Ramblings from a Recovering Heterosexual

COMING OUT “The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you’ve just told them.” Rachel Maddow “Your mother isn’t gay,” Stephen shrieked at Bethany. “She’s fuckin’ crazy!” I saw his hands double up into fists while his face turned bright red. Knowing how his volatile nature could quickly evolve from verbal to physical abuse towards me, I quickly attempted to make light of the situation. “Well, that may be true, Stephen, but you should have known I was nuts when you met me in therapy thirty years ago.” Although Stephen’s anger was often turned on me, Bethany was never a recipient of it herself. So this time she took my cue and jumped in with, “Look at it this way, Daddy. Now we might be able to get on the Jerry Springer show. You know, something like, ‘My mother is cheating on my father with his girlfriend’.” “Technically, honey, that wouldn’t work,” I said, “because I never cheated on him. I just said that I’m attracted to women.” Then I asked her, “but, which girlfriend are you talking about? I might be interested.” I saw it coming too late. His hands grasped my throat and shoved me against the wall. “How about, ‘Your father beat your filthy dyke mother to death?’” he said. I couldn’t breathe as he squeezed tighter and I struggled to free myself. Bethany, ever my protector, jumped on her father’s back, legs wrapped around his waist, her arms in a choke-hold around his neck. “Let her go, Daddy,” she demanded. He released his grip on me in order to pry her off. As she went flying I stood paralyzed and then his fist crashed into the wall next to my head, leaving yet another hole in the plaster. “You’ve ruined my life,” he hissed, his spit spraying my face. Then he back-handed the lamp next to him, knocking it to the floor in pieces. “I just don’t get it. All these years together and now you want to leave me!” I replied as calmly as I could, “Didn’t you ever wonder why I spent so much time away from home lately?” “I only knew I wasn’t getting any,” he responded vehemently. Ah, yes, it always comes down to the sex life, doesn’t it? Bethany scowled and squeezed between us. “Personally, Mom, I think having had to look at Daddy naked all these years must be what’s driving you to women.” Stephen’s face flared at this insinuation, then he stormed from the room, slamming the door. This tempest was over, but there would be more to come. My long relationship with Stephen had changed slowly over the years. When I first knew him I considered him the sweetest, kindest, most loving man I had ever met, and he was the only man I ever wanted to live with. Later I began to see a different, uglier personality emerge. Both viewpoints were accurate. When we started talking about marriage we had already been living together four years and although he was content with the situation, I was not. “Why do you have to get married?” he kept asking. “Because I want to be like everyone else,” I replied. This was an old feeling for me, one I’ve never gotten over. I just want to be like everyone else, and yet it feels like I never have been. But shacking up was socially unacceptable back then, or at least it was to my traditional Christian family, and I had felt guilty about it for long enough. Besides, I definitely wanted children, and in those days you really needed a husband for that. So we made it legal and twenty-five years later he was the one who had never regretted it. But I still felt like a misfit, just like I always had. The tape in my mind kept replaying my mother’s constant query ever since I was a child: “What’s WRONG with you, anyway?” I honestly didn’t know, but lately I was spending a lot of time crying into my pillow. Throughout our marriage Stephen’s rage had become more apparent. I thought I was the cause of his anger, and believed that no one else even saw it. He was charming and well-liked by strangers, a loving father to our children, gentle with animals and a competent and respected counselor for emotionally disturbed young adults. How ironic that he could be so instrumental in turning others’ lives around, yet ignore his own failings. Even our closest friends and relatives viewed him as a highly successful and loving family man. So, although my fear of his anger became a constant source of stress, I kept making excuses for his behavior. A lot of men have tempers, and he has many good qualities. I should consider myself lucky to have him. I’m certainly not perfect myself. It never occurred to me to question my sexual orientation when I tried to evaluate what was wrong with our relationship. But my brother Dick’s sudden death in 1998 led me to question my own life, why I was unhappy, and what I wanted. My tears were a daily occurrence, and after a Hospice grief-support group failed to give me any answers, I finally sought help from a psychiatrist.