Not being an expert on marriage, but having seen a few explode first hand for reasons not unlike this: Cat I have to agree (to a far less brutal point) with JD.

Despite some people's "abracadabra amen" formula of "heteromarriage fixes g/l/b/t/bl/gl", you have seen first hand that it is not true. No matter how much you and your wife love each other emotionally, your mutual decision to get married in the first place was based on this false pretense.

I think that you are in a very very hard spot because you and she are not the only ones involved. Your children are going to be... no, already have been hurt by this. Kids are not headblind, they know when things are right and when they are not right, especially as it involves their parents. My sister and I were waiting for our parents to get divorced for at least 15 years before they actually did. The question in your case is: what will hurt them the least over time?

Children need both parents, or at least it is best for them, but if their parents are fighting all the time, they have no parents at all. I don't remember how old your kids are, or if they know that you're a boylover, but they know you and their mother are not getting along right anymore. They've probably known it since before you did.

I have no idea how this might look for you but I have some ideas about what you might try, and it's about the kids first and you and your wife second.

I think that at least you and your wife (kids too, if they are over age 13 or the maturity level thereof) need to discuss together how you can care for your kids together as you have since they were born, keep you valued friendship and mutual support for oneanother, and stop torturing each other about sex issues.

Let me give you *an* example for clarity, not necessarily the best for your family, but it should help get my point across:

> Explain to your children what is going on, so that they feel included. use your best judgement on how deeply they can go in that knowledge. If they couldn't handle "I'm a boylover", "I'm gay" is not untrue.
> Stay married *on paper* while being divorced in Spirit, and make this known out-loud at least to your family, more if your support network can handle it.
> Move, as a family, to a house with an apartemnt-like 2nd or 3rd floor (in the same town): having access both through the house and outside of it, and a full bathroom on-floor. Your wife and you will have seperate bedrooms up here, with your children's rooms below on the 1st or 2nd floor. This keeps you on equal footing and access for your kids while aknowledging that you are not together anymore. (This housing situation is not so hard to find as it might sound, and most houses can be modified to be this with relative ease and on a tight budget, in fact with a litte thought, your current house might work just fine with some simple changes and less than $1000).
> Make a plan to remain a family, in this living arrangement, until the youngest child is in (or done with) college, at which time, you will make the divorce official and do so amicably. Make part of this agreement (might do well to make it on paper) that you will both continue to include your grown children in your lives and consider yourselves a family. This should also include an agreement to stay within a day's ride by car from eachother, and some kind of agreement about hoildays and birthday celebrations (Alternate years, alternate key holidays, always at mom's house, always at gramma's house, Turkey-day with Dad & X-mas with Mom; that kind of thing).

Just one idea, but you see where I'm going I think.

This doesn't have to be a sad thing, either, it can be (while probably not jubilant) a good thing: Finding a way to function that is a bit non-traditional but still a family that loves and supports all it's members.

Love in Christ,
~CSL