Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:03:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Brad Healey
Subject: Gay...And Married?

Let's start with the definition here--no new age stuff.  I am a gay man
married to a straight woman. I am not alone; there are hundreds of
thousands of us, maybe millions in the world.  Is this a reasonable and
understandable happening, or does it fall into the same oxymoronic category
as Jews for Jesus, Young Republicans or other seemingly nonsensical groups?
If you have ever wondered, read on.

I've always prided myself on my unblemished integrity.  Yet I grew up
intuitively suspecting I was gay (OK, I knew I was) and proceeded to get
married by the tender age of 24, never letting on to another soul, lest of
all my future wife, of my conflict and doubt.

How can this possibly happen?

It happened very easily actually, for me and I have learned, for many other
men as well, progressing one step at a time, not unlike the way one learns
to ride a bicycle, to learn long division, to play the piano, to plant a
garden, to hit a baseball. The process moved along with trying and failing,
with perseverance in effort, learning from one's mistakes and trying again.
It is enabled by banishing doubt that the task is impossible; that success
is just ahead if only one tries a little harder. After all, one only needs
to look at how many other men can ride a bicycle, play the piano or grow a
garden.  Why should getting married be any different?

It also happens so easily and often because the ingrained goal for most of
us boys is fitting in; being normal and married and a husband and a father;
this is so deeply seeded from early childhood that thoughts of a major
life-failure is not even granted a glimmer of possibility. It is further
enabled by a youngster's complete lack of perspective. While some teenagers
are born-rebels and are pleased with not fitting in, most of us see
ourselves as responsible adults-in-training with no idea if our sexual
leanings and deep unexplained yearnings for companionship with other boys
are only a passing fad. Quite probably he concludes these feelings are
something that every other boy experiences and simply chooses not to
discuss.

It happens to one as determined as I, one who must do everything perfectly;
to not screw up or disappoint himself (or especially others) It happens
when the owner of the feelings has no perspective of how deep those
feelings run or any concept of how long they will persist.  Surely these
longings are a passing rite of adolescence that will fade to be replaced by
the normal feelings that surely accompany maturity and manhood!

I had my first crush on a girl when in the sixth grade*.  It was a feeling
for a girl that I never had before, and I reasoned that I must be in
love. I still recall that ebullient euphoria like it was yesterday.  Her
name was Grace, and she was a girl that most other boys would have passed
up without a glance.  Ruddy-skinned, loud and self assured, with a large
overbite and an even larger nose, she was a beefy, well-muscled girl.  Her
loud laugh and pushy insistence belied her name, but I found her oddly
attractive.  Our "relationship" began when I passed her a note to her in
math class to ask her if maybe she liked me.  Her scribbled response that,
maybe she did, made my 12-year old heart leap for joy.  The note passing
continued day after day for at least three weeks and I saved them all in my
sock drawer as a treasure trove of blatant proof that I was indeed turning
out normal after all.  Our entire relationship consisted of notes written
on torn scraps from spiral notebooks, passed in the halls like we were CIA
operatives, and glances across classrooms. It all ended without a kiss,
without a date, without even a meaningful conversation.  But I was
happy.. and even probably more than that, was incredibly relieved that it
had all happened.

________________________________

*By comparison, I had my first crush on another boy when I was five, and
had a dozen more before my first girl-crush seven years later. As wonderful
as they all felt, I knew even at five that something was wrong, and that I
shouldn't share my feelings with anyone else, shameful secrets from the
very start.

Through my middle school years and into high school I had various little
crushes on girls.  Looking back, all were girls who had distinct traits of
boyishness in their makeup.  I liked girls who wore no makeup and saw no
need to apologize for it. I liked field hockey players and girls with hair
cut short, freckles dusted across button noses and flat chests, these were
all OK with me.  The allure of a tight sweater stretched tightly over a
buxom young lady's torso was lost on me.  In fact, I didn't even notice
these specimens when they walked by, all my buddies transfixed, agog and
nudging each other in the ribs all the while.

But I never felt the same lustful excitement when near any girl -- no
matter how much "my type" she might be as I did when I was seated thigh to
thigh in the backseat of the car with my friends Ryan or Jake--boys I
wanted to spend the rest of my life with, boys who were all-boy, and were
also boys who wanted to spend their whole lives with the girls with the big
breasts in the tight sweaters.

By the time I was 17 I had graduated to having a very public steady
girlfriend, a pretty little waif named Tracy with freckles and a pageboy
haircut that from a distance might have caused her to be mistaken for a
fourteen year old boy. We walked in the halls holding hands, sat together
at lunch, and went to the movies on Saturday nights.  Afterwards we would
park in my car or return home to her family's basement rec-room or to mine,
and fumbling together we learned how to neck and kiss and she even
eventually let me touch her tiny breasts, finally allowing me to reach
under her shirt and unclasp her bra, a garment that was nearly as useless
and unnecessary on her as it would have been on me.  I thrilled at the
first touch of her softness, at her quickened breath, her closed eyes and
the new, more impassioned way she suddenly wanted to kiss me.

But emotionally for me it was all merely interesting the same way a high
school chemistry experiment was... the first time I saw the vinegar react
with the baking soda, boiling and frothing, spilling all over the table it
was wide eyed, awe inspiring, fascinating stuff.  But after the first time
it became old hat; boring and completely predictable.  And what was the end
result anyway?  A big mess to clean up. With Tracy , I began to loathe the
way she looked at me after we kissed and petted this way; Christ, like she
loved me or something.  My loins ached for release after these activities
(after all, I was 17.  Far less than this was required to get me going at
that age) but when I urged her hands towards my lap she pulled away as
though burned with the sharp rebuke of "no!".

I vividly recall lying wrapped together in an embrace with Tracy in my rec
room on the floor by the old black and white console TV, kissing her
deeply, tongues lashed together, her breathing hard and running her fingers
through my hair, her eyes tightly shut.  In contrast, my left eye was
pinched open, and as I propped us up on my elbow I watched the World Series
on TV directly over her shoulder.  The Pirates were playing the Orioles
that year, and if I am not mistaken John Candelaria was pitching.  From
that information one can probably pinpoint the exact date I am speaking
of. Soon thereafter my science experiments with Tracy ended.  I completely
lost interest in the predictable and one-sided chemical reaction, and
especially lost interest in cleaning up afterward.

Then I met Darla, or more appropriately I should say Darla met me.  Darla
was a short buxom girl with teased-up bleached-blonde hair and great
experience in the overuse of eyeliner, perfume, a curling iron and
everything else that was sold in the aisle of the drugstore with all the
mirrors and long glass counters that I carefully avoided on my way to the
magazine racks.

I found it a very strange coincidence how Darla kept running into me... how
she was seated behind me in one class and in front of me in another.  She
magically appeared to sit next to me on the bus for marching band
trips. She knew what day was my birthday, and surprised me with fresh-baked
cookies and a gift.  It took me a while, but I soon realized that Darla was
itching to try with me the more advanced chemistry experiments that Tracy
shunned.

I eventually realized she had the hots for me in a big way, yet because of
my orientation I was truly clueless up till then. (Now, so many years
later, this to me is truly funny.  If she had been another boy I would have
realized intuitively and from the first moment what was going on. Clearly
my brain was blissfully mis-wired, my instincts short circuited. In
juxtaposition, I have sometimes wondered if the straight boys I gravitated
to throughout school ever had a clue of what I was up to with them as I
attempted to seduce them. I suspect that most never had a clue, and the
first time many realized my motives, they had already been
had... literally.)

Defensively, to keep needed distance between Darla and me I treated her
like one of the guys, which I (satisfyingly) learned only a day later at
each such occurrence had left her crying in the girls' room. While I became
generally aware of her motives I still had no specific, concrete idea what
she wanted from me, and once I finally figured it out I was completely
terrified.  I wanted to continue the chemistry lessons at my own pace and
with a lab partner of my selection, but Darla had other ideas. She was
ready for thermonuclear stuff, she had chosen me as her victim, and she
wanted to get busy now.  I avoided her for as long as I could, but finally
I asked her on a date to go bowling.  At the last moment in a terrified
panic I asked my best friend Mario to go along with us, and while she
feigned delighted amusement at the time I learned that she spent the next
three days crying in the bathroom about it.

Darla would hint that she knew "just how" to please a boy.  She carried a
six-inch ruler in her purse that she suggested she used on dates to see if
the boy met her "minimum requirements". One day I joked that with her huge
breasts she ought to skip wearing a bra to school the next day.
Unbelievably she did, and when I truly didn't even notice she spent the
next two days crying.  Let's face it.  I was not looking at breasts.  I was
far too busy looking at the trousers of every slim boy I passed in the
halls to see how developed he might be, and kept a careful eye on all the
boys who sat in my many classes as they privately nudged themselves into
stiffness through their trousers with boredom.

Things with Darla finally "came to a head" so to speak when she and I were
alone in my rec room making out, in the exact same place and position that
I had been with Tracy just a few months before.  She passionately kissed me
and simply unable to cope with the pressure-packed ridiculousness of the
situation, I laughed.... Guffawed...  right into her hungry, licking, red,
wet mouth.

She was furious, and for her this was the last straw.  She ordered me to
take her home, right now. And I couldn't believe my luck; that the solution
to this whole problem had been that easy.  I gladly got the car keys and
complied, jingling them on the way to the car then driving in silence all
the way to her house and leaving her in the driveway.  After this she
finally got the idea and ceased her lusty overtures and coolly left me
alone.

But I guess I didn't really get the idea myself.

I figured that she just wasn't my type and that someday I'd meet someone
who was.  In the meantime, I wasn't grown up just yet, I figured, and there
was still plenty of time to experiment with members of both sexes.

So I did, with boys leading girls three to one.

It is so hard for me to write about each step in my learning-to-be-straight
metamorphosis that followed, because even now, thirty years later, I still
feel like I am writing proudly and perversely about my own dishonesty and
trickery.  But at the time it really didn't feel that way at all.  I prided
myself than and now on my sincerity and honesty, and I firmly believed that
I just needed to keep trying harder and I'd get there, to the finish line,
learning to like girls, married and content, all this foolish kid-stuff
messing around with other boys left behind me in my past.

I know now that when I went off to college I really expertly began leading
a true double life--straight and sexless on campus during the fall, winter
and spring, and closeted-and secretly gay each summer with a variety of
younger buddies back at home.  In retrospect, I now know most guys do it
completely the opposite way, staying closeted and hidden to friends and
family from the old town, while using college as the big chance to spread
the wings.  But I consciously didn't want to go there... I had cognitively
decided that I WOULD be straight, and if the way I got there was to ease
into it, nine months working at being straight and then gay and on vacation
for the summer... well that way might work for me.  Hell, it was an
improvement to being "that way" all year round!

It didn't work out evenly at all, as the entire time I spent at college I
did not have one relationship with a girl. None.  I kept extra busy to
compensate... two jobs, taking on extra credit projects, writing for the
newspaper, leading the University Pep Band for the basketball games.  I
kept myself so well occupied there was obviously no time for a girl in my
life... or a guy either for that matter.  So, at the age and stage that
most guys are finding out who they really are, I doubled my efforts to
become who I thought I needed to be.

*************

My final two years in college I worked part time and summers at IBM, which
felt like I had been drafted into the Marines, as IBM in the 1980s dictated
one's dress, grooming and nearly everything else about one's manner. IBM
was loaded with handsome guys in their 20s. I only much later learned how
many of them were gay like me. IBM was a haven for driven, good looking,
well dressed young men with something to prove.  I knew I had a lot to
prove.

At IBM I became friends with Paul, a handsome fellow exactly my age who
went to the same college as me but whom I never had met on campus before.
Paul wore expensive suits and nice ties, and had wavy black hair that he
slicked over but that often came unglued and fell over his eye.  Paul took
a definite liking to me, and with a few of the girls along we'd go out
after work sometimes for drinks.  He'd laugh and tell stories about his
girlfriend, someone I had never met.  He spoke easily of her, telling tales
of times with her at the beach or on a date. Together with other friends
from college and IBM, Paul would rent a summer house at the seashore and go
there after work, considered a long drive for a local boy like me.  Paul
was so cosmopolitan and suave; I wanted to be more like him.

How pleased I was when Paul invited my to join him at the shore house one
weekend.  I packed a bag (just toothbrush, shorts and a t-shirt, really)
and he picked me up at my apartment.  I noticed that his car was a mess
inside, and that surprised me.  "My car is a pigpen" he apologized.  "I
just dump my stuff in here and I forget to take it out."  In the back seat
I saw one of his expensive Brooks Brothers suits wadded in a ball, and
three or more Italian silk ties, together costing more than my entire
wardrobe did.  I reasoned that Paul had different priorities than me, and
perhaps this explained why I seldom saw him wear the same tie more than
twice--they obviously ended up trashed and un-wearable in quick fashion.

Arriving at the shore house, a fellow I vaguely recognized from school
named Zac was sitting on the porch with his feet up on the railing and a
green bottle of beer in his hand, and I soon saw two other guys from
college, Tim and Randy walking back together from the beach.  They were all
so handsome, tanned and beautiful, I thought.  They waved when they saw
me. "Brad!  I knew Paul would finally get you here!", said Tim.  I was
confused... had Paul really wanted me to come all along?  And why?

"Where is your girlfriend? Will she be here?" I asked Paul as we unloaded
the car.

"Not coming," he answered flatly, avoiding my gaze as he carried a cooler
filled with food to the house.

It was a great time, and I felt both happy and a bit disoriented at the
same time with my suddenly new surroundings.  There were no girls there,
and Saturday the guys all sat on the beach in a line low folding beach
chairs, and the air was filled with playful banter.  I noticed Tim lying
really close, shoulders to feet with another handsome fellow I didn't know,
two other guys touched hands briefly but frequently as they laughed and
talked together and it all started to come together for me.  These guys
might all be gay... and they had invited me here because they thought I was
too!  I was shocked... not just surprised, honestly shocked by the thought.

From that moment forward I became hyper-observant to what I saw and heard.
The guys had been teasing Paul the whole day about someone named Todd,
implying that Paul was too bossed-around by Todd.  I suddenly vaguely
suspected what today I would have today understood in an instant... that
Todd was indeed Paul's "girlfriend" and that every one of those funny,
easygoing stories he told in mixed company about their times together were
actually stories about him and another GUY.  This realization hit me like a
cinderblock tossed to the temple. The ramifications of this weekend's
potential significance whirled in my head.

You might imagine that it was a great relief for me, to realize that these
peers of mine had reached out to me and had taken a chance on asking me to
join their private party. But for me then, it was not that way at all.
Instead, I oscillated quickly between brief periods of relief--(that
perhaps I had found other guys like me to relate to, that meant TALK
to... I was not into anything more with my college peers.  Remember, I was
on a lifelong mission towards normalcy and was not going to be that easily
derailed) and anguish that I had unwittingly betrayed myself.  How on earth
did they know?

Paul and I sat alone together on the sofa the next afternoon and talked.
At opposite ends we faced each other and I chose my words very carefully as
they didn't flow easily.  "Paul, is Todd your.... Well... girlfriend that
you always talk about?"

"Yes" answered Paul kindly, his knees pulled up to his chest, a curly lock
falling over his eye.  The Pet Shop Boys played on the stereo in the next
room, one of that summer's hottest acts.

"Does that mean you are gay?", I asked dumbly and dry mouthed after a long
pause.

"Yes, I am." Paul replied.  "I am glad you know. I wanted you to know."

My heart added a beat or two as I sucked in my breath.  A long pause later,
head pounding, like a detached body I heard these words come out of my
mouth from miles away. "I think I might be too, but probably less than
half-way" I quickly added.

"That's OK" said Paul, clearly far more aware of my sexuality than I was.

"Did you think that about me, Paul?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"I thought, maybe." He said.  "But it doesn't matter, Brad,." he said
softly

"It matters to me." I said, and I suddenly felt my eyes filling up as I
wanted to cry.. Thank you for telling me about you Paul.  I think I am
might be 49% gay.. wait, maybe 40%...", I blurted. I was horrified that I
had even dared offer a number to quantify my gayness.

"Whatever, Brad" said Paul gently.

He was so kind to me.  He had sensed my inner conflict and had brought me
to a safe place to let it resolve itself if I was ready.  I wasn't sure I
was ready.

"The other guys?....." I asked.

"Uhh huhh... them too."

In the same moment I was euphoric and terrified.  I both wanted to stay and
never leave, to hold Paul and thank him, but also I wanted to get in the
car and drive as fast as I could back to the city.

"You won't tell them what I told you"?, I asked, my voice trembling, my
arms hugging a sofa cushion on my lap in self protection.

"No, not if you don't want.  But here it doesn't matter."

How could he say that?  Of course it mattered.  Once someone else knew a
secret it wasn't a secret anymore. I had been a Jew successfully hiding out
the entire war in Nazi Germany, and here for no rational reason I had
blabbed. It was only a matter of time before someone gossiped or another
person figured my secret out for themselves.  I really had no concept that
all the guys at the house already knew what Paul knew; what I didn't know
about myself.  I thought I could stuff the genie back into the bottle if I
could catch him dozing for even an instant.

That night there was a party at the house and many interesting people came,
people I didn't know and many who were a pleasure to meet.  Not everyone
there was gay, and the straight guests seemed oblivious to the shamefulness
of it all.  I met a tall fellow my age or maybe a little younger from
another school who took a great interest in me, and I enjoyed talking to
him much of the night.  I felt something electric when we stood near each
other and brushed together.  I wanted to know him better, but I couldn't
allow myself to go there. I am now sure he was gay, but then I had all my
armor bolted on and wasn't about to take it off to someone I had just met,
no matter how appealing he was.

That night after the guests left we crashed wherever it was convenient.  I
slept in a big bed between Randy and Tim. Neither one of them made a move
on me at all. This was the first time I had ever slept in a bed with
another guy who would surely have fooled around with me... and yet didn't
do a thing about it.  Confusing, satisfying, frustrating, odd....

Paul and I talked about the "topic" all the way back to the city the next
afternoon.  I had so much to think about but all of a sudden, I wasn't sure
I wanted to.

And, so I didn't. The door was cracked open, and once back in my safe world
I immediately slammed it shut again.

I met my future wife-to-be just a few months later.

********************************************

I must be clear about an important fact: I never, ever had a boyfriend. I
had never been in (mutual) love with another guy. In fact, I never let
myself get close. With hindsight I realize that this is a highly
significant fact that I must mention, and one that doubtlessly helped guide
my path to action.  I strongly believe if I had been in even one caring
relationship with another male the picture might have come together very
differently for me, because if nothing else, I am a very logical person and
having had a mutual relationship with another boy I would have been quite
likely unable to ever again ignore that key piece that didn't fit like it
was supposed to.  I think I would have realized that the rest of the puzzle
would need to wait till that critical issue was properly addressed, like so
many of my gay friends today had done in their lives. But my lack of
perspective and experience to relationships caused me to overlook this
critical facet.  I truly believe it is difficult to "miss" something one
never had in the first place.

So, then what were my adolescent relationships with other guys like, you
might wonder?  Well, to begin, there were lots of them, far too many for a
rational person to ignore in retrospect.  In my other writings published in
other forums I have detailed the specifics of many, many of these boyhood
trysts, picking them apart one at a time and explaining all their nuances.
Summarizing all of them though, one thing in common was shared.  They all
involved exciting physical contact, and some even involved emotional
attachment on the part of one of the parties (either me or him). But none
of them had it all--physical satisfaction and mutual emotional involvement.

Recalling clear examples, I am brought back most easily to my four year
adolescent relationship with my neighbor, Jimmy, who while very handsome
was hopelessly gay and acted more like a girl than most girls I knew.  The
physical nature of our relationship was quite exciting and adventurous, but
I will never forget the day Jimmy tried to kiss me on the lips, and the
violent and frightened reaction I had.  We were only 14, and this shocking
action crossed the line so clearly to me that I reacted with horror and
rage towards him.  Jimmy was simply exploring and expanding our
relationship in the same natural, innocent, and affectionate way a boy
would pursue a girl... but to me he had violated a firm yet unspoken taboo,
a boundary I knew I'd never cross.

Likewise, I reflect on my many crushes on straight boys I befriended, many
of whom I seduced throughout my high school years.  I was definitely more
precocious at that age than most, I have since learned from talking with
other gay men.  I probably devoted more mental energy to getting these
straight, masculine boys to be sexual with me than I did to any item of
schoolwork.  And while my quests were often successful and my lust
temporarily quenched, there was never any threat of emotional relationship
developing because these boys just weren't wired this way, and sadly I knew
it.  And perversely, I was pleased because none of them would allow me to
become attached to them and therefore I'd never have to deal with making a
choice.

It was as if, from the very start, my life had been laid out before me like
10,000 pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle, and from the very beginning, even
before I had first set a first tiny foot in kindergarten, all of the pieces
had been falling into place quickly and with ease.  Everything in my life
seemed to be following a master plan, because every tile I laid into the
matrix snapped into place with fit and precision on its first try.  But
suddenly with this relationship stuff, it clearly felt like I had come to a
point where I had picked up the best piece: one that matched in color and
shape and held to the light looked like it would fit perfectly.  And
indeed, laid into place, it fit perfectly on three sides.... And yet it
stubbornly refused to fit on the fourth.  Setting this obviously defective
puzzle piece aside, I still found myself continually coming back to it
again and again, trying the same piece in the same hole, until I fully
convinced myself with mute disbelief that the puzzle maker must have made a
mistake in manufacturing, because there was no way I had done anything
improperly. And so, I simply turned my attention to another area of the
puzzle, and banishing nagging doubt I resolved to come back to that zone
again later, sure that with more pressure the part would eventually and
finally fit, even if it had to be forced.


*******************************

The day I first met her, I recall the feeling of elation realizing that I
had surely found a logical, most sensible life-match. I mentally went down
my checklist of necessary and desirable qualities and concluded silently to
myself that she was a person I could spend my life with.

I need to pause briefly here to offer perspective.  In the years that have
passed since I have come to terms with my sexual orientation and have
shared my story with others, men and women both gay and straight, I most
frequently have encountered these reactions

1) From some gay men, total disbelief.  Some say that they were never able
to get beyond kissing a girl without being completely positive that they
could never follow this path. "I knew there was no way..." is the most
common phrase used. These men also often insist that I am in denial and
that it is only a matter of time before I come around to the fact that I
need to be with a man.  As one fellow put it at a party, none too
delicately and certainly after some liquid lubrication "when are you going
to ditch the bitch, and make the switch?"  2) From many women, straight or
gay, a much higher level of acceptance.  They seemingly understand and
appreciate the importance of friendship, shared values and the other
aspects that make a relationship work, things that go beyond simple
physical attraction.  3) For the many gay men who are married like me, or
have been married before (you might be surprised perhaps how many there
are, and how meeting just one gets you an introduction to another... and
then another) there was much tacit understanding and acceptance in this
group of kindred spirits.

I believe that strong lifelong relationships are built on a foundation of
many piers, and that in many marriages, hardship and strife to expose
incompatibilities that may have existed from the beginning but were masked
beneath strong sexual attraction that was the overriding power of the
union.  But long after sexual attraction fades from the foreground,
stronger and longer lasting traits reveal themselves that can cause
relationships to thrive... or fail. For example, there's the intuitive way
money is handled, strength and priority of work ethic, sharing a value
system, having similar views on having and raising children and teaching
discipline. There's the willingness to forgive, the strength of conviction
of standing up for what one believes is right and perhaps most importantly
having compatible senses of humor. It helps if all of these are compatible
between partners.

Likewise, there are some things that are often best found at opposites that
help ensure a good long term relationship.  Someone has to be willing to
back off first in an argument.  It's better if one partner is more
compassionate and less emotional. If one person is too trusting, it helps
if the other is just a little cynical and suspicious of people's
motives. These opposite traits help bring balance to a relationship.  In
good relationships people certainly disagree, but in the end they nearly
always manage to compromise a peace that lasts.

I found all of these compatibilities in her.  I loved her competitive
nature, how she'd love to engage in softball or bowling or a pickup game of
basketball and was more interested in winning the match than what happened
to her fingernails. She was feisty and principled, but was always willing
to see the other side of an argument and compromise on a solution.  She
needed to feel wanted and made me feel special.  All of these things
contributed to our relationship growing stronger as time went by.  I
enjoyed spending time with her and looked forward to our hours together. It
wasn't long before I began to ask myself if this was a person I could spend
my whole life with and raise a family together. My answer leaned ever more
strongly towards "yes".

On top of all this almost as an added bonus, she was physically attractive
to me, as much as any woman ever has been.  She is athletic and beautiful
of features in a very natural way that didn't require makeup or fussing to
achieve.  She's not tall or lithe or fitting any standard of fashion
magazine chic. But she carries herself with grace and confidence, and I
quickly grew to love her.

Love comes in many shapes and flavors.  I love my mother and my father. I
love my sons.  I love my job.  I love myself for who I am.  I love my
dog. I love my dear friends.  I love baseball and my brother and my
sister. Perhaps I do not, and will never understand how any other straight
man loves his wife.  I have come to the conclusion that I can never explain
to anyone else exactly how I love mine.  I just know that I love her, and
that has to be enough.

So, as tastefully as I can, let me simply touch on the aspect that most
will silently wonder about because it is too rude to ask, that of how a gay
man can be sexually compatible with a straight woman.  From the very start,
I wondered this myself. I can't speak for all men, but my sex drive at
twenty-two was rather strong... it frankly didn't take me much to get
going. I was able to use this to my advantage. Secondly, the brain is
without a doubt the body's most potent sex organ. My brain could conjure up
any variation to a scenario that would improve the actual circumstances of
that moment to make it more exciting. And so I used my imagination that
way. And I don't suppose this is terribly different from the way many
straight men behave, if I may be brutally frank.

And yet, I always knew, deep in my non-waking mind that all was not well.
Even in my blind ambition to be straight and normal my subconscious knew
that something was dreadfully wrong. There were the dreams... always
starring other males. And almost always in these dreams I was 16 or even
younger, back before I began to hate my gay half, back when I thought it
was still alright to have these feelings believing they were a normal part
of growing up and not the symptoms of a loathsome terminal
disease. Further, I recall sometimes loathing the anticipation of impending
physical intimacy even then. I had to be really ready to put my brain in
its proper place to be able to enjoy my circumstances, and sometimes it
just didn't want to go there.  At those times I admit that I endured the
interludes that followed, consoling myself that they'd soon be over.

And after I proposed to her and she gladly accepted, not coincidentally I
fell into a deep state of serious and untreated depression that lasted
several months.  I could barely rouse myself from bed to go to work that
winter.  I convinced myself that I was burnt out in my job and that the
long dark winter months were aiding my dark mood, but with twenty plus
years of hindsight I now believe that my depression came from contemplating
the implicit finality of my impending marriage. But at that time I truly
didn't have the perspective to guess at what was really wrong with me.

Some gay men get to this very point and then find they can't go through
with it and break the engagement off.  Others engage in spectacularly bad
behavior (often with other women) that causes their fiancé to break the
engagement, absolving the man of the need to make the call. One single gay
man I know told me how he awoke suddenly and unexpectedly one night in
tears, fresh from a vivid dream.  In real life he was engaged to be married
but his brain signaled to him in a moment of tortured unconsciousness that
he couldn't go through with it.  You might say that his sleeping mind knew
his reality better than his waking one.

I did everything I could to reason with my subconscious mind and worked
mightily to repress my doubts.  Eventually my depression passed, spring and
summer passed too and were married on schedule in autumn.  After all, I
never missed dates, I never broke promises, and the commitment to get
married was going to be no different.  Once I had made the pledge there was
no going back; that thought was inconceivable.

And so as a newlywed I threw all my energy at all these other parts of the
puzzle.  I immersed myself into my career, and I had no shortage of
hobbies.  When I recite the list of a half dozen complicated hobbies I am
dedicated to it still surprises even me, as any one of the things I like to
do would be enough for most people to fill their whole life.  I almost
didn't notice that renegade puzzle piece any more, still displaced and
sitting up in the corner margin that maddeningly still didn't fit.

************

Getting married is one thing, staying married for the long-haul is quite
another. This is true regardless of one's orientation; as statistics say
that close to half of all American marriages ends in divorce We have been
married for over twenty years now, and I promised when I started this story
that I would explain how a gay man could come to be married--and I have
explained it as honestly and directly as I could.  The "happily married"
part came later, after much anguish and huge amounts of hard work on both
of our parts. Few marriages of any ilk survive the revelations that I
bestowed on her, rather unwittingly, when my tightly woven world began to
unexpectedly unravel with great speed one fine day some fifteen years ago.

And that's another story for another day.