As Fleur Shomo speaks up in support of her ‘proudly gay’ husband, Caleb Shomo, 53-year-old Carolyn Hobdey opens up about what it was like to learn that her ‘soulmate’ was in love with another man
When Carolyn Hobdey exchanged her wedding vows, she thought she was marrying her soulmate – a belief that didn’t change even after she discovered he was gay.
Her story comes to light after Fleur Shomo, wife of Beartooth frontman Caleb Shomo, shared a moving statement over the weekend supporting her husband after he publicly came out.
Fleur candidly wrote about the complicated mix of emotions and the immense difficulty of supporting your partner “whilst losing everything.”
Carolyn, now 53, can relate to that dilemma all too well. Speaking with the Mirror, Carolyn, who believes the partner’s voice is all too often left out of such stories, explained: “You can both love them and hate them simultaneously. The two things can both be true.”
The HR professional first met her now ex-husband, John*, in the late 1990s while attending a personal development course. She was a “scrappy” twentysomething, and he was an established corporate man in his mid-30s. A first date at Betty’s Tearooms in Harrogate quickly blossomed into a relationship and, leading to marriage at the turn of the millennium.
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Carolyn, from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, recalled: “He was a very mature, grounded, intelligent individual.” While outsiders saw John as corporate and serious, Carolyn bonded with him over a shared sense of humour. She had no inkling then that her husband was harbouring a massive secret.
Those early years were happy, with the newlyweds enjoying a good sex life. However, their blissful bubble burst when, after trying to conceive for some time, they were dealt a bitter blow. At just 32 years old, Carolyn learned her menopause had already “been and gone”.
This triggered an identity crisis for Carolyn. Looking back, she realised she needed validation and passion to feel desirable during that painful time, but John wasn’t that kind of guy.
Instead, John went into “caring mode”, acting more of a “big brother” than a passionate lover. As sex life “fizzled out,” Carolyn eventually sought intimacy in the arms of another man.
“That’s not an excuse,” Carolyn confessed. “I take complete ownership of the fact that that was the wrong thing to do. But I was in a very bad place and, at the end of the day, my husband was gay and not telling me.”
After her affair, the couple moved into separate bedrooms. Their romantic relationship effectively over but because they got on so well, they continued living together for another six years.
It was around her 40th birthday that Carolyn noticed a change. Whenever they sat down for dinner or watched TV, John would reach excitedly for his phone, with the same man’s name cropping up
The weekend after her birthday, Carolyn invited John for a walk, knowing that a side by side chat would be less pressurised than the intensity of a face-to-face conversation. She took a leap and asked John about the messages.
With a bit of gentle prodding, the full story came tumbling out.
“I said, Oh, I thought you were going to tell me that you were in a relationship with him, and obviously there was a pause, and we kept walking. And he said. ‘Well, what if I was?’ And I said, ‘Well… It would make an awful lot of things make sense.”
Over a cup of tea at a cafe, John opened up about his sexuality for the first time in his life, admitting that he’d known he was gay since he was 14. Carolyn felt immense sympathy, knowing that his “tricky” upbringing had made it impossible for him to express his true sexuality.
Though their marriage was done, they remained close. John even brought his first boyfriend back to the house. But when it ended six months later, John made “some really poor choices” that prompted Carolyn to ask him to move out.
At that point, years of pent-up grief and anger finally erupted out. “I think all the stuff I’d stored up about not being able to have children just engulfed me,” Carolyn said. “I said some terrible things to him, and he said some terrible things back.”
For the next few months, the pair barely spoke. But with the help of her best friend, Carolyn concluded it was okay to still love John, just in a different capacity.
She said: “I think that was the key that unlocked it. At that point, I felt like he’d stolen 15 years of my life.”
Nowadays, the pair are very close, and John is still often the first person Carolyn calls. When lockdown struck, the pair isolated together.
Not everybody understands their relationship. “In one a relationship, the guy I was with found David a massive threat, which is bonkers because he’s gay, he doesn’t want me in that way,” the author, who penned the dating book All The Tw*ts I Met Along The Way, laughs.
“My dating life has been a total disaster, but it’s got nothing to do with my gay husband.””
After everything they’ve been through, Carolyn still regards John as a “wonderful” person, adding: “I’ll love him until the day I die.”
This comes as former This Morning presenter Dr Ranj Singh has opened up about coming out as gay while married to a woman. Dr Singh, who grew up in an Indian Sikh household, told the Big Issue: “I had the career I’d always wanted, I always wanted a home of my own. I’d ticked all my boxes. So the big question was, why am I still not 100 per cent happy? Why does it still feel like something’s not right? And that’s when therapy brought all of that stuff out,”
Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
