alcoholic, I don't know how to get out of this situation.
I am seriously thinking of separating myself from my husband, even if this worries me very much. Until 2010 I thought I found a husband, a lover, a friend, then this incredible lie killed me in the soul.

I don't know who to ask for advice, I cannot talk to my sister or other relatives would not understand this indecision of mine lasting over 6 years. I ask you for advice. Thank you.

The answer…

Dear Giulia, thanks for contacting us and having trusted your delicate path with confidence. Surely what you are experiencing is not easy and you perceive how pain you get an unexpected reality with respect to which you feel unprepared. I believe that this particular moment can and should be addressed on multiple plans.

One is that relating to your husband's path who must look deeply in himself and understand what is actually looking for.

The second concerns your life, your being in this situation and the care you need to turn to yourself to avoid damaging your growth path for something that, as a life orientation, is up to your husband and of whom you You are not responsible or, even, you have some faults.

The third floor is that of the couple who have lived a situation of particular difficulty for years after sharing a long journey. Compared to this you should try to understand what address to give to your relationship and if you succeed, still today with the changed situation, to be supported one to the other even if by redefining your relationship.
It may seem an impossible thing but some couples have found a way to continue to stand close in their respective paths despite knowing that the relationship can no longer be the same. I do not exclude that both for you and for your husband a path of psychological support can be useful as well as being able to share your experience with others who share the same path.

In this regard, if you had children, I recommend that you contact the association Rainbow Parents Network Which brings together homosexual parents with children from previous heterosexual relationships and who offers groups of self-mutual-help to stay close to people who have difficulties similar to yours and live moments of particular heaviness.

I understand your disorientation perfectly when you talk about preferring a betrayal with a woman. It is a common reaction to those who live this type of experience because you do not have "weapons" to fight a rival so different from themselves.
But I believe that the best way is to look for an open and frank dialogue with your husband, to understand at what point of his journey he is, if he took a definitive way about his orientation and how therefore to be able to reconcile this with a relationship that gives Sentimental can become, once disappointment, anger and pain, a relationship of closeness and support.

But this requires time so take everything you need to develop this wound that does not depend on your shortcomings or errors but on a life path that your husband is making. There is the time of pain, anger, impotence and resignation but then, slowly, you can open a path that makes reason for your right to exist and a relationship that was however significant.

In these cases, separation can open the way to a new rebirth for both and can become a moment of care for yourself and one's life very much especially because you say that you have resorted to alcohol and also to heavy thoughts for your safety .
Certainly the difficulty of not being able to talk about it further aggravates the situation but, when you feel ready, you can identify the trusted people to whom you turn or even ask listening and helping the family that could take with you a path of clarification and support. Sometimes it is the fears of not being understood to close us in a space of incommunicability and solitude.

I hope you can decide to ask for help for yourself while then with your husband you take care of your relationship.

A dear hug

Alessandra

* Alessandra Bialetti, lives and operates in Rome as a social pedagogist and couple and family consultant in various projects from different associations and secular and Catholic realities. His website is https://alessandrabialetti.wordpress.com/