I just need to get this off my chest and I guess just need some encouragement.

My husband and I met my first month in college and right away fell in love. We’ve been inseparable ever since. Got married as soon as I graduated. He has always been my best friend.

We had a son two years ago and I am now pregnant with our second.

He has always struggled with body image (wanting to lose some pounds) and the very few times we hit a roadblock with intimacy, it was chalked up to his low self esteem stemming from body image at the moment. We had very emotional conversations about it and always found our way out.

My husband is in the army, and we travel a lot. It’s one of our favorite things to do. We are known as “the perfect couple” and honestly, I felt like we absolutely were. He is a fantastic dad and husband.

The only problem is, last night, he sat me down and told me he is gay.

He told me that he has always had these feelings for as long as he can remember and that since he had never been intimate with anyone besides me, he just didn’t have anything to base normal feelings off of. That he genuinely does love me, and thought that he could push his feelings about men aside with each new aspect of our relationship. He told me that he had been struggling, so he saw a therapist to come to terms. He felt it wasn’t fair to keep me in the dark now that he has come to terms with it.

It is confusing to me because he tells me he does really love me and that everything has been genuine; he just was blacking out the part of his mind that was telling him something was off about his attraction to me. It’s hard for me to have feelings for someone who I know cannot truthfully reciprocate them.

I love him deeply and have always been attracted to him. I also gave up my career for our traveling lifestyle and am a stay-at-home mom currently. These two aspects really have me struggling today as I feel like my whole life plan blew up in my face.

We have talked, through tears, and have agreed that we both want to remain in each other’s lives and be a support for each other and our children. We truly love each other (in different capacities), and I am very proud of him for being able to face his true self, regardless of my pain. A divorce will come when the dust settles and we have a solid plan, and it will be with the best intentions. We both can’t see a future without each other in it. I can tell it is killing him to see me like this. When we hold and comfort each other, it’s like nothing has changed, but everything in the world has changed at the same time.

Yesterday I thought my marriage could withstand anything, and today I am left with the reality that no amount of love between us could change the new path we have been put on. How do you go from thinking someone is the love of your life to treating them like a friend in a span on one night? I’m just really struggling. I’m so happy for him to finally be himself, but I’m mourning the future of how it was supposed to go in my head.