So the highway of life on this team is pretty much parallel to the highway I’ve been on my whole life. Bumps, cracks, chasms even, exist along the way. The only differences are the catalysts that cause them. I’ll tell you up front I’m begging for feedback from you as you complete your read of the post.
First, I’ll get the good news out of the way. My kids spent a decent portion of their summer break with me and it was great. I was worried about feeling like the “Disneyland Dad” but we had a brief family meeting when they got here and expectations were set regarding them helping take care of their home here and all went well. They remembered how to use the washing machine and dishwasher. If anyone has suggestions on getting kids to not put empty boxes back into the pantry, I’ll take them. Nothing like being blamed for not keeping cereal on hand when there were two, yes two, empty boxes staring at me when I looked into the pantry. Who knew?
They continue to be very comfortable around Steven and he is very comfortable around them. It made me happy to fix dinner for my entire brood several nights while they were here.
Now for the first set of bumps in the road…the divorce is exponentially worse than I ever expected it could get. Quite frankly, it never occurred to me that she could create as much hate in her heart as now exists. If you haven’t been down this path before or have never stood by a good friend who has, I’ve got to set up a little legalese for you. She filed first and served me with the paperwork that laid out her grounds for wanting the big D. That was all well and good; simply said the marriage was broken and she saw no ability to repair it. My return of serve included my “discovery”, a legal term asking for various and sundry items. In my case, 100% of my discovery was economically related so we can adequately complete the child support worksheets required by the State. Her attorney did one of two things. She either failed completely to explain that proof of financial status is required to complete the worksheet or spun her up and told her that we didn’t need near what had been requested. Don’t know which and it doesn’t really matter. This flipped the hate switch and it’s been downhill since then. She then got to serve me with her discovery and included in it a document called “First and Continuing Interrogatories”. This is where she got to ask whatever came into her head. And boy did some things come into her head. For starters, she suggested my affair with Steven went back to 2005! If all of the machinations that I would have had to create to make that a reality weren’t so outrageous this would have been truly offensive. She then asked me to list the name, address, and phone number of every person I have had sex with since she and I got married, and it gets better, the names of any persons present who might have watched! Then there’s the list of acts that constitute the sexual activity in question. I’ve tried my best to keep this blog PG-13 at worst so I can’t list them but use the most carnal parts of your imagination and I bet she covered it. Those two questions were at the top of the list of surprises but for brevity I won’t go further. You get the picture. So that’s where we are in the divorce process. I’ve answered all of those questions, provided her with the 10 years of emails she asked for. 18 months of phone records that Ma Bell keeps. Surprising to her, not to me, there’s nothing in either of those that shows an interaction with Steven before last year. For those of you already through the D, please tell me this does get better at some point.
But here’s the part of the story where I really need help and feedback. I’ve said it before and, sadly, I still find it true. I still usually feel like a stranger in a strange land, no passport, no visa yet issued, barely speak the language. But one of the things I’ve known for a long time and still struggle with is the disconnect in the gay world between sex and love and intimacy. And, unfortunately, I’m having to come to terms with that.
For all of my life, once you entered a committed relationship, sex with others was off the table, unless you lived “the lifestyle”. It’s just one of the things you give up for the “stability” of a relationship. That doesn’t quite seem to be the norm for this team. “Sex is just sex”. I’m having a little trouble getting my head around this one. Paranoia is taking root just a bit. But am I the crazy one? Is it possible to go on a business trip, find some other horny guy to get your rocks off with and not risk the relationship you claim to cherish back home? I don’t know the answer and I don’t know how I come to deal with one of the accepted norms of the gayborhood. This is where I’m asking for feedback. I’ve had plenty of people tell me so far that Sex does not equal Intimacy does not equal Love. Sex is an act, love is state of being. So what say you friends?
My own travel out 
