When I grew up my gay side was buried so deeply that I did not know it existed. When I turned 30, married with children, my gay side started to come to the surface. I had always admired good looking, well-built men, but now I wanted to explore sex with some of the men I admired. It happened when I turned 31 and it was wonderful. I felt no guilt because I was a good, successful person and being gay was at the core of my being.

After five years I came out to my wife and eventually we separated on good terms.

By the time I was approaching age 40 I began to wonder if I was going to find “Mr. Right”, someone who was both hot and with a smart head screwed on straight. I was invited to a function that I thought was a speakers group I belonged to…we spoke at various groups about being gay in a straight society, but it turned out the function was for gay doctors and lawyers. I walked into a room of about 50 men and there he was. Later I called him for a lunch date. He was 14 years younger and a lawyer just starting in practice. That first date did not work…it was too much like interviewing a young lawyer for a job. But I felt I had to try again and asked him for a movie date at one of our parks. We ended up going home together and I knew this man was very special, not only good looking but also smarter than me.

After a few dates when I said, “I love you”, I knew it was forever.

We got married in British Columbia in 2003 and recently celebrated our 28th year together. My children are closer to Alan than they are to me.

Being out in my profession and every aspect of life has never had a negative impact. When folks make homophobic comments it feels good to set them straight. They need to know that we are everywhere.

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I’m From Phoenix, AZ. “A few weeks later, on a beautiful Saturday morning, my wife had gone grocery shopping and I was in our bedroom closet, sitting in the dark, crying. The night before I had tried to tell her but chickened out at the last moment. Since the morning of the dream I had thought and thought about what to say but none of the words I had come up with felt true. Anyway, I must have been in the closet much longer than I thought because all of a sudden the door opened and there stood my wife. She said “Phil, why are you in the closet?” and I literally came out of the closet.”

I’m From Eureka, CA. “I was a fairly handsome guy when I was younger, and I’ve been on a million first dates, all but five of them with women. I’ve been on six second dates; two of them with women and four with men. I’ve been on two third dates; one chick and one dude. I married both of them; I spent 19 years with the chick and I’m still married to the dude. I went on my first date with a guy when I was 43, shortly after I realized I was gay. I didn’t want to date women anymore.”

I’m From Sydney, Australia. “I got my opportunity to move to Sydney when a friend of mine asked me to come down and stay with her.  Towards the end of my addiction, she was a lone beacon of kindness at what was obviously a very painful time for me.  I thought I was in love. I wanted to be in love. So what’s a closeted, gay, alcoholic madman to do? Marry her, of course. We married the following year. It seemed to an outsider looking in that I was getting my life back together. Could that be so wrong?  A few years later our only child, a daughter, was born.”