Phil's Story . . .

Note:  "Phil's Story" is an "unfolding" story of sorts since Phil is actively adding to his story by adding a new "chapter" every couple of months or so.  Please check back to see his latest "installment."  For your convenience, we've added links below to take you to the latest installment whenever you come back to visit.

Part I:  The Early Years
Part II:  The Courtship
Part III:  Marriage--The First Year
Part IV:  Phil Struggles To Make His Marriage Work (added January, 2000) 

Part I:  The Early Years

I knew I was different when I was five or six years old.  I couldn't have told you how I was different.  I just knew that I didn't relate to men and women, boys and girls the way I was expected to.

When I got to seventh grade, when I was 12 years old, I put two and two together.  I was going through puberty, having the feelings you have at that age, and I realized that what I was feeling might mean that I might be a homosexual.

"Homosexual" was the best word I had for it.  I also had "queer", "homo", "pato" and "mancon".

I felt overwhelmed.  I guess I was in shock.  Homosexuality was certainly not something I had ever expected to have to deal with.

My first reaction was instinctive.  I knew I had to keep this a secret.  I knew I couldn't tell anyone.  I knew there was no one to tell.

Next, I went through a period of self-loathing.  I took all the things I believed about homosexuals, turned it around and put it back on me.  The self-loathing was so intense, it burned itself out in a few days.

The self-loathing was soon replaced by depression and thoughts of suicide.

At 12 years old, I believed the worse thing that could happen to a boy was to grow up to be a homosexual.  To be honest, I don't know where I got my ideas.  My father and mother never sat me down and talked to me about homosexuality.  My church never preached against it.  Yet, I believed everyone hated homosexuals and homosexuals lead miserable, unloved lives, and that for them death was a blessing.  I remember feeling like an old man.  My life was over:  I had nothing to live for.  Why go on?  I decided not to leave a suicide note because I felt it would be better for my parents never to know why I killed myself than to find out they had a homosexual son.

So, I started looking for a way to die.  My only problem was I didn't want to die painfully.  My parents didn't own a gun.  Aspirins were the strongest pills in our medicine cabinet.  And, a funny thing happened every time I started thinking about how to do it.  I would take it only so far before something made me stop.  Finally, I realized I wanted to live more than I wanted to die.  So, I started looking for a reason to live.

I found that reason in my religion.  I am a Catholic.  Catholics believe that suicide is a mortal sin and those who commit suicide go to Hell.  So, at 12 years old, I looked at my options.  I could live a hated, unloved existence for fifty/sixty years, then die and go to heaven, or I could end it and burn in Hell for eternity.  I decided to live.  Fortunately, I didn't find out about the church's teachings on homosexuality until years later.

The question then became "How do I live?".  I had a belief that complicated things.  I believed if you were a homosexual, there was something so different about you that everyone could tell just by looking at you.  So even though I didn't know what that something was, I was sure that if I was a homosexual everyone could tell just by looking at me.  This terrified me.  But what could I do?  I still had to go to school.  I still had to deal with my parents.  How could I keep my secret and still deal with other people?  I started making myself as invisible as possible.  I walked down the hall at school and never made eye contact with anyone.  I never raised my hand up in class or talked to classmates.  I made no friends.  And at home, I retreated into my room as soon as I could.

By my freshman year in high school, I was desperate to tell someone my secret.  I considered my parents but decided against it.  It wasn't that I was afraid they would reject me.  I knew they loved me unconditionally.  It was just that my parents had so little education.  My dad only made it to eighth grade.  My mom to the fourth.  I saw them struggling with everyday problems like paying bills.  How would they handle something big like this?  I was afraid the news would tear them apart.  There were no other adults I trusted enough to tell.  I couldn't chance the word getting out.  I didn't want to deal with the hatred out there.  I was also afraid my family would be punished.  I especially feared for my two younger brothers.  I felt very protective of my family.  For everyone's sake, I stayed silent.

There is a book titled "The Best Little Boy in the World".  That book could have written about me.  I never gave my parents problems.  I never rebelled.  I made straight A's.  But inside, I was a mess.  Inside I felt guilty about my homosexuality and didn't want to cause my parents heartache in any way.  I was practicing for sainthood.

Somehow, I managed to get through junior high and high school.  The worst part for me was what I did to myself.  Everyone I knew was heterosexual (at least no one ever gave any indication otherwise).  And I believed everyone was supposed to be heterosexual and only sick people chose to be homosexual.  I knew I wasn't sick.  I knew I didn't want to be a homosexual.  I was determined not to be one.  I fought my homosexual feelings as hard as I could.  But no matter how hard I tried, the feelings would not go away.  The fighting was exhausting.  I had this pattern.  I would try and fail.  Then I would reprimand myself for not trying hard enough.  Then I would resolve to try harder next time.  I would repeat this pattern over and over again, day after day, year after year.  I tested myself constantly.  "Look, there's a cute couple walking this way."  "This time, feel something for the girl but not for the guy."  This never worked.  I would then feel defeated on two fronts.  I failed at being heterosexual and at "not" being homosexual.  I kept myself ignorant.  Wanting to learn about homosexuality was too close to an admission of being a homosexual.  I couldn't bring myself to learn anything about homosexuality.  It was too threatening.

When I got to college, I decided I was far enough away from my folks that I could experiment.  I had my first homosexual experience with a college roommate my freshman year.  We were both virgins.  It was wonderful.  The most wonderful part was finally having someone to talk to, someone that understood what I felt.  We talked for hours until late into the night.  But we weren't careful enough.  Our suite-mates overheard us and soon nobody on the floor would have anything to do with us.  People snickered at us as we walked by.  If we tried to join in on a hallway discussion, the conversation would abruptly stop and everyone would drift away.  Once, when I got in the elevator with my parents, there was graffiti on the door warning about the faggots on the seventh floor.  The room number was ours.  My parents never noticed.  Shortly after that, my roommate asked me to move out.  Our "affair" lasted three weeks.

I wasn't strong enough to deal with all this disapproval.  I retreated back into my closet.  I told myself if this was what being a homosexual was all about then I was going to be a monk.  Six months later, I met my wife. 

Part II:  The Courtship

I met her poolside at the Holiday Inn near A.S.U.  My wife-to-be was chaperoning my new roommate's fiancee from Chicago.  My roommate had begged me to take her out.  He even handed me his car keys and offered money.

She called her mom that night to tell her that she had met the man she was going to marry.  Of course, she didn't tell me that.  It was our first date.  My first date ever.  I was almost nineteen.

A week and a two dates later, she flew back to Chicago and I never expected to hear from her again.  Then the cards started pouring in.  And the phone calls.  I didn't understand.  She was beautiful.  I couldn't stand to look at myself in the mirror.  Couldn't she tell there was something wrong with me?  I started to wonder if maybe there was something wrong with her.

I tried everything to discourage her.  But then I would hear the hurt in her voice and I couldn't bear to let her think I didn't like her.  In retrospect, it would have been kinder to be cruel.

I was confused.  I thought I was gay.  But I liked her.  Don't gay men hate women?  When we kissed, I wasn't repulsed.  Just the opposite.  Don't gay men run screaming from the room when women kiss them?  I couldn't make sense of any of it.

She was flying in for Thanksgiving.  She was going to spend the whole week with me.  I never thought she would take it this far.  The pressure was too great.  I had to end it.  But I couldn't tell her the truth.  She might tell my roommate.  I couldn't risk that.  I came up with a plan.

As soon as she got off the plane, I started acting like a Neanderthal.  I was going to come on so strong she would slap me, tell me to go to Hell and tell me she never wanted to see me again.  Great plan, but it didn't work.  When it became obvious my plan was not going to work, I started to panic.  I couldn't stop this outlandish behavior without an explanation.  But what explanation could I offer that made any sense?  The truth?  I was too much of a coward to tell her the truth.  I couldn't think of anything else.  So I continued my wild man act.

There are a few things I want to tell you about that week.  My wife-to-be was a lady, even if I wasn't a gentleman.  One night, I sat in the bathtub crying.  The night before she went home, I told myself I couldn't take it anymore and if being honest meant being a homosexual then being a homosexual was what I was going to be.  At that very moment, I looked over at her and something magical happened.  Time stood still and I could no longer sense my body.  The only thing I could see was her.  The light took on texture.  Like you could touch it as well as see it.  It was the most erotic experience I had ever had.  And it was with a woman.

Now I was thoroughly confused.  Gay men don't turn on to women.  How could I be gay if I had never felt anything even remotely like that for a man?  What if I had been mistaken all along?  After all, I was only nineteen and I had never had a giftfriend before.  What did this all mean?  I was so ignorant.  I believed you were either gay or straight.  I had never heard of Kinsey's scale [of human sexuality] or of bisexuality.

A couple of weeks later, I was in a bookstore Christmas shopping when I came across a book with a picture of a naked woman playing tennis.  The magic happened again.  This time not as strong but definitely thrilling.  Sometime later I was sitting in my room staring off into space when a pair of panties started floating magically across the ceiling.  This was another first.  I had never daydreamed before.  One night I was asleep fantasizing about a man when that fantasy was replaced by another more exciting fantasy about a woman.  I was overjoyed.  I was not a homosexual.  I must be straight.  I started seeing my fantasies about men as unimportant.  The fantasies about women as the real thing.

As soon as I started thinking of myself as heterosexual, doors flew open.  Family, fatherhood, marriage, love...all denied me before were now attainable.  Long suppressed desires rose to the surface.  To be a father.  To have a son.  To love.  To be loved.  All things I accepted without question as the birthright of heterosexual men.  All things I believed without question homosexual men could never have.

My wife-to-be wanted to know if I would like to spend Christmas break with her in Chicago.  At first, I was hesitant.  Should I break it off?  But then homosexual panic set in.  If I don't try with her, then I will never try with another woman.  So I went.  It was a very uncomfortable visit.  I didn't realize I was going to be introduced to her entire family.  Sexuality was no longer my only concern.  I was Puerto Rican, Catholic, working class poor.  She was German/Irish, Lutheran, solid middle class.  Our worlds were completely different.

The fantasies continued.  A busload of Hispanic maids.  In church before mass when a girl walked by.  The young girl's "uncle" caught me and wagged his finger at me.  At the airport before I got on the plane.  Fear started to nag me.  Why did all of my heterosexual fantasies occur in improbable places?  Places where it was unthinkable to act them out.  I wondered when I would start having these feelings in a more intimate setting.

Sometime later I realized I loved her.  But was it enough?  Was it the real thing?  I had never been in love before.  She was the only woman I had ever dated.  I decided to talk to my roommate.  He was a year older and engaged.  I asked him how he knew he loved his fiancee enough to marry her.  Amazingly, he couldn't answer.  I decided to give myself more time to sort things out.

The next year was a blur.  I alternated between worrying about school, us, her family and my sexuality.  I dropped a lot of classes, got engaged, managed to be liked by everyone in her family and convinced her I was a over-sexed heterosexual.

She came to see me during spring break.  I spent summer with her.  Thanksgiving dinner was pizza at Village Inn near A.S.U.  She wanted to be engaged for Christmas.  I had my doubts but I wanted to please her.  I wanted to make her happy.  And I was afraid if I didn't marry her I would never marry.  I asked her to marry me in a Japanese restaurant.  I kneeled.  I did the whole bit.  I had no money, so my future mother-in-law had her late husband's ring made into an engagement ring for her daughter.  I would finish college, then we would marry.  We set a June date for the following year.

When I look back on that period of my life, the part I have the most trouble understanding is what I did with my homosexual feelings.  Somehow, I managed to completely suppress these feelings.  I had never been able to that before or since.  Maybe it was all the things going on in my life.  Or maybe it was my beliefs.  I believed if you had homosexual feelings, you had no business getting married.  And, if you weren't married, you had no business having babies.  So maybe I believed suppressing my homosexual feelings was necessary before I could have the family I so desperately wanted.  I don't know.  All I know is my homosexual feelings went away and I didn't miss them.

My heterosexual feelings also went away.  Years later, I realized this was not a coincidence, but at the time I made no connection.  Initially, the feelings had been sporadic, occurring only when I least expected it.  But after I got serious about marriage, the feelings occurred with less and less frequency until they stopped all together.  I was concerned but not panicked.  I told myself what I was experiencing was completely normal.  Everyone got cold feet before they married.  I was just nervous.  Once we got married, I would settle down, the fantasies would start again and everything would be all right.  However, I finally confided in someone.  I told him my doubts, but I never mentioned my sexuality.  He said if I wasn't sure, I should call it off.  But he delivered his advice too gleefully.  I realized he didn't like my wife-to-be.  I dismissed his advice.  The wedding was only days away. 

Part III:  Marriage - The First Year

I had two prerequisites for marriage.  One was that I love her enough; the other that I be heterosexual.  Before I married I was more worried about loving her enough.  I should have been more worried about being heterosexual.

A couple of months into the marriage I knew I had picked the right person for me.  Not only did I still love her but my love for her kept growing.  The constant nervousness was going away and I was enjoying marriage.

Then the heterosexual feelings came back.  Thank you, God.  I specifically remember one afternoon my wife had invited her best friend over to help her sort through clothes she was giving to charity.  Nothing sexual was going on but the first time my wife tried on a dress in front of her girlfriend my mind took off.  Now all those  little nagging doubts about my heterosexuality disappeared.  I was home free.  I remember feeling so optimistic about our lives together.

But the optimism didn’t last long.  Early one morning I woke up from an erotic dream and still half asleep I reached for my wife.  I started kissing her and I don’t know how long we kissed but it was wonderful.  Then I started to come out of my half awake, half asleep state and realized the dream had been about a man.  I couldn’t remember the dream but I knew.  But that wasn’t the worst part.  When I had started kissing my wife, I purposely paid no attention to her being a woman; just focused on how much I loved her.  Now waking up I suddenly became aware of her gender and the erotic feelings stopped cold.

This completely unnerved me.  No matter how strong my heterosexual feelings were I couldn’t ignore what had just happened.  Heterosexual men do not dream about other men.  And it didn’t matter how erotic the experience with my wife had been.  It didn’t fit into any definition of heterosexuality I knew of.  And then there was the betrayal.  My wife deserved to be loved for being a woman, not despite it.

I was demoralized.  Why was this happening now?  For over a year I hadn’t experienced a single homosexual feeling.   Now I waited and worried.  It didn’t take long to find out the feelings were back and just as strong as ever.

Right away I noticed I was pulling away from my wife emotionally.  I was putting up walls to protect myself and these walls were making it near impossible for me to feel a sense of intimacy with her.  I was afraid if I told her she would leave me.  But if I couldn’t be emotionally close to my wife then what was the point of being married.  So I decided to tell her.  But then I thought if I am not heterosexual, I have no right to be married.  To me the whole world thought this way including my wife.  So now I was certain she would leave me.  It didn’t matter.  Without closeness what was the point?  And it would be deceitful not to tell her.  I resolved to tell her as soon as possible.  I just didn’t know what to say.

A few weeks later, on a beautiful Saturday morning, my wife had gone grocery shopping and I was in our bedroom closet, sitting in the dark, crying.  The night before I had tried to tell her but chickened out at the last moment.  Since the morning of the dream I had thought and thought about what to say but none of the words I had come up with felt true.  Anyway, I must have been in the closet much longer than I thought because all of a sudden the door opened and there stood my wife.  To protect her privacy, I am paraphrasing our conversation:

Wife:  “Phil, why are you in the closet?  I have been looking all over for you.”

Me:  “Just leave me alone.”

Wife (very worried look on her face) :  “What’s wrong?”

Me (looking away):  “I have something to tell you but I can’t”

Wife:  “You can’t just not tell me.  You have to tell me.  Whatever it is we’ll work it out.”

More words on her part.  More tears on mine.  I came out of the closet.

Me:  “I have feelings for men.  I’ve had these feelings since I was a kid.”

I started to babble then stopped and anxiously waited for her to explode.  But it was totally quiet.   I looked at her.

Wife (I couldn’t read her face):  “Is that it?”

Me:  “Yeah.”

A longer silence this time.

Wife:  “Then there is no problem.  It’s all in the past.  You’re married now.  Just don’t cheat on me.  Because if you do, I’ll divorce you.”

What was going through her mind that day?  How was she impacted?  I have no idea.  Even now years later, I don’t know.  I have theories but I am not going to share them here.  It wouldn’t be fair.  As much as I think I know her, I would probably be wrong about what she felt that day and about almost everything else she has felt about my being gay ever since.

How did I feel about her reaction?  Total surprise.  For weeks I had done nothing but think about what to say and every time I had imagined her screaming, hitting and slapping me, telling me how much she hated me and wanting me out.  It had never occurred to me that anyone including my wife would react in any other way.

And her behavior afterwards?  Completely puzzling.  Here I had told her I had feelings for men and she was acting like the conversation had never taken place.  And she wouldn’t talk about it!  When I later tried finding out what she was going through, she got angry at me for bringing up the subject.  Again paraphrasing..... “There’s nothing to talk about.  Remember, this is a private matter, just between you and me.  All you have to do is make up your mind.  Do you want to be married or not?  And as for cheating, don’t even think about it.”

I had no idea what she was feeling inside and I didn’t know what to do.  So even though I desperately wanted to talk about our relationship and how all of this was affecting her, I respected her wishes and decided to patiently wait until she was ready to talk about it.

I had put myself and my wife in a very bad situation.  But I had thought the situation would correct itself once I told her the truth.  She would reject me.  Together we would take the only possible course of action, divorce.  She would get on with her life and I would become a homosexual.  Not because I wanted to but because I was tired of fighting and I knew I would never risk putting another woman in the same situation.  And without a woman by my side what chance would I have of overcoming it.  I envisioned leading a pathetic, lonely and miserable life, always in fear of being found out.  I just hoped she wouldn’t tell my parents.

But none of that happened.  Instead of rejecting me, my wife acted like nothing had changed.  And instead of talking divorce, she wouldn’t talk about “it” at all.  Her words and actions made it clear she wanted to stay married.  And she didn’t appear to be hurting even though I couldn’t imagine how that was possible.

I alone was thinking divorce.  And if I asked her that would mean I would be rejecting and abandoning her.  Then there was that fact that I still wanted to be married.  And despite everything I still believed homosexuality was a choice.  If I could just make up my mind to be heterosexual and stick to it this time.  I had done it once.  I should be able to do it again.  But how had I done it?  I had no idea.  And what if I failed?  And what was best for her?  She must be hurting.  Yes, I should leave.  But what if I am wrong?  I have been wrong a lot lately.  If only I knew how she felt.

As I considered what to do this foreboding feeling came over me.  The feeling persisted for days clearly telling me that staying married would be a mistake.  It wasn’t so much a feeling as a sense of knowing.  An awareness of the future.   It was like turning a corner and knowing what was on the other side before even seeing it.  But what kind of knowledge was that?  And what could it possibly be based on?  At twenty-two I didn’t believe in knowledge that saw around corners.  I mistook it for fear and dismissed it.

I thought about staying or leaving for a very long time.  Finally I decided not to decide because I just couldn’t make up my mind.  My head and heart were in conflict and I couldn’t decide which one to listen to.  So I stayed and my heart won by default.

As our first anniversary rolled around I was dispirited and unsure where I would find the energy to start fighting it again.  But I knew I had to stop my homosexual feelings if my marriage was going to survive.  I just didn’t know how I was going to do it. 

Part IV:  Phil Struggles To Make His Marriage Work

It didn’t get bad right away.  It built up gradually over time.  Then it got overwhelming.

Once I committed to staying married, I was going to do whatever it took to correct the situation I had put the two of us in.  The homosexual feelings had to stop.  Homosexuality was a choice and I was going to be heterosexual if I had to turn myself inside out.

Once again I waged war on my homosexual feelings.  The first casualty was my heterosexual feelings.  This scared me.  I didn’t know what I was doing.  What if in trying to stop my homosexual feelings, I ended up messing up my heterosexual feelings?  I decided I couldn’t worry about that now, I had to concentrate on stopping my homosexual feelings.

I reverted back to what I had done growing up.  I went on guard every waking moment.  You could never tell when an innocent event or harmless thought might lead to something homosexual.  Every day things like the warmth of the sun, or a smile, or the smell of a freshly cut lawn triggered those feelings in me.  But eventually I had to sleep and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about the dreams.  My feelings were not to be trusted.  I couldn’t let down my guard for a minute.

But stopping the feelings was not my only line of defense.  When the feelings got through, I beat myself up.  Not physically, but psychologically.  This wasn’t hard to do.  I had had lots of practice doing that growing up.  In fact it was pretty automatic.  There were the damning questions.  Questions like:  What‘s wrong with me?  How could I possibly want this?  Don’t I want my marriage to work?  And the fault-finding emotions:  self-hatred, contempt, shame, and guilt.  And, of course, the self-inflicted abuse.  Calling myself all the names.  Berating everything I did, my character, the type of person I was.

I waited patiently for things to change, but they didn’t.  I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong.  I thought I wanted to change.  I believed that with all my heart.  But I must not have really wanted to change because the feelings kept happening.  Somehow I was sabotaging myself.  So I beat myself up in frustration and to break the stubbornness or whatever that kept me from wanting to overcome my homosexuality.

When I look back on those early years, what amazes me the most was my stoicism.  I was in the midst of a huge internal conflict, psychologically beating myself up all the time and yet I never thought to back away or give up.  It was like I was witnessing this happening to someone else.  I took it and kept on taking it and my resolve never wavered.  Even then it occurred to me that there was something inexplicable about how I withstood all that punishment in willful silence.

And I still managed to lead a life.  I graduated, got my first ‘real’ job, we bought our first home and I made the surprisingly difficult transition into middle class.  And my homosexuality was not the only major issue we faced.  One other problem turned out to be almost or equally as troublesome.

A cartoon I once saw illustrates our early marriage.  In this cartoon a couple are sitting in a living room pretending not to see the elephant taking up most of the sofa.  In our household, my wife couldn’t or wouldn’t see the elephant and I was doing my best to will the elephant away.  But, no matter what we did, the elephant was always there.

Because we had been married such a short time before I told her, it was difficult afterwards to tell what problems were triggered by my disclosure.  Not being able to talk about “it” made it impossible to sort things out.  I knew we were not as close.  And our sex lives suffered.  And we didn’t seem to have much to say to each other.  And then there was the anger.  She had very little patience with me.  She got mad at me a lot.  But we had other problems and I couldn’t tell where they left off and  “my problem” began.  So I started blaming everything that went wrong in our relationship on my homosexuality.

I would have given anything to know what my wife was thinking and feeling.  I wouldn’t have cared how much it hurt to hear.  I didn’t know it then but I needed to know.  If she had told me it was painful I would have left.  I would have left because I am not a monster.  Because to have stayed after learning it was hurting her would have been like sticking a knife in her and then continuing to twist it.  I didn’t believe she was not affected even if she acted like nothing had changed.  But having no idea what she was going through did not mean I didn’t constantly think and worry about it.  Every day I wondered if it was a mistake to stay.

So every few months or so, against my better judgment, I would bring the subject up with my wife.  Every time the reaction was the same.  I was reminded there was nothing to talk about.  I had a problem and I needed to fix it.  I needed to make up my mind and decide once and for all if I wanted to be married or be a homosexual.  And I had better not think of cheating.  And this was a private matter; just between the both of us.  How could I argue?  I believed the same things she did.  Yet I had this incredible need to talk to her about it.  So sometimes I persisted.  And whenever I persisted, we ended up fighting.

A pattern formed.  On the first day I felt fine, on the second day my sex drive kicked in, on the third day I was climbing the walls and on the fourth day I crashed.  Then the pattern repeated itself.  As stressed as I was, I remember feeling that I deserved everything that was happening because I was continuing to fail.

Guarding my thoughts and beating myself up wasn’t doing the job.  When my sex drive kicked in, there was this longing that drove me to distraction.  It just would not let up no matter how often my wife and I had sex.  It had to be for men.  I couldn’t ignore the obvious.  I wasn’t doing enough.

At some point a new pattern emerged.  First I would be fine, then I would start fighting depression, then I would be depressed, then I would find something to fix “my problem” and then the depression would lift.  The depression would stay away until it became apparent the fix was not a cure.  Then the pattern would repeat itself.  The new pattern could last anywhere from a couple of hours to days.  The longest lasted a month.  And there were common themes.  One theme was to channel all my sexual energy into a certain activity so I would be so exhausted I wouldn’t think of men.  Another theme was to change how I thought about things.  The hope was to psyche myself into changing.  But most of my fixes made no sense at all.  Sometimes I questioned the sanity of what I was doing but I couldn’t seem to stop.

The first pattern had ceased.  My sex drive wasn’t driving me crazy anymore.  But now I was depressed all the time.  One problem simply had replaced another.  What I didn’t realize was that I was doing it to myself.  Somehow I found out depression was effective in shutting down my sex drive.  Now my sex drive was no longer a threat to my marriage.  Given the choice of longing for a man or being depressed all the time, I had subconsciously chosen what was best for my marriage.

After almost two years of fighting my homosexuality, I had nothing to show for my efforts and like a watch I was slowly winding down.  I was having more and more trouble focusing.  I was always depressed or fighting depression.  I spent hours staring off into space.  It became impossible for me to have goals or even plan ahead.  I couldn’t think past a couple of days.  And most of the time I was physically there but mentally somewhere else.

I was not a good employee.  I spent most of my workday dealing with the turmoil going on inside me.  It was a conscious decision.  I could be a good employee and take all that tension home or be a good husband and spend most of my workday dealing with the tension.  I knew I couldn’t be both a good employee and a good husband because I tried.  I chose my wife over my job.  I added losing my job to my list of worries.  Dwelling on my problems at work somehow lessened the tension.

Weekdays were easier than weekends.  I was miserable and didn’t want to take my misery out on others so I hid what was going on.  And it was much easier to hide what I was going through from my co-workers than my wife.  It was difficult pretending to her that everything was OK.  I am a lousy liar and actor.  And somehow, no matter how hard I tried, I always managed to spoil our weekends.

One day I realized more than two years had passed and I was still hanging on to the hope that my heterosexual feelings would return.  I quietly resigned myself to never having those feelings again.  The best I could do was maintain.

But then a few months later I had another magical heterosexual experience.  We were at O’Hare International airport.  My wife was boarding a plane and she turned around to wave good-bye.  Suddenly the terminal grew silent and other people ceased to exist.  She was so beautiful it was almost unbearable to look at her.  Once again I had a heterosexual experience that was stronger than any homosexual experience I had ever had.  That night my heart overflowed with hope.  But as the weeks went by and nothing more happened it became apparent that heterosexuality had again eluded me.  I hurt so much I made myself stop thinking about it.

By this point my wife was pretty much running our lives.  I was worthless.  I don’t know how she put up with my being down all the time.  Frankly, I was overwhelmed and it was all I could do to keep myself on an even keel.  Then my wife told me she was pregnant.  It wasn’t planned but I was ecstatic.  I shoved “my problem” aside as best as I could.  My life-long dream of becoming a father was going to come true and I wanted to enjoy it fully even if just for a little while. 

Part V:  Coming Soon!!!  (Phil, we can't wait!  Get those fingers typing!!)

Katy's Story:  A teenager discovers that her father is gay

Katy is Phil's daughter!  See how Phil's journey and Katy's journey interweave as each discovers the truths in their lives.

Proud papa Phil, with daughter Katy, at the '99 Phoenix Pride Festival
 

Phil with actress Ellen Muth, co-star of the Lifetime Channel movie "Jane's Coming Out Party" which aired on Lifetime in August, 2000. Click here for more details!