Trying our best to get married
I have been dating my partner, now my finance, for over five years. Five years and three months to be exact. We met shortly after I made the decision to come out, had separated from my wife and moved into my own apartment. We met at a Meetup group that held monthly dinners in local restaurants for gay and bi men. A mutual friend introduced us. But, it would be eight months before we would go on our first date. Continue reading
Last Saturday my partner came over to the house that I moved out of three years and nine months ago, to meet my wife and her parents for the first time. This gathering was a long time in coming and was driven by my desire for my partner and my wife to meet. The timing was precipitated by my wife’s increasing decline from terminal cancer. She soldiers on with a new chemo regiment that begins today, with the hopes of slowing down or shrinking the tumors that increasingly inhabit her abdominal cavity and lungs. These new drugs may only slow down the inevitable, but they will not stop the cancer.
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.
I was nervous yesterday morning as I drove from my apartment to my old house for Thanksgiving. Having separated from my wife two and a half years ago to live my life openly as a gay man, this would be the third Thanksgiving since our separation, that I returned to the house for a big family Thanksgiving.
Where does one begin to describe a life? Did it begin when I was born? Did it begin when you were born nineteen years ago? Or did it begin when I first met your mother on the tour we both took to the Soviet Union in 1990? For me the story needs to begin on the day I came out to you and then moves backwards and forward in time from there.
Thanksgiving is a time of family gatherings. This can make the holiday a difficult time for many LGBT people. I have been involved for the last four years with a peer support group for men who are gay, bisexual, questioning; and who are, or who were, married or involved with a woman. I know a number of men from this group who have moved out of their marriages in the last few years and face spending Thanksgiving alone or with a new group of people for the first time in many years. It can be a very stressful and difficult time.
Gay promiscuity may occur for a number of reasons. Is it just because that is ‘just how men are’ or is there a deeper underlying cause? When your relationships are not seen as real, or worst, they are seen as an abomination, then it is very hard to hold you head up high. What kind of sexual behaviors do the mores of society, the pressures of religion, and the disapproval of family drive in men?
