That was supposed to be me, dammit. Divorcing him means erasing the ten years of support I gave him. Divorcing him means that all the sacrifices that I made were all for nothing. Moving all around the world. Never having my own support system of friends who become your family. Starting over every two years. Being defined as a military wife.
Even though I told my husband I was gay months ago, I am still haunted by questions. Am I really gay, or did I just fall in love with this woman? If she and I were not together, could I be with a man again? (Can you ever overcome that ick factor?)
Mostly, I struggle with the loss of the dream. The dream of the "perfect" family. The dream of two parents for my children.
I know I can justify it. I'm now living my authentic self, sexual orientation isn't a choice, a happy mother means happy children, blah, blah, blah. But sometimes I just want to stomp my foot and have a tantrum. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be.
For most of my marriage I wasn't particulary unhappy. Luckily, I chose a partner who is a wonderful person, and he gave me enough freedom to not feel trapped and yet still feel loved unconditionally. I could have lived like that forever.
Certainly, other women looked at my "perfect" marriage and were envious. They told me so. One time, a friend of mine said how pretty she thought a mutual friend of ours was. I asked her, "Do you think I'm pretty?"
"Shit, girl, you have the hottest husband out of all of us!" she laughed. I smiled smugly because it was true.
In the meantime, what no one could see from the outside was my authentic self, my gay self, knocking on the door and tapping me on the shoulder.
"I'm still here," my gay self said, "and I'm not going away. Please open the door. We have fun over here. You can be yourself. Rainbows! And great sex, too!"
Such contradictory emotions, and trying to stop them is like trying to stop ocean waves. Grief combined with bliss. Disgust mixed with yearning. Contentment and disappointment.
I'm just going to hold onto my little life raft and ride this one out.