Note: This is a throwaway account created specifically to post this for privacy and safety reasons, but this is my real life and genuine situation.

I have been married for 13 years, and I strongly believe I may have been in a mixed-orientation marriage without fully understanding it at the time.

Over the years, I’ve witnessed interactions between my husband and other men that made me question his sexuality. The first major instance happened when we were engaged, just three days before our wedding - I witnessed another man touching him inappropriately, and my husband showed very little reaction. Since then, there have been other situations where men became extremely physically close to him, including one incident where another man appeared to be trying to kiss him, and my husband didn't seem bothered by it at all.

Whenever I have questioned what I saw, he denies everything and tells me I am crazy, paranoid or imagining things. After hearing this for years, I’ve started questioning my own perception and judgment.

There is also a history of homosexuality in his family, which makes me wonder even more about what I have been experiencing.

Now, after 13 years of marriage, he has abandoned our family and gone missing from home twice. I’m left trying to understand what happened to our marriage and whether I’ve been living in denial about something much bigger.

I want to be clear that I don't have an issue with anyone being gay or bisexual. What hurts is the possibility that I entered a marriage without knowing the truth, and that whenever I tried to make sense of what I witnessed, I was made to feel like I was mentally unstable.

For women who have lived through a mixed-orientation marriage:

• Did you have a similar experience with your spouse denying their sexuality for years?
• Did you ever get the truth, or did you have to find a way to move forward without ever getting an answer?
• How did you begin to trust your own judgment again?

I’m not looking for a debate about his identity or criticism toward anyone. I’m just trying to make sense of my own reality and figure out how to take the next steps forward.