_Lately, I've been pondering the whole idea of marriage as a state creation, and the government's involvement in family structure.  First, let me be clear: I'm just trying this argument on for size; I'm not entirely convinced it's right.  But as a thought experiment, follow me down this road for a minute.  Imagine that the government was no longer in the business of sanctioning any family structure at all.

First, suppose that there was no such thing as state-sanctioned marriage.  No tax benefits for being married, no deductions, no implications for social security credits.  Instead, marriage would simply be something that people do privately to announce their commitment to their friends or their church or their family or their God.  There would be no legal implications for this, only psychological and emotional ones.

Taking the government out of our private lives would have implications for family structure, too.  There wouldn't be tax deductions for having kids, for example.  Why should the government give people a financial incentive to have a particular family structure?) 

Instead of making sure that your employer gives you leave if you have a child (biological, adopted, whatever), the government could make sure that everyone got a certain amount of leave time to do whatever they wanted.  If you want to have a kid, great.  If you want to write a novel or volunteer at the local animal shelter with that time instead, great. 

It's not that people with families would be "punished;" it's simply that family-related activities wouldn't be privileged over other activities.  Similarly, the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) could still exist, but it wouldn't just be to take care of a family member.  Instead, you could use it if you needed to take care of anyone who was sick, even a friend.

I can imagine downsides to this approach, not to mention logistical difficulties associated with a lack of default rules about various matters (e.g., who can visit you in the hospital).  Health insurance could be problematic, too (though, uh, if we gave everyone health care, this wouldn't be an issue...).  But there's no reason we couldn't find solutions to these problems.

Since, statistically speaking, most people benefit from the laws and policies and practices that endorse particular family structures (and particular activities related to the creation and maintenance of these structures), I doubt that the government is likely to disentangle itself from these anytime soon.  But when we talk about whether gay marriage is worth fighting for, I can't help but wonder if these fights are beyond the point.  As long as marriage remains a government creature, I will remain fully dedicated to marriage equality.  But maybe the real problem is that the government rewards and incentivizes particular ways of living over other ways, calling the structures it endorses "American values," and implicitly branding all others deviant.  If this is so, it is a problem that goes well beyond gay and straight.

I'll be interested to know what you think about all of this, dear readers.  Should marriage be a government creature at all?  At the very least, I think it's worth pondering.

_ 
As most readers have heard, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the trial court's ruling on Prop 8.  I know it's hard as hell to keep track of all the cases and ballot measures (let alone understand them), so I've written a step-by-step guide/timeline that you don't need a JD to understand.


State and federal courts: the basic setup

First, California state courts have three levels:
1. Superior court (lowest level, where trials happen)
2. State appellate courts (also called "district courts;" middle level)
3. California Supreme Court (highest level)

Then we have the federal courts.  Three levels there, too:
1. District courts (lowest level, where trials happen--not the same as #2 above, despite the name)
2. Federal appeals courts (also called "circuit courts," middle level)
3. U.S. Supreme Court

The California Supreme Court interprets California laws, deciding whether those laws violate the state constitution or the US Constitution.  When it comes to the California Constitution, the California Supreme Court gets the final say.  But not so for the U.S. Constitution; the federal courts get to have the final say over that. 

So it's important to understand that there are two kinds of "constitutional" violations that people talk about--the state constitution and the federal constitution--and a different set of courts gets the final say over each one.  Understanding all this will make it easier to follow my breakdown.  Okay, here you go:


California Gay Marriage Timeline

2000: California voters pass Prop. 22, which is a state law saying that "marriage" means one man and one woman. 

2004: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issues same-sex marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite Prop. 22.

Anti-gay groups file lawsuits in SF superior court (state trial court), saying that Newsom's actions were illegal and the marriage licenses are invalid.  Newsom says that Prop. 22 is unconstitutional, and that it's not illegal to violate an unconstitutional law.

2005: The SF superior court says that Prop 22 is illegal.  Outlawing gay marriage is gender discrimination.  The anti-gays immediately appeal to the state appellate court. 

Before the state appellate court decides anything, the California legislature passes a bill saying same-sex marriages are allowed.  But a few days later, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoes it, saying the court should decide.

2006: The state appellate court overturns the lower court's decision.  It says that preventing gay marriage is not gender discrimination, that the state's interest in protecting the "traditional definition" of marriage is valid, and that the definition of marriage shouldn't be decided in court.   Of course, the gay rights lawyers appeal (those activist gays!) to the California Supreme Court.

2007: The California legislature passes another bill allowing same-sex marriages.  Schwarzenegger terminates this bill, too (HAHA, get it?  'Cause he's the TERMINATOR!?  Ha…  ha?). 

2008: The California Supreme Court rules on the Prop 22 case, saying that marriage is a fundamental right, and that voters can't just sweep it away.  After all, what if people voted to take away the freedom of speech?  You can't just "vote away" a fundamental right.  You have to actually amend the state or federal constitution.

So…  the anti-gay folks do exactly that, and propose an amendment to the state constitution.  (California lets its state constitution be amended by popular vote.)  This is what's known as Prop 8.  It's different from Prop 22, because Prop 22 was just a law; it didn't change the state constitution.

Prop 8 passes.  The California constitution now says that "marriage" means one man and one woman.  (Interestingly, this means that trans people who legally change their sex can get married, as long as it's to a person of the opposite sex.  Hmm...  a rare case of trans "privilege!")

2009: Gay rights lawyers file a suit in federal district court (the lowest level of federal court) saying that the California constitution now violates the US Constitution.  (See, states can say basically anything in their constitutions, as long as it doesn't violate the US Constitution.)  So that's how a state decision got into federal court.

2010: There's a trial in federal district court.  The judge (Vaughn Walker) rules that the state has no "rational basis" for denying a right (marriage) to a particular group (gays).  Even though sexual orientation doesn't get special constitutional protection under the law like race and gender does, you can't single people out for no good reason and deny them a right.

Anti-gay groups appeal to the Ninth Circuit (the federal appeals court), saying that Judge Walker got it wrong, and that there are good reasons for denying marriage to gays.  They also say that since Walker is gay himself, he was too biased to hear the case.

2012: Today's decision: the Ninth Circuit upholds the ruling.  They say that Judge Walker was fine to stay on the case (duh).  The big question is whether there was a rational reason to take away a right from a specific group of people.  The decision goes through all the supposed reasons for Prop 8 and says, come ON--banning gays from getting married doesn't promote ANY of these goals.  The only goal it DOES promote is harming a particular group, and that's not a legitimate/rational reason for a law. 

Next, the anti-gays will undoubtedly appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which may or may not take the case.  In a future post, I might talk a little more about this.  But for now, let's all bask in the happy afterglow of the Ninth Circuit's decision!

  

_This is the second part of a two-part post written by my dear ex-husband (DXH).  Before you read this, please check out the first part, below.


To be clear, this period of my life was not good.  I was separated from and not talking to my wife (at the suggestion of her counselor), living on my friend’s couch with about a car trunk’s worth of belongings, starting a new job in a new profession, and incredibly isolated because nobody else knew about it.
 
I kept my back straight and shoulders square for two reasons.  First and foremost, I knew that what ever I was going through, BDubs had it worse than I did.
 
She needed me. I promised to be there for her.  As she has written about, though we had a great marriage, there were still problems and I just wanted her to be happy.
 
I was also proving something to myself.  Years before I met BDubs, I let down somebody else to whom I owed support.  I disappointed her and myself.  It had deeply affected me. In fact, when BDubs called that first time, I literally thought, “Here is your chance.”  This was my chance to stand tall during a crisis and to redeem myself to myself.  I set out to do so.
 
In support of BDubs, I buried a lot of my emotions. I also buried myself in my new job because it gave me control over how I spent my time and did not highlight so clearly the fact the BDubs was not next to me. I kept such a tight grip on my emotions that I actually created a playlist called "Release" comprised of songs such as "Anybody Else but You" by the Moldy Peaches and "Troubled Mind" by Catie Curtis. I would listen to this list at night when it was quiet, away from work, and just cry.  Then I would collect myself, go to bed, and start over the next day.
 
One of the places I found solace was a Yahoo group called “Men Married to Lesbians.” It is a hard place that is full of men in severe pain. The intent is to be a place where men can go to try to figure out how to make a mixed-orientation marriage work. It is also a landing spot for men whose world has been turned upside down.  One man came home on a Friday to his wife telling him that she was gay, having an affair, and was leaving him and the kids. She moved out on Saturday. On Sunday she sent an e-mail to all their friends and family explaining the situation.  It made me feel lucky.
 
I admired the way that BDubs handled herself through this process.  She was always honest and earnest. She went out of her way to be sensitive to me and was deeply respectful of our marriage. She was a most reluctant lesbian.  She is a woman of the absolute highest integrity and I cannot tell you how much I respect what she has done over the past couple of years.
 
More than one of you has asked whether I regret marrying BDubs.  I have never regretted it for a moment.  There were dark moments when I was angry about the unfairness of it all.  But I always felt lucky to know and to have been married to BDubs.  Living with her was like getting a graduate degree in critical thinking. She pushed and challenged me in a way that I had not been before. We had some great times together and some tough times, but I definitely grew and improved as a person through it all. We did great things for each other. She taught be how to use a semicolon and I taught her how to do shots and listen to music that was not created by her parents' generation.
 
In writing this entry I thought a lot about how alone I felt in the process.  I was very scared to lose my friendship with DBubs and there was not a blueprint for how to keep it.  We ultimately decided to dissolve our marriage in order save our health and friendship.  It is heartening to hear that others have been able to do the same and I look forward to some random couple finding this entry in a Google search and hope that it will give them a little light.
 
Here, I need to stop for a moment and say thank you to my wonderful, extraordinary DGF.  I could sing her praises in a lot of different ways, but I want to focus on one.  My DGF and BDubs are friends.  Actual, legit, not bite-my-lip-forced, friends.  I really admire the DGF in this way because I can see the myriad of ways in which this would be difficult, but she recognizes the importance of my ongoing relationship with BDubs and accepts it as a part of me.  That takes a lot of trust and a textured view of relationships.  I admire her for that.
 
In the years since our divorce, I have watched BDubs's shoulders relax as depression and anxiety have loosened their long grip. Earlier in her blog, she described being with a woman as natural, like she did not have to pretend or guess.  That natural ease has really permeated many parts of her life now in a way that is profoundly related to her being able to square her sexuality.
 
Where she once moved through life with sheer determination and grit she is now moving with purpose and self-awareness.  It is a beautiful thing to see.


BW talking now: Thanks for reading this.  Even though the DXH and I talked throughout the process, reading his story from beginning to end like this was newly powerful for me.  I hope his perspective has been useful to you, too, and that you'll pass our story along to couples who might benefit from it.

And from the bottom of my heart (and I do not use sentimental phrases lightly), thank you to my DXH for sharing what he went through.  Writing about my own coming out was incredibly tough, and I know you went through something similar in writing this, DXH.  Without you, I would not be who I am now, and I doubt I'd be half as happy as I am now, either.  You are a brave, strong, courageous man, and I consider myself damn lucky to have gotten to be married to you back then, and to still be in your life now.

_As regular BW readers know, I recently told my coming out story ("Coming Out Married") in five parts (links: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V).  When my DXH (that's Dear Ex-Husband, for the uninitiated) offered to tell his version of the story, I jumped at the chance.  I think this side of the story--that of those to whom we come out, and whose lives are dramatically altered as a result--deserves to be told, and heard.

My DXH's story will be posted in two installments.  His story starts during the business trip I describe in Part III.  (Oh, and he refers to me here as "B-Dubs," short for "BW.")


BDubs called and asked me if I had time to talk.  Very uncharacteristically, I said, “not really” because work was overwhelming. But she persisted and I relented.  After a little hedging, she said “I am not sure I am 100% straight.”  Laying on our bed, I let those words sink in a little bit.  I asked her what she meant and she said that she wasn’t sure, but she needed to tell me. In that moment, I straightened my back, squared my shoulders, and told her that it was going to be all right, that we were going to be all right.  She was coming home the next day and we could talk then.
 
Then I hung up the phone.  And cried.  For about an hour.
 
In that moment, I did not take what she said to be fatal to our marriage, but it was profound and I could hear the pain and relief in her voice.
 
I did not know then that we would be separated within six weeks and divorced within the year (at least we would decide to be divorced. Paperwork was never our strong point).
 
When BDubs got home the next day we left the airport and grabbed a late meal at a diner. There, we began a relationship talk that would last about a year and continue through separation, dating, holidays, and isolation. The constants were that we loved each other, we would do our best to take care of each other, and that we trusted each other.
 
What was I thinking at the time? In the early going, I felt very clear that this would be a fairly quick and clear issue.  In the beginning I, very logically and cleanly, divided the process onto two steps.  First, we had to figure out BDub’s sexuality; then we could figure out the implications for our marriage. I figured it was no use to contemplate the implications until after you knew what the issue was.  If she was a “5 percenter” then it may not be a big deal for us.  Clear.
 
Clear and fanciful.
 
In short order, it became obvious that this was not going to be a clean and quick process. First, BDubs was very reluctant.  She did not want us to get divorced and she was facing the prospect of a very scary change for her life.  And so I found myself trying to get my wife to kiss a girl (but not in the typical male way).
 
Second, underlying this neat intellectual, two-part framework was a profound and dark fear that I was going to lose my best friend.  I met that fear the first night she stayed over at somebody’s house.  That somebody happens to be her current DGF.  I think that might have been the worst day, or at least in the top five of worst days.  The night before I had practically pushed her out the door with a charge to sleep with somebody else (as long as the somebody was a female). By the time she came home, I was a wreck.  Out of my head pacing the apartment.  I envisioned BDubs and this woman having morning coffee and contemplating how to break it to me that she was going to be moving out and I would lose everything I had.
 
And thus emotion eats intellect for lunch.
 
We had to separate. We had to figure this out, but neither of us could handle living together as it was happening.  Our lease was up, and she moved to a place where we had been planning to move together, and I moved to my friend’s couch (the separation day and the initial splitting up of our house was torturous and also in the top five worst days). We settled into what we knew was going to be a longer process...


It's BW talking now: Wow, right?  Wow.  Even now, years later, I get choked up when I think and read about this.  I'll post the second half of his story in a day or two.  Meanwhile, how about some comments from readers who have gone through something similar?  Any men reading this who are, or were, married to lesbians? 

I realized I don't know how to write this last part of my coming-out-married saga, because in some ways, I'm still going through it.  Not that I'm struggling with my sexual identity, or that I wish I still lived with my DXH, or anything like that.  But in a way, I think all of us who come out later in life feel as if we've lived a split existence, and I'm not sure this ever disappears completely.

I moved in with the DGF a couple of days ago, and the act of relocating spurred some tough memories for me.  There is something about combining households, about figuring out whose toaster to use or whether to mix our books or where to put the spoons, that makes me think of all the moves I've made before, and all the moves I might make in the future. 

My DXH and I have a good relationship.  We are great friends, we trust one another deeply, and I am certain that we will always be important people in each others' lives.  Part of this is because he is generous and forgiving.  Part of this is because of our honest communication during my coming out process.  And part of this is because we both understand sexual orientation and sexual attraction as things beyond our own willful control.

Even though we are good friends, we spend less time together than I would prefer, and sometimes I still miss him.  How can I not?  We spent ten years together--the vast majority of our adult lives.  We helped shape each other into the people we are now.  We learned together, made mistakes together.  We navigated car purchases and family holidays.  We fought, made up, lived in four different places, adopted a dog.  I am thankful that I got to spend the years I did with him, and I am also thankful that I had the courage to be true to myself and come out as a lesbian and live on my own.

To people who meet me now, I'm an out-and-proud butch lesbian with a secure identity and a great DGF whom I love dearly.  This is all accurate.  But even though no one can see them, the remnants of that other life are still inside me.  I still think about them, and they still affect who I am.  I don't think this is a bad thing at all.

Since coming out, I've met dozens of other gay people, men and women both, who used to be in heterosexual marriages.  Sometimes they treat their prior life as a shameful secret, and this seems to be particularly true of butch women.  I don't know why this is.  Maybe we're ashamed not to have known something so fundamental about ourselves.  Maybe we'd like people to think we've always been as comfortable in our own skin as we are now.  I can understand this impulse, but I think it's important that we tell our stories--whatever odd, convoluted tales they may be--so that other people can see them and know that they are not alone.

I'll conclude my own little coming out saga with a message to any lesbian or questioning women currently married to a man: If you are true to who you are, things will get better than they are right now.  Not in some cheesy, perfect, your-life-will-suddenly-be-awesome way.  But in a quieter, more gradual, process of self-definition.  It might be a hard road (and I'll offer more advice for navigating that road in a future post).  But just because you didn't get it right the first time doesn't mean you don't get another chance to be happy.

Note: This is the fourth installment in my coming out story.  If you haven't checked out parts I, II, and III yet, you should read 'em below so that this makes more sense.

In the two months after I got back, my DXH and I talked ceaselessly about our relationship.  We wanted to stay together, but we wanted to be honest with ourselves.  We mulled over "mixed-orientation" marriages.  We pondered polyamory.  We read message boards about couples who had gone through this.  Eventually, we decided to separate as a trial, and to give me a chance to figure things out. He moved about an hour away, but we kept the separation secret from nearly everyone who knew us (family included).  And even the very few who knew we were separated didn't know why.  I was deeply ashamed and didn't want anyone to know what we were going through—specifically, what I was going through.

Even now, it is hard to find words to describe how dark that year was. I remember very little of it. I remember endlessly long walks with my dog in the chill of November. I remember being depressed by the emptiness of the house that my DXH and I were supposed to live in together, but in which I now lived alone. I went to work, faked it, came home. I don't know if other people noticed anything different, but anyone who was really looking would have seen that I was just an uptight, anxious shadow of a human being.  Every now and then, my DXH would come back and spend a couple of weeks living at home.  It was fraught with all kinds of tensions, all forms of guilt and worry.  I felt anxious when he was around, and destitute when he was not.  Every time he left, I spent several hours crying.  Each departure was worse than the one before it.  I felt like my insides had been cut out of me.   

At my DXH's urging, I started trying to date women.  (One of my first relationships was with the wonderful woman who is now my DGF.  But ours is another story, and I will tell it another time.)  I was struck by how natural dating women felt.  I didn't have to think about every little move I made; it just happened.  Granted, I was awkward.  Granted, I had no idea how to ask a woman out, or how long I was supposed to wait before calling her.  Somewhat amazingly, the DXH coached me on these points.  He wanted me to figure my sexual orientation out, while I was more reluctant--deeply afraid of what I would learn.

And yet, some things were clear.  I was starting to dress in a way that was more natural for me.  A few men's shirts and a sweater vest had wormed their way into my wardrobe, and I wore them with great enthusiasm.  And kissing a woman to whom I was attracted made fireworks explode in my tiny BW brain.  I'd always thought that this was something that only happened in the movies, or to hopeless romantic types--not to pillars of logical thought like yours truly!  Uh-oh, I thought again.  Uh-oh.   

To be continued...

Around the time "Coming Out Married, Part II" (last post--see below!) ended, I was scheduled to leave for a month-long business trip hundreds of miles from home.  My DXH wasn't coming, so I'd have plenty of time to stew about my sexual orientation.  I was probably at least bisexual, I was now convinced, but beyond that, I was still confused. 

I had very little extra time on my trip.  But with what time I did have, I found myself trolling Craigslist W4W.  Just to look... You know.  To see what was out there.  In the back of my head, I thought that I might be able to get the gay "out of my system" by having anonymous sex with some woman, which would let me return to my marriage and live a "normal" life happily ever after. 

Guilt was becoming a heavy, constant burden.  I hated myself for entertaining the idea of cheating on my DXH.  I went so far as to answer an ad and arrange to meet a woman at a cafe.  I remember sitting in the dark of my rented car and deciding whether to go in.  What stopped me wasn't the fear that I might be a lesbian, but the sadness that flooded me when I thought about violating my marriage vows.  That was the closest I came to physically cheating on my DXH.  I didn't go into the cafe.  Instead, I drove to the far end of the parking lot and sat in my car for over an hour.  I thought over my options.  On the one hand, I could stay married.  On the other, I could kill myself.  There only seemed to be two options.  Killing myself seemed the better one.  I decided it would be the least painful for him if I made it look like an accident.  If he thought I'd died randomly, he'd eventually move on. I had promised my psychologist that I would call her if I was feeling suicidal.  I did.  We talked.  I didn't do it, but thought I might do it the following day, or the one after that.
 
I began looking at flight schedules, trying to put off my return home for as long as possible, and convincing myself that this was necessary for work.  Once I realized what my subconscious mind was up to, I knew I had to tell my DXH or I'd never come home.  At the time, I thought I lacked the courage to kill myself.  Now, I realize that not killing myself took much more courage.

In the end, I told him on the phone.  I had to.  I went to the top floor of a deserted shopping mall early one morning and sat in the empty food court with my cell phone shaking in my hands.  After saying that I had something important to tell him, I think my exact words were, "I think I might not be entirely straight." 

I will always be grateful for my DXH's first reaction.  He thanked me for telling him, and said it must have been unbelievably hard to carry that around with me.  He asked if I was a lesbian, and I told him, truthfully, that I didn't know.  I thought I was probably bisexual.  I fervently hoped I was bisexual.  I told him it was probably just a realization I needed to have.  Once I worked through it, I thought, we'd probably be okay.   Two days later, I was on a plane, headed home.

To be continued...

(If you didn't read my last post, it's probably best to start with that one.)

...Where was I?  So, anything sexual between me and the DXH* was getting less and less frequent.  I was becoming extremely frustrated with myself.  Why wasn't I interested?  It wasn't because of the DXH--he was as great (and handsome!) as ever, plus ridiculously patient.  He didn't want to push it--he just wanted me to feel better.

The following year, we moved to a new town, and I started a grad school program, which I had thought I'd enjoy, but hated--and hated myself for hating, which (of course) is a totally healthy outlook.  This made me even more anxious, and I was convinced I'd made an irreversible, horrible mistake by starting this new (expensive) program.  Things were dark.  I'd stay up for hours, hating my work and plagued by guilt that I was a crappy wife.  I stopped reading fiction (one of my great joys in life), and also stopped doing any kind of art (another great joy).

And then I met this woman.**

She was a barista at a coffee shop I frequented, and also taught community college math (how's that for an interesting combo?).  She was seven years older than me, and for reasons I couldn't figure out, I was interested in everything about her.  I told myself it was just a straight girl-crush, and that these things happened all the time; even the New York Times said so.  Still, there was the fact that when she walked into a room, I stopped breathing.  There was the fact that for reasons that eluded me, I couldn't stop thinking about her hands.

Well, I thought...  I might be just a teensy, tiny, miniscule bit bisexual-ish.  So what?  Lots of people were partly bisexual, right?  No big deal.  I didn't act on it.  She was married; I was married.  We hung out a lot.  Nothing happened.  I don't think either of us really wanted it to. 

But once I let that door in my mind crack open the slightest amount, my true sexual orientation elbowed its way in, little by little.  My inability to control my thoughts drove me crazy.  It was like a one-way ratchet: I could become more interested in women, but not less interested.  I decided the solution was to stop it in its tracks, to not let it get worse.  I hadn't breathed a word of my struggle to anyone at this point.  Sexual thoughts about women?  HELL no--I didn't let my mind go there.  I buckled down.  I studied more.  I got a new occupation. I found a terrific therapist.  (I made sure she was trained in LGBT stuff just in case that was contributing to my depression, which I highly doubted.)

And then I met this other woman.

I'd actually known her before.  She was a photographer from Brooklyn who had done some work I'd written about for an online magazine.  Our paths crossed again when she had an opening at a gallery in the city where I live, and from that reconnection, we started spending time together occasionally, a couple hours in a used bookstore or chatting away at a coffee shop. Eventually I found myself thinking about her more frequently.  Not this again, I thought--I can't handle another one!  I tried to stop myself from thinking about her romantically, but it was tough.  She lived with her girlfriend, which was another layer of insulation against the possibility of anything untoward happening between us.  Ah, but life is not so simple, is it? 

One evening, this woman and I went out to a bar with some friends.  My DXH was home with a cold and her girlfriend was out of town for the weekend.  We all had a few pints of beer, and the others left early.  This woman and I weren't 100% sober enough to drive yet, so we decided to walk off my Fat Tires and her Pilsner Urquells.  I don't remember what we talked about, only that as we passed people on the street, I hoped they would think we were together.  I felt guilty--not because I thought homosexuality was wrong, but because I was married.  Eventually, we came upon a park, where we sat and talked.  The sprinklers came on.  We didn't move.  We talked some more.  There was a moment of silence when I wanted more than anything in the world to kiss this woman.  In that moment, I realized: Oh, so that's what that's for.  By "that," I mean some piece inside me--some indescribable component that had always been sitting there, unused, in my head and heart.  It clicked into place and was suddenly a fully activated part of me.  Uh-oh, I thought.  Uh-oh.  I don't know if this woman wanted to kiss me, too.  I think she did.  I guess I'll never know.  I've replayed that night many times in my head, wondering what would have happened if I'd done it.

But the moment passed and was gone.  I walked her to her car and left, full of wonder at this new realization, and full of regret for my inaction (plus, full of guilt for the regret--I was becoming a veritable expert on guilt by now).  Later, I wanted to tell this woman how I felt, but I couldn't.  Soon, she began to treat me coldly, and ground our burgeoning friendship to a halt.  Much later, I realized that maybe she had been interested in me and decided to cut me off before anything happened.  But at the time, I decided she hated me, which caused me a ton of pain.  And I was also disturbed that this THING inside me had been unlocked.  So... was I a lesbian? 

To be continued...  Next up: Craigslist!  Suicide!  More!


* Someone asked me if my DXH knows I'm posting all this, and is okay with it.  Yes, and yes!
** BTW, I reserve the right to make up immaterial details.

I've been putting this off for a long time.  But a few evenings ago, something about the alignment of the rain and the fall chill and the smell of damp earth outside made me realize that it's time to start writing about my personal coming out story.  I'm going to do so in four or five separate installments.

As my regular readers know, I used to be married to a man.  This shocks people who meet me now, but I made for a somewhat convincing straight woman.  I loved my husband dearly, and had few doubts about marrying him even though I was relatively young (23-24).  Back then, I didn't think that I might be gay.  Sure, there were signs, but the idea of kissing another woman actually kind of grossed me out.  (Looking back, I think this was because I didn't know any soft butchy women, which turned out to be my type.)

Beginning right after I got engaged to the DXH (that's "dear ex-husband" for the uninitiated), I started to feel like there was something deeply and irrevocably wrong with me.  There were days when I would retreat to my bedroom and cry for hours.  I had no idea why.  I only knew I felt hopeless.  I had felt for a while like there was a thin film around my whole body, separating me from other people like the cell membranes I learned about in high school biology.  I figured this was fairly normal for us introspective types, but I saw a doctor (a general practitioner) about the sudden crying.  He prescribed Effexor; I took it; the tears subsided.  I figured a therapist would be a waste of time and money, so I didn't bother to look for one. 

Despite my occasional depressed days, I was overjoyed to marry the DXH, and the wedding was one of the happiest days of my life.  We were surrounded by friends and family, and I felt like I was becoming part of this neat club known as "married life."  People gave us advice, congratulations, and a new set of dishes.  I felt like I was part of this big tradition, and I was especially pleased at how great it felt to be following in my parents' footsteps, and how proud they seemed of me.  I didn't have doubts about my love for this guy, so I didn't have doubts about marrying him. 

The bad stuff started slowly.  Effexor seemed to be worsening my feeling of separation from other people.  (Someone I was working with died abruptly and I couldn't cry!)  Tired of my dulled emotions, I quit the Effexor cold turkey.  (This was before all that research came out about Effexor withdrawal and suicide.)  Two days later, I was sitting on the bathroom floor, overcome by  incredibly strong self-harming impulses.  Thankfully, the DXH came home before anything happened, and nursed me through the next couple of days.  [Note: never go off of meds without a doctor's supervision.]

Things settled a bit.  Some days I would grow despondent and not know why, but much of the time I was okay.  My emotions eventually sharpened back to their pre-medication state, but as this happened, the depression returned too, and so did my terrible conviction that there was something wrong with me.

The DXH and I had never had what I'd call a raucous sex life, but at least in the beginning, it had been pretty good.  Sex wasn't as earth-shattering as the movies promised, but it was an enjoyable enough form of intimacy.  (Sometimes I felt kind of disembodied, almost like my brain was watching itself and thinking, "Hmm.  That's interesting.  Now you are having sex."  I thought this was normal.)  But in the two years after we got married, I became completely uninterested in physical intimacy.  We first chalked this up to the Effexor (which extinguished my sex drive), then to my birth control pills...

...To be continued.  Next up: more sex, plus BW's first female crushes.