Chapter 6: We Have A Closet? / Independence Day

It has taken a while for me to reach the point where I felt emotionally ready to share this specific time in my life.  Close friends all know bits and pieces, but in general, I didn’t talk about it for a long time.  At least not in depth.  No major detail.  Cliff-note versions are all anyone has had.  I’m sure before I finally post this chapter to the site, I will have gone over it a dozen times.  And even after I finally have a version that I feel comfortable sharing, I’ll re-assess, revise, and make small changes over time.  After all, this is the nitty gritty.  The dirt.  What most people probably really want to hear.  And I want it to be accurate.  As my disclaimer said, this is my side of the story.  My personal interpretation of events.  And I’ve already admitted to being biased.  That said, I was about as supportive and loving as ANY woman could be to a husband who is coming out of the closet.  So although some bitterness will show in my words, the love and support I gave to Greg in this time of my life should hopefully be enough to balance out any karma life might have for me in the future.  In fact, karma owes me a whole hell of a lot of good still, as far as I’m concerned.

In early January 2010, I used PayPal to take care of a small bill I had accrued online.  I thought nothing more of the situation until, two days later, I received an e-mail from PayPal stating that my charge had been rejected due to insufficient funds, but that they would attempt to obtain the money from my account again in two days before pressing the issue further.  Payday was soon enough, that I knew the debt should be taken care of, but the fact that we had no money in our account alarmed me greatly.  After all, I never spent money. Hell, I never even carried my purse with me since I didn’t make any purchases.  Greg had control of our finances and continued to say “We're FINE. Trust me!” whenever I pushed the issue and begged to play a role in things again. 

I went out to the living room and found Greg sitting at his laptop, as usual.  I was upset at the time, obviously, and my voice was probably shaking when I asked why our money was all gone.  Greg said that he’d paid some bills recently, but that payday was soon and we’d be back to “just fine” shortly.  Overwhelmed by the fact that our account was so low that even an $8.00 charge would be denied, I wandered down to the basement where our bedroom was.  A short time later, Greg’s footsteps were heard coming down the stairs.  He came in the room and could see that I’d been crying a bit.  He looked horrible and I could tell there was something weighing on his mind.  I decided to shut my mouth and let him talk without interruption, regardless of what he had to say.    “There is something I need to talk to you about, Lindsie.  I've known, from the time I was about 13, that I was gay.  I've never told anyone about it.  I've held it inside all this time.  I recently started having thoughts about hurting myself and that's when I realized that I needed to get help.  That I couldn't go on any more with my secret.  So I have been seeing a therapist.  That's where the money from our account went.”  He also shared that I wasn't actually his first kiss.  Before we met, he had met up and had sex with a man in his college town of Lethbridge.  

I was stunned, overwhelmed, ...hurt.  Not that he was gay.  I mean, anyone who knows Greg was aware that even at his most ‘macho’, he was a touch ‘metro’.  But after all his assurances that he loved me, after all the times he’d said that he was straight, after all the times he’d mocked gay men that we knew (both out and still closeted), I was still caught off guard.  He had lied to me.   My mind didn’t know what direction to go with my thoughts. It jumped from wanting to hear more about how Greg was feeling, to the finances, to wondering how the hell he’d managed to sneak out to a therapist session, to wondering how long he’d been wanting to tell me this info, to what I was going to DO with my life now…     I managed to pull myself together and ask him a few questions about therapy.  Apparently he’d snuck out to it by telling me he had class up at the University.   Or maybe he’d said he had Color Guard practice.  Maybe it was both. I can’t quite recall, now.  Regardless, he was quite the sneaky ninja!   In any case, according to him, the meetings with the psychologist had depleted our bank funds due to the deductible on our insurance.   And Greg was upset because he worried that :  1) I’d hate him when I found out   2)  He’d lose me when I found out   3) I’d hurt him when I found out .

I’m not sure there are words to describe how I felt as I listened to all that he had to say.  A huge swelling of emotions felt like they gathered in my chest, and then suddenly they all exploded leaving a huge, hollow space where they had been.  I felt like I’d somehow been stretched out and then had snapped back into place again.  And it hurt.  It hurt so much.   I loved this man of mine.  He’d been my entire world for the past five years and the idea that he was unhappy and upset and scared and confused was breaking my heart. Shattering is probably a better word.   I wanted to hold him and comfort him, but I was afraid to touch him.  And the entire time I kept praying that the whole situation was just a horribly real dream that I could manage to wake up from.   I’d read the “flashed before my eyes” phrase before, but until that moment I never realized how real it was.  I had always assumed it was a dramatic phrase used by Hollywood.  But oh, no. No no.  It’s real.  It happens.  And I experienced it. Our entire marriage replayed before my eyes.   I mentally assessed every romantic memory.  Every milestone.  Desperate to find indicators that I had missed at the time that could have warned me, prepared me for this moment. But there was nothing. 

Greg gave me some privacy when we were done talking.  I laid there on our bed feeling numb for a while and then finally gathered up the strength to call my parents.  They were the only ones I felt I could talk to.  I didn’t have any friends I was close enough to, that I could really share. Greg had always been my best friend and confidant, and he couldn’t help me now.   Mom and Dad were awesome.  Supportive, loving, caring.  They let me talk.  They asked a few questions.  But mostly they just did as wonderful parents do and allowed me to express myself. 

I moved from our bedroom to the guest room that night.  Perhaps I should have made him be the one to vacate the comfort of our space together, but for some reason, the untainted guest room, where we’d had less intimate time together, felt safer to me.  I installed a tiny TV there and moved enough of my personal items to feel comfortable.  Or at least as comfortable as one can be when their life is in ruins.  Greg gave me some space at first, but eventually he couldn’t resist peeking in on me and worrying about me.  I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping.  And in the middle of all this, I had to put on a happy face and go to work every other week.  I acted like everything was normal in an attempt to make Greg’s transition from his old life to the new one he was destined for.   The strange thing during all this time was that Greg kept coming to my room.  He didn’t want me to sleep by myself, and I was so lonely at this point that I tolerated him staying with me.  After all, I still loved him and I missed him already.  After just a few days, it became routine for him to stay with me instead of in our old room.   He told me how much he still loved me, and how I was the only woman on the planet that he had ever had romantic feelings for.  Somewhere along the line, we began having sex again.  Lots of it. It was bizarre, actually, how physically connected we became.  Greg told me he wanted to save our marriage and stay together.  “Bi-sexual” was a whole different ball game than “gay” (no pun intended), and I loved him enough to attempt to make the new arrangement work.  I was hesitant, of course, and it was probably at least a month before he convinced me to move back down into our master bedroom.  After a few months, things seemed to be somewhat back to normal, although my trust was guarded.  Greg would leave for school, and I’d wonder if he was really there.  Some days he just didn’t go at all and made excuses about class being cancelled or “not necessary to attend” that day.  Even now I’m not sure if he ever really had classes at that time or if it was just an excuse to leave the house.  At the very end of the semester, he wouldn’t show me his grades.  No proof of having gone to school.  And I didn’t ever get any cut of a “tuition reimbursement” that we should have received from our work.   Once school was “over”, he threw himself into Color Guard practices.  He had found a local group he could spin with, having missed his days in high school guard.  I attended some practices with him, participated in a fund-raiser yard sale, and supported him in selling pizza coupons to raise money for a trip to Denver for their yearly Pride parade.   I also, unexpectedly, ended up marching in the SLC, Utah Pride Parade (June 6, 2010) that summer. I intended to meet him at the end of the route but instead I was pulled into the chaos and ended up at the front of the group near the nice guy who was carrying the American flag.  I even saw a few co-workers that day as I marched along.  That was pretty fun, I’ll admit, though I’m not one for attention, normally, and part of me was freaking out the entire time.   

Denver finally rolled around in late June.  Greg packed up his gear and I drove him to the airport on the 16th.  He tenderly kissed me goodbye and said he’d call when the plane landed. He’d “miss me terribly”.    The atmosphere that afternoon at the Haven was quiet.  I went through my routines, but for some odd reason, I kept feeling like I should go down to my room.  That was against the norm for me, but I finally gave in to the urge and wandered downstairs.  There, on my pillow, was an envelope.  I knew what it was the very moment I laid eyes on it.  Could have told you what it was without opening it.  But I forced myself to read it anyway.

After all the encouragement and love I had shown Greg the entire time I knew him, he decided to end our relationship with a letter.  A letter I couldn’t find until he’d be out of state for three days.  A letter I’d have to read and react to without any support.  What a coward.

There I was, sitting in our room.  Unable to ask any questions.  Unable to read his body language or find any sort of comfort.  I did finally call him on the phone, but that didn’t help much.  We chatted a bit and he shared some of how he’d been feeling.  I asked him not to ‘cheat on me’ during his trip, as I had a strong feeling that dumping me before Denver was due to him having interest in someone in the guard (which turned out to be true, though I don’t know if they ever sealed the deal.)  He assured me he’d not do anything before he got back.  I spent the next few days going through the house, deciding what I was going to take with me.  I knew I couldn’t stay there.  It had always been the place I felt most safe, hence me calling it “The Haven”.  Now it was just a place to escape from.  I didn’t know what we’d do with our critters. I figured he might want Bo and Hunny.  There was no way he was getting Gus.  Neither Gus or myself would have allowed it.  We’re too close.  Of course I intended to take my kitties as well, once I had a place for them to stay.  


During the few conversations we had while he was still in Denver, Greg said he was fine with keeping the house.  He'd get some roommates and stay there until the market stabilized and we could sell it without any financial loss.   By the time I moved out, keyed doorknobs had been purchased for the bedrooms so the new roommates would have some privacy and security.  (One friend of his even moved in shortly after I was gone.)  We also agreed the kitties could stay with him until I was able to get into a place where I could take them.

After Greg returned to Utah, we began to prepare for him to come out of the closet publicly. We wrote up beautiful “notes” on Facebook that shared our news and posted them a few days before we were due back at work.  That following Tuesday, June 22, 2010, our first night back in the lab following his announcement, we held hands and walked in to the building with our heads held high.  Regardless of the mess our lives were in, we still loved each other, after all.  Right?  At least I thought so.  

I sold my GMC Jimmy and purchased Cebu, the Subaru.

In the middle of the chaos, Greg’s family came to visit.  His mother, brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephew arrived for a week-long visit shortly before I was set to leave.  It was nice to see them one last time, but it was difficult to stay strong amidst all the mess that a huge visit like that causes.   At some point during this time I sold my car and bought a new one in preparation for moving to Florida to stay with my grandfather.  This plan fell apart unexpectedly, leaving me with a new car and some debt related to it.  Luckily I was able to maintain my job (after initially giving notice) so that I wasn’t completely screwed on that end.  This turned out to be a bigger blessing than I realized.  After all, the disaster that awaited me could only have been addressed in person. A long distance attempt at fixing everything would have been nearly impossible.  I wouldn’t find this silver lining for a few more weeks, however. At the time it was just one more rejection to add to my list.

Lunchbox is adorable, but insane.

Gus and I moved out of The Haven on July 3, 2010.  The 4^th of July truly was “Independence Day” for me that year.  Greg was sweet that first morning.  He brought Hunny and Bo over and we took the dogs for a walk around my new/old neighborhood. (I moved into a spare bedroom in a basement suite that my parents managed for my childhood neighbor.  My younger sister and her cat, Lunchbox, became my roommates.)  I didn’t realize at the time that this would be the last I saw of Hunny or Bo.  It would be the last time I was “friends” with Greg, too.  After all the support and kindness I showed him during his “coming out”, he dropped me like a hot coal once I was out from under the same roof.  He stopped texting me.  Didn’t call.  Didn’t reply to my attempts at contact. The only time we talked was during a few breaks at work or when I was at the house picking up the last of my belongings.  I was instantaneously a distant memory.  It wasn’t until later that I found out he waited to make his new relationship with two men he had recently met “official” until the the day after I moved out. 

I felt dirty.  I felt cheap.  More abused and used up than any previous boyfriend had made me feel, including the one that used to physically beat the crap out of me to the point that blood ran down my body and my torso was black and blue.   What can I say, emotional abuse is far worse than most any physical damage can be.  After all, bruises fade, but shattered trust and faith is another monster entirely.   

I told Greg I knew he was in a new relationship before he ever admitted it to me.  I could sense it.  He asked how I knew and I explained, in rather unsettling fashion, that I'd had a dream about it.  In the dream we'd been talking on the phone, happily chatting like days of old, only this time, Greg suddenly admitted to having a new boyfriend.  "His name is Bob.", dream-Greg told me.  The look on Greg's face is one I'll never forget.  You see, he WAS in the relationship and one of the two men really WAS named Bob.  I know that “visions” happen in this world of ours, but to dream up the name of one of Greg’s new lovers was not something I wanted at that point (or ever) in my life.  I had enough to deal with as it was.  


I tried to be happy for Greg.  He couldn’t help but gush about the men.  I was grateful he had good support and tried not to be hurt by how easily he could just move right on passed the love we had shared.  Could just throw it away on something new and fresh.  And it hurt that I was lonely while he was our partying it up.  And party he did.  He’d once told me he never wanted to drink since his father was an alcoholic and he’d seen what it could do to a family.  All that resolve went right out the window once he began his new life.  Many of his Facebook posts were about alcohol from that point forward…  then they switched to being primarily about life as a gay man. 

It’s an interesting phenomenon.  Going through each day, acting like everything is fine. Projecting what those around you expect.  Falling apart on the inside, while attempting to exhibit normalcy.   In short bursts, this is doable.  Long-term, it starts to feel nearly impossible.   My cure for this was to withdraw from the friends and routines that I had shared when I was with Greg.  I found myself avoiding anything, work aside, that had to do with what was quickly becoming my old life.  I took a hiatus from Facebook and a few other websites we’d shared together during our marriage.  I had acted “normal” for the six months since he’d first come out.  I didn’t have the strength to continue it for much longer.  I lasted on our shared night shift for about a month after moving in to my new place.  I did everything I could to not make our place of employment a drama fest, and for my part, I think I did a good job.  Things began to get awkward, though.  Greg’s personality changed, though he insisted he was still the same person who “just happens to like men”.  He turned a bit mean.  Not happy.   One of the final straws was one night when he turned to me, playfully, and stuck his headphones in my ear so I could hear that he was listening to “Three” by Britney Spears.  A song about threesomes.  Thanks Greg.  That was awesome.  I left early that night and communicated with my supervisors that I needed a change. I was moved to the opposite on-week immediately.  I’ll never be able to fully express to my workplace how grateful I am to them for the support they gave me that month. After all, they made me feel valued by wanting to keep me after I'd first given my notice.  And they did everything they could to get me onto a shift where I'd be comfortable.  It was craziness, but I managed to get settled on to my new schedule quickly and easily.  Night shift was going to have to be abandoned in the near future, thanks to me now living in a basement below loud children, but I could handle that.  After all, what was a tad more stress?  Marriage failing, moving, schedule upheavals/shift changes…  No problem at all, right?  Okay, I lie.  It was hard.  


I made a few more trips to the Haven after I moved out.  Had to get the last items I needed so I could leave Greg with a fresh start.  The rats had been sold by that point.  And Greg was supposed to be helping me find homes for my mice as well.  The little fuzzies were not so lucky as my rats, though.  My final trip to the house resulted in me discovering their tank in the garbage.  The room they'd been in stunk of decomposition.  They were left to starve to death in that room once I was gone.  I realize they were 'just mice', but how can someone do that to a living creature?  Who was this man I was married to?  Greg wasn't there at the time, and  I never said anything to him about the mice, but the insight to his character that day was very telling.  

What's going on, Mommy?

Gus was confused about all the change.  He couldn't understand why I was so upset all the time. Why we were in a strange new place.  Why his animal buddies were all gone.  Why my sister's cat was so insane. But he was happy just to be with me.  His mommy, food, toys and kennel were still there.  Familiarity.  And so he quickly settled in to our new life as a duo. 

Greg was upset with me for a while after I left our shared night shift at work.  I had to explain my request for change to my supervisor, and when it turned out to be a harassment issue, they had no choice but to address it, though I hadn’t intended for him to get into trouble.  I just wanted to leave-- had to leave-- be anywhere but there.  He was in trouble a time or two after that for harassment again, and those had nothing to do with me, so I hope he stopped blaming me eventually.  I obviously wasn’t the problem.