My Story – a work in progress

At nineteen I fell in love with a wonderful woman, she had a great sense of humour and fun, her values were similiar to mine and more than that I was attracted to her.  Her smile lit up my world. It was love, or as close to love as a nineteen year old, who know nothing of the world can give.

I suppose looking back it was a mixture of arrogance and immaturity that led me into this relationship, but I soon felt that the relationship was right.  I had not known “M” for long when I realised that she was the person that I wanted to be with.  Even though I knew this, I also knew in my heart that I would rather be with a man.  My lack of knowledge of life, led me to believe that I could only be a full-person with a fulfilled life though being with a woman, having children and having a socially acceptable marriage.

My focus upon the relationship as well as on youth group activities meant that my same-sex attraction was under control or at least was at a low level in my life.  It was probably the fact that all of the busyness that this provided in my life kept me busy enough to not spend any great amounts of time thnking about this.

About the same time my working life at the bank was coming to a quick end. Working at the bank was working for neither the bank or myself.  So I left the bank and started working with disability services, to cut a very long story short this then led me into a career in health care… but that is not really what this blog is about…

From the time that I started to go out with “M” to when we married was 2 years, during this time I was rarely tempted to look at guys, however this did become more difficult when “M’s” best friend from school moved into share her unit.  “J” was an openly gay guy who was very comfortable with his sexuality and very open about who he was, this was difficult for me and I had to work very hard at not being “gay” around him, I constantly worried about wether his “gaydar” was picking up something about me. If it did would he say anything to “M”.  Thankfully he did not stay very long before having a transfer back to Sydney.

We got engaged on my mothers birthday in 1985, 18 months after we had started going out together.  The day after we were engaged I was transfered to Brisbane to work.  I lived with two female nurses that I knew in an inner suburb of Brisbane.  During this time I made a very deliberate decision to keep away from the valley in Brisbane, at that time a gathering place for gays.  One time a guy who I worked with invited me to go camping with another guy to Bribie Island (just north of Brisbane), at the last minute the other guy pulled out.  So just the two of us went, (after all of these years I cannot remember his name) we camped on the eastern side of the island.  That night sitting by a camp fire, we both drank too much and while the memories of that night is hazy for me now, I remember him putting his hand onto my leg and resting it there. I remember turing my face towards him and him kissing me.  I remember that we ended up in the tent, where we made love several times that night and again the next morning. 

My car broke down the next day on the way home, it cost about $700-00 to fix, I am sure that this was God punishing me.

Probably the clearest memory of that night was this guy asking me, “So what are you going to do when you get married…” I remember saying something like, “Oh, I will be alright…” This was my first real gay experience, it was pleasurable, enjoyable but only happened once, I made sure that never again was I put into a situation where I was tempted in such a way again.

After that weekend, I remember sinking into a deep depression, I considered forthe first time ever, that I should take my own life.  I felt very alone, I had no-one I could confide in.  (This was something that would be a part of my life for a long time.)  One night when feeling down, I was at home by myself, I thought that I would go into the city, not really having a plan.  Of course I found myself at one of the gay nightclubs in Brisbane, a place called “The Hacienda”, I walked around the night club feeling quite ‘out-of-it’, I was not even sure how I had got there.  The people there were much more attractive than I felt, coming from the country, I still dressed by country standards, not in the trendy city clothes that the others wore.  I found somewhere to sit, not long after someone came up to talk to me, the guy was neatly dressed, a conservative looking guy, with a well pressed white shirt, short hair, shaved.  However, on his lower half he had a beautiful pleated, red skirt and wore ladies shoes! This was mind blowing to me a lad straight in from the bush.  He told me he was in the Navy and was in town on a ship for the night, we bought each other drinks and after a while he invitedme to leave with him, we went to a car, that he told me he had borrowed from a friend, we drove a short way from the night club, parked in a back street and had quick, unsatisfying sex in the back of his car.  When it was over he dropped me back at the hotel, I quickly caught a cab and went home.  5 weeks later I was a married man!

For most people they look back on their wedding with some degree of joy, and while my wedding day certainly had that I remember more than anything there was a feeling of… WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE!!!.  This feeling started the night before my wedding as we sat on the deck of a hotel looking across the river, with my father, my two brothers and some family friends (one of whom is the guy I talked about in my previous page that I only found out years later that he was gay.), the feeling of impending doom was huge.  I knew that I had made a huge mistake, but I how do you stop a wedding the night before, when you have over 120guests having travelled from all over Australia to be there?!  The night before the wedding I hardly slept, all I kept thinking about was this is such a mistake, how could I have let it get to this, I would rather be with a man than get married, how will I ever control my urges. 

As I watched my wife-to-be walk down the aisle, I was filed with two very disparate thoughts, the first one was how beautiful she looked and how much I loved her, but the overriding thought was to run and run bloody fast.  I could oly think of the priest telling the story that I remembered so vividly (from my previous page) of the man thinking that he would rather marry his best man than his wife…  I stood in that church shaking with fear because of my knowledge that I was committing the biggest sin of my life.  That by marrying this woman that I had fallen in love with, I was creating a pit into which I would fall.  I Stood infront of all of those people in the church and new that I could never back out of what was happening, that I could never walk away, as I should have that day.

Things in the marriage did not get off to a great start, on the 3rd day of our honeymoon I “failed to produce” (failed to perform – what ever terminology you can think of – I got it – stage fright) It was not a good start, that so soon on trouble would be so apparent.  At 21 I found myself married to someone whom I love but was not interested in sexually, I felt the millstone tighten around my neck.

After our wedding we moved to a very small country town in southern Queensland and for the first few years of my life this was perhaps a saving thing for me, there was little or in fact no temptation.  The first couple of years of our married life past with little event or temptation for me, sexually things went along pretty well.

In 1988 I completed my training as nurse, my father had, had heart surgery  at this time and I went back to my home town for a while to look after him.  One Sunday afternoon, I found myself back at the toilets in the park, where several years before an older man tried to pick me up, this time a young guy came and tried to get me to come home with him, it took a lot of will power to say no, but I did it!!

After I became a nurse I decided to get experience working in a larger hospital, so worked in a hospital about an hours drive away from the town we lived in, this town was nearer the coast and was much larger. It didn’t take me long to work out where the local beat was located.  I often stayed overnight at the nurses quarters rather than driving home and back again, especially on short shifts, it became very convenient way to meet other guys during these times.

One of the more memorable guys was an Asian guy a few years younger than myself, he was quite stunning in appearance and was very considerate and kind, we met at the beat a few times and a couple of times at the nurses quarters and his home.  We had a great arrangement there was no pressure on either of us.  I was very fond of him. We had stopped seeing each other for a while, when one of my friends invited my wife, my son and I for dinner at the restaurant her (same-sex) partner and a business partner had opened in nearby Noosa, imagine my shock/horror to discover that my Asian friend was her partners new busness partner!!

Another very strong, though not nearly as fond of memory, was of meeting this extremly good looking and young guy at the beat one afternoon, he had short blonde hair, beautiful sun tanned skin, great abs and a great body all up. we spent over an hour at the beat, he was a fantast kisser and was very much into pleasing me.  It was all good, until I left to discover that he had left not only a great feeling for me, but had left with my wallet. The wallet was later returned to me, via the bank, however all of the money from the wallet had gone.  The funny part was that I had only $15.00 in the wallet to start with.

Another time that was memorable, I was in one of the cubicles at the toilets, someone came into the cubicle next to me and after we observed each other for a while, I caught sight of his face and was shocked to discover that he was one of my bosses from the hospital.  I was extremely embarrased, but still had to work with him that night, we later had sex in his office that night, he asked me if it could be a regular event, but I simply could not do it and work with him at the same time.  But the numerous visits to this beat over the 11 years that I worked at the hospital are far to many to list or even remember here.  

During this tie the most amazing event of my life occured, it is one event that I remember as if it was yesterday, the birth of my son.  Nothing in our lives had been planned more than J’s birth. We knew straight away that we were pregnant and eagerly awaited his birth.  It was a Thursday, M had called me around morning tea time to say that her waters had broken, I came home from work later in the day, to meet her in the maternity ward of the hospital. A good friend of ours was our midwife and our son was born just before she went off work that night, this was wonderful to have her with us throughout the labour and to share in the birth of our son. 

The birth of my son was perhaps one of the most emotional events of our life, it is an amazing feeling to stand there and watch as a new being comes into the world, a new being that is a part of you and someone you love. My love for my son has never changed from that day, I still look in amazement at him now and think did you really come from me.  WOW!!!