Dear Christine,
My wife recently left me for a woman. It’s been traumatic to say the least. I knew something was up. Sex was low, she wasn’t climaxing and I could just feel her pulling away. I was an a_s for about a year, very negative about alot of things, not us, but father dying, money probs, newborn baby, bought a new house and she had 4 kids before we had ours.
She said she always had “feelings” like she liked girls, but said she just ingored them hoping they would go away. Was married, got divorced and married me. Married 2yrs, together 6 for us. She said my meanness made her start looking for friendship and met someone at work and they just “clicked” Now she says she’s 100% gay and has no doubts and she’s the sub and only receives, apparently. She left and took the kids and got a house with said girl and I found and email from her “dom” girl saying she doesn’t want me buying OUR 2yr old ANYTHING for their new house and you’ve been riding around with that table in ur truck for 2 weeks instead of taking it back like I told you and if u respected me you would, how she (wife) was so sad when they met and she (dom) told her she thought if she took on the burden that she (wife) would be more loving and she has to cut me off cause she can’t serve two masters.
She (wife)was never super affectionate and has many, many gay friends and now the dom is telling her she can’t see me, talk to me, refers to me as muthaf_c_er and is telling her what she can do and can’t and the “dom” has never been with a man. My gay friends tell me their relationship is doomed cause in the bedroom is one thing, but trying to dom in everyday life is different and wife is very smart, driven and independent.
Can this relationship last and is she likely gay after 2 marriages and 5 kids? She left her husband for me and bailed on me after having getting remarried, having a baby and a rough yr and a half we went through where I was mean, but never controlling or running her life. When her ex husband got hurt, she went and took care of him cause he’s legally blind, helped and did his disability stuff (he ain’t bright) and I never complained. This woman told her in the email “it’s him or me. I’ll give you all I got, but you gotta piss or get off the pot cause my patience is done boo.” She thinks she moved out from me physically but, not emotionally and we haven’t been intimate in 4 months, 2 months before I busted her and got the truth out of her. Plus, this girl is big and Im affraid wife could get physically hurt cause my gay friend said doms get really jealous and even violent if the sub doesn’t do what they want and alot of her gay gf’s are quite pretty. And I know all this and wife doesn’t know I do and says that she’s (dom) actually one my side saying wife needs to give me time and space when email calls me muthaf_c_er and to make a choice or she will leave.
Signed Youch! in Ypsilanti
Dear Youch!
http://.ssnetwk.org–is a network for the spouses of gays and lesbians. Check out the on-going support from this group of people who are going through exactly what you are , right now. Really. Click on the link now!
It sounds like there are two issues here. Your wife has left you for someone else and that person is
1) abusive and controlling of her (which could be a man or woman), and that affects you and
2) that person is a woman.
Why your wife would want to be with a bully rather than in a saner relationship is hard to understand. My guess is it has a lot to do with your wife’s personality, family experiences and expectations, her understanding of herself and her self-esteem. Those are issues you aren’t going to change in someone else, no matter how loving and supportive you may be. You’ll never know the answer to the question “why is she with this person rather than with me”. She’s got some unhealthy parts of herself that are jumping into this relationship for reasons she may not be fully aware of either. Whether or not she is a lesbian, who knows? As I’ve said in this column before, that is just a label, mostly for political reasons or for quick categorizations of complicated individuals. Your wife is the only person who can affix a label on her choices and is the only one who knows what those choices mean to her. And she may not be aware of all this either.
Will your wife’s relationship with the bully last? Probably not, but who knows? It doesn’t sound like a strong beginning to a healthy relationship, and your wife has a history of failed relationships for various reasons. However, I’ve stopped trying to predict other people’s relationships, as there’s so much that we outsiders cannot know about what happens in people’s hearts, minds and spirits that either keeps them together or drives them apart.
Should you wait for your wife’s relationship to end and for her to come back to you? I’d say no. You need to take responsibility for your life and your happiness, and you can’t do that by waiting around for her. She’s making her choices, well informed or not, and there are consequences to those choices for everyone involved. So, stop blaming yourself, and try to move on to grieving the end of the relationship and healing. Focus on taking care of yourself first and foremost, and focus on your toddler.
NB: Domestic violence happens in all types of relationships, gay and straight alike. Controlling techniques don’t have to be based in physical size or strength, or who is dominant and who is submissive. It has everything to do with who is psychologically, emotionally, financially, sexually, and socially controlling whom. Intimidating tactics are deliberate to make the victim feel afraid, cut off from support and helpless. Some of the most abusive of spouses are not physically imposing, but instead those who learn to control others with their words, implying the actions that may follow.
Christine C. Cantrell, PhD
1026 W. 11 Mile Rd,
Suite C
Royal Oak, MI 48067
248-591-2888
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