A Little Background As We Get Started...

Before we get started and I begin dumping my guts I want to say that I am going to be purposefully vague with some details. Do not mistake this as my being afraid that someone will find out who I am, because I am totally out, but I am simply protecting those who were, and may still be, innocently involved in my life. It is not important for anyone to know who my children are, who my parents are and who my friends are. What I think is important is what I went through, how I dealt with it and how I survived to be who I am now. I do not mean to sound overly dramatic when I say "survived", but there was more than one occasion when I had contemplated suicide and one particular time when I had specifically planned it. We'll address that later on.

As the title of my blog implies, I came out (or rather, was blasted out...but we'll get to that soon enough) less than a week after I turned 38 in May 2002. At the time I had been married 19 years by just a few weeks and had, by all accounts, a perfect marriage. I have two wonderful children, we had a nice house and two nice cars in the garage. My wife stayed at home with the kids and I had a great job.

The truth of the matter is I was completely and totally miserable inside. I don't even know if miserable would accurately describe my mindset at that time. I was moving through life feeling as if a black mass had totally engulfed me and I could not conciously put my finger on the reason why. I was always on edge, seldom happy, had the sensation that I could not clear my head and had trouble concentrating. Deep down in my subconscious, however, I knew exactly what the problem was and had no idea how to deal with it.

Does any of this sound familiar? I would imagine it does if you're still reading this. I intend to share every aspect of my coming out experience so others who are struggling with their sexuality, seriously contemplating coming out or just came out know that others before them have gone through something as intense as they are experiencing and made it through intact.