Hi Andrew
Your email has brought back to me the heart wrenching time I had grappling with the same questions you are. I went back to that trip I made driving from Brisbane to Toowomba, weeping as I drove while the questions and implications rolled over me like thunderous surf. What will people think? How will my wife cope? Will my kids turn against me or God? Will I go to hell? Will we all be able to survive what could be the most traumatic experience in our lives?…….and ……I will be the one who will cause all their suffering and pain!
You know my whole story so you’ll be aware that it has not always been easy but I can’t think of a moment when I actually regretted the decision to be honest with myself, every person in my life and begin for the first time in my life to be authentic. The peace, fulfillment and resolution I have today was way beyond my comprehension back in 1991.
You know from our conversations that I would never advise but you may find what I say here a bit more directive because I know there will be lots of others reading this who are also in a similar situation.
The consequences of you being true to yourself will be wide ranging. How others respond will be their choice and decision. That is what life is about. In life, we either become bitter or better. Our responses to what life brings our way determines what we become. I used to preach that and still believe it.
I’m glad I took the courageous step (although I must admit it didn’t feel very courageous at the time). There is only so much time you can live with that internal dissonance without it affecting you and those around you in some way. Mentally, emotionally and even physically. The impact will always be negative in the long run.
I think when I decided to leave my wife and family I was actually setting us all free. Free to live openly on honestly. What is the alternative? I knew that in staying I would only be propping up the false reality we’d lived in. Anthony Venn-Brown the heterosexual husband/father/preacher with it all together.
When I left, I set my wife free from false hope and denial. (it seems she has been able to move on and find a man who will love her completely and she no longer lives with the stress of suspicion)
When I left I set my children free from so they could learn to love the real person who was their Dad and not a false identity. (today there are no secrets between us and they love their gay dad)
When I left I set my friends free to love me unconditionally and without judgement (very few passed that test but the ones I have today all give me that)
That is not to say that it was all wonderful immediately or there wasn’t any pain. But with time we worked through most it I think. I know I have. If there are any issues left to resolve, they are other people’s issues. I’ve been open and honest…..at last. What people do with that is their choice? They can go on blaming for the rest of their lives if they choose……but they will never serve them.
As for your faith. I thought I walked out on that when I walked out on the family. Surprise surprise….it popped up again 6 years later, richer and fuller….and more importantly very very real. I’m glad my false concepts of the great Creator died. I realize now how stupid it was to believe some of the things that I used to believe.
As I’ve said many times in interviews. Look at the big picture. Had we been born 50 years earlier we wouldn’t even be coming out. If we were of this younger generation now we most likely would never get married as we would have realized our sexual orientation is natural and normal and wouldn’t have got married to help fix it.
So don’t blame yourself. You and I and 1000’s of others are the products of a society that was uninformed and evolving. If you need to blame anyone, blame an unenlightened society that use to take aboriginal children from their parents believing it was in their best interests. An unenlightened society that didn’t allow black people the right to vote or even counted them on the national census because they were considered not quite as human as white people. A society that imprisoned blacks and whites if they married (only 50 years ago). A society that’s educational system tied students left hands to their chairs so they would have to learn to write with their right hands. A society that said women were the weaker sex and their only role was to look after the home and bear children and couldn’t be trusted with the awesome responsibility of deciding what political party should be in government. A society that imprisoned two men if they loved each other in the privacy of their own bedrooms (till 1984 in NSW)…….etc…….etc……etc.
All these things horrify us today.
So I guess there is even a bigger thing at stake here. We can either reinforce the old uninformed paradigm or be a catalyst to create a better world for our children. A world where people are not judged because of their race, gender, colour or their sexual orientation. If any of your children were gay or lesbian would you want them to have a heterosexual marriage which is false and possibly doomed to failure or would you want them to marry the person of the same sex they fall in love with and want to spend the rest of their life with.
When you make this decision in situations like ours its rarely very empowering like a young gay or lesbian teenager might experience. It’s more like jumping off a cliff into the darkness. Some are dashed on the rocks below………but many of us find wonderful things inside us we never knew existed and learn that we can fly.
If you show love, respect, honesty and integrity to your wife, children and yourself you will fly. What they do in return determines if they will as well.
|
