On this #DayOfSilence, one reader has chosen to share her message by bravely sharing her story.
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I've sat to write this story a hundred times...with it being the Day of Silence to end LGBT Bullying, I felt the time to let this story see it's light.
**Name has been changed to protect identities
Chuck and I began dating our Junior year of high school...everything was great. We shared a first kiss, first dance, fell hard for each other and I thought I had found my high school sweetheart, and possibly the one I could go through life with. Halfway through our Senior year, after dating for about a year and a half, Chuck admitted to being bi - he said he had had a boyfriend in the past, but it wasn't his "thing", just something he had been curious about, experimented, and moved on. We talked at great length about his past while time and time again I was re-assured that I was his future. Months later, we were engaged with plans to enjoy years-long engagement before actually walking down the aisle.
In the 6+ years between our engagement and wedding day, we survived a lot. I moved out of state to college, Chuck followed shortly after. While we were in college, we broke up so that Chuck could experience dating men. He did meet up with a guy, spent some time with him but things didn't work out so we moved back home to our parents and slowly began repairing our relationship.
We married in Fall 2009 when I was unexpectedly pregnant but since children had been discussed, we set our sights to a future of parenthood and nowhere near as much time as we had wanted before we started adding to our family.
Enter this past Christmas, when I found (unintentionally) gay hook-up sites on Chuck's phone. I was furious, sad, hurt. So many feelings all at once. I confronted him and demanded counseling. We were not getting divorced.
We entered marriage counseling with the outlook that it was going to help. I set down an ultimatum in counseling that if I found him on a hook-up site again, we were done. I didn't mind him looking at gay porn, if that's what was needed for him to "quench his urge", as he put it. But I drew the line at hook-up sites...it toed a line I was not comfortable with.
Chuck moved out in February to give me some space to contemplate our future while we went through counseling. But on March 2nd, he was at our apartment and had left when I found the laptop on and browsers opened to the hook-up sites I had given my ultimatum on. I called him and told him to stay out permanently. Through our marriage counselor, he was referred to a LGBT counselor who has worked with him to discover that he is not bi, he is in fact gay. He has slowly started to come out to his friends.
The fact that he's gay does not change the love I have for him. I spent over a decade with him and had started a family with him. I want the same rights he was allowed as a "straight" man for him as a gay man. I want him to be able to be open and out, and happy. I fear for our child that when she starts school in a few years that she will be bullied if she has 2 or 3 "daddies". If you were to ask Chuck, being gay is not a choice. He would choose to stay with me and share in the life we had. He wants to be able to experience the joys, trials, and tribulations of marriage with his future partner without concern for their safety or rights.
In the 6+ years between our engagement and wedding day, we survived a lot. I moved out of state to college, Chuck followed shortly after. While we were in college, we broke up so that Chuck could experience dating men. He did meet up with a guy, spent some time with him but things didn't work out so we moved back home to our parents and slowly began repairing our relationship.
We married in Fall 2009 when I was unexpectedly pregnant but since children had been discussed, we set our sights to a future of parenthood and nowhere near as much time as we had wanted before we started adding to our family.
Enter this past Christmas, when I found (unintentionally) gay hook-up sites on Chuck's phone. I was furious, sad, hurt. So many feelings all at once. I confronted him and demanded counseling. We were not getting divorced.
We entered marriage counseling with the outlook that it was going to help. I set down an ultimatum in counseling that if I found him on a hook-up site again, we were done. I didn't mind him looking at gay porn, if that's what was needed for him to "quench his urge", as he put it. But I drew the line at hook-up sites...it toed a line I was not comfortable with.
Chuck moved out in February to give me some space to contemplate our future while we went through counseling. But on March 2nd, he was at our apartment and had left when I found the laptop on and browsers opened to the hook-up sites I had given my ultimatum on. I called him and told him to stay out permanently. Through our marriage counselor, he was referred to a LGBT counselor who has worked with him to discover that he is not bi, he is in fact gay. He has slowly started to come out to his friends.
The fact that he's gay does not change the love I have for him. I spent over a decade with him and had started a family with him. I want the same rights he was allowed as a "straight" man for him as a gay man. I want him to be able to be open and out, and happy. I fear for our child that when she starts school in a few years that she will be bullied if she has 2 or 3 "daddies". If you were to ask Chuck, being gay is not a choice. He would choose to stay with me and share in the life we had. He wants to be able to experience the joys, trials, and tribulations of marriage with his future partner without concern for their safety or rights.
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Feel free to leave a comment and share your messages of encouragement with this writer.
Share your messages of love to all those who are marginalized - who know the hurt of hate.
Share YOUR story.
