How am I doing today?

After we separated, I soon moved out of our house with my daughter, our dog, and our cat to a nearby place. But my husband was in a hurry to move to the capital, so I had to return to our house to supervise the renovation and its sale. During that time I had one rebound relationship, and then I truly fell in love with a man who lived far away. I dated him for about a year and then moved far away. The distance brought relief, because it was difficult to move around in the landscapes of a long marriage where everything reminded me of the past.

There was one brief moment when my husband was ready to tell me more broadly about what he had been doing. I did not want to know more than what I had already understood. I did not want to carry the burden of that knowledge for the rest of my life. He told me that his parents had realized his orientation already early on. In a priest’s family, the matter had been brought before the Lord in prayers of intercession so that he would be healed. But that had not happened. Still, the matter had to remain a secret. Only the parents knew. His siblings did not find out until I told them, and by then their brother was already over sixty years old.

In the new place I painted the house, created a large new garden, and began to study my own field more broadly. Love was flourishing, nature was beautiful, and I began to recover from enormous stress. At the same time, my mind kindly worked through everything from the thirty years that the marriage had lasted. It was heavy but necessary. I became aware of what I knew had happened and of what I had not been able to understand at the time. I searched online for support for myself. Finally, I found the American Str8sbook page on Facebook. It was a major turning point. I gained my own community where support was constantly available and where there were over 3,000 people with similar experiences. Soon I created this website of my own.

Our now adult children stayed in the capital region close to their father. My husband suddenly began to focus on the children. Since he was retired, he had time. He gave all his time and money to them: he helped with everything, paid for everything, bought them BMWs, and so on. At the same time, he smeared me in the eyes of our children and among his own relatives as someone with mental health problems, always difficult and problematic. Everyone now knew that he was homosexual, but he himself continued to deny it. He tried to live in a way that would make the children accept his new, changing partners—young men—as natural parts of his life. But the children could not bear it.

Both of my daughters wrote me long letters full of hatred. I was blamed for everything.

This continued for five years, until my boyfriend’s mother developed dementia and my partner began secretly drinking alcohol. Everyday life became strange and heavy, and I moved back to the capital region. I enjoyed working, and through my studies I found new energy and new kinds of jobs. I enjoyed spending time with my grandchild. I dated a few men, but nothing serious developed.

Now that twelve years have passed, both of my daughters have gone to therapy and have grown closer to me. They have let go of their anger. We never discuss everything that happened. The divorce was a huge shock and upheaval for everyone. All of us have managed to put our lives back in order. Our children very much want the whole family to be together on holidays and special occasions. I have agreed to this. My ex is pleased about it. He would like to be with me as if nothing had ever happened. He has said that he did everything right and that everyone loves him. He has carefully saved all the videos from our family life and shared his own copies with each family member, as if as proof that it all really existed. Yet his own actions and his secrets have still been completely erased. I have accepted that we are like people on different planets.

My own process with this matter has settled as part of the course of my life, even though everything was life-changing. After all of it, I became a person who can stand up for herself and set healthy boundaries. I have managed different challenges better and dared more. I founded my own company. The flow of life carries me forward, toward new adventures.