Dear Prudence,
I've been happily married for more than 30 years, and I thought my husband and I had a truly loving relationship. My husband was recently hospitalized, and his boss asked me to carry my husband's cell phone so he could easily reach me for updates. My husband received a text message from a man saying that he was going to use him as a cover so he could visit another man in a neighboring town. This made me suspicious, so I looked in his wallet and found a visitor's pass to a gay men's health club. Then I found a gay porn DVD and Viagra in his gym bag. On his computer were gay Web sites. My husband had an excuse for everything. He said a man he works out with had given him the DVDs and the pass, and he didn't even know what they were. The Viagra was so he could be "ready" for me. He didn't know how the gay Web site cookies got on his computer. He said it was ridiculous that I could think he was gay after 30 great years together. I wanted to believe him. Last weekend, I came home unexpectedly and found him masturbating to gay porn. He said he wanted to see some porn, and this was the only thing he had because he didn't know where to get anything else. He thinks it's all no big deal. I'm devastated. I feel as if my whole marriage has been a sham, and I don't know what to do.
—Who Is He?
Dear Who,
Number one, go to your gynecologist and get a complete screening for sexually transmitted diseases. You have to assume, given all the evidence, that your husband has done more than indulge in gay fantasies. Then you need to sit down with him and tell him it's time to stop the ridiculous excuses. Say you've had 30 years together, and while it turns out you may not know each other as well as you thought, he knows he's not married to a fool. If he can't talk about what's going on, tell him you're going to a counselor—you hope he will join you, but you'll go alone if he won't—to help you figure out your next steps. Of course you're devastated. It's crushing to think the life you had was a cover story and to know the future you imagined is not going to be. However, this discovery does not mean your marriage was a sham. It's possible your husband has always struggled with homosexual impulses, but that he also truly loves you and treasures your years together and the family you've made. It doesn't even necessarily mean your marriage is over. But your marriage will never be the same, and it has to be remade—or ended—with more honesty than your husband has been willing to bring to it all these decades. You don't have to make any hasty decisions. But you do have to impress upon your husband that from now on you won't settle for less than the truth.
—Prudie
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