humansofnewyork:

“I took him to see Brokeback Mountain when it came out. I thought I was challenging him with the choice. But at the end of the film, he turned to me and said: ‘That’s me.’ We’d been married for thirty years. Our kids were still young. I didn’t know what to do. Do I leave? Do I stay? We were ex-pats in another country at the time, so we were all alone. I had nobody to talk to. We went to a therapist to see if it was possible to stay together, and she told us: ‘I’ve seen it work. But only if one person is very discrete and the other is very tolerant.’ So I agreed to try. It’s been ten years. It’s been exhausting in a lot of ways. I asked too many questions at first. I made myself miserable. Now I give him a lot of space. And I get a lot of space in return. I’ve been traveling alone for about two months now. I know what’s going on back home but I don’t ask about it. My friends ask me why I don’t move on with my life. I don’t know the answer. Maybe I’m just too afraid to be alone at this age. But I still feel like he’s my soul mate. We have the same view of the world. We both love children. We love traveling and good food. He really is a good man. He’s just gay. And we’ve had such a good life together, I’m just not ready to stop sharing it.”