Gayish

I know, I know. It’s Tuesday and I’m not doing tips! Sorry. With Labor Day yesterday and the Jewish holiday starting tomorrow, this blogger is completely off her schedule, so I decided to post yesterday’s Q&A today, skip tomorrow and return on Thursday. Phew. That was a mouthful. Thanks for your understanding!

Dear Dr. Darcy:

I’ve been with my partner for almost 9 years. The entire time I’ve known him, he’s identified as gay, but I’ve always had my suspicions. And although I’ve had my suspicions, I would never snoop, you’ll be happy to know. Last week I was supposed to fly out of the city on a business trip and half way to the airport my flight was cancelled and my boss decided to cancel the entire trip, so my car brought me back home in the middle of the day. I had a strange feeling walking into our apartment and sure enough, my boyfriend was fucking a female neighbor on our bed!

Did I mention that this neighbor is married to a very wealthy man who will kick her to the curb if he learns about this? Bottom line: I want to tell her husband but my boyfriend is begging me not to. He’s taking full responsibility for the entire thing, said he seduced her and swears it will never happen again. I’m so pissed I’m about to publish it in the Post. What do you think I should do? I’ve scoured your blog for a similar situation, but it seems as though I’m the only person on the planet whose gay boyfriend fucks straight married women.

ANSWER

You know, your boyfriend sucks – there’s no question about that. But I think telling the neighbor’s husband would fall into the vengeance category and that’s a slippery slope.  I wouldn’t want to see you invest yourself in destroying her marriage – it’s not a good use of your energy and it’s just a big distraction from the real issue.

What you need to do is focus on how you feel about what the boyfriend did and decide how you want to move forward.  I can tell you that people do heal from infidelity, but it takes a level of communication that most people are incapable of. For you to truly forgive him, he’s going to have to convince you that he completely understands what he did to you, how deeply he hurt you, and why what he did was so wounding.  And in order for him to do that, you’re going to have to tell him what his actions did to you, how deeply you were hurt and why what he did was so wounding.

You’re not going to come up with those answers by telling the neighbor that your boyfriend was schtupping his wife.  You’re going to come up with those answers by doing some soul searching. And you may decide that you need some assistance with this process. It takes a very specialized therapist to walk a couple through this journey (the wrong shrink can actually make things worse) and I would recommend you find an Imago therapist who specializes in working with members of the LGBT community. Email me if you need some names.

Writer’s Stats: Male, Gay.