The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth...

It is often said that when your spouse/partner comes out of the closet, they push you into it instead. As D is still very much in denial I can’t comment on this properly from experience but I do know that every day that passes I feel more and more trapped by the secret of his sexuality. I know for a fact that he still blames me for his current predicament (the having “lost” his wife and child thing) as he continues to convince himself that if I had only given him “one more chance” he would have been “cured” and would have been able to live life “normally” (as he sees it.) Obviously we all know that the urges he had to sleep with men would never have gone away and his obnoxious behaviour caused by the “guilt” of the situation would have continued and that I very definitely did the right thing but as time passes and J asks more and more about his Daddy and why we broke up I find it harder and harder to explain to him and I hate D for pushing me into this lie. I hate him for being stupid enough to marry me in the first place as if he had had the sense to admit to himself who he really was, I wouldn’t have found myself a divorced single mother at the age of 30.

I suppose many people are wondering why I continue to protect him. I often wonder myself but I think that more than protecting D, I am trying to protect my son. While I pride myself on being open with my son he doesn’t quite grasp the concept of sexuality and the explanation “Mummy and Daddy broke up because Daddy preferred random shags with men to Mummy” is something I feel he isn’t quite ready for so I continue to circumvent the question whenever it arises. I hate it when I explain to people that I am divorced and can’t tell them the full story (as I guess it doesn’t always seem appropriate to say to a random stranger “I didn’t fail at marriage, I just chose someone who was more interested in other men than his wife and son.”) because I feel like a total failure. Over the past 6 months I have been to FIVE weddings. Each wedding has made me sadder and sadder about how my own marriage turned out as watching all of my friends at the altar I still remember the emotions I felt and the joy I experienced when I said my vows. I am so incredibly happy for my friends but so incredibly sad that marriage and relationships in general have been tainted for me because D couldn’t be honest with himself and who he really is/was.

I guess I am bitter. Yes life is much better now than it was 3/4 years ago and I will never truly regret my relationship with D as it gave me two things- my son and kick-arse Japanese skills but there are days when I wish I could turn back time and be the person I was before it all went horribly wrong. I want to be open and trusting again and I want to go back to believing in true love and happily ever after. I am tired of hiding the real reason for my divorce from the majority of people (my own mother and D’s family especially) and I hate the fact that people think that I couldn’t make my marriage work for normal reasons (I have never been good at having people think I messed something up) and that I just gave up because of cultural reasons (or because I was too young or whatever). At the same time I hate it when people do the “poor you” face when I tell them what really happened.

Lately I have been seeing a lot of videos from the “It Gets Better” initiative that is sweeping the world at the moment. The original intention of these videos is incredibly important but every time I see one I wish I could send it onto D and show him that actually, if he was just brave enough to do it, being who he really is wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I want to send the videos to every teenager (especially those in Japan) who is trying to convince themselves that they aren’t really gay and that they will be straight when they grow up. I pray every day that increased awareness and acceptance of homosexuality will mean that in the future, fewer women (and men) find themselves in the situation I was in where they find out that their brand new husband/wife is cheating on them with a member of the same sex. I think that these videos can have a much greater and more wonderful effect than people realise.

While on the subject of media I have to say that I am SO incredibly sick and tired of how “being married/in a relationship but then realising they are gay” storylines are portrayed in soap operas. I will admit to feeling sympathy for guys who grow up in families where they feel that they can’t embrace their true sexualities. It must be horrible to not be able to be yourself and be open with your family and friends but I do think that more consideration needs to be given to the women they end up married to/in relationships with. Nobody considers how horrendous it is to not understand why your partner rebuffs yet another advance and refuses to show you any physical affection at all. Nobody portrays how your self-esteem and self-confidence disappears piece by piece as you wonder what you are doing wrong. Nobody understands how utterly devastating it is to feel like the one person who is supposed to be showering you with love is distant and refuses to spend time with you, instead choosing to do anything else but be on their own with you. It is hard to “get” it unless you have been there but while there are so many avenues of support for men/women who come out of the closet, there are very few for the women or men left behind.

I don’t really know where I am going with this post and I am not sure how best to end it... maybe the best way to end it is.. to be continued....