Free Underdog by Sue-Ann Levy

I was always afraid to come out for fear I’d be a bad example for my niece and two nephews, he told me not to think that for a minute. A few years later, my nephew Cooper, then ten, marched in my wedding, and to this day, all three of my brother’s kids treat Denise and me like we’re any other couple. Although I know young people still get bullied in school for being gay and I am not so naive as to think we as a couple don’t have to be careful when we travel to certain countries and American states, it is thrilling to see how much more accepting kids of my niece and nephews’ generation are. I often get asked now if I regret going through the pain and hardship I did, seeing as acceptance of gay marriage has changed so dramatically in the past five years – and especially south of the border within the last year. I try not to make a habit of dwelling on what could have been; nevertheless, I find myself trying to be as outspoken as possible about my marriage to Denise and about being gay, perhaps to make up for lost time.
    I decided to tell my parents before the year was out and at a public restaurant, just in case things got out of hand (more on my part). It seems ages ago, but at the time I was a basket case. I don’t remember how I managed to eat any of my dinner that night with all the tears. But I do remember telling them I’d always felt I let them down and my dad responding that my comment was nonsense, that he was proud of meand that I reminded him of Ellen DeGeneres. Okay, I thought, not so bad. My mother needed time to let it sink in, although she did admit she’d always suspected. The next week, when I told Dr. Abrams about what had happened, we both started to cry. I felt free at last, except for one very major issue. Sadly, throughout, my ex continued to vociferously resist my coming-out efforts – even though we had told her family that what they long suspected was true and they now embraced our relationship. She was extremely upset with me when I suggested to our Muskoka vet that we were a couple, although I would bet the vet knew all along, seeing as we made no secret that Shopsy had two mommies. I believe to this day that the combination of her having been married before, being eleven years older, and trying to practise real estate in a small town made her afraid to admit what we really had together. Whether the fear was realistic or not, it was real to her. The tension between one partner living in the closet and the other coming out to the world proved to be our undoing – although I wouldn’t admit it at the time. In May 2005, when my assailant from Structube pleaded guilty in court to sexual assault, my ex was so fearful of being publicly exposed as my partner – even though at that point her family and my friends already knew we were a couple – that she opted not to come to court with me. After convincing me to pursue the case to the bitter end, she convinced herself that accompanying me would damage my case, though that made absolutely no sense. I suppose I had so much to deal with at the time, I pretended it didn’t matter. But looking back, it hurt me terribly and was probably the beginning of the end for us.
    In the spring of 2006, some six months before we split, I learned of a support group for lesbians endeavouring to comeout, generously operated in their home by a lesbian couple, Carol Pasternak and Audrey Kouyoumdjian. The couple had both been married to men and had had children before meeting each other in 2002. I begged my ex to come with me to the group, but she adamantly refused. I will never forget Audrey’s words when I first talked about how my ex and I had lived in the closet for so long, and raised the issue of her resistance to coming out. Audrey said, in her experience, such relationships usually don’t last. In absolute denial, I responded adamantly that our relationship was different. But by that spring, we were fighting more than getting along and I started