Chronically Ironic

·I Married A Gay Man!

It’s true. Of course everyone’s first question is, “Didn’t you know?” Um, let me say this first, in defense of all the women out there that have made some horrible error of judgment concerning a relationship and then lives to regret her decision, even in some small way: Kind of.

Okay, I know that makes no sense and is a little unfathomable to most. Trust me, when I look back at everything 10 years later, it makes very little sense to me. However, I doubt that I would be able to look at it now with the perspective and insight that I have had I not gone through it. I guess starting at the beginning is a good place. Please restrain yourself, Dear Reader, by not saying aloud at any given point in the story, “Well, didn’t you know THEN???” The answer will be plain to see – knowing, wanting to know, and comprehending are all very different when matters of the heart are concerned.

At 21, I had not really decided what to do with my life yet – after going to college for a year and a half right out of high school, I was not really interested in higher education and was much more interested in living on my own and having the money to do so. Sadly, when you are 21 and don’t yet have a college education and don’t really have any connections, you choose one of two career paths: retail or food service. I chose retail, simply because I had been in various forms of retail since 16. Who remembers Contempo Casuals? If you remember Merry-Go-Round, Contempo was like the shitty, seedier half cousin. Basically full of late 80’s – early 90’s female do-you-want-me-then-come-get-it fashion, Contempo was frequented by 18-23 year-old women who either liked to dance or made their living dancing, and I do not mean in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater or the New York City Ballet. You know you may be in a career that does not necessarily suit you when you get at least 4 customers a day asking you how you like their “new boobs.” Anyway, this is where I worked as Assistant Manager, a glorified title to say the least. Life in general was not going well – after writing a string of hot checks to support my sad little lifestyle which consisted of working and going out, I decided I needed to do something else. Really, the hot check situation decided it for me – it was either get out of the shitty way I was living right then, or continue on a path of wanton destruction.

I had a friend that went to college in a small town in East Texas, and I had never really given it much thought, but decided to visit him one fall. A small aside: I had an AWESOME car. 1970 Ford Maverick, in this crazy “it’s not white, and it’s not blue” color. We called it the Stealh Maverick. I was the only person in town with this car. You could not mistake me. Oh, and I used an old comforter to cover the seats. Said comforter had blue, red and yellow flowers all over it. PRETTY. Enough about my ride. I went to visit this friend and his friends, and one of his friends happened to be my future husband. Let’s make no bones about it – from the minute I met him, it was all over. Here was a guy who was smart, decent-looking, and completely different from anyone I had ever met. Our music tastes, which were eclectic to say the least, were the same, although his catalog of knowledge of that music was waaaaay more extensive than mine. It’s still a strong belief of mine that when you find someone that is as into music as you are and your tastes are the same, you connect with them on a whole new level. We hit it off, but not really in a romantic sense – at least, not for him. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t completely base my decision on picking up and moving to East Texas to go to school solely on my non-relationship with this guy. Thus ensued the torture.

I spent my entire first semester in torment. I loved him. I couldn’t tell him. We were best friends. My grades were in the shitter – academic probation, which I didn’t even know existed (I figured if you paid your money, what did the college care? Hahaha) appeared at the bottom of my first transcript. Yay. I wrote horrible, and I do mean truly AWFUL poetry all about him and my sad plight. I cried and cried and listened to The Cure and cried some more. Oh yeah, then I spent whatever money I had on all the same CD’s that HE had, and cried. How could he not love me? We spent all our time together, took trips to Austin and Houston together, spent hours upon hours in every record store that these cities had to offer, and still he did not love me.

I probably should have known THEN.

But no! He graduated, moved back home with his parents which was about a 2-hour drive from where I was still going to school. We talked on the phone. A lot. I think my average phone bill in college was about $400 a month. My rent didn’t even cost that much. Of course, not all of that was from me talking to him – I had to call any friend I had and tell them about what the latest in the saga was and ask them why they thought he could not love me. He got his own apartment, and I would visit every other weekend. Then it got weird. He finally kissed me. Holy crap, I had waited for this for 3 years. We sort of were dating. And, as you can imagine since you already know the outcome of the story, there was no sex. I literally threw myself at him, and still, no sex.

Hey, maybe I should have known then!!

But hell no. He moved to St. Louis, got a job, and I visited him there. It was there that he confessed his love for me. FINALLY. And lo and behold, there was sex. And it was not horrible. I distinctly remember him questioning why we had waited so long. I graduated, moved to St. Louis, lived with him, and he asked me to marry him. YES was the only logical answer. After the proposal, he treated me to KFC. A meal that I will never forget. Not apparently a very gay choice, but hey. When you’re not rich, at least there’s chicken.

At this point in our story, I have to digress a little – my friends from Dallas had met him, and actually said, HE IS GAY. I stormed out of the gathering and went for years without talking to them. Deep down inside of me, there was a miniscule part of myself that said, well, he loves me though, so I have nothing to worry about. Looking back, why did I not take my friends’ advice to heart? Why did I not listen to the part of me that was afraid? He made no overtly homosexual “signs,” at least, not in my mind. My mind was not looking for it, though. We got married. And all was really okay in St. Louis – we both had jobs, we still enjoyed each other’s company. I really had no other relationship to gauge it by – as far as the frequency or content of what a marital sex life should be like. I figured that it really didn’t matter, because in the end, we were such great friends and so good together.

His mother died of heart complications about two years into our marriage, and it was really the hardest thing I have ever been through. His family was great, and I got along with them all. He was destroyed by the loss of his mother. Then, my dad got sick, and so I told him we were moving back to Texas. We did. That’s when it all began to fall apart.

I remember it kind of starting around the time of my 10-year high school reunion. I went and had a blast, and a friend of mine from out of town was staying with us. At the reunion I saw a guy that I had been completely infatuated with all through high school, and we made a sort of feeble attempt at flirting with one another. I was so starved for physical contact that I probably would have ended up sleeping with him, had he let it go that far. He, much to my dismay, did not, and my conscience did kick in, a little. I felt guilty afterwards, and explained to my husband that I had come very close to throwing out all reason and committing adultery that very weekend. His response was: “It would have been okay if you did.”

Hey, maybe I should have known THEN!!!

No. I let shit spiral out of control at that point. I can recall a night where he didn’t come home until 4 am, I was freaking out, on the phone with everyone I know, until finally one good friend said to me: “You know, in the end, it will be you who leaves him, not the other way around. You have done nothing but try to be a good wife.” Weirdly, that did not even register. Until about a month later.

Forward to a month later. After 2 months of him being out of a job, spending all of our extra money on Ben & Jerry’s, he gets a job at a record store. Woooooowooo. He is making maybe $9 an hour. We are PPPPOOOOOOOORRRRR. I don’t even know how we are making rent at this point. He comes home one night, and here is the scene that ensues:

He walks in to the apartment and proceeds to get the bottle of vodka out. He puts said bottle on top of an ornate tray from him mom, along with two shot glasses and a very tiny statue made of plastic of the Praying Hands. He sits these objects down in front of me in the living room, sits down himself, pours two shots and takes off his wedding ring. Puts wedding ring on Statue of Praying Hands and says,

“I can’t be married to you anymore.”

I look at him as if I have not understood. I’m thinking this is a pretty plausible reaction.

“Why?”

“I’ve cheated on you. With a man.”

Cut to sound of my entire world crashing down around my ears. I manage to take it calmly, and reach ever so gently for the gleaming shot of vodka that’s in front of me. I take the shot. I take another. And possibly another. It’s been 7 years, folks. I don’t remember. All I remember is the feeling of being devastated. All the pictures of our wedding flashed before my eyes, while my brain kept repeating “I’m a statistic. I’m a fucking statistic.” I listened to his sad, ridiculous story of love with a guy that we had had over for dinner, a guy that I liked, a guy that I thought was our friend. I was calm throughout. I stayed through the night – I tried to sleep next to him since it would be our last night in the same bed together, but I just couldn’t. I got up and got on the phone. Literally, for 4 hours. And then I hightailed my ass outta there. No goodbye, no bullshit. It will always amaze me how, in the face of devastating shit, men can sleep. Fuck y’all. We can’t sleep for nothin and it’s not fair. So, after my non-sleepin’ ass has had enough, I go to my best friend Leigh’s parent’s house and knock on their door at 8 am. I tell my sad story. I am, of course, welcomed. I stay there for three months – just long enough to figure out that A) I need to file for divorce first and B) I need to get through my other friend’s wedding as the maid of honor (haha) and then get out. I get through the wedding (if you don’t count passing out in the bathtub by myself as a sign of depression) and I get the hell out after living with them for three months – meanwhile, their other daughter is knocked up by a guy that does not want to have anything to do with the kid. We are like a home for wayward girls. Never mind the entire task of explaining to my parents why I am getting divorced. They are freaked out, and also wonder why I did not move in with them. Obvious reasons, really – I couldn’t handle all the questioning, all the doubt – They always knew things were strange, but were not prepared for this shit. My parents are old, old school. Gay meant you had to move to Venezuela or some shit like that.

So, I get divorced 4 months later, with a small settlement in my behalf. We didn’t have much, just debt, but given the circumstances, I thought I deserved a little hardship. I also managed to out him to his father, which I admit was not cool, but I felt like he deserved to know his son had lied to him and his deceased wife. I had sex again. A LOT of sex. I got over it.

GAY PEOPLE: I do not have a problem with you. I have a problem with men, and women for that matter, who insist on dragging straight people into your drama. Because you KNOW there is drama. Don’t try to tell me there’s not. Look, if you’re gay, that’s cool. But how long can you be confused about it? No longer will I allow you to say that you are confused through an entire marriage. You had one thing that you did not have to do: PROPOSE. That’s all. The pain could have been completely forgone.

Are you waiting for the irony? Here it is: So my sister calls me soon after my divorce, telling me she has left her husband. For a woman. Ohhh, Irony. Why do you win every time????

Why Girls Cry