Marriage

So this is the year of the gay wedding. Bravo. The gender-bias of our marriage code has been one of the greatest inconsistencies of the American journey in recent years.

So some day soon there won’t be a schism between ‘You should marry who you love,’ and ‘Marriage means one man and one woman.’ Some day soon we really will be able to marry whomever our blathering little hearts tell us to.

I should be happy. And truly, I am. I support the cause 100%. But for me, personally . . . I say, ‘no thank you.’ I look around at the non-gay people in my life and see what a mess they’ve made of the institution and I want to run the other way. I know a couple who just started their third marriage. My boyfriend’s daughter has four kids by 3 men, we think . . . (we’re not sure). I watch the destruction – emotional and financial – that marriage seems to inevitably bring and I thank my lucky stars that I survived my own misguided trip to the alter, way back in my life as a failed heterosexual!

I married for love. I really did. Love and fear. Fear that if I didn’t hook up with an interesting female pretty quickly my secret would be out and my world would collapse. Besides, I told myself, lots of guys probably have same-sex dreams, right? So what if every sex dream I ever had featured hairy men instead of sensuous women? It didn’t mean anything; I could still be straight . . . right?

We became more than wonderful friends, she and I. We clung to each other and experienced a kind of Siamese completeness most couples only dream about. Ok; that’s the nice way of putting it. On a bad day I could have said we were glued together in an embrace of codependent masturbation. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Ultimately, love wasn’t enough. I clung for dear life, afraid that if I let go, I’d lose the one thing that validated me as a real man: my woman. Finally all of that clinging became a suffocation: she announced that she would never be the person she needed to be if I continued to be the focus of her life. She needed out.

I was devastated . . . for about 36 hours. That’s how long it took me to realize that fear and pain sucked and the less I lived with them, the better. I started making plans for my future. And I gave myself permission to have anything in the world I wanted. As soon as I did, it was very clear what that was, and the rest, as they say, is his-story.

We spent 10 years together and had a wonderful time. We didn’t have kids and we were both fairly sane at the time of the split, so it was uncomplicated for us: easy. We still like and respect each other today. But what if we’d had kids? You know we’d have been at each other in short order: distrust, deceit, blame and vengence. All the while little Johnny and Mary ducking for cover, cowering in the corner.

She minimizes the love aspect of marriage. It’s a decision you make, not a tidal wave of emotion. In her mind, the purpose of marriage is to protect children. You don’t let your heart lead you into this commitment: you evaluate your potential partner in terms of the kind of mother or father he or she will make. Will she be faithful to you thus keeping the home stable for the kids? Will he work long and hard to generate enough income so that your kids can have a parent at home? And so on.

If your marriage is about kids and family, I think the legal institution makes great sense. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight, or polygamous. The legal entanglement gives all parties a strong reason to make that extra effort to work out their problems and stay together for the sake of the children. That’s important because the natural tendency is to be done with the other person after a few years . . . and ready for the next adventure in coupling. Or hadn’t you noticed: human beings are not by nature particularly monogamous.

That’s one of the nice things about being gay: nobody really expects monogamy; at least not in the silly 15 year old girly way that most straight people view it. They are raised to see infidelity as a horrendous insult: an unforgivable deal killer. Meanwhile, most gay couples seem to acknowledge the reality that we are sexual by nature and, aw shucks, things occasionally happen.

Now if straight people could have a gay attitude toward infidelity and a rational attitude towards condoms and birth control, screwing around (which is what we like to do) would no longer destabilize families, and the kids would not suffer.

Can’t you just picture it?

Little Mary: Daddy, where’ Mommy?

Daddy: Oh, she’s out with Mr. Garcia, I think . . . or maybe Mr. Greene . . . I’m not sure.

Little Mary: But is she coming home?

Daddy: Of course she is, sweetheart . . . this is her home. You know: where the heart is. She’s just out getting her nut off with Greene or Garcia. She’ll be home to tuck you in. I promise.

I think people should be able to legally marry whomever they want; and the only good reason to get married is to provide a stable environment for rearing children. Otherwise, who needs it?

I wrote this in May of 2004. My perspective today: I still believe much of what I said 22 years ago with two rather large exceptions. Marriage is for me; I’ve been married to Mike for ten years. And we are monogamous while acknowledging that shit happens; it hasn’t so far, as far as I know. And creating stable families is not the only reason to marry. We got married to get off the never ending merry-g0-round of hook-ups and temporary relationships and to be more than we were as individuals. The marriage bond makes it safer for us to invest in life as a couple, to build something that’s not going to disappear tomorrow. Plus, aw shux; I love the big old lunk!