So many questions about 'coming out'...

[Amigo]

First, I'm sorry if this question seem a bit... silly.

But why do people have to 'come out'?

Why do you have the urge to come out?

Why should you tell anyone?

Does it make you more gay if you come out?

Can I be a gay and never come out?

Do you act differently once you come out? Do you think differently?

What's different about you before and after the coming out?

At the moment, I have no idea how to come out, and neither do I have the desire to do so. I'm just gonna stay where I am, whether that's IN or OUT of the closet.

It's very difficult... this 'being gay' thing...

I think if you're gay, you're gay. Whether you're IN the closet or OUT in the park, it doesn't matter.

Some people might think they are and do the 'coming out' ceremony, but may be they are not really gay, but just somebody who came out of the closet.

Some people may die in the closet, but be gay.

Again, I'm sorry if I sound a bit... silly...

Peace.

[fredv3b]

First, I'm sorry if this question seem a bit... silly.

Its not a silly question.

But why do people have to 'come out'?

Why do you have the urge to come out?

Why should you tell anyone?

You do not have to come out, its not compulsorary. The rest of the world automatically assumes that we are straight, we do not choose to go into the closet, we only choose to come out of the closet. If we don't want to come out of the closet we can't let people discover that we do 'gay things' like go to gay bars, mention guys we find attractive, have boyfriends, etc. Eventually the hassall of maintaining all this secrecy, the worry that people will find out anyway and the desire to be honest with people we care about just becomes too much to cope with.

Does it make you more gay if you come out?

No but you are fee to act 'more gay' if you want to.

Can I be a gay and never come out?

Yes. It is difficult to maintain a relationship in the longer term and never come out. But just because you don't have to come out, and just because you don't come out doesn't mean you are not gay.

Do you act differently once you come out? Do you think differently?

What's different about you before and after the coming out?

You don't have to act 'straight', you don't constantly worry about someone thinking that you are gay.

It's very difficult... this 'being gay' thing...

Yes it is. Don't come out until and unless you are sure you want to do it and are ready to do it.

Some people might think they are and do the 'coming out' ceremony, but may be they are not really gay, but just somebody who came out of the closet.

I honestly doubt that someone would 'come out' unless they were really sure (its just such a big thing), except if they were really drunk, in which case people might not believe them.

[marshlander]

I can't add much, if anything, to what Fred has already said, but that won't stop me trying

It's not necessary to come out. Until and unless you do though it is difficult to see what the benefits are, specially if you are already involved in a relationship that doesn't fit the way in which you now perceive yourself. As Fred pointed out, the world (and his wife!) assumes we are straight unless we give them reasonable cause to doubt it. Society is generally set up to cater to heterosexual "norms". I guess it is a little like being left-handed in a predominantly right-handed world. In Victorian times left-handed children were forced through physical punishment and verbal chastisement to use their right hands. You can imagine the difficulties this caused. They were told that left-handedness was of the devil. You don't have to go far to read that there are many otherwise intelligent people who consider those of us born with a same-sex orientation to be sinners :mad:

Coming out is something to weigh up carefully because, once out, you don't get to choose to put the genie back in the bottle and this particular genie has a way of taking on a life of its own. However, the compensations, should you choose to do it, can be immense. I am sure I became two inches taller simply by having an enormous burden lifted off my shoulders. Strangely it was a burden I didn't realise I was carrying until I shed it.

You don't become gay by coming out. You don't necessarily act differently by coming out. What happened for me was that many shattered bits of my life began to come into focus and make a picture that made sense.

Your questions are definitely not silly. You obviously have some serious stuff going on. Feel free to explore them safely here.

(Apologies for the over-use of metaphor in this response )

[princealbertofb]

What acknowledging being gay has done for me is to free me of my inner partitions; the barriers I'd built up within myself. I found myself thinking and seeing the world differently once I had acknowledged, for the second time, that I was gay and in a gay relationship. It does change your perspective (or outlook) on life, while not really changing who you are as a person. I think it just makes it possible for you to explore who you are more thoroughly and thrive in that aspect of your being. mile: But I guess even some closeted gay men can be happy, if they feel more secure within the bounds of their closet.

[peterinmalaga]

I agree with all the above. In Western Europe being gay is not a big problem nowadays in the sense that most people will at best celebrate your gayness with you and at worst tolerate it. So coming out is a liberating experience. You can go to gay bars, clubs , bring the boyfriend home and sleep overnight with him etc. and read gay literature with little fear that it will do you any harm. Even so some people choose to stay in the closet. And for those who are out there are also degrees of “outness”. You might be out to your family and some friends but still in the closet at work for example. A problem can arise then because most people are not very good at keeping a secret: they will just tell their best friend, who then passes it on to their best friend etc. etc. So it might be easier to gradually come out of the closet to everyone OR to stay in the closet altogether. It all depends on your personal circumstances.

[Amigo]

Thanks for the replies... appreciate them very much.

I've gone beyond the stage, where I care or not if I'm gay. It makes no difference.

I don't think I'll start to fall head over heels over a nice looking dude, or go around having sex with other men.

But I do think the things that go in my head will change...

My FIRST step to coming out would be registering in this website. I'm curious to see what I will do next.

[Amigo]

Who should you come out to first?

I should come out to myself first.

Then who's next?

My wife.

And then?

That's it. Just to myself and to my wife.

[Amigo]

How would you come out to your wife? What will she say?

Me : "Honey, I think I'm gay."

Me wife : "You THINK?"

[marshlander]

Who should you come out to first?

I should come out to myself first.

Then who's next?

My wife.

And then?

That's it. Just to myself and to my wife.

There is no coming out without coming out to yourself first. As to coming out to your wife I would urge great, great caution!

If you can bear it, may I share a few details from my own experience? Once out to myself I felt a tremendous urge to talk about the situation with other people. I tried discussing it first with a trusted friend who knew and had some understanding of the mental health issues I had been dealing with. The hardest thing for me to cope with was that, although I consider myself reasonably articulate, I simply did not have the vocabulary at my disposal to be able to discuss being gay in any way that made sense. It took me a long time and several attempts to be able to develop the language in a way that felt more natural to me.

The next stage in my reasoning was a realisation that since I had talked to a few people, I really should bring the subject up with my wife. I had met many gay and bisexual men who seemed perfectly able to lead multiple secret lives and I thought at first this is what I would probably do. I'm not a good liar though and I found it demeaning both to me and to her to try and carry on as normal knowing I had such a huge secret. I felt it was only right and fair to come out to her so that she too could make decisions about how she wanted to conduct her future. This was our relationship (for better or worse) and we both needed to look at what was going on.

I imagined that we would both discuss it like grown-ups and work out how to deal with all this in a way that would not be too damaging. I imagined it might even bring us closer again. For years I had lived with her complaints that I was too private and never able to be "open and honest" with her. She had often complained that she never knew how I felt about things or what I was thinking. Stupidly I decided, at last, to take her at her word.

Big mistake! The morning I did that I unleashed all the demons of hell simultaneously. Her response was to call me a liar and let loose with a screaming torrent of abuse the like of which no one should have to hear. It was the beginning of a five-year nightmare during which a lot of horrible things were said and done. My two youngest teenaged children were still at home and suffered very badly in the fallout. I shan't go into details, but trust me it was unpleasant. I had begun this journey with no plans at all to break up the family. Knowing what I had found out about myself I fantasised that one best-case outcome would probably have been for me to form some kind of sexual arrangement with a man in a similar situation. I really could not manage to live secret multiple lives. It was affecting my mental health quite badly and the depressive episodes I had suffered for many years were coming more often and lasting longer. I brought that five-year period to an end when, after five non-stop days of my poor kids having to endure the sound of my wife's voice screaming and wailing at me as they went to bed at night and it being the sound they woke up to in the morning I knew I had to get out or I would die. What the kids didn't know (or maybe they did ) was that she had managed to keep this up this barrage most of those nights too. Where she got the energy from I have no idea, but I was just exhausted and I was fast dipping back into a suicidal depression I had previously experienced in my twenties. I had no wish to be in that place. So I packed a few things and turned up on my father's doorstep begging sanctuary.

With the benefit of hindsight, I should have lied and left her anyway. Goodness knows there was cause enough without my sexuality ever being an issue. Had I done that as soon as I faced up to what was really going on in my life I would have saved us both those years of torture. My son might not have been expelled from school at fourteen (he was never able to return to school) for a drug-related misdemeanour and my daughter might not have taken an overdose. Who knows? It could have all been different ... maybe.

As to your situation, Amigo, only you can make the decisions. No doubt the questions you are asking yourself probably include wondering about where your future will take you and whether it includes staying with your wife. Unless she is a very special person indeed I would suggest saying nothing at all to her while there is any doubt in your mind. Once you say it it can't be unsaid. It's a bloody situation in which to find yourself. I can only wish you the very, very best of luck.

[Amigo]

marshlander : Thanks for the story. And your effort in writing it.

Haven't read it yet... but I'll do that when I get back... (I have to go play golf in 10 minutes.)

Have a nice day! mile: