Only the Truth can prevent complete destruction

I'm a 59-year-old man happily married to my wife. One problem: I've realised I'm gay and I've also realised that only the truth can prevent complete destruction of myself and everything I love.

How does that happen? You must think me callous, mean-spirited and morally bankrupt. well, at least you're not alone… so do I.

Well one thing I can say, is that it happened despite myself. If I could change something – anything – not to be in the situation I'm in right now, I would do it. But here we are. Coming out as gay later in life brings with is a huge amount of baggage I'd rather not have and it threatens to upend a successful marriage.

As I start this blog, I have come out to myself but to no-one else and it's killing me. But this is the first step. A necessary step. I would like to avoid hurting anyone, but I know that's not possible. If I stay in the closet, I am hurting myself and as a bonus, lying to the people I love the most. If I come out, I will definitely hurt my wife. So what to do?

But before I get too specific, let me say some things… I think I can hear you shouting from here… How did it come to this?

As a young man in the 80s, not many people were openly gay, but I did have the chance to meet a man who I admired – a lot. I really looked up to him in the puppy dog way that young men in their very early 20s look up to anyone who is older and – they think – wiser. He was witty, funny and clever. He was a musician and actor and pretty all-round amazing. He was older, and more experienced. The first weeks were amazing and fun and for the first time, I felt completely at ease with myself.

The loving relationship soured quickly though and after the first heady rush of passion, it became borderline abusive and cheap. I felt used and hurt. I objected to some of the things he wanted me to do and some of the things he wanted me to wear were ridiculous. I told him this was too much at once. Could we take it slower? The abuse abruptly worsened and after a stint in the emergency room after “a fall”, he told me I was straight and boring. I should leave. It was over.

I left that relationship believing him. If I could not do what he asked of me – and what he asked was, apparently, not unreasonable if you were gay – the logical conclusion was that I was straight – or bisexual maybe? Either way I knew I didn't want what he was offering. I didn't feel right to me.

A couple of straight relationships followed. And then one day, I met my future wife. We really hit it off. It was amazing. It felt right. We clicked. It was a loving relationship. We laughed, we cried, we lived in Paris together and eventually, 29 years ago, we got married. We now have several grown-up kids, and over these 29 years, I firmly believed I was bisexual. My mistake was probably not telling my wife sooner but in my mind, I had made my choice, so my sexuality was irrelevant. And it was – for along time. But over the years I have had the feeling that something was missing. Not definable, really, but an undeniable emptiness.

So roll on 2021, and I'm working on my clapped-out sailboat that I bought for a song. I'm alone and have been working in the Sicilian sun for about 2 weeks when I meet a gay man and we become friends. Nothing sexual, mind, and nothing sinister. We just became good friends, going out, drinking, laughing. But the impact and the feelings that this friendship brought up were impossible to ignore. It was a trigger and I went into a deep depression for a week, only being forced to emerge when my son joined me to go sailing. That brought me back to reality and I pushed the feelings aside again, but the door had been forced open and as soon as he left, I had to confront what I had felt.

Over the last few months I have come to the inevitable conclusion that I am not bisexual after all – I'm gay. I've been lying to myself all these years and I now have to face the fact that what I have believed these last 40 years was complete bollocks.

Last weekend, my wife was away so I had the house to myself. These are the times when reality really kicks in. It is the time, when I am alone with my thoughts, I have time to process without having to spend huge amounts of energy pretending to be someone else, consciously or not. I realise that despite having moved to Bournemouth (south-western UK) nearly 2 years ago, I haven't made any friends here. Not only that, I have retreated into myself and refuse to have a social life. I don't have real conversations with my wife anymore, so I'm not only withdrawing from others, I'm withdrawing from those I love the most.

It was time for action. So this week, I called a therapist to help me organise my thoughts and prepare a plan to tell my wife. I've already had one session and I can't wait for the next one. But right now, I feel scared to death. Scared that I will hurt her so deeply she will hate me and I'll lose my best friend. I'm scared that she will think this is her fault. I'm scared that she will think that I've purposely misled her. Have I? I don't think so and I have been utterly faithful throughout these years. I just hope that I can convince her not to hate me – in time.

There's passage in the Tale X of the Heptameron by Marguerite de Navarre, where honourable Amadour asks the married Florida whom he loves: “I pray you, sweetheart, counsel me whether it is better for a man to speak or die?” This is, of course a trap. We all die so it is always better to speak. I will speak when I am ready. Sometime soon. For good or ill, my sweet wife needs to know the truth. In that way she can have agency and I can avoid destroying myself.

I hope, dear reader, that if you stumble on this blog, it can help you in some way. Your story is not mine, nor mine yours, but I will regularly update you on my progress. Until then, I wish you well. Don't be shy to comment if the fancy takes you.