Before the revelation finally struck me that I was indeed gay, I believed I merely had a lust problem that needed to be solved. For 15 years, I struggled and fought to quench the fire inside, but it would not die. I worked hard at getting closer to God, because I believed my distance from him was what made me so evil. I attended Bible college and worked to become a minister. I sought the counsel and prayer of pious elders. I married in good faith and truly believed I was in love, but I also married with the thought that once I could finally have sex, then the desires would fade. None of this worked, of course.
Once I realized I was gay, integrity steadfastly refused to let me live a lie and forced me to face the challenge of coming out to my ultra-conservative and religious wife. She did not take the news well. That very day she began to systematically sever communication between my daughter and me and therefore end our relationship. The lease on our apartment in Columbia, MD ended six months later and shortly after, she sought refuge in her familial sanctuary of Oklahoma. I am now divorced from my wife and separated by half a continent from my only child, exiled and condemned as an evil monster from whom my daughter should be protected. The barriers created by my wife that divide my daughter and me weigh heavy on my soul, but I am not responsible for my wife's actions. Unfortunately, my daughter is the one who suffers the greatest loss and I continue to fight for her. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It does and badly.
When Gracie was born and I remember holding her in the delivery room, finally "getting it," and understanding why we are put on this earth. I loved her more than life itself, much like the main character in Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." The book is set in a post-apocalyptic age and a man and his son are traveling the road south to move to a warmer climate and away from the nuclear winter. They each are the other one's world. Their bond is the only thing that keeps them alive in a nightmare existence where everyone they know has died, there are few people left, and those that are have become so desperate, they have formed canibbalistic gangs because there is no other food left. "He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God, God never spoke." I felt like that about Grace. Seeing her face for the first time, even covered in all that goo, she was beautiful. She was the face of God speaking directly to me and giving me my purpose in life. Now she hisses at me and tells me that she has been doing fine without me, that she hates me, and wants me out of her life. God has spit in my face, forsaken me, and stolen my reason to live.
But I will be ok. Life goes on and I am making it out to be more dramatic than it is because I am still going through it. It is so close it's easy to lose perspective. Those are not really her words. I know this, but it doesn't lessen the hurt any. Time may not heal all wounds, but at least it diminishes the pain some. Unfortunately, it may be many, many years until Grace is able to truly think for herself. I know for me it didn't really happen until I turned about 30 or so. God I hope it doesn't take that long. She's only 8 now.
"If she could articulate it, she might have said to (her mother) that she was tired of being an instrument, of being lied to, laid claim to, used. That she was sick of (her mother) twisting the truth of her life and making (her) another of her (mother's) grievances against the world." - From "A Thousand Splended Suns" by Khaled Hosseini, the author of "The Kite Runner".
I knew that this could happen. I have often been asked why I risked so much and chose to tell my wife I was gay rather than continue to live in the closet. I told my wife I was gay because she deserved to be loved as a husband should love his wife and I knew I could not do that for her. Again, I knew that I cannot be responsible for my wife's actions. She has chosen to let her pain rule her life, and unfortunately, the life of my daughter. It is ESPECIALLY for this reason that I continue to pray my wife will find someone who will truly love her and because I am not currently permitted by my ex-wife, that her future husband will be the father figure my daughter needs.
Please do not judge my ex-wife too harshly. She has had a very difficult life. Her father had a stroke when she was 9 and this completely changed his personality. He went from a loving man who not only cared for his family, but also his church as a Pentecostal Holiness minister, to a man who was verbally abusive, cursed, smoked, and drank. He lost all memory of who his family was and when my wife would walk in the room, even as a little girl, he would turn to her mother and say, "What is that? I don't want that. Get that out of here." She was 18 when we first met and she told me her father had died when she was 9. I didn't find out until years later that he had died only a few months before I met her and she had no recollection of telling me it happened when she was 9. I guess the man she knew as her father DID die when she was 9. Then she had her husband, the love of her life, divorce her because he realized he was gay. It's easy to see why she would be mad at the world. I try as hard as possible to be patient and understanding, but as you can imagine, it isn't easy.
So...do I regret my decision? I'd like to say no, but the truth is that sometimes I do. I have lost my best friend in my wife, life's most precious gift in my daughter, and in many ways, the respect of my parents, family, and friends. Sometimes I also miss the security of a well defined role in society and relationships, the moral absoluteness provided by the fundamentalist environment in which I grew up, and coming home every night to the loving arms of my best friend and the laughter of my daughter. Looking back, life seemed so much easier and happier then. "The grass is always greener..." as they say.
In addition to all this, dating in the gay world has been much harder than I imagined it would. I expected to find many men with similar values to my own, but as all of you know, that is far from the truth. I have been hurt, devastated really, by the men in my life. There was a time when I sincerely prayed for God to take me home every night.
On the other hand, if presented with the opportunity to do it all again even knowing all of this will happen, I would. I have learned who I am, what I expect in life, and since I finally experienced it, what true romantic love is. I also maintain hope that Grace will return to me and that my wife will heal to become my dearest friend again. It can happen. It has happened for others I know, albeit 2-3 decades later. I only pray I have the patience and that I am allowed the grace (pun intended) to live that long.
