I did not go that path, and I don't think it would work for most people: it would be a recipe for staying in the closet because one is not convinced that one's SO would be "delighted". For a lot of us, grudging toleration is as much as we are going to get, and Don't Ask Don't Tell is not uncommon. DADT can still be better than hiding: at least then one has made the effort at communication.Originally Posted by Ellyn
As I have written in some other postings, at the time I was getting psychologically ready to tell, my relationship was not in that great a shape: we were not doing very well with communications. I could have kept the information hidden even longer, waiting until she reached out to me with something important -- but someone has to be the first to make the attempt to open up. I trusted her with this important part of me, and although she wasn't "delighted", the relationship was made stronger by the effort of trust.
For me, not telling was getting to be nasty weight on my shoulders; I was getting sick from holding it in, and my wife could perceive that something wasn't right. Continuing to hide got to be worse for me than the consequences of telling. And I wasn't going to just abruptly break off the relationship without explanation in order to avoid telling. Not telling led, I could see in my circumstances, to near certainty that my relationship would break up; telling led to the possibility of breaking up, but also the possibility of us learning to adjust.
