Hitting a Chord

Somehow since taking this journey, I seem to have become more aware and awake to life happening around me, I now am able to see beauty in the things that ordinarily would have just passed me by.
A few days ago whilst at my boyfriend's gallery he had a blind man tuning his piano. The man was unable to actually play the piano, but because of his inability to see (he was born blind), his hearing had become so sensitive that it allows him to distinguish the finest differences between notes. I found absolute beauty in watching how he he had become so acutely aware of the piano he was working on.

I think why watching him resonated with me was that I too feel like I am trying to tune my life, and in my inability to find clarity I am striving to become acutely aware of my emotions and feelings.
Today there are 3 weeks left in the time frame that I have been given to explore what it is I think i would like from life, and the more I explore the more confused and lost I seem to become, each day seems like a vacillation of emotions.
In 3 weeks I have to decide which life it is that I feel the strongest pull and desire for. No matter which life I select to pursue, I will have to let the other go and what scares me the most is that I know no matter which decision it is that I make, I will feel tremendous pain. How do I knowingly let someone I love go?

I know that I can no longer lead two lives, for me the living of a double life is exhausting, confusing and not fair on my family or boyfriend, but in it I seem to have found a wholeness that I think will be hard to replicate in the pursuit of only one life.
So what is the answer, how do I proceed, how do I continue to exist and how do I find my wholeness going forward after selecting just one life?
I guess the answer lies in myself, now knowing that there is so much of life that I have let me pass me by unnoticed, i will try and find wholeness and fill the void that will be created in letting go by exploring not only within myself, but with the new found beauty of how I integrate with the world around me.

This probably all sounds very philosophical, but I guess in a way I am trying to reassure myself that I will be ok, that I will be able to survive the pain and that in time I will learn to accept my new life.
I am hoping that in the coming weeks, like the blind man tuning the piano I too will be acutely tuned to the sound of my heart, and be able to listen to it, the same way that I am now able to hear a symphony simply by listening to the rustling of the leaves in the wind.

A Letter to my Wife...

This is a letter that I am going to read to my wife at our marriage counselling session tomorrow:

Our wedding was a spectacular event and celebration, we were able to create a ceremony that was a true testimony to our love for each other. Watching the video again, I can still see how even in our youth and exuberance how very much in love we were even then, we seemed to glow with happiness and excitement at the beautiful future we saw ourselves having. 9 years ago I said in my wedding speech to you, "so many people have said to me that a relationship takes hard work, but with you Babe, you make loving you so easy", I see now that I was wrong and right.

I was wrong to think that a relationship is not hard work, maybe in my youth I was unaware and minimizing the commitment and promise that I was in fact making to you. We were in such a hurry to begin our path to a life that we saw our parents having and the desire for the stability of a family that we were maybe oblivious to the work and hardships I am sure that our parents must have had endured to get there.
Somewhere between the birth of our 2 kids(which we again rushed into with eagerness) that were born with just a 14 month age gap, prenatal depression, work stress and trying to climb the social ladder, we have seemed to lose each other.
I think we found ourselves pulling apart, you engulfing yourself into motherhood and the role of house wife, and me trying to ensure that we had all the material trappings required, and networking ourselves into the upper crust of society. We achieved all of this at a very young age often to the resentment and jealousy of those around us, but also slowly developing deep resentment for each other.
We seemed to lose the Joie de Vivre for life, putting on copious amounts weight, and entering the comfortable slumber of the mundane.

In the same breath I was so right in my speech, loving you was always easy, we got so much right within our marriage. We have always enjoyed a mutual respect, love, kindness and until now total trust in each other.
I guess I have always had sexual identity issues, although I was never able to understand them myself let alone to try and explain them to anyone else, and so this was an aspect of my life I chose to ignore and repress.
I know now, that allot of my internal anger and hardness has come from trying to be someone I wasn't or more so not having explored or understanding this part of me, however what saddens me the most is that you bore the brunt of it. I feel I have left your self confidence damaged at the prospect of a husband who was not able to fully desire you as a women, and it is for this reason that I have chosen the path of total honesty with you. I see now how we tended to make mountains out of mole hills, because there was never anything significant in our marriage to fight about, so we took the little things as an outlet for our ever growing resentment for each other and a diversion from the truth.

I don't need to explain resentment to you, but I do know that it is a difficult emotion to overcome, it is different to anger or pain, and ultimately will be our greatest obstacle to conquer.
As I sit her today, I feel inadequate to be your husband, and I feel like I have failed the promise to you in my wedding speech "that the work will be mine to make you always feel like the Queen you are to me", somewhere along the way I pulled back and probably left you feeling anything but the Royalty you truly are.
Through this all I need you to know, that I have never stopped loving you, and when I said in my speech "that you are my best friend and wife of my dreams", I meant it and still do. Even in my youth, even in my confusion of my sexuality, I always knew without any doubt, you were and always will be the only women in the world for me. Not a day has gone by that I have not been proud and honoured to have you by my side. Together we have slowly managed to lose our weight and achieve the bodies we desired, we have overcome our depression and we are raising two wonderful little people, but now the time has come for us to look even deeper.

We have been asked to asses what it is that we want out of our marriage, and the obvious answer is for us both to be happy, fulfilled and whole, but more than that I want the adventure back. I want the excitement, mutual ambition and most of all I want the stimulation. Somehow in all of this we seem to have pulled together, buoyed by the challenge and unified in our efforts to care for each other and to protect our family, and now we find ourselves self reflecting and finding each other in the mirror.
Going forward I would look for us to be independent in our thoughts and lives, to be together whilst at the same time being individuals free of suffocation, but still sharing our challenges, hardships and successes, I don't want us to settle, I want us to live, taste life and continue to grow, I want to do this without living a life dictated to us by social rules and acceptability's.
Running away would have been the easy choice, running away would be the norm, I know that I have broken many a vow and commitment that I made on that special day, but at the very least I am still here, fighting, trying and doing the very best that I can.

I am so sorry that the youngster who stood in front of you, presenting confidence and promising you the world has let you down in such a big way, you deserved more and you continue to deserve more going forward. If anything though, even in the lack of sexual passion and desire , I hope that I have never left you doubting my absolute respect and deep soulful love for you. In the words of our wedding song by Joe Cocker:

You are so beautiful
To me
You are so beautiful
To me
Can't you see
You're everything I hoped for
You're everything I need
You are so beautiful
To me

You are so wonderful
To me
You are so wonderful
To me
Can't you see
You're everything I hoped for
You're everything I need
You are so wonderful
To me

You are so beautiful
To me
You are so beautiful
To me
Can't you see
You're everything I hoped for
You're everything I need
You are so beautiful
To me

Life is a Cabaret....

On Saturday night I went out once again for dinner with both my boyfriend and my wife. This time we went to a new restaurant in town with a Burlesque theme, it all felt very Moulin Rouge and one critic described it as "an evening of pure escapism."
It was good food and an excellent cabaret show, it is not often that you find a place that gets both so right.
It was a wonderful evening enjoying our unique "setup" in and environment that reminded me of and era of decadence and simple pleasures.



The show was filled with both beautiful men and women, doing some amazing things, often in scant outfits and with the men usually being topless and showing of perfect physiques.
I was often questioned by my wife and boyfriend what I thought of the dancers, and to be honest I was enjoying them all. When a topless man was on stage I leaned in closer, when a women removed her top I knocked over my wine and so the evening went on, and it became ever more apparent that I am possibly just a bi-sexual man.

I find myself increasingly daunted by the idea that time is running out on our agreed open marriage, and we all near the point of us needing to decide on the way forward.
My boyfriend mentioned to me the other day that he heard that bi-sexual men tend to see sexual desire in other men, but look for the emotional connection in women. This is a fascinating concept for me, and reminded me of a entry that a man wrote saying that he wanted a man's body and a women's mind. I have not identified this as me, but it certainly resonates.

My wife asked me, if it is that I am bi-sexual and that I could see myself integrating into either world, how is it that I would be willing to lose everything that we have built together over the last 12 years, our home, family and life.
The stakes here are high, and the price is very expensive that I need to pay in order to explore this new and unknown life that I find myself pursuing, and to be honest I don't know the answer as to why it is I am willing to risk everything I have built, but in that I guess lies a question in itself. The fact that I am risking everything obviously shows how important the pursuit of this life and this man must be to me.

I know I love my wife, I have a deep seated trust and comfort with her, our bond and love are even noticed by my boyfriend. I think what allows for our unique relationship is that we have mutual respect and a wonderful friendship upon which we have constructed our marriage, and expanded it to our family.
Her opinion matters, we have an unspoken language that we can communicate with our eyes alone and I often describe our interaction as a ballet.
Having said this things went astray along the way, our relationship lost the passion, and both of us in our increasing resentment built a wall from which behind we became numb, we reached a point where we were no longer were stimulating each other.
Somehow in all of this we seem to be reconnecting, it has become extremely apparent how much we care for each other, now we need to decide how it is that we can ensure the others greatest happiness.

I have big choices to make, and I am becoming more aware that there seems to be no right choice here, either way I will be losing something.
I am scared knowing that no matter what, I am about to be hurt, and encounter an emotional struggle going forward, I suppose no matter which life I chose there is going to be allot of work to do.
As sung by Liza Minelli in the famous musical, "Life is a Cabaret, Ol Chum", and now the show must go on...

My Bath Runneth Over

The other night my son was in the bath, I could hear him swishing around in it trying to makes waves, my wife was repeatedly telling him to stop to no avail until I could hear the water pouring out onto the floor.
My son is one of those really good little souls, delicate in his nature and always keen to please, but like all children and boys in particular, sometimes he likes to test the theory that for every action there is a reaction, the reaction in this case was a flooded bathroom.
I was furious, not because of the mess, but because he had not listened to his Mom's continuous instruction for him to stop, I walked in and really shouted at him and then I returned to my bedroom.
After he had put on his pyjamas I saw him return to the bathroom which my wife was busy drying up, and he said to her, "please mommy let me clean it, it is my mistake and I need to fix it."



I guess that is how i feel at the moment, I am often overwhelmed by the feeling that this is all my mistake and I need to fix it. Yesterday my wife was furious, for the first time through all of this she found her anger and unleashed it on me.
I don't really have a leg to stand on here, and all I can do is absorb it adding to my already all consuming guilt. I was actually pleased to see her venting and the very least I can do is be there to take it. Communication is a vital outlet and considering that she is holding my secret and that there is no one else that she is able to share this all with (other than her shrink and our marriage councillor), I have to be willing to listen, or in this case be shouted at. I guess what scared or surprised me the most is that my wife is a gentle and timid sole, I know she has fire within her, but this was the most aggressive I had ever known her to be.

I don't relish having to put her through this, I asked her what it is she would like me to do, to which she had no answer. I never wanted these feelings, would she really have wanted me to continue my life simply repressing a drive that seems to be such a big part of who I am?
I am not making excuses here, she is hurt, and more than entitled to anger and frustration, but I just am not sure how to shut it off for her. I am scared to find myself in a situation where we return to resentment and anger at each other yet again, because I find that I am denying and lying to myself.
I am beginning to consider myself a bi-sexual man, but that does not really help me much, because in that it becomes impossible for me to find a whole life, the only way to feel complete living a bisexual life would be to continue getting the best of both worlds and that is not what I want.

My wife and I were able to patch, reconnect and support each other yesterday, we also had a good marriage counselling session which seemed to do wonders, we luckily have a very open minded councillor who provides us both with the tools to keep moving forward. Just as my 7 year old boy is learning and beginning to accept responsibility, so do I, this is not so much a mistake as much as it is us trying to navigate a very difficult situation, but none the less I seem to have made waves and now I am not sure how to stop the bath from overflowing.

Looking back, Moving forward...

I had never seen anybody die before.....
A month before I left home I saw a man collapse in front of me, I rushed up to him, immediately called the paramedics, he looked so old although i know now he was in his early forties, he was grey, his skin, his hair and his eyes all grey. I took his mobile phone to call the last number dialled to which a nurse at a nearby hospital answered. I asked for his name, this was no stranger to me, although I could not recognize him in his current condition, the man in front of me was a florist that assisted me with every arrangement I ever sent to my wife, he helped in the design of our garden and he was the florist for our wedding.

The nurse would not tell me what was wrong with him other than to warn me to take blood precaution, this meant HIV. As I hung up and was about to dial the paramedics again, he turned his head and looked into my eyes, he acknowledged me, and then right in front of me with his eyes locked on mine he died.
What struck me further was how the rain started to pour down, here was this man on a pavement, alone other than me, and now he was dead in the rain.

At the time i think I underestimated how profound an event this was for me, it made me feel so incredibly mortal, I had now seen death and it was far from those Hollywood productions, it was raw, cold, lonely and finite.
In the same breath it motivated me to want to live life, and all i want is to try and do it as whole and happy as I can. In order to do that I engulfed myself into a journey of self discovery and understanding which has lead me along a path where I am now faced with a T-junction in front of me. In under 5 weeks, I need to let both my boyfriend and wife know where they stand.
My shrink advised that I look at what i will be gaining and what I would be loosing by selecting either life's path that I am faced to choose, so this is what i will try to now do.

Should I choose to leave my wife, there is obviously the materialist things that I leave behind such as the home that I have custom built, furniture and the like that would need to be resolved, and of course the monetary wealth that would need to be divided on an agreed basis. I have no desire to not provide for the mother of my children and in a divorce I would want to do financially right by her.
Then there is the loss of totally free access to my kids, yes i would still get to see them allot, but it is not quite the same. I don't have the ability to just jump into bed with them on a night that I wish to,and there is definitely allot of special moments that I would miss out on. Today the joy on my son's face was evident, just because the whole family was in the pool together. I would leave behind a women that has proven her dedication to me, who has been a rock through most of my adult life. We have a history together, and she is probably the person who knows me better than anyone else in this world.
I would be leaving a person that I love dearly, respect and cherish, we share a unique connection and love that is evident to the people around us.

We all know that materialist reasons are not a basis for a life, so although I know this should not factor in, in the real world it obviously does, but I do not think this would be something i would not be able to overcome.
As I found when leaving home previously, my children are extremely important to me and i would never let them out of my life, although I might not enjoy the same quantity of time, perhaps the time I do spend would be more focused on quality and if their parents are happy and whole souls, this will surely make there lives more fulfilled.
I would also try my hardest to maintain a relationship with my wife, if anything she is my best friend, I often wonder if i am not holding her back from a more complete life, from a man who would undoubtedly be able to love her not just for her inner beauty and magnificence, but as a women as well. As I write this I tear up at the thought of another man loving her, and even though I may lack the ability to physically show affection, I have a deep love for her that I doubt she will ever truly know. My greatest pain in life is the inability to express this love and the ability to show her in a tangible manner how special she is.

I would give this up for the pursuit of a man with whom I find it easy to physically express myself, for someone who has opened my eyes and my heart in a way that I would never have thought possible.
He has been able to help me see that what I have repressed for my entire life, a part of myself that I have always seen as wrong, bad, dirty and dark is actually where my true beauty lies, because over the last few months I have felt like the caterpillar that crawled into the cocoon and came out spreading my wings as a butterfly. He has allowed me to unlock years of pain, and to seek for the wholeness and a inner happiness that I did not know existed.
Along this road I have learnt that we are beautiful in our imperfection, and that just because of our impurities and flaws does not mean that we are not still able to be good, he has taught me this and he has done it with gentleness and kindness

I pay the ultimate price to explore this relatively unknown life with him, and in turn the pursuit of a life as a gay man. I have parents to deal with, friends to explain too and whilst this is not simply changing lovers or life partners it is a total reconstruction of who i am as a person.
I do all this while taking a leap into total vulnerability unaware of the strength of the net that I would hope would catch me on the other side. And whilst I know that this should be a decision purely based on myself and with little expectations on him, it is he who I would ultimately be picking.

I am not sure that I am a gay man, I have tried to ignore that question and rather have tried to make this about people, and which person it is that I find myself feeling the most whole with. It is about choosing to live one life and ensuring that it is a honest life, not just with the people around me, but with myself as well.
To quote Nickelback, "each day is a gift not a given right", I don't know where, when or how I will take my last breath on this planet, all i know is that I hope that when i do that I have positively impacted others, that I have left a lasting impressions on my children and loved ones and that I lived doing the best that I could.


The Bridge of Sighs

Simplicity...

So far it has been a very emotional week for me, a week filled with me celebrating my birthday, watching my son enter Grade 1 at school and of course the 1st week of my marriage being open.
Yesterday a friend asked me if I would be able to settle back into a simple life, to which I have given allot of thought. You see my life went from being pretty average, stable and simple, into a journey of tremendous challenges, self reflection and personal growth all of which to me have made life hard, but interesting to live.

Sending my son off to "big school" yesterday bought back so many of my childhood memories. In fact I found the picture of my 1st day of school and uploaded it to Facebook together with a picture that I had taken of him. As happy and brave as I look in my picture is as scared and emotionally distressed that I remember feeling. I was an incredibly insecure child, scared of the world and loved remaining within my safe little bubble.
I was so proud of my son yesterday, I could see the fear on his face, however he remained brave and was able to keep it all together.
He enters 12 years of schooling ahead, I remember those school years seeming to take forever to get through, and the friendships, experiences and memories impact on us for the rest of our lives.

School was a tough period of my life, looking back there is so much of it I would have loved to have been able to have changed.
When I was young I had a girlfriend from Grade 2 until Grade 4, it was a magical relationship filled with beauty and innocence. She gave me a inner strength and confidence which I lacked, she was a strong little girl, but was always extremely gentle and loving with me, we often would talk of marriage and how we would live our lives together.
I had a awesome tree house that my father had built for me, it was truly a masterpiece and was my absolute happy place to be. My girlfriend and I would get naked in the tree house, exploring each others bodies, with no knowledge of what sex was, but simply enjoying the feeling of our skin touching and the fascination of the others body (I never had sisters). She was my 1st love, and a memory that I would never forget.
Today she is a happy lesbian, in a secure relationship with kids, even so we hold a special bond and place in each others hearts, we were childhood sweethearts.

Unfortunately my birthday was pretty much filled with work meetings, but none the less was a special day. I guess on ones birthday reflecting back is inevitable. Having reached 34 (which I know is still youngish), I seem to be looking back wondering if I have achieved the things I had set out to achieve.
Part of me wishes I had done some things differently, but ultimately looking back is useless other than for the purpose of making sure that I do not repeat the same "mistakes" and ensuring personal growth going forward.
I love my family so much, having them in my life is with out a doubt the most fulfilling and rewarding aspect of my life, encouraging my children to learn from my mistakes, or perhaps trying to guide them with the knowledge I have gained along the way is part of parenting.
I have come to realize that there is no such thing as a perfect parent, all we can do is provide support and love. For a child the greatest obstacle I think will always be overcoming their parents, parenting is a huge responsibility and certainly not a perfect science

Opening our marriage was a bold and trying decision, but one that I think was extremely necessary for us. I wish that I had taken the opportunity to have properly explored my sexuality in my youth, but I was never raised open minded enough, or taught to consider the larger world.
I was not built for a double life, as much as a struggle with some of my actions in the past, I still like to believe that I do ultimately have goodness to me. I have opened my heart and in doing so I have found tremendous love in return, I have allowed myself to be vulnerable and yet have found safety, but most importantly I am getting to meet a whole new me, someone who has always been there, but just a little scared to come out.

Confucius said:"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated," this might be so true for me, but how else would I be able to grow if I did not challenge and question myself, as a black and white person I am beginning to realize that life sometimes needs to be lived in the grey.
The first man that I had a sexual encounter with had a header to his Internet profile reading "simplicity", it is ironic because in meeting him my life became anything but simple and for that I am grateful.
So the question remains, will I be able to live a simple life? I guess absolutely I would be able to, but would I want to?

What are the odds...?

When young, I had very strict parents, they were liberal in many ways, but overall there was always considerable amounts of discipline. On the odd occasion, when I was really wanting to pursue something that they did not agree with, i would receive the "just do whatever you want." This was always said in a stern and aggressive tone, and I always knew that what they were in fact saying, was you decide and there will be consequences if you do it.

My wife and I have been together for 12 years of which 9 of those were as a husband and wife. In those 12 years we have never really had any significant fights or obstacles to overcome, however there has always been a level of resentment between us. Resentment is a very dangerous emotion, it builds and creates and underlying anger and unhappiness.
Our fights were always about little ridiculous things, and were probably just an outlet for our greater resentment for each other. For me I never felt like I could be who I really was within our marriage and for my wife, she had the resentment of a husband that had pulled away and she lacked the understanding as to why her husband was not able to love and desire her fully as a women.

Communication and honesty are the foundations of a successful relationship, and although we always communicated well, I obviously felt like I was unable to share my true emotions and feelings especially with regards to my sexuality with her.
Ironically for the first time in our marriage, we are truly testing our love, yes all to often people stay married for all the wrong reasons, we are trying to figure out whether or not this is true for us.
Any marriage is trying, and many marriages fail, often this is not due to infidelity, loss of love or a break down in the marriage, but simply due to the lack of wanting to try, fighting for it and putting in the work.
Our marriage is obviously in a slightly different bracket, we have more goodness than most marriages would wish for, but unless we can both be ourselves, true and whole within the marriage, we have to ask ourselves what are we doing?

My wife, boyfriend and I, have decided to allow me the opportunity to pursue my sexuality. This is one of the most amazing gifts that I have been given, and one that i do not take lightly of flippantly. In order to do this, we have decided to open our marriage, allowing me total freedom to explore this with my boyfriend. This is hard for all parties involved and in order to reduce the strain we have decided to put a time limit on this exploration, 5 weeks. I know it seems strange to put a timeline in finding oneself, and I know that in this time it will be impossible for me to totally understand my sexuality, but I owe it to both of them to make a choice, a choice whether I want to continue to pursue this within my home or not, and to do it with only one partner and one life.

This to many of you must sound like a wonderful opportunity and it is, however I feel daunted and scared, but well aware of the importance of the decision that I need to make. I care deeply for both my wife and boyfriend and inevitably will be hurt no matter what decision I eventually am able to make.

I love Poker, it was the alibi that allowed me the time and excuse to pursue this in the past few months. I love how the game revolves about reading and understanding people. It is a game about being able to lie (all be it trickery), and to read when others are lying as well. It is a game of odds, and pushing your money in when you stand the best chance of winning, and it is a game of understanding when to lay down you hand because you feel like you are beat, but regardless of what people say it is also a game of luck. Basically it is a game for which i feel is not all that different from life.

So as I enter yet another chapter along this most amazing journey, I have been told by my wife "do as you like," but not with aggression or sarcasm, but rather from a place of love.
Unlike Poker, we are playing open cards, we are exposed and everyone is trying to ensure that we stand the best odds and chance before pushing it "All In!"

Three's Company

I feel that all to often marriages are based on sexual fidelity and the fidelity of the heart is often ignored. Surely even if a marriage remains monogamous but that one can not feel vulnerable, open and truly honest within that marriage, we are in fact still cheating and not only ourselves, but our spouse as well.

I am lucky, I am now in a marriage in which I have all my deep and dark secrets revealed, and am able to be totally honest.
What exactly it is that my heart desires and where it is trying to lead me, I am not yet totally sure, however I do know, denying those feelings and trying yet again to simply repress my sexuality would only lead me back into a marriage where a resentment, loss of truth and ultimately the cheating of our hearts would commence all over again.
My wife and I are still relatively young and I have no doubt that resolving my emotions and sexuality now, is not only for my benefit, but for the good of her and my children as well.

It is in this spirit that I have been honest with my wife in telling her that I am just not able to let my boyfriend go as I care deeply for him.
This journey has never just been a matter of "scratching an itch" or simply sleeping with men, for me it has been a desire to be true to myself and to my heart.
I am extremely lucky and perhaps extremely unique in the fact that my wife and I have a commitment of the heart, and in that commitment we have a desire to see both of us happy.
The stakes are high and no one relishes breaking up or losing the family structure, ultimately we are unequivocally unified parents who want the best for our kids. Within the responsibility of parenthood we are trying to secure a life that is whole for all.

It was in this spirit that we decided last night that my boyfriend, wife and I would once again give going out for dinner together another try.
This time we did it on a different basis, there were no titles, no expectations and no lies, just 3 people who have all been through allot. We decided to simply get together to "be in the moment" and celebrate life, no matter how difficult or unusual as this might be.
It was a success, in the openness and honesty we were able to enjoy a night filled with pure beauty. As I sat there, I thought to myself how people around us were so unaware of how extraordinary and unique an event we were enjoying, and the manner in which we were all doing it.
Yes there is awkwardness, and yes there is pain, and most definitely yes there is some anger, but for a brief moment we found it possible to forgive, however unable to forget.

It seems ironic, how all 3 of us seem to be on our own individual journeys and although often clouded by emotion and the magnitude of what we are going through, we often don't notice how in an unusual way, we all seem to be growing and even more unusually supporting and assisting each other.
Each one of us seems to be intertwined to the other, and now knowing that we are dealing with a pure white canvass, free of lies, we all get to be artists as we try and paint our life construct.
I am sure not many men can say that they have been into gay clubs, with both there wife and boyfriend, and likewise I am sure that the 3 of us must have been a total enigma to the people who looked, but for us, we were simply 3 people living life to the best of our abilities.

No this is not the next scene from some erotic porno, nor will the 3 of us be entering the bedroom together. This is a journey that I felt I had to take, happiness is for the brave, and a journey that I thought i would have to travel alone has ended up being a journey shared.
I am not sure where this will all lead, but I know that within the honesty that we have been able to find, the forgiveness that has been able to be shared and the commitment of our hearts, anything is possible.

Forgiveness

Today, my daughter had a bowl of sweets that she was relishing and eager to eat, whilst sitting downstairs with her brother he accidentally knocked a cup of water all over them. I could hear that she was angry and not willing to accept his plea for forgiveness.
I called them both upstairs, had them seated next to each other, and I explained to my daughter, that sometimes mistakes happen, and according to the Jewish Religion, when someone sincerely and honestly apologizes to the wronged individual and tries to rectify the wrong, the wronged individual is religiously required to grant forgiveness.



I truly believe that the world is cosmic, so much of life seems far to amazing for it all to be simply coincidence. I believe one just has to open their eyes and ears and listen to what the world and God are trying to show us.
The past week has been an extremely trying week, it has been a week full of emotion, pain and hardship. In the past week I have tested my wife's capacity to forgive, but ironically others have tested my capacity for forgiveness as well. Our best of friends made a grave mistake, and pushed the limit of that what any friendship could possibly endure.
I too was tested not once, but several times this week by my "ex" boyfriend, with many revelations, leaving me hurt, pained and confused.

William Blake said: "It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend." This is probably true, because with a friend or even a loved one, we allow access to our hearts and we allow ourselves to become vulnerable, so when they wrong us, we have given them the greatest capacity to hurt us. Often it feels like the ultimate betrayal and we struggle to find the reasoning as to why it is that someone we cared about so much could possibly hurt us, and often the pain comes from us feeling regret for letting that person into our hearts.

I have never been the softest of people, my Mom always said that if my hand "pissed" me off enough, I would cut it off. I seemed to have a capacity when someone angered me to remove them from my life with little regard or remorse.
Today, as I sit her, I can say I have changed. Forgiveness is not a show of weakness, but perhaps of great strength. I too realise that love and caring is not a switch that can simply be flipped on and off, and that simply removing someone from our lives is not all that easy.
Yes anger is a natural emotion, and one that is hard to avoid, but it serves little purpose, and forgiveness is the only key to unlock that anger and pain.

I asked my wife is she sees me as less of a man, to which she replied, "No not less of a man, but I see you as a human now." I have made terrible mistakes over the past few months, I know this, but would I change them? No, no I would not. I have learnt so much from my mistakes, I have allowed myself to grow, improve, and gained some understanding about life itself, I have taken the opportunity to tell the whole truth, and now my task is to rectify the wrong as best as I can.
For me forgiveness now comes easily, because I understand what it is like to want that forgiveness, and I know what the pain feels like, but most of all, I understand how easy it is to make a mistake.

I am torn, depleted and emotionally exhausted, I have endured so much in a journey where all I wanted was to understand myself. I tried so hard not to hurt anyone in the process, but I did and I think I hurt myself most of all.
In my absolute hunger to be able to be true to myself, i picked a road full of lies and deceit. My family deserved more from me, my wife rightfully expected so much, because she in turn had given me so much, however I did the best that i could, I am after all only human.
i am blessed and extremely lucky, that through it all, I can still look at my wife and see love in her eyes, I am blessed that she has been able to teach me what true forgiveness feels like, because now I want to be able to pass that on.

I love my wife and my family so much, they are my entire world, there is very little I would not give or do for them. And now as a show of that promise, I am here, home.. I have not promised to stop searching, or to pretend that I do not have gay feelings, but I have resolved that I am here, here to fight, to make right, to support and figure it all out.
In doing this I leave a wonderful man behind, and although everything in my brain tells me to "cut off my hand" and let him go, my heart tells me that I can't....

Life is not simple, and the decisions we make are not always black and white, however the one thing that I do know is that true love exists in forgiveness. I have seen it so much over the past week culminating in my daughter forgiving her brother. Yes she lost out on her sweets, but what she does not realise is that she ended up getting and giving something far greater.
My greatest challenge now, is learning to forgive myself....