This is a comment by on the post “Coming Out To Your Wife“.
Robert said:
Well said, Dennis. So many gay men and women of our generation, and earlier, went through the ritual of marriage, knowing in our deepest, secret place that it could never work.
I remember standing at the back of the room as my soon to be wife walked down the aisle as our two gay male friends sang Morning Glow from Pippin (we met in musical theater -go figure) thinking, “well, we can always get a divorce.” My ex-wife also knew, on some level, that I was gay, at the time we got married. We both were in such denial, and had such a strong need for validation, that we did it anyway. Like you, I do not regret the marriage, and my ex-wife and I are friends – but what a lot of pain along the way.
I would like to think that our younger brothers and sisters no longer have to go through this ritual – but then I also like to think that we have wiped out homophobia, violence towards LGBTQ people and families who will disown their own for not being who they want them to be – but, of course, that is not the case. I know that there are still young people out there who are desperate to be anything but who they really are.
Coming out has so many phases, and so many possible scenarios, and marriage is one that many of us have experienced. Would it have been better if we had been able to accept ourselves before jumping into the ill-advised marriage? Perhaps. But that’s not how our coming out process played out, and we are the gay men we are today in part because of those experiences. We move forward and hopefully are able to embrace each part of who we are and have been.
Thank you for your articles, Dennis, and for sharing your stories.
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