I've been quiet for a reason.....
09-13-2013, 01:02 AM
The forum has changed a lot these past couple of years and only a few of the current regular posters were even members when I first joined. I used to really love the feeling of comraderie and btotherhood and sisterhood (!) I found here. The chance to connect to like-minded people from all over the globe. It seemed like a great way to share stories, memories, insights, and (when requested) advice.
A few people, like my friend East, have stayed in touch with me even though they have moved on to other forums and other things. Others, I suspect, are similar to myself, in that they no longer participate in the community as much as they used to, but they are still around 'lurking', keeping up with you guys 'n gals, and throwing out a bit of wit or wisdom here and there when the feeling strikes them. Why? I can only imagine that the reasons are as varied and diverse as the members themselves. So, I can only speak for myself.
So that is what this post is about--Why I semi-quit GaySpeak. Why I am going to try and "Come Back" to GaySpeak. Why I am more ashamed of this "Coming Out" than I was of my Coming Out as Gay.
The reason I stopped posting here on the forum after I got married to my husband ("Ray") was NOT due in any way to marital bliss. Several people suggested this when I first "went silent", ad I am ashamed to say that in my return messages to them I did nothing to dissuade them of the notion.
It was for exactly the opposite reason. I was ashamed to tell all of you (especially those of you who tired to warn me), that my husband quickly became aggressive and abussive, both verbally and emotionally.
It all started when Ray' parents came to visit. When we first started dating again, Ray had told me that his boyfriend of several years ("Jim") had died of a heart-attack. Ray's mother let it slip out that Jim had actually committed suiscide. Ray did a lot of crying, begging me to forgive him for lying, but saying that he had lied out of shame and grief. That it was just too difficult for him to even think about Jim's death. Though I was upset about being lied too, hearing him describe finding Jim's dead body.....well, I am tender hearted and I forgave him. Forgiveness that came with a condition: he had to promise that he would always be truthful in the future; that no matter how bad things got, if he would always be honest with me, we could work it out. He promised that he would be honest henceforth....
A couple of weeks later, Ray's parents had left and I had the strangest visitor appear on our front porch: a Police Officer looking for my husband. Though Jim had died over a year before Ray and I started dating, apparently the Corner felt there were too many unanswered questions to conclusively determine the official cause of death. They needed my husband to come in for a "chat". Ray was at work that day, so I took a message for him and assured the Officer that I would have him call as soon as he returned, which I did,
Ray went and talked to the Police and to the Cororner. When he returned, he said they just wanted to ask him if he knew if Jim had been prescribed the pills he died from, or if he had obtained them illegally. That seemed reasonable too me, and that was the end of it in my mind...., or it would have been if a week later I recived a call from the Police officer asking if I would be willing to meet with him and the County Cororner. I nervously agreed to go. Ray was out of town on business that week, and I wasn't able to reach him by phone to tell him what was going on.
When I arrived, they began to question me about what medications my husband was prescribed and it dawned on me that what they were implying was that my husband may have given Jim the pulls that he OD on. Immediately I jumped to my husbands defense, telling them that he would NEVER give out his pills to ANYONE, that he needs them too badly to ever "stock pile" amy since he cannot miss a dose. I said that Jim must have taken them from Ray wi out Ray's knowledge. Finally they relented with the questions, telling me that Ray had also suggested that Jim must have stolen the pills. That would have probably have been the end of the entire Jim Saga, because I believed and still believed IN my husband......Except that, as I left, I wondered aloud saying, "I just can't understand why someone who had so many things going for him would take his own life." The Cororner stopped me in my tracks with her reply, "Well, in situations like these, patients often decide to take their own lives rather than suffer through the last stages of the disease."
"Disease? What disease?" I asked taken off guard. My ignorance seemed to take her off guard too, and I began to get that sinking feeling in my stomach.
"Surely your husband told you....?"
"Told me WHAT!?!" I was almost screaming by this point!
"Jim had full blown AIDS," she said, "he spent almost 3 months in the hospital the year before his death. In fact, he had just left an HIV Support Group Meeting and was still in their parking lot when he took the fatal dose of pills that killed him." To say that I was stunned doesnt do justice to the roiling turmoil surging inside me at that point. I don't even remember driving home or the rest of the week until Ray returned from his business trip is mostly a blur. I bought two over-the-counter HIV tests.
When Ray returned home I confronted him about JIM's HIV status and questioned his own status. At first he tried to lie, saying that Jim had cheated on him multiple times and that they had not had sex together in YEARS. He said that he had been tested multiple times and that he was clean---the SAME thing he had told me when we started sleeping together......then he broke down when I brought out the HIV tests I had bought a few days before his return and admitted that he had been tested and tested Positive for HIV, but that he had only JUST found out and that he had NO IDEA that Jim was positive until the Coroner told him and suggested he be tested.
It is amazing how we will believe what we wish to believe even when all the evidence points the other direction. Through his tears and his insistance that he would NEVER purposfully do anything to hurt me, I believed that he really WAS worried and scared that he might have infected me by accident (we had not used condoms; he assured me that he had had sex with only one person ((Jim)) for the past 8 years and had been tested regularly since Jim's death).
So, once again, I believed him. Until he asked me to throw away several boxes of Jim's stuff that Ray "just couldn't bring himself to throw it away".....and I found Jim's Diary. According to the diary, Ray and Jim had both been diagnosed as HIV Positive together on the same day THREE YEARS before Jim died!!!! For over a year he had been having sex with me, without a condom, all the while KNOWING that he was Positive!!!!
This is all of the story I am going to write today. There is more to be told, and I know that there are some obvious questions I will need to answer (like why I didn't haul ass RIGHT THEN AND THERE....) but they will have to wait for another day.
Oh, so as not to keep you in too much suspense: No,I am not HIV positive. Maybe someone up there took piety on me, because against all odds I remain uninfected by the virus.
Comments and questions are welcome. I am bearing my soul and putting it ALL out there, come what may....
Beau
A few people, like my friend East, have stayed in touch with me even though they have moved on to other forums and other things. Others, I suspect, are similar to myself, in that they no longer participate in the community as much as they used to, but they are still around 'lurking', keeping up with you guys 'n gals, and throwing out a bit of wit or wisdom here and there when the feeling strikes them. Why? I can only imagine that the reasons are as varied and diverse as the members themselves. So, I can only speak for myself.
So that is what this post is about--Why I semi-quit GaySpeak. Why I am going to try and "Come Back" to GaySpeak. Why I am more ashamed of this "Coming Out" than I was of my Coming Out as Gay.
The reason I stopped posting here on the forum after I got married to my husband ("Ray") was NOT due in any way to marital bliss. Several people suggested this when I first "went silent", ad I am ashamed to say that in my return messages to them I did nothing to dissuade them of the notion.
It was for exactly the opposite reason. I was ashamed to tell all of you (especially those of you who tired to warn me), that my husband quickly became aggressive and abussive, both verbally and emotionally.
It all started when Ray' parents came to visit. When we first started dating again, Ray had told me that his boyfriend of several years ("Jim") had died of a heart-attack. Ray's mother let it slip out that Jim had actually committed suiscide. Ray did a lot of crying, begging me to forgive him for lying, but saying that he had lied out of shame and grief. That it was just too difficult for him to even think about Jim's death. Though I was upset about being lied too, hearing him describe finding Jim's dead body.....well, I am tender hearted and I forgave him. Forgiveness that came with a condition: he had to promise that he would always be truthful in the future; that no matter how bad things got, if he would always be honest with me, we could work it out. He promised that he would be honest henceforth....
A couple of weeks later, Ray's parents had left and I had the strangest visitor appear on our front porch: a Police Officer looking for my husband. Though Jim had died over a year before Ray and I started dating, apparently the Corner felt there were too many unanswered questions to conclusively determine the official cause of death. They needed my husband to come in for a "chat". Ray was at work that day, so I took a message for him and assured the Officer that I would have him call as soon as he returned, which I did,
Ray went and talked to the Police and to the Cororner. When he returned, he said they just wanted to ask him if he knew if Jim had been prescribed the pills he died from, or if he had obtained them illegally. That seemed reasonable too me, and that was the end of it in my mind...., or it would have been if a week later I recived a call from the Police officer asking if I would be willing to meet with him and the County Cororner. I nervously agreed to go. Ray was out of town on business that week, and I wasn't able to reach him by phone to tell him what was going on.
When I arrived, they began to question me about what medications my husband was prescribed and it dawned on me that what they were implying was that my husband may have given Jim the pulls that he OD on. Immediately I jumped to my husbands defense, telling them that he would NEVER give out his pills to ANYONE, that he needs them too badly to ever "stock pile" amy since he cannot miss a dose. I said that Jim must have taken them from Ray wi out Ray's knowledge. Finally they relented with the questions, telling me that Ray had also suggested that Jim must have stolen the pills. That would have probably have been the end of the entire Jim Saga, because I believed and still believed IN my husband......Except that, as I left, I wondered aloud saying, "I just can't understand why someone who had so many things going for him would take his own life." The Cororner stopped me in my tracks with her reply, "Well, in situations like these, patients often decide to take their own lives rather than suffer through the last stages of the disease."
"Disease? What disease?" I asked taken off guard. My ignorance seemed to take her off guard too, and I began to get that sinking feeling in my stomach.
"Surely your husband told you....?"
"Told me WHAT!?!" I was almost screaming by this point!
"Jim had full blown AIDS," she said, "he spent almost 3 months in the hospital the year before his death. In fact, he had just left an HIV Support Group Meeting and was still in their parking lot when he took the fatal dose of pills that killed him." To say that I was stunned doesnt do justice to the roiling turmoil surging inside me at that point. I don't even remember driving home or the rest of the week until Ray returned from his business trip is mostly a blur. I bought two over-the-counter HIV tests.
When Ray returned home I confronted him about JIM's HIV status and questioned his own status. At first he tried to lie, saying that Jim had cheated on him multiple times and that they had not had sex together in YEARS. He said that he had been tested multiple times and that he was clean---the SAME thing he had told me when we started sleeping together......then he broke down when I brought out the HIV tests I had bought a few days before his return and admitted that he had been tested and tested Positive for HIV, but that he had only JUST found out and that he had NO IDEA that Jim was positive until the Coroner told him and suggested he be tested.
It is amazing how we will believe what we wish to believe even when all the evidence points the other direction. Through his tears and his insistance that he would NEVER purposfully do anything to hurt me, I believed that he really WAS worried and scared that he might have infected me by accident (we had not used condoms; he assured me that he had had sex with only one person ((Jim)) for the past 8 years and had been tested regularly since Jim's death).
So, once again, I believed him. Until he asked me to throw away several boxes of Jim's stuff that Ray "just couldn't bring himself to throw it away".....and I found Jim's Diary. According to the diary, Ray and Jim had both been diagnosed as HIV Positive together on the same day THREE YEARS before Jim died!!!! For over a year he had been having sex with me, without a condom, all the while KNOWING that he was Positive!!!!
This is all of the story I am going to write today. There is more to be told, and I know that there are some obvious questions I will need to answer (like why I didn't haul ass RIGHT THEN AND THERE....) but they will have to wait for another day.
Oh, so as not to keep you in too much suspense: No,I am not HIV positive. Maybe someone up there took piety on me, because against all odds I remain uninfected by the virus.
Comments and questions are welcome. I am bearing my soul and putting it ALL out there, come what may....
Beau
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Virgo
