I mentioned, “torturous journey” by all accounts after meeting Dr. Asheden, my life became quite torturous. Even to this day, I look back and I wonder, “What the hell was I thinking?” I was a husband, a son, a son-in-law, and a brother. I have always tried to live a good life, and an honorable life. I placed the needs of others before myself. How could I allow for such a dishonesty, a deceitfulness to come into my life?
Here, I had to acknowledge an idea known as “Cognitive Dissonance.” According to Wikipedia the terms means, “In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress (discomfort) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, when performing an action that contradicts those beliefs, ideas, and values; or when confronted with new information that contradicts existing beliefs, ideas, and values.” I knew an affair was wrong on all accounts. However, I couldn’t totally understand what I was feeling. I couldn’t totally understand what I was doing, though an insight into everything began with a kiss. I have never kissed a man. I never wanted to kiss a man, but when I finally did I think I began to finally understand what that “difference” I felt was all about. It was like placing the last piece into a jigsaw puzzle, everything just came into its own place. I held these traditional values deep within me, yet I was confronted with something, no a feeling, that was totally against my deep held beliefs. What seemed so natural, so right, was at the same time for me just wrong, so here was my cognitive dissonance in action. I wanted no part of it, but at the same time I could not stop it. You see, I was in love, and I would soon find out love has so little to do with rationality. My wife and I were living two separate lives in the same house. Hell, if most of us are truthful in our modern lives this paradigm isn’t so hard to understand. My wife and I were best friends. She was my rock within a difficult period of my life. I hated myself for what I was doing to her, and I hated myself for what I was doing to our relationship. How did I balance a wife with a lover, well, I didn’t do a very good job at it. There were many days where I said, “I will end this, I will get back to my life, this is all so very wrong.” My passion would lead me away from rationality every time. Yes, I have become something I detested, and yes, I have become something that I always wanted rather consciously or subconsciously. I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on with me. The one person I counted on throughout my life, I was hurting the most. To be sure what I was doing was a form of self-inflicted torture. Trying to live two lives, trying to be all sealed up from other’s judgments and my own was a sure path to self-destruction. I was living in two worlds, and there were many times that I didn’t know which world I was in. A storm was brewing, a mistake was soon to be made, and it would be here at one particular moment in my life that my life would forever be change
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Four years ago, my life completely changed. Four years ago, I was living in a large home in Oak Hills, I had three cars, I was on the board of my HOA, I had a good job, and I was married to a beautiful woman. People looking at me from the outside probably would have said, “He is living the dream.”
The truth of the matter was that I was crumbling within from depression and anxiety. Four years ago was the last time I would be rushed to the hospital for yet that unknown phenomenon that was occurring within me, a panic attack. I can still remember the emergency room at the Methodist Hospital being so overcrowded that I was laying in a bed next to the doctor’s station. I can still remember wondering what is going on? What is really the matter? It was shortly after returning from the hospital that I would find what really was the matter. It was suggested to me to pick up some activities away from the home. I was always interested in art and classical music, so I focused my mind on these interests. My ex-wife was and still is an equestrian, so that took up most of her free time outside of work. If I was going to have interests, I was going to have to explore my interests mostly alone. It was a feeling I knew well. We were a childless couple, but not by choice. On a cool night in October I went to the San Antonio Museum of Art for a lecture on Greek gods. I really don’t remember too much about the lecture, but I do remember asking some questions afterwards during the Q&A session. After the lecture, I then went to view the Greek and Roman statues within the museum. It was there by the statue of Aphrodite of all places, that I would meet a person that would forever change my life. I tell you this part of my story because at 47, I never thought I would then go on to find myself forever challenged. You see, I never thought I was gay. Between working long hours, taking care of elderly sick parents, cleaning the house, doing yard work, going to the grocery store, cooking, paying the bills, and cleaning the cars, I had buried something deep within me. At 47 I did know something was wrong. I grew up along the Texas Mexican border and within that culture there were certain expectations about what a real man was. My father epitomized that man figure, a man’s man. He and his friends were big hunters, hard drinkers, gamblers, golfers, and yes, womanizers. This is what my idea of manhood was, and I knew I fell way short of this male expectation, I knew I was different. I just did not know what that difference was? At 47 I came to know what that difference was. I met a man, a man that I have never seen the likes of before, and there at the cool white marble statue of Aphrodite, I fell in love. It was there, I would begin and would start a very long tortuous journey of not only Coming Out, but I also say, “Coming Into” my true self. I remember hearing a doctor at the hospital say, “Life isn’t for sissies.” How right she was, to be true to yourself takes guts, and little did I know I was going to have to face the biggest challenge of my life. At 47 I began what would be a continually life long process called, “Coming Out.” |
Christian Cantu
Coming Out Late Archives
December 2019
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