Coming out 4 times!

I can’t believe that my last post was in late August, when I was asking for advice and words of encouragement to tell my wife. I am proud to say that I found the courage within myself to come out to her on September 7th. I knew there was a lot at stake. I’ve been married for 13 years and have two children, 9 and 7. It was a really difficult decision to make because I knew very well the hurt and pain I would cause.

My wife, at first, received the news that I was gay surprisingly well. But it didn’t take much time (< 2 hours) for her to realize the implications on our marriage. She’s been through the whole spectrum of emotions and she is still, to this day, struggling with the idea. We are seeing a therapist on a regular basis, both for individual counselling and for couple counselling. We love each other very much and this makes it even more difficult for her to “let go”. I think this love and respect towards each other allowed us to go through this situation in a civilized manner, and for me to hold off being physical with other guys until we are separated.

Shortly after I told my wife, I also told my parents-in-law and my wife’s siblings (2 brothers and 1 sister-in-law) while they were visiting us. They were quite shocked, because we were the perfect couple. Although they are really concerned for my wife, they understand and support me. I must say that although I was nervous, I was kind of expecting this. They are quite liberal. They live in Montreal, which is itself quite gay-friendly.

A few weeks later, I told my parents over the phone. They live in the country, about 1000 km away from Toronto. They are quite conservative… My mother turned out to be supportive. My father is struggling with the idea much more. I haven’t spoken with him since then but my mother told me that he’s cried. He blames himself and wonders what he has done and what he should have done differently to “prevent” me from being gay. I need to talk to him again but haven’t had a chance yet. I also hope that we will see each other over the Christmas holidays to talk things over. I’m planning on telling my siblings (a brother and a sister, both older than I) this summer, when I visit them. They both live fairly close to my parents.

What I’ve realized with these coming-out experiences is that there is a LOT of misunderstanding of what being gay means. So I’ve had to do a lot to educate people that being gay is not all about sex. It really is, at least to me, about “connecting”. I’ve also realized that one needs to feel quite strongly about being gay and KNOW what is best in the long run. If I didn’t, my wife could have really easily convinced me to stay and “forget” about my feelings. The past several weeks have been rough but I am quite certain that this will have been well worth it. I’ve grown a lot in the past few months. I’m VERY glad to be where I am now. I’m VERY proud to be the man I am.

So it’s now been a little over 2 months since I first came out to my wife and a LOT has happened. We are selling our house and we are moving into 2 different dwellings next Friday. I’m going through this with a lot of mixed feelings. It truly hurts me to “leave” my wife and kids (although I will live less than 8 km away from them). But I’m very much looking forward to FULLY embrace my new life and a new relationship that I’ve been slowly building on solid grounds with a great guy.

The kids will live most of the time with my wife but they will be visiting me on a regular basis. I too will spend a lot of time with them. We are telling them about the separation tomorrow morning. I will tell them about me being gay when I deem it appropriate. My feeling is that this won’t take long… but I need to make sure that my wife is also comfortable with them knowing and that she’s able to speak in (relatively) positive terms (at least, NOT in negative terms) about homosexuality. They’re good kids. I’m a good dad. So I don’t foresee much of a problem. Because I don’t want them to blame me for breaking up the marriage (although I’m obviously responsible for it), I will wait for a bit… I’m looking forward to tell them so that they KNOW who their dad truly is. More later… (Wow, I can't believe my post ended up that long! :icon_redf )