COMING OUT TO THE FAMILY...
PART II: EVERYONE ELSE...
I have some sad news, and I am not sure how best to tell you. It doesn’t seem appropriate to wait until I can see you in person, but it also doesn’t seem appropriate to tell you over the phone. I hope you will forgive me the formality of this letter.
M and I have separated. Neither of us can see how I can live up to the vows I made almost twenty-seven years ago. The reason is that I have ended a long struggle to come to terms with my sexuality by admitting my need first and foremost to be open about who and what I am. And that includes the part of me that is still attracted to men. I don’t want to tell anyone more than they want to know. But I would be happy to answer any questions you have now or to talk about it later.
This has not been an easy decision to make, and even having made it, it remains intensely painful. As you can imagine, it is also intensely painful to M and to the children, so I ask that you keep them in your thoughts in the months, and years, ahead.
I do not regret anything except the necessity of ending my marriage. The last twenty-seven years of my life have been filled with enough happiness for a lifetime, indeed it has been half my life-time, and I continue to love M and our children, as I always will. I hope you will also.
In the short term I will be moving to Dad’s room at G____'s house, and can be reached there in the evenings. You can still reach me during the day in my studio in the barn, for the time being at least.
I am conducting a job search and my long-term plans are entirely up in the air.
Thank you for your understanding.
M and I have separated. Neither of us can see how I can live up to the vows I made almost twenty-seven years ago. The reason is that I have ended a long struggle to come to terms with my sexuality by admitting my need first and foremost to be open about who and what I am. And that includes the part of me that is still attracted to men. I don’t want to tell anyone more than they want to know. But I would be happy to answer any questions you have now or to talk about it later.
This has not been an easy decision to make, and even having made it, it remains intensely painful. As you can imagine, it is also intensely painful to M and to the children, so I ask that you keep them in your thoughts in the months, and years, ahead.
I do not regret anything except the necessity of ending my marriage. The last twenty-seven years of my life have been filled with enough happiness for a lifetime, indeed it has been half my life-time, and I continue to love M and our children, as I always will. I hope you will also.
In the short term I will be moving to Dad’s room at G____'s house, and can be reached there in the evenings. You can still reach me during the day in my studio in the barn, for the time being at least.
I am conducting a job search and my long-term plans are entirely up in the air.
Thank you for your understanding.
Well said. I think the story with your brother is telling, I've had similiar experience with the inexplicable ramblings. I see generally, there can be a very quite lull and an utterly lonely time after "the outing." Everyone does seem to go crazy, or at least seem to disappear - (I think it's more like shock to them and it comforts them to block you out of their mind?) Not sure...what did help was to reinject myself back in and act as I did before, everyone came to realize that nothing really has changed with who I was. My siblings, for the most part, act just as we did before (although it took like a year or so.)
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