Boy Meets Boy: A Love Story (And Advice?)

I've been toying with the idea of sharing my story for the past week or so. I had actually decided against it--I'm usually a private person, but it's also kind of long--, but then last night happened.

So let's see, where to begin...

Almost a year ago, I moved back to my hometown from Mississippi. I'd been living down there for two years going to grad school. When I finished (sort of... long story), I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my anthropology degree, so I moved back home to figure it out and recover from the nervous breakdown I suffered from trying to get through my graduate program.

So I'm home, and I start reconnecting with old friends. I met this guy through a mutual friend we had; I'm going to call him M. Our paths had never crossed before, but we hit it off and decided we'd hang out more on our own, away from the crowd. It wasn't romantic--neither of us we interested in the other, and in fact neither of us had ever been interested in a guy; not closeted, just never met a guy we were interested in in that way.

He tells me he's married, lives with his wife and little boy. No big deal to me, all that means is that we'll have to work our new friendship around his schedule of work and family since I had nothing going on at the time. I would go over to his house in the evenings after he put his son to bed while his wife worked the night shift at the hospital nearby. This didn't really strike me as odd, but as we got to know each other I learned his reason for doing this.

His wife was very dominating. They met in high school, were friends for two years, dated for two years, and had been married for five. If it were up to her, he'd be a stay-at-home dad, but he did also have a job. As such, he didn't really see friends very often, so he'd have me over to hang once his son went to bed so his son wouldn't tell his wife he'd had a friend over, even if it was totally, completely innocent.

M was also unhappy in his marriage. He told me is was more a business arrangement and to keep up appearances than a marriage; they didn't love each other anymore, didn't spend any time together, and had been trying to work on it the past couple years to no avail.

"That's okay," I said. "I've got a complicated romantic history myself."

So I told him about my ex. Around the time M was getting married, I was totally infatuated with the girl--let's call her T--of my dreams, and we were pretty happy together... or so I thought. While I was contemplating proposing to her and shopping for a ring, she was apparently also seeing two of her exes on the side. Then one day she calls and invites me to where she is (one of the ex's house), tells me she's pregnant, she's not sure if it's mine, and that she's leaving me for the guy whose house she was at. And that was that.

Only not really. After she had the little boy, a few months went buy and she started calling me and inviting me over when her fiance was away. We'd talk, cuddle, have sex, and then she'd say it was a mistake and I'd leave crushed. Rinse, repeat. This continued until I moved to Mississippi.

So I told M about the sitch with T. He was floored, as people usually are. "Sounds like a movie," he said.

"Nope, that's just the tragedy that is my life."

M and I hung out for about two months before things changed. I'd always be at his house from about 8:30 until midnight when he'd have to go to bed for work. One night he was walking me out, but we stopped at his front door and talked for a couple minutes more. I'm standing at the door, he's about three feet away, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, smiling at me warmly, like he was so appreciative of my company. It was a nice feeling, and as I was standing there at the door, I experienced a very rapid chain of reasoning...

He's a pretty nice guy..
He'd make a really good friend..
He is a really good friend..
I care about my new friend..
I care about him..
I care deeply for him.

And so I walked over to him, put my hands on his hips, and I kissed him. And he kissed me back. We sort of stood there making out for about 30 seconds, not too long. When we pulled back, we laughed, said our goodnights, and I left.

As I was leaving his neighborhood, I get a text from him: "I don't know what to make of this, but I'm really glad that happened "

I responded: "I don't really know what that was, but I couldn't stop myself. I'm glad too though "

The next time I saw him after that was his birthday. His mom was going to have his son for the day, he was off work, and his wife had no interest in making plans with him, so we decided we'd hang out for the day. We met near my house, but do to a running joke between us that's actually kind of true, he drove since I'm kind of a terrible driver. We went to the little town where I went to undergrad and I took him on a tour.

As we were walking, our hands brushed a couple times, then he just grabbed my hand and we held hands walking down the brick sidewalk. It was an interesting moment. The night before, I had a brief, ten-minute freakout and identity crisis; but I tend to thrive under pressure (usually), so I told myself I'd just go with it and see what happened. He's a guy, how far could it really go?" is what I asked myself. But holding hands with him walking around, and PUBLICLY, was kind of really, really nice.

Over the next few weeks we continued seeing each other, but the context was totally different now. We kissed. We held hands. We cuddled. For both of us being straight before (him with his marriage and child, and me being lovesick over my slutty ex) and never interested in guys, we were both very open-minded and just curious to see where things would go. We had a few discussions and just agreed to let the chips fall where they may. We'd both been so unhappy in our previous relationships, so at the very least we both seemed to feel like a change of pace and scenery could at least keep things interesting. And if it didn't work out, we could say, "Well, at least we tried. Now we know what that is all about."

But it continued to progress. We started fooling around, a beej here and a beej there. We were both scared shitless of the thought of sex, so we agreed that if we did have sex, we'd wait until we were both ready.

About a month into this, we agreed to be a couple. A couple weeks after that, we finally had sex. I bottomed first, then we flipped. It was awkward, bizarre, uncomfortable and yet oddly erotic, romantic, and hot. It was then that I realized I loved him.

And not just loved him. I knew I loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone. Sometimes I wrestled with my feelings for him, thinking how was I going to reconcile the feelings I had with the person I'd always known myself to be, but I always came back to: Fuck it, I love him SO MUCH, I don't care what this means.

As I was realizing how much I loved him, that was when his wife walked in the door, off early from work. M stashed me in the closet and jumped into the shower. She went in and talked to him while he showered, then they traded places so she was in the shower, which is when he walked me out. (Side note: He didn't want her to know about us until we were sure where we were going. Also, he felt like she'd flip out no matter how long before he and I met that their relationship had fizzled out.) We had our goodnight kisses and giggles and hugs at the front door while he wife was in the shower totally unaware that I was making out with her husband literally right underneath her. And then I left.

I think she knew he was seeing someone though. Not long after that night, she packed a bag, took their son, and went to stay at M's mom's house. She said she needed space, that it was awkward to be home with M. So M called me up: "Hey, I've got the house to myself for a week, want to come stay over?"

Ummm, hell yeah!

Around Thanksgiving, there was a weekend when he'd have his house to himself again, no wife and no kid. So I packed a back, went over, and as soon as I got there we ran up to his bedroom and ripped each others clothes off like we were teenagers. Three hours later, we are in the shower--I was actually just crafting a shampoo mohawk on his head--when we hear the front door. The wife. Again.

This time there was no time to hide, she was just outside the door before he'd barely gotten a towel around him. She asked him into the other room, where I could faintly hear them talking but couldn't make out any words. He finally came back and said, "She wants us to get dressed and go downstairs and talk to her."

So we dressed, and went to meet her downstairs. M and I sat together on the couch while his wife sat across from us. She asked if we were long-term, to which we said yes. She asked how long it had been going on, to which we said no very long. Then she said she just wanted her son to have a normal life, that's all that mattered to her. I said, "Well obviously we're not going to be groping each other around him, but at the same time we don't want him to think it's anything to be ashamed of. We love each other, it's really that simple."

She saw my point. Then she got up, hugged both of us, wished us well, and left us to our weekend (apparently she'd just come home to pick up some things, but I have a hunch she figured M wouldn't be alone, and he agrees).

We'd been talking about when to go public with our relationship in the weeks leading up to his wife finding out, but now that she knew, we had nothing holding us back. We just wanted to decide how we'd do it.

He told his mom and friends and coworkers. I wasn't too keen on having that discussion, wishing there was another way. I'd been renting my grandmother's basement apartment for a few months, and sometimes he'd pick me up from there. I was no longer trying to hide him; he'd pull in, I'd get in his car, we'd kiss for a minute or two, then drive off. Anyone could have been watching. And apparently, they were.

One day after he picked me up, my mom texted me: "So who's that guy you were kissing in the car?" I responded with: "We'll talk when I get back."

When I got home, she came down and I told her all about M. And then I told my grandparents, siblings, my aunt, pretty much most of my family that I see on a regular basis. The next day (which was the day before Thanksgiving), he met them all as my boyfriend.

I used to suffer from depression. It was pretty severe, especially after everything with T. I was harming myself, tried to kill myself twice... it was a dark time, and my family saw a lot of it. But since I'd been with M, my family said they'd never seen me so happy. Only one fly in the ointment: My mom.

She seemed to have a problem with me being with M, a guy. I heard her tell my sister that she saw me differently now. She was always making excuses for me as to why or how it happened: I was just lonely, I just missed T, I was desperate or unhappy, etc. One day she came up to me and asked, "Do you guys really have sex?" I said, "Huh? Of course we have sex. We're no different from any other couple."

I've never been a person who really cared what others thing, I'm just usually kind of private. And it wouldn't have bothered me if my mom had stayed completely against my being with a man, but she did eventually warm up to the idea. And she quite likes M.

In January, we finally decided we would do a big Facebook reveal. We posted a picture of us (my avatar--I'm on the right), captioned "My love and me", and linked our profiles so we were in a relationship. And presto, everyone knew!

The picture in particular blazed through our social networks like wildfire. Within an hour, there were sixty likes and almost as many comments. In 24 hours, both likes and comments were in the triple digits. But at least everyone knew, and it was in one fell swoop.



Now for the bad...

In February, a friend of mine, we'll call her S, reached out to M. I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but she got pissed at me and decided the best way to bring me down was to try to get M to hate me and leave me. And he did.

Truth: I have smoked weed here and there. I have suffered from depression, anxiety, and insomnia for almost two decades now (sounds like an excuse but it's true), and it has helped sometimes. Don't interpret this as meaning I smoke weed often; it's never any more than maybe once a month, and that's the upper limit. It's not something I like doing all the time. But when I met M, I was smoking slightly more often because of the nervous breakdown. I never mentioned it to him because I knew he's against things like that, we were only friends at the time, and it still wasn't all that often.

S to M: I'm a drug addict and lie to him about everything.

Some of the things she told him were woven with enough fact that it made it seem like I'd only told him part of the truth, which was never the case. And anyway, when M and I became serious, I all but stopped smoking weed anyway. I didn't want to or need it.

But to M, S's credibility and knowledge of true facts made her lies believable, so he left me.

Over the past couple months, we've been working through everything. He's trusting me again, and realizing that what he was told wasn't true. Our interactions are largely as they were before, only once in a while I'll see him get distant and quiet like he's thinking about things. He says he'll get over it, but it was hard on him to think of me doing what I was accused of doing, even if he knows it not to be true. He has nightmares about it.

I'm just happy we're getting back on track. When he first left me I didn't see him for two weeks, and I thought I was going to die. I was just a total wreck. But he finally came around. Now he says, "We're together, but not totally back together."



Then last night happened..

Yesterday he worked 2-11, which is unusual hours for him. Right before he got off work, he asked if he could come stay over. I said, "Of course babe, but I've got a migraine so I'm warning you, I won't be much fun, but of course I want you here." He said, "Okay then I guess I'll go home."

So I spent the half hour leading up to him leaving work telling him to come over, I was fine, I wanted to see him, I just had a headache was all and might now be my usually, happy-go-lucky self. He said he would just go home.

So I'm lying in my living room, watching TV (sound turn down of course) and texting him. He says, "So what are you doing now babe?" I said, "Nothing, watching TV and just lying here. Have you made it home yet?"

I send the text, and then glance out the window. Outside in the dark, I see the distinct outline of a person. For a split second I think I'm hallucinating, but then it moved. Definitely a person. I look away, kind of freaked out and not sure what to do. Then I get a text from M: "Yeah I'm home now."

Wait a minute... is he outside right now looking in my windows? He couldn't be...

So I get up and walk outside (lights off), and I see the person take off and hide behind a tree. I hesitate to walk out there because I don't have a weapon, but then I am pretty sure it's him. I walk over.

He finally stands up and leans up against the tree looking angry. I walk up to hug him because although he scared the shit out of me, I AM glad to see him. And he's angry. He starts walking away. I tell him to stop and talk to me. We hug. He squeezes me. I ask, "What is it you thought you were going to catch me doing tonight? Whatever it is you need to tell me, I can't ease you mind if I don't know what's worrying you."

He just said, "I don't know, babe. I don't know." And he hugs me tight and the look on his face, I can tell he's still struggling with the past couple months. So I don't get angry, I just stand there and hold him, tell him I love him and I'm happy to see him, tell him I was sorry he had such a rough night at work.

After about an hour of this, at 1:30am he leaves to go home.

But the next day I see him, and he says, "You're not upset about last night are you? I was only coming to surprise you, I wasn't spying on you. I ran because I wasn't sure it was you because it was dark. I also wasn't sure you were awake, I'd left my phone in my car and wasn't sure how to get your attention."

I didn't say that he sent me "Yeah I'm home" while he was standing outside the window. But even after he pretty much changed his story, I still said, "Whatever your reason for being outside my house, I'm glad you were. I was really happy to see you."

I really don't have anything to hide. I'm not angry about him doing what he did. But I'm not sure how I should feel about it. I wonder if I hadn't caught him, would he have just gone home and I never would have known he was out there?

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this.



Sorry this is so long. Thanks for reading.

 

Yeah, definitely trust issues. I'm just not sure how I should feel about him creeping about outside my house at night. When I found him, he tried to act all huffy and mad like he'd caught me doing something wrong, but if he was really watching me then he'd know I wasn't. It just kind of shocked me. Also, I live about an hour away from his work and about 40 minutes from his house, so it's kind of out of the way to come here just to check and make sure I'm doing what I say I'm doing.

If that's one of the things he will need to do in order to get past what he felt what he believed those things about me, should I just say "Go for it" and turn a blind eye?

 

That's definitely how I thought I should handle the spying too. I understand why he doesn't trust me, although it hurts because I didn't really do anything wrong. Yes, I withheld certain things, nothing that bad, and although many would say omission is tantamount to lying, it's hard to be in a situation where your boyfriend doesn't trust you because someone trying to sabotage your relationship told him terrible things about you that aren't true.

I've been very patient and understanding though, because I want to be with him. In the 9 months we've been together, we've been through a lot together. He has always done the nicest things for me, things I've always done but never had done for me like cooking me dinner, planning surprise dates, etc. And conditioner we were straight until we found each other, things progressed really really fast, even things like PDA.

But yeah, I was thinking the same thing, not to talk about the spying unless he brings it up. Aside from the slight creepiness factor, I'm not mad about it. HE was the one that decided not to come over; I told him to come over despite my migraine. But maybe he thought I was trying to reverse-psych my way out of having him over.

Trust issues aside, we really are great together. We are very expressive of our feelings, even publicly, and the sex is incredible, so passionate and tender. I'm willing to put up with quite a bit, whatever he needs to trust me again, because I feel like we're worth it. And I think he feels the same way, otherwise I feel like he wouldwouldn't be trying to work through his trust issues so we can be together. Things are generally really good between us again--he calls me his boyfriend again, which he wasn't doing until just a couple weeks ago--, but here and there we'll have a rough day. He's gone through my phone before (even back before the sabotage), but this is the first time he's spied on me, and I can't help but wonder if this was the first time.

I really appreciate your input though, thank you.

---------- Post added 14th Apr 2014 at 11:17 AM ----------

Also, he is very jealous and almost possessive. I don't really mind, I actually kind of like it usually. In prior relationships I would feel expendable to some extent and not very secure, but he is totally rearranging his life so we can be together. Until recently, he would have me along with him and his little boy once in a while so I could get to know him, and we were planning on me moving in with him once his wife moves out, which she's looking to do very soon.

I say this, though, because I think he might have been expecting to find me with someone else. He's expressed worry about T in the past, although I've try to tell him he makes me so much happier than she ever did or tried to do.

 

Thank you! I really appreciate that. I'm quite fond of it myself, but I'm a little biased

 

Thanks guys! Really appreciate the kind words

For the most part, things have been so much better the past month or so. When he left me, I was getting ready to move into his house, but obviously that was put on hold. We're now talking about that again. And we're spending almost as much time together now as we did before, which I'm loving.

I've decided I'm going to just try to forget about the spying thing. He denies that that's what he was doing even though we talked about why he felt the need to spy on me when I caught him (he said he isn't sure what he expected to catch me doing), so I'm just not going to mention it. My plan is just to continue being totally honest and upfront with him, and hopefully the progress we've made will continue.

He just makes me feel like I'm the only person in the world who matters. He says and does the sweetest things. I spent today with him, and while I was reading a book standing in one of the aisles of the bookstore we went to, he came up and hugged me from behind (which is something he always used to do, which I LOVE), and put his head on my should, kissed my neck, and read with me while hugging me.

And then we were sitting in Starbucks and I was just people-watching when I look over at him. He's looking at me, smiling, and there was so much love in his eyes. He signed and said, "My guy..." like he always did.

I told him once that when I was a toddler, my mom asked me how much I loved, and I said, "Big, big much!" When he heard that, he adopted it and it sort of became our thing. And he's doing it again now, dating, "I love you babe... big, big much." I melt.

We started having sex again about a month ago, and by now we're back to how it always was: Super intense, super passionate, and just sooooo hot lol. We are back to having sex pretty much every time we see each other. We had sex today; it was outstanding, of course. We always had avery healthy sex life.

Overall I'm very happy with the progress we're making. He still says, "We're together, but not totally back together," but I mean things between us are largely how they were before, so I'm happy.

Really appreciate the kind words, guys!

---------- Post added 17th Apr 2014 at 10:22 PM ----------

And as for how I came out, I definitely preferred to do it in one fell swoop like that than to have dozens of tedious, time-consuming conversations. And it went so well! All the feedback was so positive and supportive; not one naysayer or negative comment. It was actually quite fun and amusing, seeing all the shocked and surprised reactions. I got a big kick out of that

 

Thank you for this. Very reassuring.

It was a lot more than just the marijuana. Way back when I was in my teens, I was a bit of a drug enthusiast. In addition to smoking weed, I dabbled in painkillers, benzos, things like that. I never completely lost control, and eventually my interest tapered off and I stopped. My friend knew me during that time. And of course, I told M all about my past dabbling in pills.

When my friend decided to sabotage me, she told M that my drug past was actually still part of my present. It's been so many years since I've done anything like that, but according to her I've been lying to him about that. She told him I'm a pot-smoking, pill-popping drug addict. When he confronted me about it, I confessed to infrequent pot smoking, and I guess because I admitted to lying/omitting about part of what she told him, he figured I was lying about everything. He felt that my friend would be privy to all my activities away from him. I'd told him all about my past, and she knew what to tell him to get worked up about it.

So no, it wasn't just the marijuana, although he's very much against weed too. And I'm fine with that; I have absolutely no problem abstaining from smoking it if he feels so strongly about it.

Regaining his trust has been sort of an uphill battle, but we're making a lot of progress. The spying thing creeped me out too, but I'm also trying to be understanding and patient. I don't think he'd go through the trouble of trying to trust me, so I know he wants to be with me. I know we'll get there, I just wasn't sure if I should confront him about the spying or let it go.

Thanks for the kind words and the advice