My Story

I am a 43 year old married gay man, living in rural Queensland.  I have share my life with my wife and two children for the past 22 years. This will be the story of my coming out…. my transition from being an apparently happily married man…. to being what I hope is happily gay.  A transition from a life lived in fear…………… to a life lived to the full.

Central Queensland was probably not the ideal place in the 70’s to grow up as a young gay man, add to this growing up in a strongly religious catholic family and you probably have a reasonable answer as to why at 43 years of age I find myself with such a dichotomous life. 

I grew up as the middle of three boys, born just 18months after my older brother, my mother and father often joked that I was a mistake, they really wanted a daughter and that I was much earlier than they would have liked.  Even with this knowledge that I have as far back as my earliest memories, I knew I was loved.  However, my family were not the type of family that shows love to each other.  In my entire life I don’t believe that I have ever heard my mother or father say that they loved me….. and I certainly have never heard it from either of my brothers.  My family are not big into being a family together, we have never had a crisis where we have had to support each other and we are not the sort of family that comes together to celebrate Christmas.  With all of this I am always surprised that the way my family sees me, is so important to me. 

I was educated in catholic schools and from the age of 5 years, spent my schooling in all Christian Brothers all-boys schools, a virtual breeding ground for homosexuals, even in the small schools in regional Queensland in the 1970’s.

It is hard to put a time on the place or time that I realised that I was different from other kids. It was something that I knew – always.  I remember in grade 2 at school, that I hung around with one of the girls in my class, not because I liked her, though she was a good friend, but because her older brother would play with us at lunch times and I always thought that he was really nice and even at that age (around 7) I remember dreams of holding him. 

I suppose the most vivid of my early experiences was in grade 6 at school (so probably about 11 or 12) being at the swimming pool and having this huge desire to kiss the boy next to me, I remember this absolute pull for me to touch him, his beautiful tanned skin, his lovely chest.  Of course I didn’t, but as clear as anything that memory remains with me today.

My only real sexual experience with another boy happened when I was about 13 or so.  On scout camp, one of the other scouts and I played with each other, all very innocent fun at the time, but I still remember how much I enjoyed this.

Attending all boys school, being in scouts and playing sports in all boys sport teams meant that I had almost no interaction with girls of my own age, I grew up in a world that was full of males.  For as long as I can remember at school, I shied away from friendships with other boys, especially as I grew older, a friendship often ended up in a crush and a “puppy-eyed love”.  In grade 11 (16years old) I found myself quite besoted with another boy in my class, he was ruggedly handsome, dark eyes, tanned skin and simply stunning.

The first time I saw him was at a church service in the cathedral.  He was sitting a few rows in front of me and wore the uniform of a christian brothers college from a nearby town.  Following the service I watched for him and saw him talking with one of the christian brothers from his school and the deputy-principal of our school.  For months I remembered how handsome he was and how beautiful his eyes were.  Months later on the first day of school after the Christmas holidays, how amazed I was to find he was a new pupil at our school and not only that he was in my class.  As i got to see more of him he was even more beautiful than I could imagine, as a swimmer he had a beautiful body and the first six pack I had ever seen. For the next 12 months I did nothing but dream of being with him every night before I went to bed.  I knew he was not gay, even then I had a pretty good gaydar that let me know he was off limits.  A couple of years ago I saw him at a school reunion, he was bald, with leathery skin from years of manual work in the sun, and had a reasonable sized paunch over hang!! What a change from the young guy I was SO in love/lust with for all of that time.

One of the “family activities” we used to do as teenagers was to go fishing with dad, my two brothers and I often would go fishing to our fishing hut on the family property about 40 minutes from where we lived.  Once when we went fishing there a friend of my fathers and his son came with us, after a day of fishing the son announced to me that he had bought his tent to sleep in as it would be better than sleeping in the hut. He asked me if I would prefer to sleep in the tent.  I agreed as I had always loved camping (the tent type that is.)  When in bed that night in our sleeping bags, he started to tell me about how he had a big “cock” I pretended to be asleep, he kept going on about it.  I turned over and went to sleep, I know that he wanted me to touch him, but I was so scared, what if my father who was sleeping only a few feet away in the hut would find out!   What an opportunity, I often think today, what if I had accepted this offer, would things have been different for me.

I always enojyed drawing, and I thought (and many others did as well) that I had a talent, my mother decided to encourage this talent, and contacted the local art gallery, the director of the art gallery agreed to see my drawings.  The first day I went to the gallery, I remember how nervous I was.  He looked at my drawings and complemented me on my style, he loaned me some of his books and encouraged me to keep drawing.  He was a wonderful and generous man, the loan of these books started a friendship that would last a number of years.  I would ride my bike, the 6 kilometres to visit the gallery on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.  He was an articulate, artistic, passionate and educated man in his mid 50’s. He was of course gay.  I knew this from the first moment we met, however his kindness to me was immense.  One day he took me to his unit to pick up some books from his private collection that he wanted to loan me (I had called in on a week day during the holidays and he had not expected me) he lived in a wonderful converted warehouse, the walls were covered with art pieces, which I admired greatly.  I envied the lifestyle that he had.  He often talked to me of friends of his and told me stories about them (no doubt they were gay) and I had no doubt that his stories were in someway a warning about the gay lifestyle.  He wa a huge influence in my life and today I feel embarrased ad ashamed that I stopped our friendship because of what others said. (And for the record no it was never a sexual relationship – I wish it had been, but it wasn’t)

One of our neighbours worked for the city council that ran the art gallery, my friend worked at, there were strong rumours throughout the council that this man was gay.  After a Christmas Party for the council one year, the neigbours wife told my mother that this man had been there and was obviously “gay”. When I got home from work, my mother told me that I should not go to the gallery again and that I should remove the reference that he had written for me out of my C.V..  Being a duteous son I did this.  I was very saddened a few years later to hear that this man had died of cancer, I remember a lovely, kind man who had a beautiful sense of humour and share his love of the arts openly with anyone.  I believe I gave up an opportunity to have a true mentor through following the advice of others instead of what was in my heart.  Today, as a relatively successful exhibiting artist, I often think of the beautiful books he so generously loaned a young school boy and the gentle guidance he gave me in art and life during the time I considered him a friend and honour that contribution each time I paint or draw.

After school I got a job in a bank (Which Bank? – no a different one!) I hated the job from soon after starting, however, I had not done well at school, so I was committed to taking what ever job I could get at that time.  I was so confused throughout my entire schooling that it amazes me now that I even managed to get to senior level.  The confusion of being a teenager was heightened by the battle going on within me of my attraction to other guys.  At a Catholic school, I knew that I was condemned for ever to burn in the fires of hell for this abomination.

I am sure I would have enjoyed my time working in the bank more had it not been for the harassment of two of the males in the bank, both of these took great delight in harassing me, at times quite vindictively.  They seemed to have a special skill for getting the timing right and embarrassing me in front of my female colleagues.  They especially liked to taunt me about being gay and this hurt the most when the female workers would laugh.  I hated working at the bank for a number of reasons, but I am sure that this harassment contributed more than anything else.  I started with the bank on the Monday after Christmas 1981, the first 12 months in the bank went by with just the struggle to keep going, I hated the monotony of the job and that I felt isolated. 

About 6 months after leaving school, in retrospect, I became quite depressed, most of my friends had left the city I lived in to go to Uni in Brisbane or other places.  I had not made new friends through the bank, but I knew that a lot of it was because I really missed the guy I had the crush on and the constant battle between my attraction to men and being raised as a catholic.  My parents convinced me to go to a catholic youth group and this introduced me to a whole new group of friends and gave me a purpose. 

During this time I felt an amazing sense of aloneness, feeling that I was the only “gay in the village”, I knew  was different from everyone else and I knew that I was the only 17/18 year old going through this. If only I knew then, what I know now.  My first visit to a beat was during this time, one night coming home from somewhere (I don’t remember where now) I stopped at a toilet block in the main park in town as I had an “urgency to go”.  I was surprised that the toilet block was so busy at that time of night, but I was very innocent at that time.  I did what I had to do when suddenly the old(er) guy standing next to me reached down and grabbed me!! “Would you like me to play with your joy muscle?” he asked me. “Er no!” I replied and took off out of the toilet like a scalded cat!  I was stunned by this event and never went near these toilets for months.  Occasionally I would go back and park near them and watch the guys, surely these guys were not all gay, were not all like me. Most were quite old (or by my standards then) and the young guys were so fit!, surely they were not like me! 

Not long after this I was sent to a training week in Brisbane for the bank.  One night I found my way into the valley and to the Hacienda Hotel in Brunswick Street.  It was a Wednesday or Thursday night, it was early… (probably around 8pm) …so probably not the best time to go there, the crowd that were there were mostly old and (in a typically 18year olds view point) quite unattractive.  I did not stay very long at the Hotel and left feeling quite ‘dirty’, these two sojourns into the only Gay world that I knew at that time left me thinking that this was not really for me and that I would be much better off married to some nice young woman.

Joining the Catholic youth group quickly directed my hours of not working into ‘christian’ based activities and I was soon in a whirl of activity around the youth group.  I met a lot of young people (and sometimes not so young) through this group, some of whom are still friends today. This group became my lifesaver out of depression and gave me an out from thinking about my “gayness”.  I remember one youth activity very clearly even today, 25 years later.  A priest attached to the Marriage Tribunal was speaking in town (the Marriage Tribunal is the group that hears catholics requests for an annulment of their marriage).  We attended as a group, the priest presented some case studies, one of them about a young couple getting married, he described that as the man waited at the altar as his future wife walked towards him, he realised that he would rather be marrying his best-man.  This story would haunt me for years and especially so on my wedding day.

During my time with the Catholic youth group, through some of my friends in that group, I became involved in the Charismatic movement happening during that time. I found that this movement answered many of my questions in relation to my christianity, or view of christianity.  The forgiveness that this side of the catholic church offered was important to me, the welcoming, forgiving and open nature changed my percetion of the church.  Through involvement in the group my faith deepend and became more about the rebirth of the church, than about my place in the church.  Once during a reconciliation (confession) service at a charismatic service,  confessed to the priest of being “gay” he was an older man, very stern and simply told me to pray for stregth and healing.  At a huge weekend charismatic workshop I went to the altar call at the end of mass on the Saturday Night and offered my life to Christ, as the priest and two lay-people prayed over me I asked God – to take away my “gay thoughts”. 

You would think that because of my committment to the church and through my involvement in the charismatic movement that I would be free of temptation, but no! One night after our youth group, we used to go to a wine bar for coffee and perhaps a glass of wine. One guy in the group was a guy I had been to school with, he was 12 months younger than me, he was shorter than me with sandy coloured hair, an athletic body and an amazing smile ( I have always been susceptible to smiles).  He had been coming to youth group for a while and had a girlfriend who attended as well. Most nights after the group I would drop him home as he did not have a car.  This night we were at the wine bar, when I got up to go to the toilet, I was at the urinal when he walked in, he stood very close to me and started to tell me that his grandfather had died during the week, I offered my sympathy to him (thinking that this was a strange place to make such an announcement) I said, “… if there is anything I can do…” etc, he responded that it woud be good to go now, rather than as we usually did at midnight.  I agreed and we left the group, as we were driving to his house, he asked if we could stop for a while and talk, he directed me to a parking lot along the river. Once there I realised what his intentions were, I stoped him before it went very far and said I would drop him straight home.  I wonder today, what would have happened if I had allowed it to go on, would I have been able to resist him, would I have been able to continue in the youth group, seeing him with his girlfriend?

The end of my first 12 months at the bank was marked by my mother being diagnosed with bowel cancer on New Years Eve 1982.  My parents, together with my 2 brothers had been planning a long holiday (I couldn’t go because of work), to visit Melbourne and Adelaide, Mum got sick the night before they were to leave. Her operation was on the 3rd of January 1983 and she spent a few weeks in hospital before returning home.  My mother lasted 10 months to the day from her diagnosis, she stayed at home as long as we could cope, and then went to hospital for her last few weeks.  I remember the pain of watching her fade away, get thinner, loose her beautiful black hair and go grey.  In September 1983, my mother had her second operation for cancer, the weekend the surgery was to take place I was to go to a friends wedding in Brisbane, during the week leading up to the surgery I discussed this with my mother and she told me that I should go to the wedding, that Dad and my two brothers would be there for her.  I went to the wedding and when I returned Dad gave me the news that mum had only 6 weeks or so to live.  It was such a hard time for us all. I remember clearly the sadness in my Dad, my brothers and I had never been close and my mothers sickness did nothing to bring us closer.  My mother died on the 31st of October 1983, she was 54.

A short time before she died I was visiting her at the hospital, I had gone directly from work as I was going to one of the catholic youth  group get togethers later that evening.  I had decided to tell my mother that I was gay!, I broached the subject cautiously, then launched into, “Mum, I think I am gay.” my mother did not bat an eyelid, she just looked at me and said, “No, you just need the love of a good woman.”  and that was the end of the conversation.  A short yet binding conversation that would shape my life to come.

The Christmas after my mother died, my father and two brothers decided to do the trip that they had planned for the previous year. So we decided to have Christmas in a city about an hour from where we lived with long-time family friends. They left on Boxing Day, while I returned home, i returned to this family to spend New Years.  We had known this family for may years and they had been good friends of our families.  Their son was 11 years older than me, I had always looked up to him and as I got older I cam to admire his body. He was very gregarious and outgoing, the exact opposite to me at that time.  That Christmas and New Year I shared his bed room, I slept on the top bunk of the beds in the room, one night I remember watching as he undressed for bed, pretending to be asleep, I wished I could of reached out and touched his body.  I admired his body as we fished together.  Imagine my surprise a couple of years ago when I found his profile on a gay internet site, still single! An other opportunity that I allowed to pass me by through fear…..

1984….. was a year that changed my life dramatically. 

Towards the end of 1983, I had met the woman who was to become my wife, she was a member of the Catholic youth group that I was a member of, we had met at various different functions over the last few months of 1983.  At the Diocesan Youth Gathering held at the end of 1983, we became friends.  At the beginning of 1984, I was passing the flat she shared with another young woman who was also in the youth group and thought I would call in and say hello!! From there we started seeing a lot of each other, every weekend and through the week.  She was a person with great vitality and loved life.  Intelligent, with a great sense of humour and more than that I found her physically attractive.  We became friends and became quite inseparable.

In May 1983 – a week before my nineteenth birthday –  while visiting a beautiful beach-side town in Central Queensland, we were swimming in the calm waters out past the breakers when I told her that I would like to marry her, she laughed and told me ‘… you don’t even know me… ‘  I told her that I knew her well enough to know that I want to spend my life with her.  This weekend was the first time we made love, and while for her I am sure that it was less than satisfying, I was pretty pleased with myself that I had finally had sex with a woman.  It wasn’t too bad, in fact probably better than I had ever imagined.  I had never spent too much time as I was growing up thinking about what it would be like to make love to a woman, so really was quite surprised that I enjoyed.  Now I think I lasted probably less than 60 secs…. but I had lost my virginity

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