Sunday, May 07, 2006

NOW HERE'S SOME REAL PAIN...
AFTER THE QUIZ POPS...

OK, now here we see how time really works. The first Pop Quiz went up on April 2nd, and the answers listed below at The Results are In were mostly in by the end of the month. We are only a week into May and here is what we have to say:


Troll:
I find myself now quite unavoidably faced with the simple fact that whatever I decide to do, however I find a way forward, I am a gay man. No comforting excuses, no partial truths, no attempts to find a way around it: my heart and body bear witness -- surely even my mind will come around in time...


Drew: My wife and I just finished having “the talk.” Basically, the whole open marriage idea is no longer an option. Not only is it not what she wants, but she can’t figure out how it could work in the long term. While I’m disappointed, I can’t say I’m surprised. And, if I am honest with myself, I’m not sure how an open marriage would work either... So where does that leave me, and us? I guess, back at square one. Whether I want to accept it or not, I have to decide what I want to do. And this will take time. How much time, I don’t know. But, no matter what happens, I also have to accept that I will always be the “bad” guy in her eyes; the guy who destroyed our marriage.

Nate: I am bi-sexual and as part of being bi-sexual I am gay. In addition I think of my bi-sexuality as a pendulum held to the hetero side so long that it has arced way over. Kinsey and Klein can create any numbers they like: at this point I have swung to the gay... I know that I have come out many times over the last four months at different levels, in different ways, but always with a modifier, a hedge, a safety net. And while this final acceptance was not “news” to my wife, it was, it is, a fundamental shift.
I thought I was okay, got up, posted, did things with the kids... Then I sat having lunch with KA... And as I sat there I was fighting back tears... I hold it together, KA knows I am holding it together and I leave the table. Instead of going to do more chores I go to our bedroom and spend a few minutes weeping. I have written of so many emotions over the last four months. I seem to have forgotten pain.

Bigg: So, a rather big event happened in my life this last weekend: I moved out of the house. Well, perhaps it’s not as earth-shattering as it sounds. I moved next door, into the garconniere that was formerly my grandmother’s house...
I don’t blame D, really I don’t. She’s a straight girl, and she thinks like one. If I was in love with her and aroused by her when we got together, then I should be in love with her and aroused by her now – and any nonsense about being gay or expressing myself is just that: nonsense. An excuse, if you will. And to her, that just hurts...
The thing that she doesn’t seem to understand is that I do in fact still love her, but between the attacks she’s made on me for “changing my mind,” i.e., being gay, and the bitterness and acrimony of the fights we’ve had, plus my own desire to finally just plain be myself – well, it’s pretty much killed the sex part for me...
I have a pretty good imagination, and whenever I want to come up with a solution or a fix, I try to imagine what that solution or fix might be like. In this case, I’ve tried to imagine a life where I love her, and desire her, and still get to have a man in my life. As I’ve said before, I don’t need to have a sex relationship with a man (although I really, really, really want one), I just need a certain intimacy with a man that straight men just can’t seem to share. Unfortunately, I can’t quite seem to get past the “willing suspension of disbelief” and into a place where such a life seems possible.

Troll: I could have written almost every word of Bigg's post, though I have not moved out, and sex has not been "killed"... and we are still mired in questions like whether or not I can tell the children... It's all different, and yet one some level it's the same... And all the air seems to go out of my hope, of all our hopes, with a "great communal sigh".

Lord help us all.

4 comments:

  1. The chickens, as they say, have come home to roost. My chicken is still in Amsterdam, but will come home to roost July 1st.

    Here's to safe landings all around.

    yr
    Troll

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  2. It is sort of strange how we ahve found each other and all seem to be at the crossroads together.
    Thanks

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  3. I know, it is so strange for me on the sidelines to watch...
    There's some weird synchronicity going on.

    Maybe it's not really all by chance, since everyone's sharing and pondering these things together, helping each other...

    hopefully OUT of the whirlpool and not deeper into it. ;)

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  4. I am a married woman who had a gay affair last year after 10 years of fantasies about other women... The journey over the last year has been extremely traumatic but I have come to a place of true peace and acceptance. I am still married - and now so much more happily. Love is the one true thing... emotional dependance is an addiction and a lie.
    I hear your pain and I identify with its confusion... something that helped me focus on truth was www.settingcaptivesfree.com - I did the "Door of Hope" course. Highly recommend it despite some of the fundamentalist stuff in it.. it holds a lot of truth. The journey since has led me to a place of extreme grace. Grace and peace to you all... whatever choices you make... God's love will surround you and fill you regardless.

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