How do I find out?

[Confused but straight]

This may sound very strange and pathetic to many of you but I am in a state where I don't know where to turn. This may turn out to be long and somewhat rambling - please bear with me.

 

I have been married for 18 years. My sex life with my husband has been very sporadic and totally unfulfilling. I have run the gamut of emotions and action and inaction for many years. I can count on my fingers and toes the number of times we have had any kind of intimacy at all - the last time being so many years ago I am ashamed to admit how long it has been. I had convinced myself, at various times, over the years, that it was okay, it would work out, I didn't need it, I could live without it because everything else was so good. Now I'm just fed up, worn out, used up and confused.

 

I believe my husband is gay. There, I've said it. I've even asked him - and he vehemently denied it. I've been sleeping in our bed by myself for over 8 months. He sleeps in the spare room. We even moved into a new house and he made up the spare bed in the new house all by himself. This was prompted by a "talk" we had last year where I felt that I could no longer get into the same bed, night after night, for years and receive a peck on the cheek. He easily agreed and has been in his "own" bed ever since.

 

He went to one counseling session last year afer I pushed and pushed and begged that WE needed help with our intimacy issues. He then went by himself, saying HE had issues. What they are, were, I have no idea - he clams up when I ask. He has refused, to date, to go to joint counseling - for anything.

 

My husband and I met and became good friends with two gay guys over a year ago. They are the sweetest, nicest guys I know. Their being gay has no effect on our friendship with them - their good friends who happen to be gay. Along with these two guys came a girl who was a friend of theirs. She's straight. Last week, she and the two guys were talking over lunch and then she called me to chat. In the course of our conversation, and during other talks she and I have had about my marriage and our problems, we were talking again about how dismal things are in my marriage. Just a bull session, chatting and griping, whining and moaning in general. She then took my breath away when she told me that the two gay guys mentioned in passing that they thought my husband was gay. When she asked why they would say that, they just said they can tell. These two guys have been together for 8 years. I don't pretend to know, or need or have a right to know, the details of their relationship but suffice it to say that I believe after 8 years they probably have a pretty good grip on what being gay means - at least to them and may be able to tell if another person is. We spend lots of time with these three people (and the gal's dates) - partying, going out to dinner, going to each others houses and over the last year, have spent 3 out of 7 nights a week "hanging" together so they know us pretty well and vice versa by now.

 

Needless to say this only fed my own doubts about what's going on with my marriage. I've also heard the term non-practicing homosexual and while I don't really know what this means, I wonder how a person could be homosexual and not "practice".

 

My husband owns his own business - his time is his time, we don't keep track of each other every hour of the day but I find it hard to believe, if he is gay, when he finds the time to do anything about it. Is it possible for someone to be gay and not be involved with anyone at anytime who is also gay?

 

I'm just so confused and at the end of my rope. We've talked and talked until we're blue in the face over these many years. And each time it's down to the wire where I'm ready to walk if things don't change, we'll have sex a few days later - which now has turned out to have no meaning or emotion or feeling to me whatsoever because it's almost like another household chore he's performing. It's almost like he thinks okay, I'll force myself to give her sex and then she'll leave me alone.

 

Then after a week or so, things just fall right back into the same rut - no sex, no changes, no nothing. And while he admits we have intimacy problems, nothing I've ever done, said, pleaded for or cried for has ever changed a thing. I don't want to give up on my marriage but I simply have to find out the truth about his sexual being - what he is, what he isn't, what he might be but no matter what, I still don't know. It just seems very abnormal for an otherwise healthy man to be happy with no sex - apparently of any kind..... And while I realize it is not the end all be all of a marriage, it is an important part to me.

 

Does anyone have any idea on how I can go about finding out just what it is that is going on with him? I can't force him to go to counseling with me, going by myself won't help me learn why we have no sex when I have always been perfectly willing to. I'll be the first to admit that since he NEVER expressed any interest on his own - I've been always the one to initiate anything - that I've let things go for too long. He always seemed to enjoy the very few times we have had sex but looking back, it was always me trying to keep things going, keep things spiced up and keep his interest level going. I am not overweight, fairly attractive, keep myself in shape, look 15 years younger than I am (according to people who don't know how old I am when we first meet!) and have been a good wife all these years. Supportive, keep a clean house and all those good things I always felt were part of being one of a team of two. Why, then, does my husband ignore me totally when it comes to intimacy? There is no known history of abuse of any kind in his family background.... I AM SO CONFUSED!

[Confused but straight]

I should mention that his counseling only lasted for one session. Additionally, we have no children - big surprise -hard to have kids when you don't have sex...but that's a whole other issue in some respects.