Today my son flys off to Europe for a college semester abroad. My wife drove him up to Kennedy Airport in New York to drop him off.
Monthly Archives: August 2016
The Evolution of My Sexuality
Where Has The Fight Gone?
I spent years fighting my attraction to men. Then I spent years fighting to come out. Today I am out everywhere in my life. Having fought to come out, now I just want to live my life, which includes time with my sexy partner. Continue reading
Does Place Matter?
I spent the past week with my boyfriend and two friends at my parent’s summer home. Four gay men spending a relaxing week at a New England summer resort town. For much of that week, however, I had a surprising level of anxiety and stress. But last night coming home to my own apartment, with my boyfriend, I felt at ease. I began to think about the question of place and the role it plays in our lives. Continue reading
Mediation Stress
I thought divorce mediation was supposed to be less stressful than lawyering up. My wife’s lawyer gave her three names of mediators for us to talk to. I have found the whole process of even having a conversation with these mediators and their assistants ridiculously cumbersome and complicated. Continue reading
Finding My Joy – Part II
My parents are in their late 80’s and last year my brother and I took over the management and care of two adjacent summer houses in New England. We are renting out the larger house for the first time ever this summer and worked for the last year to get the house de-junked, fixed up, spruced up and ready to rent. Continue reading
Finding My Joy – Part I
I felt a level of anxiety, emotional lockdown, and coolness when I first arrived at my parent’s summer home. Two adjacent houses in a lovely New England town. I am in one house with my partner and a good friend of mine and his boyfriend. My parents and sister are at the other house. Continue reading
The Cause
As I headed towards my 50th birthday in 2008 a number of things in my life were beginning to converge. I was increasingly dissatisfied with my marriage. As the world around me began to celebrate being LGBT, I was in hiding. I felt that I was going through the motions: holidays with my wife’s family; birthdays with the same birthday cakes year after year. I felt increasingly lonely, isolated, and compartmentalized. I played the role of husband, father, breadwinner while an internal battle raged about my identity and sexual orientation. Continue reading
What Is Owed?
Beginning the process of divorcing from someone you were married to for twenty-three years is not an easy process. It is complicated by the central reason we grew apart and separated in the first place: I could no longer tamp down, suppress, compartmentalize, that I was a gay man. Continue reading
A Divorce Like No Other
What are the traits of a good mediator in a divorce? I have called two highly respected mediators from a list of three given to my wife by her lawyer. I envisioned a respectful, thoughtful process. What I have experienced so far is quite different. Continue reading