I’m gay — but I haven’t told my wife

DEAR BEL,

I AM a married man with young children, but I’m actually gay. I always knew it but never admitted it for fear of the reaction.

I think my mother suspected, but has never confronted me; she does make the odd negative comment about ‘gays’ — and I feel uncomfortable.

My father would be devastated — and even if my parents died I could never come out, never truly be myself. The guilt would be too much.

I always wanted children, and my wife is oblivious to the truth. I know she loves me, as I do her. I’m a good husband, father and provider — and would never put my wife’s health at risk because of what goes on in my other life.

My job allowed me to travel and keep my two lives separate. But l o c kdow n changed things, and I can’t see myself travelling as much as I used to. My company is saying I can work from home with just the odd trip to head office.

The prospect fills me with dread, as I won’t be able to give a reason for staying away.

I’m becoming depressed, feel trapped and can’t see a way out. While I genuinely love my wife and children, I feel the loss of the other side of my identity. I can’t share this with anybody close to me.

Am I the only person like this? Am I destined to live the rest of my life feeling trapped and longing for the other side of my life that makes me happy and complete? DANIEL

OTher men and women have found themselves in your situation and I’m sure all would agree that to deny your true sexuality is to choose a life of deceit, stress, unhappiness and anxiety. Since you have fathered children with the wife you love, have you considered whether you might be on the bisexual spectrum? Sexual definitions seem increasingly complicated these days, but why should you bother about them?

You see yourself as having two distinct personalities, with different needs — a situation at once very complicated and uncomfortably simple. The complicated bit is that you love your wife and children and the good life you have created together, while admitting that it only satisfies a part of your nature.

That exists side by side with a blindingly simple truth: when you enjoy a homosexual encounter (no matter how fleeting), you are cheating on the wife you love.

If a friend were to confide that he loves his wife and children dearly, but when working away he picks up women in bars and sleeps with them, what would you think? I suspect you might judge him.

You say you could never ‘come out’, even if your parents were dead. I was interested to read that Kate Winslet recently said she knows of ‘at least four’ well-known actors who are gay but are afraid to admit it. In their case, it’s apparently because they’re worried they won’t get ‘straight roles’. In your case, I suspect you were brought up to see homosexuality as wrong and so chose to live a lie because of fear and shame.

You wanted children, so I’m wondering if that deep urge pushed you towards heterosexual marriage. have you ‘used’ your wife? Some might say so. Like anyone serially unfaithful, you must have lived in fear of one of those illicit lovers blowing your cover.

It took a lot of courage for you to write, and it’s clear from your longer letter that you are terrified of your ‘other’ self being discovered. So what to do?

The organisation Switchboard runs a LGBT+ helpline, which you can call on 0300 330 0630. But what if you are urged to ‘come out’? You won’t, will you?

For now, I’m afraid you’re destined to endure frustration and depression, feeling trapped by the family you love. One day that may change and you’ll tell your wife the truth. She’ll be shocked and devastated. But she may learn to live with that knowledge — and the ‘new’ you.

For now, pitying your confusion and pain, I hope an understanding voice on the telephone might provide some reassurance that you are not alone.