Gay/bi or what?

[marshlander]

Hi Mark. It sounds like you are having a tough time of it all. I can relate to some aspects of your story. You live in one of the most notoriously homophobic parts of the UK (I was raised in a homophobic religion), you married your childhood sweetheart (I guess I did too, although I thought of her as my best friend - we were together from the age of sixteen onwards and married when we were nineteen), you met someone in your thirties who turned your idea of who you are upside down (I was a little older when this happened to me with that disorienting feeling of being in love and out of control that was very upsetting and very elating at the same time). I was diagnosed with depression, put on Prozac and offered counselling. I can't claim that the Prozac did much to help with the depression, but it did reduce my libido to near nothing and that gave me time to try and sort my feelings and thoughts out without being driven to seek out men for sex for a while. I guess that throughout my adult life I had learned to hide my feelings and I understand that whole thing about feeling nothing at all. I wanted to experience an emotional response when my mother died, but I could feel nothing. It was horrible. I denied that I was gay right up until just before I was forty and it was a real shock to me (I'm not sure what I thought I was doing with the men I had met whilst cruising or cottaging for periods throughout my adult life!).

To cut a long story short, my wife divorced me, I have been in a loving relationship with a man for about eight years now. I feel more at ease with myself than I ever have in my life and I no longer attempt to hide my sexual orientation.