It's Always 20/20, But That Doesn't Mean It's Always Clear
Anyone who has spent even a short amount of time searching has discovered that we Not Entirely Straight Guys In Straight Marriages (NESGISM) are a dime a dozen in blogland. It doesn't diminish the fact that each of our stories is different and that we are all struggling. But since my very first foray into this world I have always found writings from our marital counterparts - Wives OF NESGISM (WONESGISM?? Yikes!) - to be extremely enlightening and very much appreciated.
One shining example is Bea and her blog Sh-out. Check it out if you haven't already. The question she asked that I referenced in my last post (check it out if you haven't already) continues to swirl around in my mind. It's a question that should be asked. But I'm not sure the answer is that helpful to NESGISM or WONESGISM. And I'm saying that because I'm really not sure, not because I am sure but want to be vague or polite.
I have two related questions for Bea and the rest of the wives out there. And just like Bea I am not trying to be judgmental. I am really curious.
If, before you married, your husband had told you about his attraction to other men, would you still have married him? Why or why not?
I can answer the first question for my wife. Her answer is "Yes" because she did. I can't answer the second question for her, but I will probably ask her sometime. If and when our relationship has healed a little more.
Have a great weekend.
Flip
PS In the future I'll try not to get carried away with acronyms. It's very irritating. I'm not sure what got into me...
4 comments:
I spend over 20 + years in the military, so I am VERY familiar with acronyms!
I have replied to Bea's blog. I find her to be a very intelligent yet somewhat frustrated struggling spouse.
I told my wife when we were dating that I had a same-sex encounter about 10 years before and she still married me. Check out my comments on her blog.
Please remember to keep Troll in your thoughts or prayers. If you haven't read his blog lately....please do so. Bring a tissue with you however.
Have a good weekend.....
If Ben had told me about his attraction to other men, I still would have married him, provided we had been able to come to an agreement about our expectations for the marriage in advance. I don't really have a problem with the fact that he has same-sex attractions. But I do have problems with the fact that I had expected to be our marriage to be a monogamous one and it hasn't been.
So, he "flips" the question (grin).
The short answer: I don't know.
The longer answer: Maybe not. He broke up with me three times (including one engagement)before we married. The combination would have made me pretty wary of how long it would be until he broke up with me again.
Or maybe I wouldn't have married him because I would have wanted to set him free.
More likely, I would have married him, thinking that he was "cured" which is what he was desperately hoping/believing at the time (also the 80s). And after our last break up (the engagement) I thought about him and missed him every day (for a year and a half in which we didn't communicate once). I loved him.
I still do. And actually, I feel lucky to have been married to him at all. His inability to come to terms with it all, embrace his gay-self, come out . . . was my gain.
Bea
Thanks to you all for your very thoughtful comments. I absolutely agree that cheating is in a completely different category from gays entering into straight marriages.
For years I would have bet anything on the fact that I would go to my grave without experiencing sex with a man, without cheating on my wife. I absolutely entered the marriage with that conviction and clung to it for 20+ years.
Then I cheated. It is without a doubt the decision I regret most in my life, yet in retrospect I cannot imagine what my life would be like today if I had not made that bad decision.
Make no mistake, that belief does not diminish the fact that I was COMPLETELY WRONG to do what I did - and to make it worse - continue to do from time to time.
Am I a hypocrite? Am I a coward? I think so. But I'm doing the best I can right now. I know it's not good enough. I want to do better and I believe I will. But this is the best I can do right now, and it's a whole lot better than I was doing three years ago.
Peace to all.
Flip
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