Glittery Lipstick

I went to a gay bar this weekend.  Great fun!  Had my breasts (which are very nice I must say) kissed by a drag queen.  Each one.  Glittery lipstick.

Stepping Aside

God only  knows what this post will be about.  I feel like something is inside of me, telling me to write but I don’t know what it is so here goes.  Hmmmmm.  I read Jay’s last post titled In Rainbows. It made me feel kind of crappy.  For the longest time I thought I knew everything about this man I loved.  Then one day (7 1/2 months ago) he tells me he’s been lying to me this whole time.  We’ve talked a lot since then.  I’ve asked him embarrassing questions that I have no right to ask.  He answers me without argument.  He shares a lot with me.  Yet reading his last post made me realize how much there is about him I still don’t know.

I imagine a man who is torn inside.  I imagine a man who has two hearts.  One heart loves me, our children, our life together in small town rural America.  The other heart longs to be loved by a man.  It wants to know how it feels to be a man in love with another man.  I find myself asking why my love isn’t enough for him.  But then the smarter part of me says that just as heterosexuality is natural and normal to me, and how I desire and need to be loved by a man, homosexuality is natural and normal to Jay and he feels like he is missing out on something.  He is.

I try to think about myself as a single woman with no children.  Jay and I married young so this is hard to do.  But imagining myself as a single, working professional is something I can do.  I have parents who love me a lot and whose company I enjoy (for the most part).  I have great friends who I have great times with and they love me and are there for me in a heartbeat if I need them.  But, I would long for intimate love with a man.  I would want to know how it feels to be held and kissed and touched by someone I find sexually attractive.  As much love as I can get from my family and friends would not be enough.  Is this how my husband feels?

Someday, I guess I will move into the classification of just being Jay’s family, and not his lover.  Because seriously, we will always love each other.  I will always be in love with him.  We will always be family.  All of my dreams of the future have always involved him being there – for Christmases, vacations, our children’s graduations from college,  grandchildren’s births, chemotherapy, surgeries, and finally death.  I can’t change those dreams.  I want him there.  I want to see the ocean with him.  I want to hold his hand when I’m sick.  I want to see his face first on Christmas morning.  I want to lie on the beach drinking Sangria with him in a hammock next to me.  Is there room in these dreams for another man?  Is there room for Jay’s lover, companion, or hopefully someday we can all say same-sex husband?

Before I start to cry, I have to say that I want Jay to be happy more than I want myself to be happy.  I just hurt so much ya know?  Letting him go is going to be the hardest thing for me to do.

By the way, are there any men out there who can love my husband and love me?  A man who can accept the fact that I’ve given years of my life to this man, trying to make him happy, and that I will always love him?  A man who can live with the fact that I need Jay to balance my checkbook, mow my lawn, and change the oil in my car?  A man who can tolerate spending holidays with me?  A man who is patient and will not try to turn my husband against me?  I’m willing to step aside a little bit, but I just don’t know how.

Uncovering more secrets

Honestly by now, I thought I had to know everything there was to know about Jay. Finding out about his homosexuality was not the only thing there is, obviously. There are some secrets he has told me that I’m not really sure I have a right to know, but he has chosen to tell me for his own reasons. Some of these things are embarrassing. I even feel guilty mentioning them here but blogging is totally anonymous so it’s not really embarrassing. If you don’t like what I’m saying, quit reading. This blog helps me get everything out, offers me comfort as I read comments and emails from others going through similar situations, and helps me keep track of everything I need to work through.

A couple of years ago, Jay went away for two weeks for a business trip. We have never been apart that long and it was very difficult. The children missed him so much, and so did I. While Jay was gone, he did some “gay stuff.” The first day he was gone, he visited a local sex shop. He paid cash for a gay porn DVD, a dildo, and some lube. He thought he had to see what this anal sex thing felt like I guess. I don’t blame him for that. Not any different to me than any other kind of masturbation. I really don’t care that he did it. He says he felt so guilty about engaging in this activity that he threw it all away the third day he was there. He thought if he didn’t end this kind of behavior now, it would never go away.

This is something so personal that I don’t blame Jay for not telling me about it. I guess he told me because it’s just nice to have someone to talk to about everything. I certainly didn’t ask him about it. He says it’s embarrassing. So why did he tell me?

Another secret: Jay has some male cousins close to his age. One time his cousin Chance was over and started looking at Playboys. Chance decided to give himself a hand job in front of Jay while looking at the magazines. Jay was aroused by seeing Chance jacking off, so he pretended to look at Playboys and jerked off as well. In reality, he was getting off watching Chance and being in the same room with him. Another time, Jay and his cousin Kyle were sharing a hotel room on a family trip. They had gone swimming and came back to their room to change. They changed separately but Kyle caught Jay trying to get a look at him while he was getting dressed. Jay blew it off as something else and he says Kyle believed it.

So my thoughts on this issue do not involve the things he did, but more that I’m afraid there is much more to know. Why do I care? I know and would bet my life on it that he is telling me the truth about not having cheated on me. I’m not worried about that. And the things I have found out more recently (Corbin Fisher downloads, the business trip dildo, attraction to cousins) aren’t really important. But will he ever reveal something to me that I feel is important? Something I think he should have told me long ago.  I don’t know.  Things that are insignificant to him may not be to me.  But all of these happenings are really the result of Jay having to hide who he really is.

Before you go and comment to this post that I need to get over it let me stress again that none of these things are a big deal to me.  It is just shocking to go from knowing every single thing about a person (or thinking I did) to wondering what else there is to know.  Can you imagine this?