Does any one else see my elephant……….
everyday of my life I spend stepping around the elephant in the middle of my room. It invades my space and makes my heart feel burdened.
Why is it that those around me dont see my elepant. Or is it that the elephant is just mine. I wish that I could just say those words to my wife that I need to say so that the elephant mght at least move from the middle of my space to the corner. How do I find the strength to say those words that will eventually destroy my life as it is today. The problem is that this mess we are in is all my fault, I walked into this marriage with both eyes closed and a prayer in my heart that some how this marriage would cure the elephant that was in my life. I thought it would, the people I loved and trusted had told me that marriage to a good woman would cure it all for me…… you know what…… it didn’t. My wife, the most beautiful, honest, loving, caring and wonderful person that I know, how can I have hurt this much, how can I have destroyed the most beautiful thing that I had.
Wow, what a way to describe it! I was sitting looking for inspiration to deal with my own elephant, and your description fits so well. In some ways i am luckier, i managed to hold off getting married and thus have no wife to ‘disappoint’, but my pain is with my family and work colleagues. I am 41, spent nearly 20 years of my life in the Navy (British) and lived in daily fear that i’d be discovered and, in the early days, discharged and sent to prison. In leaving the navy i join the construction world and so continue to live a lie a work. I walked from one trap to another. But for me the pain is too much now. I have a friend who is a Jehova’s Witness. His family just found out he is gay. The pain he faces now makes my problems seem petty and maybe it has driven me onwards, I hope so. For most of us that reach this age and are avoiding the elephant, i assume like me we all see the imagined pain of our loved ones when we go trough the dream/nightmare in our heads, as we play it out. To save this perceived other people’s pain we carry so so much pain ourselves. That is wrong, unhealthy and a horrible way to live. have lost count of the number of events i have run away from in tears, dances I have cried at the end of, not because I have not found the wife i am ‘expected to’, but because i again subject myself to the charade and go through hell to make myself appear ‘normal’. Does your wife know, maybe, but she will at least have considered the thought i’d guess, but that guarantees nothing. You cannot predict how she will respond now or in 10 years time, so save the yourself the pain and don’t, like me, have dress rehearsals in your head. You and I are not the first in the world to go through this. For many its messy, horrible, depressing, but i hope for an equal or greater number it is uplifting, a weight away, and the start of something new. No more pain of lying, pretending, suppressing and worrying. No more guilt. Sometimes you just get to the point that you cant carry the elephant around any more. I reached that stage tonight. Your eloquent description and my JW friend’s terrible experiences of the moment are just about the kick up the bottom i need. If those I love, and i know love me, know that the elephant exists, it will evaporate instantly. Either little will change and they’ll love me as before, or they love/friendship will dwindle and we’ll all move apart a little or a lot, but i wont waste my waking and sleeping hours planning my response to every possible reaction they may have. I have done that for about 25 years and it does not seem to have moved me forward much!. In time who knows what or where it will lead to, but at least i wont spend every waking moment trying to pretend the elephant doesn’t exist. I’ll have time an energy to worry about what’s important to me, not what I should do to avoid pain for someone else. Thanks for the image, now its time for me to point out my elephant.
Wow Graeme, I don’t think anyone has ever told me that I was either eloquent or an inspiration. If one person finds something from my posts that helps them move on or to understand what they/me/others are going through then my blog has been worth it. Before I started my blog I felt very alone, I now know that there are many out there like me, who are going through the same thing, the same feelings, the same sense of total uncertainty.
As you so rightly point out the hardest part of moving forward is not often the reality for us, but our “imagined pain” the pain that we will cause to our loved ones and ultimately to ourselves. So often I run through the scenario in my head, “Darling, I am gay!”, she bursts into tears, runs from the room, comes back later and we sanely discuss!!!! YEAH RIGHT!!! Of course I know the reality will be far from this – what ever it may be.
I understand very well when you say that the pain is with your family and colleagues, I know WHEN (yes when not if) I come out to my wife, I will lose not only my wife but my wider family. My father will never cope being a strict catholic, my younger brother may cope – but this will probably be because his wife will make him. My older brother will never cope with it, will never forgive me, even though he is probably the one person in my family who has some knowledge of my same sex attraction. (but that is a totally other story for a different day)
So in the meantime, I lug around this huge elephant every day, he is with me when I wake up, drive to work, sit in meetings, when I eat dinner, watch the TV, he is just there… a part of me. In an effort to save pain on others we do carry this pain, you are so right. The disonnance that we have within our lives through struggling to be “normal” is huge, it is crippling and unrelenting.
Though I must say as I say to colleagues when they use the word normal – “Normal is just a cycle on my dishwasher – NOTHING MORE”
I am not sure if my wife knows, she has certainly has had in the past, a few years ago I went through a patch where my life was a mess, I became involved with someone, I was self centred in my world and took little notice of what was happening around me. One night she confronted me and I denied it! Looking back, I now know that at that time I was suffering with depression and at very close to a complete nervous breakdown. While you are right that I don not know how she will respond, I do have a reasonably good idea. I know that she would never cope with the deception and my adultery, no matter who or what sex it was with.
Everyday, I am amazed at the emails that I receive through this blog, I am surprised by the number of guys out there like you and I searching for an answer, a way to move forward, a way to find peace within our own lives.
I am loathe to give anyone advice in the situation that we are in, but, the advice I would give is to take “baby steps” who is it you need to tell first, who will respond positively and accept you – no matter what. Then tackle the others, those who you are uncertain of their reaction.
A couple of years ago my young nephew (18 at the time) came out to me, I was the only one in the family he told for some time. We were having dinner together as he was at Uni and I would take him out for dinner when I was in town on business. He told me that he was gay and I responded, “yeah, I figured that.” He was totally surprised, while it may have been my gaydar but, even my wife had said to me about 2 years before that she thought he was gay. He knows that he is loved by me know matter what.
A friend of mine is in his fifties, after much stress he came out to his mother, was in her 80’s, when he told her she laughed at him and said, “Do you think I didn’t know years ago!”
I wish you much luck with your elephant, getting them to do exactly what we want is not always easy, but we will get there.
Good luck, keep in touch.
I can not believe how much i instantly related to your story, your description was amazing and so like my life – well my life up until 4 weeks ago when I finally evicted my elephant. It wasn’t my choice at first – my wife finally couldn’t handle our life any more especially our lack of love life over the last couple of years and she found someone else. When I found out my first reaction was betrayal and anger and hurt and thought my life was going to be one of the divorced husband who had his wife cheat on him. Still no thought of me and my elephant. She felt bad and i didn’t make it any better, my thoughts turned to how could she do this to me, does she not know what I give up for her every day, my elephant, i give that up for her and she does that to me.
For some reason (which I may never know) about a week after finding out about her affair I told her about my elephant……it was the most scariest thing I have ever told anyone in the world and in the 4 weeks since then my life has changed in a way i never thought it would but always imagined it could be. Over the coming weeks I introduced my elephant to my teenage son and daughter and then the rest of the family and now everyone who is important to me know about my elephant…….it is all still a bit surreal to still sit there and think that as a 40 year old man I can actually say the words out loud that I am an out gay man.
My wife and I still share a house, albiet seperate rooms) and will still parent as we always have but our whole lives have changed. We will soon go our seperate ways but always have a bond, a love of a special friend and that i will treasure as i have always loved her but i never knew that love was not the love either of us needed for the relationship, it was a love for the person she was and she loved me.
i always thought I was in control of my elephant and could go the rest of the life with just me seeing it – i thought I was coping, who needs to look themselves in a mirror anyway, it wasn’t until I exposed my elephant that I felt the burden lifted and i can tell you it is a burden lifted and even though that was the darkest time of my life that burden going was exhilarating in a way i never thought it would be.
I am still mourning the loss of my marriage but over the last couple of weeks i have made myself focus on tomorrow not yesterday……i can’t spend the rest of my life saying sorry to my wife and beating myself up, it doesn’t change anything. what i can do is take the next part of my journey and as i take those first few steps I can not believe what a true feeling of happyness it is bringing.
For the first time in 40 years I wake up and my elephant is not the first thing I see….i see me, the real me, the me everyone can now see.
I am so so lucky that everyone i have told has supported me, my father nearly caused me to go into a state of shock he was so supportive – even my 2 homophobic brothers in law have been great.
i don’t know what tomorrow holds but i don’t have to hide from it anymore – i get to live my whole life to the fullest, not just the parts of my life that wouldn’t expose my elephant.
i don’t know why this happened to me at this time but for whatever reason it was right for me now. I hope you all find you right time becuase it is so worth it for me and hope for you it will be one day too.
Thanks so much for the elephant image it describes it to a T and i think it will be one that i will carry with me forever and as i plan to move into my own house i think there will definitely be an elephant statue near the front door to remind me of my elephant and how i finally left it out.
DREAMS CAN COME TRUE + even with an elephant you deserve then too !!!!
pjc
Hi PJC,
thank you for your comments, it is amazing how much alike so many of our storys are. We have all travelled a road with similar markers that we have shared.
None of us know what each day will bring in so many ways to us, on day I too will be able to move on and not live my life under the shade of the elephant.
Thank you for sharing your story, I wish you well on your journey and hope that you continue to find the strength that you need to get through each day.
It is along time since I have blogged here but i will blog soon as so much has happened in the last few months that I have not had time to blog on here.