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I just got home from a PTO budget meeting and I am smiling… Why, you may ask, would I be smiling after a budget meeting? Because it was so good to see the ladies (and one gentleman) again after a long summer of working and scheduling my children’s lives. I am looking forward for school to start in a couple of weeks for several reasons – (1) my kids HAVE GOT to get out of this house, (2) it is much simpler to make a work schedule when I know where they are 5 days a week from 8:30-3:30, and (3) I get to see all of the parents that I have become friends with since The Bug started Pre-School.
There were times during the past 20 months that I thought I should move home. Go back to my parents’, lick my wounds, and start over again. But then I didn’t want to have to move the kids away from their home, from their friends, from their school – I was there, I did that when I was a teenager and it was HARD on me. But I lived and my kids would, too, if I moved them.
But the thing that has held me here are the bonds that I have made since The Bug was born. I have finally found a place where I fit in, where I belong. I’m not the “new girl” or the outsider. I have good friends that I have known since college, high school and even elementary school, but HERE is where I feel welcome. It is my home.
School starts soon and with it will be the mayhem of morning drop-offs, afternoon pick-ups, homework, reports, scout meetings, instrument lessons and on and on. But it also means seeing my friends on a daily basis, catching up on the playground, working a library shift and seeing the smile on my kid’s face when s/he sees me at school, talking with the teachers and secretaries. I will feel complete again… as complete as I can be right now.
Every day I am a little better and as the Beatles said, I get by with a little help from my friends.
…so why shouldn’t I? Everyone is blogging, about coupons and deals, about their travels, about their life experiences. About everything and nothing, so why shouldn’t I?
I started this blog awhile ago, January 2010 or so, to be able to get out my overwhelming thoughts while I was going through the early stages of my separation but I never published it. So much has happened since then… Things are back to normal, as normal as things will be now that we are separated and living apart as best friends and parenting partners. I thought it was time to publish it. I’m not sure why but something is telling me to…
If you are my friend or my family, I hope this will help you understand a little bit better of what I have been going through these past 20 months. If you are meeting me for the first time through this blog, welcome to my crazy life as a practically-single parent of two awesome kiddos and a straight wife to my best friend who is figuring out his own life.
Stay tuned… Tomorrow I get my wisdom teeth removed, oh joy!
I realized today what it is that I want to do. I have lots of things that I like to do… I like my jobs – all four of them; I like to read; I like to crochet. But what I want to do is SING. Music has always been a huge part of my life, I have been singing since I was a child, I have been in some choir or another since elementary school with little break. I love to sing. I need to sing. Sadly, along with that need has been fear. I sing for God, I sing for my kids and I sing for me. But somewhere in there is that ever-present fear of not being good enough. There are so many songs out there that just speak to me, that I feel like I should sing because it is how I feel and how I can express those feelings. But because of my fear, I am keeping that all locked inside.
I have things I want to say to my husband (yes, were are still married but separated) that would be so easy if I could just sing them to him. Or make him a mixed tape with all of the songs but then they aren’t really FROM me because someone else is singing them. I have things I want to say to my kids, to my friends, to my family. But this isn’t Glee or High School Musical. I can’t break out in song to let people know how I feel or what I want. So my dream is that I would record the songs in my heart so that my loved ones can have “me” singing to them whenever they want to listen.
Today’s song that won’t leave my head is “Whataya Want from Me” by Adam Lambert. It is not a coincidence that Adam is gay, like my husband. What I wouldn’t give for my husband to say these words to me:
Yeah, it’s plain to see
that baby you’re beautiful
And there’s nothing wrong with you
It’s me – I’m a freak
but thanks for lovin’ me
Cause you’re doing it perfectly
There might have been a time
When I would let you step away
I wouldn’t even try but I think
you could save my life
Just don’t give up
I’m workin’ it out
Please don’t give in
I won’t let you down
It messed me up, need a second to breathe
Just keep coming around
Hey, what do you want from me
What do you want from me
http://www.metrolyrics.com/whataya-want-from-me-lyrics-adam-lambert.html
Yes, I still love him. He is my best friend, the father of my kids, the guy I like to spend time with. I’m not the one with the problem, I’m not the one that left. He is figuring himself out. I hope every day that he realizes that I am the one who will love him unconditionally forever.
This is the first time that I felt that I had so much inside that I just needed to get it out… This was nine days after he told me he was leaving…
December 17th, 2009
Alone again. I am used to being alone. His work schedule usually takes him away. I have no doubt that is where he is. Early mornings, late nights. Not every night; most nights he is here in time for dinner.
He has shut off from me for so long, that I am used to that kind of alone, too. Content to accept any type of contact, cuddles, hand-holding, touching slightly.
But this kind of alone is painful. He walks out of the room and I fall apart. The hole in my chest comes back. The painful abdominal cramps start again. I know that one of these times, he will walk out and never come back. He is already gone in his mind, even if he is here physically. He is no longer mine, his mind on the future where he can find someone he can be with for the rest of his life. He was that person to me. My future.
He says he wants to stay… for now… but doesn’t know what is good for me. What is good for me is having a husband who loves me and cherishes me. What is good for me is having a partner, a person who is in this with me together. I guess that he isn’t good for me, but he is who I love, who I need, who I want, flaws and all. And this is a huge flaw.
A gay man fell in love with a straight woman. He was the best liar, he could hide his true self from even himself. But not from me. I have known and buried it deep. Then I knew again and it moved up in my consciousness. Then another clue and I was more aware. And another, and another. Suddenly I couldn’t trust this person anymore, this person who was my husband, my best friend, my companion, my confidante. How could he do this to us?
But there is no us, he says. I’m gay, he says. Yes, I knew that. What did I expect when he realized it himself? When he allowed himself to admit that he was wrong, that he created a life for himself that he didn’t want anymore? I don’t know what I expected. I have spent so long hiding and pretending that maybe I thought he would stay with me for the sake of our family. After all, he says I’m his best friend, too. Why can’t he just stay with me?
Why do I want him to? He has been my companion, my best friend, my co-parent, my former lover for half of my life. Half of my life I have spent with this man. I expected to spend the rest of my life with him. I stood by him through graduate school, when he said he couldn’t go on, I encouraged him. Reminded him of what his goals were, that this was what he wanted, what he has always wanted. I stood by him when he was sick, over and over I sat in the hospital with him, holding his hand, helping him eat, helping him wash, helping him grow stronger. I stood by him when our dream, our business, didn’t work, didn’t make money. When we had no money, we stayed together. I stood by him when he was struggling with finding himself, a long process. Now he has found himself and he wants to leave…
Why do I want him to stay? Because through it all, I still love him. I still need him. He is still the person that I want to be with, but I am not that for him. He wants to find someone who he can spend the rest of his life with. Because what I have given him and given up isn’t enough for him. How do I not take that personally?
Please don’t be upset, he says this morning. I’m trying, I say. I am trying. Every second of every day since last Tuesday, I have tried to not get upset. I have tried to keep breathing. I have tried to hold it together. But I can’t. He has already moved on, I am still here. Loving a man who doesn’t want me, that doesn’t need me, and that means nothing to him. The loving and needing mean nothing to him. He says that I am still his best friend. He loves me but not the way I deserve to be loved. What about what I want?
And what is it that I want? Do I really want to spend more time with someone who doesn’t love me, desire me? Do I really want to continue to question every phone call, every email? I have already blocked the texting function on his phone, after all it is in my name, so that I don’t get tempted to see who he is writing to when he leaves me. He says there isn’t anyone else. But what about that person, supposedly from California, who has texted and emailed him on our work email, telling him he missed his voice and that he loves him? Who is that? No one he says. He’s not even in contact with him anymore. And I am supposed to just believe it. I want to, but I don’t. He has finally gotten smart and made himself his own Yahoo email address that I don’t have access to. But how can it be no one? How can this man who I love just throw “I love you” around to some faceless person so casually? Does it mean nothing to him? So what does it mean when he says he loves me?
But through all of that, I still want him here. But why? Love? Safety? Security? Why do I want him here? For the kids? The kids… how hurt they must be, they will be. They overheard our fight, when he said he was looking at an apartment in the city. My son is treating this like an adventure. If Daddy gets a new house, then we’ll have two, oh joy! My daughter is not saying anything, but then again they don’t know much. They know that he wants to move out. But not why. What do I tell my kids? Daddy wants to find someone else to love because my love isn’t good enough for him… No. Daddy wasn’t sure if he was gay or not, so he went along, married me, had two beautiful kids and then one day decides “okay I am gay”. No.
So what do I tell my friends? I have hidden this from them for so long, never willing to say it out loud. Now all of the sudden he is leaving, I am falling apart and they are saying “I never would have guessed”. How do I explain that I don’t care? That I want him here for as long as he is willing to stay? No one can understand that. Let him go they all say. It is better for you that way… I don’t know what is better for me. All I know is that since December 8th, I haven’t eaten well, I have been sick, I have had breakdowns every day, several times a day. But why? Because something is ending and I don’t want it to? Because he is leaving despite everything I have given him? Because I am afraid to be alone?
What have I given up by being here? The usual, my career, my life that could’ve been, love that could’ve been. But what about myself? I have turned into someone who I don’t like, simply from hiding who he is. From pretending everything is okay. From never talking about the elephant in the room. From believing the lies every time and then hating myself for believing them. From being told I am making things up, that I am crazy, go take a pill. I am mad and sad and frustrated all of the time. Who is this person? I don’t like her at all. She is short with her kids, short with her friends, short with her parents, her family.
Eleven years being married on December 12th, 2009. Happy Anniversary, by the way I’m gay and you knew it so just deal with it. Oh and Merry Christmas, too. We got married the December after he graduated. I was so proud of him, him on my arm, he wanted to be with plain, ordinary, little me. The church was so beautiful, Christmas greens draped all over, ivory ribbons hanging, candle flames dancing. I was so happy, WE were so happy. December is an anniversary month. We were engaged in December 1996. We got married in December 1998. My life ended in December 2009. Everything goes full circle.
I am scared. Terrified of what the future will bring. Our kids are 9 and 6. What is this going to do to them? Not even that Daddy is gay; we are very open and accepting of that. No, that he is leaving, but not really he says. He will still be around – help me with things around here. Is that what I really want? I don’t know.
I don’t know what I want. But I know that I am deathly afraid of letting him go because he will never come back. How can I live without him? How do I survive?
No really, I am sorry. If you are reading this, then you searched for “straight wife” or something along those lines, in hopes that you would find someone else out there like you… If that is the case, I am sorry. I am sorry that you are going through the same thing that I am. But I hope that in reading this, you will find comfort in knowing that you are not alone… I created this blog today. I have been entertaining writing one, but I’m not a writer so I was hesitant… There are so many women out there in my situation, but we don’t have much in the way of support. There is support for those who have known and some who have only just found out. There are some that hate their husbands/exes and some that are living in an open marriage. Where are the ones who have known and who are separating from their husbands but are still friends with them, still love them, still care? Is it only me???
My husband came out to me on December 8th, 2009, four days before our 11th wedding anniversary. But I had clues previous to that which I chose to ignore and/or discuss with him. Eventually, the clues became too numerous to ignore. Ultimately I accepted him for who he was, but he still hadn’t. He now does accept that he is gay, he intends to leave me and find a man whom he can love and have an emotional attachment to. I am devastated, he was that person for me. He was the one I loved, who I had an emotional attachment with, who I intended to spend the rest of my life with…
But I came to the realization on December 31st, 2009 that I cannot dwell on the loss of my marriage anymore. I need to move on. My friend wrote it perfectly, he has rewritten my past and my future. With his six words (“There is no ‘us’, I’m gay”) he has changed everything. But I cannot hang on to him anymore because that is only pushing him farther away. I want him to remain my best friend, my parenting partner, but I fear that if things continue as they have these last several weeks that he will walk away and never look back, except to see his children. I can’t bear to lose him completely…
Maybe you ended up here because of my blog’s name and you ask “Why is this blog called Defying Gravity???” Well, I am an avid Glee fan. I am a total Gleek. I have downloaded every episode and every song and, well, that’s not the topic of this blog!… One of the episodes used “Defying Gravity” from Wicked. I never really paid too much attention to the lyrics, they didn’t mean anything to me. One day, not too long after my life changed, my husband played me THIS SONG on MY iPOD in MY CAR and said this is how he feels. Once I came to my great realization (as referenced above), I decided “Back at ya, baby!” This is MY new theme song. And here it is:
“Defying Gravity” from Wicked (as sung in the Glee episode titled “Wheels”)
Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I’m through with playing by the rules
Of someone else’s game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It’s time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!
It’s time to try
Defying gravity
I think I’ll try
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I am defying gravity
And you wont bring me down!
I’m through accepting limits
’cause someone says they’re so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I’ll never know!
Too long I’ve been afraid of
Losing love I guess I’ve lost
Well, if that’s love
It comes at much too high a cost!
I’d sooner buy
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I’m defying gravity
I think I’ll try
Defying gravity
And you wont bring me down!
Defying Gravity -- A Straight Wife's Journey 