Chapter 5: Elliot and the 3 Words
It’s difficult for me to adequately describe the level of intimacy and love between Elaine and I. We dated through what I believe to be the most character building years of a person’s life: college and graduate school. So much of who and what I am today is because of who and what Elaine was to me then. My working theory is that every year of your twenties is really worth about two years in terms of character development. So although on the calendar it was five years of dating and five years of marriage, it really is a lifetime of impact. The time we spent together inexorably bonded us together and now the scales are tipped so that we’ve been a part of one another’s life longer than we haven’t. There is so much about my personality, my preferences and my values I owe to her.
As often happens, the crucible year of our marriage was an incredible year of major life changes in general. Elaine got pregnant, we struggled through Hurricane Katrina and its windfall, moved residency positions, had a baby and helped take care of my niece with a brain tumor.
Late in the fall of 2005 we found out Elaine was pregnant. In our over-analytical, type-A personality, high-achiever, life-planning rationale we discontinued birth control expecting it to take over a year to get pregnant. Because of being so athletic and lean, she had never menstruated regularly. Furthermore, the type of birth control we were using required a few months to clear her system. I had two more years of residency. We planned for it to take about a year to conceive allowing her to be pregnant during my last year of residency and have a baby just after graduation and Board exams. I’d be starting my practice and we’d be able to afford for her to cut back on work. It was all orchestrated and so therefore, as you can imagine, nothing went according to plan.
About two weeks after discontinuing birth control I started waking up nauseous every morning. It was that terrible, sea-sick type of nausea that feels like it gets in the bones and is hard to shake. I’d wake up and vomit that yellow, bilious, acidic puke that is your insides turning out. A few times I had to pull over on my drive to work and vomit on the side of the street.
At first I thought perhaps I’d eaten some bad oysters or crawfish which happened with a certain amount of regularity with a New Orlean’s socialite diet of seafood boils and alcohol. Then my symptoms started to get worse. My large middle-eastern nose is indeed formidable but usually non-functional. Like most middle-eastern men I have a deviated septum and a terrible sense of smell. However, I started to be able to smell everything around me and most of it made me more nauseous. I could smell everything from my cereal in the morning to every homeless person strewn in every doorway and portal throughout that city. The antiseptics used at work were napalm to my senses. It was overwhelming and it all made me wretch. I thought I was developing super powers and losing my mind all at the same time. The only thing that seemed to quiet my gut was a dab of peanut butter on a graham cracker. However, the rest of the world was an olfactory and gastrointestinal anathema.
Then one night as we sat and tried to have dinner, peanut butter and graham crackers for me and a healthy and portable protein shake for her, I made the joke that this whole scenario was crazy and that I sounded like I was pregnant. We stopped mid-chuckle as our eyes connected. She gasped, I bolted straight up, heading straight toward the front door while grabbing the car keys. She grabbed her wallet and CVS card and met me at the at the door. We didn’t need to say a word.
It took less than a month. Less than a month and she was pregnant. I’ll never be able to explain my sympathy nausea. I’ve heard it happens but it was one of the more strange events in my strange life. Overjoyed but also overwhelmed we knew that God was laughing at our “perfect planning”. What the heck were we going to do?! We both worked all the time and had no local family support system to help us with a newborn. Little did we know how perfect God’s timing would prove to be. The fact we had a baby on the way made decision making during unforeseen and forthcoming perilous times, crystal clear.
By the fall, she was showing and glowing in only the way that vibrant, happy mothers do. In August we flew home to Florida for a weekend with the family to have our baby shower. News of an impending storm heading toward New Orleans was mounting. We were supposed to return back on Sunday but my residency director called me and told me to stay in Florida. We had a team system for staffing the hospital during storms and I was not on the first team. We stayed with my parents, all of us glued to our televisions.
I would like to assume the events of Hurricane Katrina are emblazoned on the American psyche. The storm avoided the city but the levies broke. The city flooded and waves of chaos and tragedy submerged it. The waters violently swept away lives and communities.
I left Elaine with my parents and drove back from Florida to New Orleans the following weekend for my shift on one of the relief teams. For a few weeks we worked, sleeping on the office floors in the hospital, staffing its critical care and anesthetic needs. Our hospital became the medical epicenter of the city during that time; part makeshift military base, refugee camp and trauma center. The city was locked down and we weren’t allowed to leave and explore. The arsenal of military support vehicles, battery of FEMA equipment and continual swarm of helicopters overhead felt like a war zone under siege. I quickly concluded that there was no way we could have a baby there. There was no palatable water, minimal emergency services and crime was rampant.
Changing residencies is no small feat and is rarely done. When one accepts a training position it is a commitment to stay. Moves cannot be made unless sanctioned by one’s training program and the residency governing body. Under normal circumstances I would have balked at making such a big decision. However with the impending responsibility of parenthood came clarity. The long path to restoration for the city was abundantly evident. Although I loved my program and it remained the only anesthesia residency still operational in the city, I knew we had to leave.
Included in that perfect plan we originally had for building our family was the desire to end up in Florida. The year prior I interviewed at University of Florida when I was trying to decide between otolaryngology surgery and Anesthesia. I called the program director who said he remembered me and that he’d make a spot for me. I’d have to start in a few days. I spoke to my director. One of the Tulane residents, a New Orleans native, was desperate to come back. He’d take my spot. She wished me luck, gave me a hug and affectionately dismissed me.
Driving through the city required clearance through military checkpoints. Buildings everywhere had numbers spray painted on them indicating the number of dead bodies that had been found. I was stopped by a military checkpoint near our house and told the officer I was on my way to another hospital out of the city. He let me through. I managed to make it to our house. To my deep gratitude it was undamaged however the stench of rotting food in the fridge seeped into the street. I quickly packed up whatever i could; mostly favorite clothes and shoes for Elaine and some important files and headed back. Things were happening so quickly. I see now how perfect God’s timing is. Having a child on the way helped me make important decisions quickly and decisively. Typically, we were both planners. Were it left to us, the process of moving would have taken months. In a blur of 3 days, with almost no possessions on hand we left our home and our established life in New Orleans, found an apartment in Gainesville, bought some basic furniture from the Salvation Army and changed the trajectory of our lives.
Slowly my family helped us settle into our new little apartment. My mother and sister-in-law came up and took charge of getting the baby’s room together. They brought the crib and changing table all my nieces had used. It was a round, wooden crib with a canopy. With a trip to Ross, Home Goods, Tuesday Morning and the like, the room became adorned with laces, drapes, cushions and blankets: a luxurious baby Bedouin Tent. With a little more decorative help of curtains, throw pillows and other knick-knacks, the rest of the apartment also started to feel like a cozy little home.
Elaine had been working from home for her firm back in New Orleans. Most of the local attorneys had been so occupied by the struggles of daily living in a disaster area that their productivity paled in comparison to hers. Working from home was still unusual during this time, especially in traditional fields like law. I think that the physical limits of pregnancy combined with the frustration of being uprooted into a lonely new town allowed her to focus her angst into positive work energy. The familiarity and productivity of career gave her security and control. She quickly carved out a deep and prosperous niche in her field. She was so assiduous that her boss decided to follow suit and also moved from New Orleans to work remotely.
As for me, my adjustment to the new residency program was difficult. Transferring as an upper level resident into a large program where no one knew me or my capabilities proved discouraging. More profoundly, the work culture and morale at my new institution proved to be toxic and demoralizing. Although the clinical training was excellent the residents at that program were poorly treated, made to feel expendable or at best just cheap human labor.
Having exposure from my father and seeing my older brother’s noble example I expected residency to be onerous and grueling. I was better equipped emotionally than most and had a good sense of what I was getting myself into. I heard the stories and saw first hand the 36 hour shifts followed by attempts to read and study once they finally came home only to end in catatonic sleep on the couch. I experienced the family members falling asleep at the dinner table or always sneaking off at family functions to find a quiet corner in which to catnap with beeper in hand. I saw the quiet longing in my mother’s and sister-in-law’s eyes as they resolved to support their husbands through their own personal fatigue. They shouldered the day to day of raising children largely on their own, often seeking rest in a lonely and empty bed while their husbands were at the hospital.
I expected that residency would reach into every part of my life, that it would sharpen my beliefs, stretch my relationships and even strain my health. I was not afraid of the hard work. I told myself that I’d never be the smartest doctor but I would be the most dedicated. But I also expected all the pain to be for some great gain. That’s why a good residency shouldn’t just train you, it should change you into a better person.
I believe that in addition to grueling it should also be harrowing and heroic and marvelous. I saw people telling stories of residency as soldiers do of braving the trenches; stories of prevailing, of powerful comradely, of taking noble risks, of spectacular failures and of epic successes. They tell stories that always seem to reflect their most inspired years; their magical apprenticeship when spells are wrought through elements of the heart and metal of will.
And so I didn’t mind the hard work. I like to think that I would have done any menial task if it would make me a better doctor. Indeed I bathed patients, transported gurneys and restocked supplies all in the name of patient care. Being nurse, orderly and technician were beyond the overwhelming task of being a resident physician but all a part of the privilege of caring for people. A romantic at heart, I believed in the honor of such sacrifices. I hoped that the hard work would carry with it some small measure of dignity in being a doctor in training; a suffering apprentice dedicated to a higher craft.
Indeed I did experience that type of developmental exchange in my program in New Orleans. Sadly, however, the culture of my new program reflected the utter disregard for a resident’s lowly position. We were merely human laborers, a nuisance easily replaced. The faculty were often cruel, showing blatant disdain for having to take time away from research to perform clinical duties. It seemed that any gap in knowledge or faltering of technical skill would be met with insults and public humiliation at best. A million cuts into one’s basic confidence coupled with profound physical exhaustion exsanguinates the spirit. I know how it feels to dread going to work every single day for nearly two years and yet continue to do it diligently. I understand the numb emotional detachment that begins to envelope you as a means of coping with the misery. It would be naïve to think that stress did not permeate and profoundly impact my personal life.
The events of Hurricane Katrina were in the fall of 2005. A few months later in January, 2006, my son Luca was born. He in my mind is the fulcrum upon which time balances. Instead of BC and AD I have BL (Before Luca) and AL (After Luca). For a season everything was beautiful and simple. My burden seemed lighter, things were more focused. Every day had a wonderful new adventure when I got home. Elaine was full of joy and so was I. We made the tough decision to leave our life in New Orleans and start mid-stride in Gainesville all for this baby we’d never met. Now that he was here each smile and kiss and cuddle declared the rightness of that decision. Even then, however, amidst that effervescent joy there erupted shattering tragedy. Ten days after Luca was born my niece presented to my hospital with a terrible brain tumor. Our little apartment became home base for my family as we battled through Alexis’ surgery and recovery. Despite our personal joy every happy memory I have in Gainesville is painted on a backdrop of agony.
Until this point I had reached some sort of equilibrium in my struggle with homosexuality. Sure there were short periods of time in New Orleans when I really struggled or drunken moments when my eyes wandered and I moved off-center. But I’d quickly come back and regain composure. This often entailed being open with Elaine, talking and praying about it and making changes to fortify our marriage. I had a happy marriage, a strong faith and robust support systems. But in Gainesville those things seemed to fade and over the following year I found myself emotionally isolated, feeling alone, not handling the stress of life very well, heavily struggling with my same sex attractions, doubting in my faith, and drowning in shame. I’m not asserting that stress made me more gay; I no longer apologize for my same sex attractions. I am saying however that I wasn’t emotionally or spiritually healthy and the way in which I handled my stress caused a lot of pain. It is a source of deep regret.
Perhaps the novelty of having a newborn subsided but by late fall the weight of my loneliness, misery with work and inability to control my homosexual fantasies came back double fold. In retrospect I understand it more than just a struggle of sexual desire, it was a struggle of identity and it was stifling.
I couldn’t resist anymore. Everywhere I went I was searching for connection; to be checked out at the gym, a lingering smile from an overly friendly gay server at the restaurant, stories about gay boyfriends from my hair stylist. It being a small town wherein most of the graduate students frequented the same bars, I made friends with a couple of gay PhD students. I eventually divulged the details of my life. In jest they promised to only call me “Closet Case” behind my back but to be my friends and support me and my young family in any way they could. They were genuinely kind.
During Thanksgiving Elaine took the baby home to her parents in New Jersey for the week to see the family and celebrate her birthday. I had to work through the holiday but would join them the following weekend. They left on Sunday. I don’t quite know what took me out that night. I was exhausted and ill-groomed and it was cold outside. I hate the cold. But I was desperate for connection; to know that there were other people in the world who felt in some small part the way I did. I just wanted to anonymously sip a beer while seeking visual confirmation that I wasn’t alone.
Donning a cap, sweatshirt and parka I went to the only gay bar open on a Sunday night. It was a slab of a building on a poorly lit corner of a run-down neighborhood; a single rectangular gray building on a gravel lot with two small windows behind stark iron rods giving it the sense of a lonely jail cell haphazardly built and out of place. It had that ominous, heavy 1960’s feel and judging by the peeling paint and chipped plaster it hadn’t been updated since.
I approached cautiously and noted the few run-down cars in the lot. The door creaked open to immediately reveal a large, slouched back of someone on a barstool leaning into their beer. The low-ceiling room was two thirds occupied by a large, heavy, wide wood bar which cut across the entrance space immediately beyond the front door. So as you entered you had to squeeze left to get around it. From the low ceilings hung multiple out-of-date television sets in no apparent pattern. Even excluding the cigarette smoke the small bar was stiflingly claustrophobic. On every couple of barstools slumped a middle-aged, beer-bellied man sipping his Budweiser and not speaking much. They all seemed to be smoking and wearing sweat pants. I imagined they had at one point, thirty years ago, lugged the formidable bar into this otherwise barren room, sat down for a nice, refreshing “cold one” and been there ever since. In the corner lurched two overweight, laughing lesbians in their stereotypical mullet haircuts and cut off t-shirts bantering back and forth with the impossibly tan, wrinkled and flamboyant bartender. He was like a human Virginia Slim cigarette. I asked myself what I was doing there but sat down anyway and ordered a beer.
After a couple more beers more people showed up including two of the only gays I knew in town, both graduate students, Paul and Tim. At one point a go-go boy, who was actually a clearly straight, beefy, past-his-prime man appeared and danced in the corner for tips. He seemed more interested in the Burger King commercials on the television than in dancing for a few bucks at some dingy, reclusive gay bar on a dank Sunday evening in November. I think Diana Ross remixes were playing.
My friends recognized me and invited me to play pool. Not having noticed a door at the back of the bar I followed them to another room with two pool tables. Looking around I realized that half of the walls and ceilings were black with soot. They told me there had been a fire a few months back and the owners never fixed it up. Part of me was just surprised to hear there were actual owners. Someone somewhere considered this junk heap an actual business venture. This was a quintessential “dive” bar. A half burned down, oppressively glum cell with overweight, poorly dressed gays. But after a game or two and a few more beers we were laughing pretty freely and actually having fun. We decided to go back to the main bar area for refills.
As I eased back in I stopped dead in my tracks and grabbed Paul’s arms as haunting and prophetic words fell from my mouth: “look at my husband.” I never thought I would use that term, even in jest, but across from me standing next to two older, rotund but pleasant looking men, was the most beautiful and magnetic man I’ve ever seen. I don’t believe in love at first sight and after reading this book you should know why but I have never experienced anything like what I felt at that moment.
There, in front of me and in the midst of this lecherous and dark bar was a human who seemed to emanate his own light. It was like looking directly into the sun. My eyes were affixed on him in his grey V-neck cashmere sweater and perfectly fit jeans. He stood taller than me with a prominent, masculine, Aurelian nose and sapphire eyes that seemed to fill even my peripheral vision. I was winded; physically short of breath by the impact. Quickly pulling myself together I spun around and hid behind Paul at the bar while I clamored for composure. The juxtaposition of seeing someone like that somewhere like this made me dizzy.
I’ve never been one to have “game”. I never went to bars or picked up people. I’ve never used lines nor know how to get someone’s attention. But I’m not shy, decently witty and generally well-groomed. My middle brother, on the other hand, made a life career of dating the most beautiful women everywhere. I immediately had a flashback to him sitting me down when he was thirteen and well under way on his conquest of the opposite gender. I was nine. He sat me down next to him on the sidewalk outside of our house as he began to share his fraternal wisdom.
He began by instructing me to always be nice to the unattractive girls because they have hot friends. I also remember him holding up both index fingers and wiggling one to indicate “boy” then the other dubbing it “girl”. He gestured “boy” and moved that finger closer to the other one as though it was a real boy pursuing a girl. Then he said “girl” and moved the girl finger away, as she rejects him by retreating. He repeated the scenario. “Boy.” Finger moves closer. “Girl” The girl coyly retreats. Finally He said “boy” and moved in the opposite direction, symbolizing the boy’s antipathetic departure. And sure enough the “girl” comes running after.
Anyway, I was now a fully grown and educated man taking social advice from a twenty year old memory but it was all I had and seemed good enough. I walked over to the two older, heavy set guys escorting Blue Eyes. I introduced myself to the two of them and stood there awkwardly, ignored Blue Eyes until one of the others introduced me. He shook my hand and said “Hi. I’m Elliot” in a strange melodic British accent that sounded like warm apple cider. My knees went weak. The thought occurred to me that perhaps I was having a stroke at that very moment which would probably preclude a date but may win me mouth to mouth resuscitation. I played it off and gave him a “Oh, I’m-sorry-I-didn’t-see-you-standing-right-there Adonis-how-rude-of-me” kind of look adorned with an awkward giggle and then peeled opened a conversation. It turns out he was from Wales and just moved here to complete a second post-doctorate degree in cancer biology. Beautiful Blue Eyes was brilliant and saving the world. I self-consciously looked away as I welcomed him to Gainesville.
Now please understand that I’ve always had international students as close friends and during residency was no exception. One of my closest friends in residency was from Italy. I’m very sensitive to the complexities of coming to an American small town and getting set up and meeting new people. It’s impossible to get around, public transportation is a joke and there is little support for international students. I immediately filed Elliot under “future good friend” and introduced him to Paul and Tim. We all exchanged numbers and figured out how to get Elliot to the grocery store and to the epicenter of all things practical: Wal-Mart. He was immensely grateful. I left the bar excited and wishing I’d worn a cuter outfit.
Actually, to say I was merely excited is profoundly understated. There is a passionate haunting of the mind and body that occurs every so often when you meet that special someone. Pheromones and fantasy make violent chemistry and the seismic eroticism shakes the world. All of a sudden every thought related to him, my craving staved sleep, his face in my mind overshadowed every other throughout my day. I couldn’t get his face, voice or impression out of my mind. I didn’t want to. I never experienced that kind of magnetism before. I called him the next day and casually asked him to dinner.
We went to the only trendy sushi restaurant in the town. It’s a bustling, low-lit, I-wish-we-lived-in-a-real-city kind of place. There we sat at a two-top in the middle of the restaurant. Deciding that the best self-preservation would be self-sabotage I very early in our conversation bluntly told him of my wife and child. I brutally tried to sever any sexual tension with dangerous details. But my intentions were not pure. Part lie and part foreshadow I told him Elaine and I were having troubles. He thanked me for being honest, casually admitted his attraction to me and politely told me it was an unattractive prospect that my life was otherwise obligated. We said all the right and honorable things about just being friends and moved on with our conversations about a million other things we seemed to have in common.
At the end of dinner I drove him home and he invited me in for a drink. He was renting a room in a house from one of the guys I’d met with him that night at the bar. His roommate was out. We stood in his kitchen making small talk about his thoughts on Gainesville and his adjustment to such an odd place. All the while I weaved in reiterations about our goal of being friends. “It’s a small town in a new country. Making new friends for support is important.” “I know there’s no good way to get around town so if you need a friend to give a ride, count me in.” “There are some fun things to do here with friends. You’ll have fun.” You get the idea.
As the conversation waned he mentioned that his roommate would probably be back soon and I reminded us both that we had work in the morning. In an effort to say goodnight and leave I awkwardly thanked him for coming to dinner while turning my head to rest my glass on the kitchen counter and leave. But then as I turned back and looked up, our eyes met. We both seemed to be panting.
There broke free in that moment some force of gravity mighty enough to change lives; as though Herculean arms latched on and catapulted us toward one another. Our bodies collided, detonating those well intentioned promises of Platonism. We showered in the embers of ecstasy. Grabbing each other in an impassioned kiss, a war-like kiss. We competed to taste one another more and inhale one another’s breath more deeply. His heart pounded against my chest, amplifying my own heartbeat to a deafening thunder in my ears. Our clothes were off and our bodies entwined in a blur of more intense moments.
Every sense became heightened, richer and more electric. There is a physicality that can only be achieved by two men burning with lust for one another. My eyes and mouth greedily drank him in. My skin was a thousand fingers, my whole body memorizing his form. Our heaving breaths and heartbeats filled my ears as the fragrance of flesh intermingled with sweat became wine in which I bathed. Our bodies convulsed and strained, stretched, arched and pulled. An unknowing observer may have thought we were wrestling to the death. That night was the stuff of poetry, songs and wars. I later came to learn he had deliberately worn his bad pair of old underwear that night, promising himself we wouldn’t hook up. I don’t ever remember even seeing those underwear.
I don’t particularly remember the next two days either, other than my gluttony for Elliot. I don’t remember working, eating, or sleeping. I was intoxicated in every way. All I wanted was to be with him, to hear him, to know him and to consume his body with my own. He was the sweetest drug to me. I don’t think the sun set for those days. Everything was light. I finally knew what it meant to sleep and wake up next to a man. I remember waking up and looking through the blinds of the window next to the bed, only to realize it was morning. I remember my disbelief and wonder that this was actually happening to me. It was a delightful shock that something that seemed so foreign and forbidden felt in fact so innate and pleasurable. I was free.
Elliot and I met on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and now three days later on Wednesday I left to meet up with Elaine and her family in New Jersey. All I told her was that I made a new graduate student friend who I thought she would like very much because he was British. She was an English major in college and had studied abroad in London for a semester.
We had a wonderful time with her large Greek family and of course Luca was the center of their attention. We celebrated Elaine’s 30th birthday together. Nothing had changed for me. At that point I wasn’t lying or pretending or trying to hold myself together. To be honest there is a schizophrenia with which I had become quite comfortable. My two selves, my two lives, were so polarized it was sometimes difficult to tell what was real. I was living in two separate worlds, my “normal” world and my “gay” world and my ability to disassociate one from the other was so extreme that at times I’d have trouble remembering what I had done even twelve hours prior. I would simply turn off whichever part didn’t fit my circumstance.
It sounds impossible but its true. When I was with my family it would be difficult for me to recall I’d been in bed with a man less than a day prior. All the ecstasy and intensity seemed like someone else’s story or a hazy recollection of a strange dream. As a clinician I must assume this is some psychological survival skill called upon to spare me a precipitous mental breakdown brought on by titanic confusion. I look back in awe and disgust at my mental unhealth. I was two men in one feable body. These two men were at the moment living in tacit co-existence. But in short order they would violently battle for title over my identity.
We returned from break and had a couple of weeks prior to a trip to Costa Rica which Elaine and I planned in honor of her 30th birthday. It had been a difficult and isolating year for her. On most days she was stuck alone in a little apartment with a newborn. She turned thirty and we wanted to commemorate. But during the time between returning from Thanksgiving and leaving for Costa Rica, I could mostly only focus on Elliot. We couldn’t email, text or call enough. He was renting a room in a house and I would swing by after a long day of work before going home and we would rush back into his room and hastily make love. I was desperately distracted, overcome with euphoria yet fearing the collision of my two worlds. There was a growing distance between Elaine and I which I couldn’t evade or fully explain to her. Excuses waned as lies amassed. We had always been so in-sync that despite normal appearances she could tell there was some glitch in our relationship. She sensed my distraction and began to sink into sadness and loneliness.
I decided to organize a birthday surprise for her prior to leaving on our trip. Limited by time I organized a mini-scavenger hunt through our little town. While I was at work I left a note leading her to hidden gifts at the gym, at our neighbor’s apartment and at our church. I planned to be at home, having made an intimate dinner by the time she returned. Of course I got caught late at work and so by the time I made it home she had set to work making her own birthday dinner. Nevertheless, I was determined to make her birthday as special as possible and was armed with excitement and a nice gift of jewelry.
We made small talk and caught up on the day’s happenings. She told me the details of the scavenger hunt and sincerely thanked me. We sat close together at the table savoring the meal while Luca made baby food art across from us in his high chair. We strolled along with our conversation, meandering along as comfortable conversations do. We arrived at a natural lull but rather than moving through it, it stretched out all around us. The moment when a conversation would organically resume didn’t happen as the awkward silence grew into the room. We sat there for a moment neither of us sure of what to say to fill the void. Our eyes connected and tears immediately began to well up in her hers. She was fighting to hold them back. I witnessed her tormenting struggle as the silence elongated. I held my breath as she gathered hers and then she exhaled the question “where are you?”
Those three words gave voice to the fact I was a million emotional miles away. Those three words demanded to know my destination. Those three words flagged the start of a journey through a ravine which for a long time would be filled with a river of tears.
Stammering, I muttered that I was “struggling” and we’d get through it. That was our code word for struggling with my homosexuality. I blamed work and stress for my distance. I apologized and told her how much I loved her. I suggested that we focus on Costa Rica as an upcoming chance to relax and reconnect. In my heart, I welcomed my therapeutic schizophrenia. Away in Costa Rica I knew I wouldn’t be distracted and she would be better loved. I asked her to pray for us and to hold on; things would get much better.
I moved across the table and gathered her into my arms. I loved to hold her, to feel the closeness and security of feeling her body relax as I drew her in. That’s how it was with us. As my arms naturally found themselves around her, so I felt that I found my familiar self whenever I was with her. She was my best friend, the woman I loved and the mother of my son.
We paused there, my arms around her and her head on my shoulder. She let out her breath and whispered “Ok.”
The world stopped spinning for just a moment. After a time, she got up as though climbing out of a deep hole, got Luca and went to bed. For the next two weeks I was more intentional about my marriage and careful and sober about my euphoria with Elliot.
Our time in Costa Rica did turn out to be a respite for us both. We toured, relaxed, had many adventures, long dinners and enjoyed one another. We even discussed having another baby but both decided to wait until things were more settled in our lives. Although things weren’t totally normal we did manage to revisit the early days of our romance. Reconnecting and enjoying our friendship felt like being back in a safe and familiar place. The shelter of her love and our marriage allowed me to clear my head and feel less erratic. I was hopeful to realign my life and “get back on track.” I was focused on being attentive and loving. I wanted things to get back to normal.
But our vacation was just that: a vacation, a break from the things that break us, a chance to escape the pressing and unavoidable demands of reality. Within a few days of returning my clarity and hope for normalcy dissipated. I was desperate to see Elliot and cracking under the pressure of guilt and shame. I constantly felt overwhelmed and anxious. Thinking only that Elliot was a new friend Elaine kept offering to make dinner and invite him over. I kept making excuses, recognizing the shameful insult that would be. Within a week of our return we found ourselves sitting at the dinner table, me confessing my spiritual defeat and impending sense of our marriage collapsing.
To be honest, the exact details of this conversation are blurry and I find I didn’t record it in all my various journals. I know that I didn’t tell her that I cheated but I did admit that Elliot was gay, that I was desperately struggling with infatuation and losing faith that our marriage would survive. I feared going on in our marriage and failing later when she was older with perhaps fewer prospects for a suitable husband, especially if more children were involved. The level of detail to which I’d considered the impact upon her were well intentioned but made it all the more real and painful for her; as though I’d been planning this for ages. I could tell each suggestion or explanation was another unintentional dagger.
I suggested taking some weeks apart. I suggested her and Luca go stay with my parents for a few weeks. The unstoppable words poured forth, piling into an exacerbated mess before us.
I was short of breath with emotion and eventually had to escape the look of agony on her face. I scurried out of our apartment barefoot in my pajamas, down to the parking lot unsure of what to do. The autumn air was cold and biting but fresh. I breathed it in rapidly at first until I could slow and deepen my breaths. Sitting on a curb, in between two parked cars, I wept as the cruel cold wind lashed my bare feet against the frigid asphalt.
I decided to call my parents. My father answered and immediately recognized the desperation in my voice. He reassured me that whatever was wrong he would help me get through it. A sigh of relief emanated from my belly. In my suffocating confusion his station as father offered the hope of strength and experience.
I told him I had an affair and I didn’t know what to do. I told him I wanted Elaine and Luca to come stay with them until things cooled down and to offer her support. We were alone and I was worried about her. He paused and I could tell he was collecting his thoughts. We were both silent on the phone. I felt a release as I laid it out. Dad would know what to do. Everything would be okay. I could hear the wind screeching around me in contrast to his slow, rumbling breaths on the phone. After a pause I heard him inhale deeply and then in a sharp and shocking response he replied “No.”
He proceeded. Why would he allow that? So I could spend weeks in freedom cheating on my wife? In his mounting anger he asked how I could willingly abandon my son. His tone was low and strained, like a caged bull desperate to break forth in fury.
He told me he always hated God for taking his father’s life when he was a boy and now I was freely choosing to abandon my son by sending him away. The vitriol reached through the phone to sear my ears. Finally, with a cracking rumble he spit out “it is better that you kill yourself than abandon your son” and hung up. Those words cut to my marrow and would haunt me for years to come. Perhaps the words themselves were justified but the fury behind them crushed me. Those were the last words between us for almost three years.
The details of how Elaine and I made it through that night or where I slept evade me. But I remember calling in sick the next day, which is unheard of for a medical resident to do. At some point Elaine and I assumed our meeting stance. Whenever we had a serious conversation it always seemed we would end up on the couch sitting Indian style facing one another, often holding hands but always meeting face to face. It was a mutually happened-upon posture that harbored countless conversations and compromises, nourishing our friendship for almost ten years. That mutual posture built our beautiful bond and so now it was the stance harboring its quaking. There we sat on our second-hand grey velour couch, face to face, eyes swollen from tears. Mine were swollen from guilt. Hers were swollen from grief and yet they were uncannily resolute. She had stayed up all night praying and journaling. She knew what to do.
I remember her telling me she wasn’t giving in nor would she let me quit so easily. She would fight. God had blessed us beyond measure. He brought us together and prospered us. She loved me and would stand by my side. I remember her saying that if I failed her as a husband she would stand by me as a sister in Christ and support me. Without assault she rightly declared that my secrets fostered destructive fantasies and dishonest intentions in my heart.
Her words were powerful, painful and true. They stung just as if you’re stuck in the dark for a long time and someone switches on the bright lights. It’s good to see but it hurts at first. Gay or not, I harbored secrets, lies and secret desires. Our once transparent relationship was laden by contaminants. It was time to bring the dross to the surface and then deal with what remained.
And so she claimed her right; she claimed one month of my life. As my best friend, as my sister in faith, as my wife and as the mother of my son she claimed a month of my life and of my open and honest efforts and actions. She proposed that if after one month my heart didn’t change then she would settle her grief between her and God. She recognized that nothing in life and in our marriage was ever guaranteed. She knew the possibility this day would come but she pointedly reminded me that my vow to her was not one of success; it was one of honesty.
I had vowed to share my struggle and include her in my personal battle for our marriage. My vow to her was to not struggle alone. She rightfully indicted me for failing to be honest. She understood my shame and understood why I never told her about my secrets but nevertheless I owed it to all that was between us to give an honest month. It was my shame that metastasized into profound secrecy, allowing things to disintegrate so rapidly. She precisely yet gently laid forth the piercing truth. I found myself convicted and compelled. We made an agreement. I wrote it down. I swore to do everything we could imagine to resist temptation and foster our marriage. At least for a month.
In the period of less than twenty four hours my whole life threatened to come undone. In one conversation the beautiful and well constructed vision for our life teetered on the precipice of despair. It felt better to pledge myself to a difficult plan and buy my marriage some time than to walk away uncertain and with the shame of not knowing if I’d done all I could to save it. I was a man in a violent internal civil war; wanting a new life of freedom yet terrified of it and horrified of ruthlessly injuring my best friend and most sincere lover. I was terrified of what being gay meant and of losing my family, my son and my life.
My journal entries from this time are a thesis of a schizophrenic heart in anguish. The thought of losing my son caused me to physically wretch. I knew if Elaine and Luca left my family would do everything in their power to support her and keep me out. I was petrified and broken-hearted to abandon the beautiful and fragile vision of an old, happily married husband and wife surrounded by many grandchildren. I was afraid of what I’d done and angry at myself. The list goes on; a sloppy stew of powerful and negative emotions.
I severed contact with Elliot, erased pornography from my computer, erased phone numbers of gay contacts from my phone, signed up for a daily online support group for people struggling with infidelity and sex addiction in their marriage. Breaking things off with Elliot was really difficult and something I’ll cover in greater depth later on. I also pledged to journal every day, spend time in prayer, and contact my pastor and some other church ministries for people choosing to leave the gay lifestyle. I made a covenant for a month.
And so I began a process. At first I was resistant but then I began to do it as much for myself as for her. I needed answers. If I was to end my precious marriage then I needed to have very clear answers and reasons in my mind. I would wake up and pray and do Bible devotionals. Then after work I would spend time online in my support group. It was through a Christian organization and was an absolute exercise in humility, accountability and discipline. It was set up as a Bible passage or story with subsequent questions. I‘d answer them and also have space to write down other insights, thoughts or concerns. A counselor would respond in 24 hours. I know it sounds crazy and fundamentalist-right-wing and fringe but it was actually a healthy and challenging experience. Often the counselor’s questions pressed me to figure out what I believed about God, myself and my marriage. It was the only space I had; the only place where I wasn’t utterly alone and was free to speak unspeakables. There was safety in anonymity.
When you’re going through something like that there are so many competing voices in one’s head. Fear, guilt, hopelessness, sadness and anger all compete to be the lead in a dissonant chorus. Their deafening screech drowns out the quiet melody of Hope. The world is a different place now but back then I was alone and afraid to even type out my feelings. This forum was a private arena for me to work things out. The faceless counselor acted as a distant referee. Some days were more emotionally violent than others. Some days I’d wrestle through all those voices telling me it would be better if I was dead, I was destroying lives, my son would never love me, I’d lose everything. I’d fight to pull back the masks and see if there was truth underneath or if lies had impostered my own voice. Other days I’d curl up in exhaustion and let those voices pummel me and just try and survive the day.
Over time I began to discern between those voices in my head and heart and understand myself better. I was forced to battle on paper between wanting my marriage and wanting out. Of all the voices in disjointed tunes, one lyric kept repeating above all others. “I want to want to fight. But I’m tired. I don’t have a fight in me anymore.”
I want to take a moment to talk about accountability. I decided for the first time in my life I would fully expose myself in all the details of my mind, body and soul. My goal was to engage this process head-on and without reserve. As I report these events I know it will seem so strange that I shared the most intimate details of my marriage, sexual fantasy and infidelity with an unknown, online person. But to his credit I never felt condemned or judged and he proved time and time again to have a genuine interest in supporting both my personal well- being and my marriage covenant.
More than anything I learned the value of accountability; of having someone outside a marriage with whom to be totally honest and who would encourage me as well as call me out on my bullshit. Perhaps it’s unusual in today’s day and age but I think it’s so necessary for anyone seeking to enrich their relationship. Shame hides in the dark places of our hearts. Shame breeds more shame and births more lies in order to remain hidden. It felt like a spring cleaning of the soul to be absolutely honest with another human even though I’d never met that human in person. He figuratively walked by my side and encouraged me to thoughtfully examine myself. My journal became a scalpel for gruesome self dissection. Every intention, motive and purpose of my life endured fervent onslaught. It was necessary spiritual surgery.
Part of this process entailed refraining from masturbation because more often than not, my fantasies were of men. This was so difficult. Talking about sex seems less personal than discussing masturbation. I’m no psychologist but I argue that masturbation is more closely related to one’s psychological and emotional core and how it manifests as a personal sexual desire. Thoughts had during masturbation are perhaps the most private and intimate and understanding them is a powerful tool in understanding oneself.
Anyway, God bless Elaine, she would awkwardly ask me every day if I masturbated. Knowing that someone will ask you and that the answer will be physically audible and emotionally painful to your partner certainly helps in the anti-masturbation-motivation department. It was uncomfortable for both of us. Nevertheless, she persisted and I pressed on. I promised myself that if she put herself through the pain of asking, I owed her an honest answer. I was committed to the process. I needed to know if there was hope of salvaging my marriage.