BJUnity

ed. note: On Friday, we published part one of Colin Gray’s story. Today, we present its conclusion. Colin Gray, in his own words:

Colin Gray

…after my relationship with my first-ever girlfriend was in progress, I felt like I was on the inevitable path to marriage. All of the relationships that I had seen develop and culminate in marriage seemed relatively straightforward, and so I assumed, barring any unforeseen events, that we would in fact be married eventually, too. After graduating, we continued to talk on the phone while she moved back out west with her parents, and I secretly began to save money for a ring. By this time, I had pushed the issue of my sexuality so far into the background that I barely recognized it as a factor I should consider when making a life-long commitment to someone. And at some level, I thought I could justify the relationship with the belief that I might be bisexual. I had never had a physical relationship of any sort with a girl, so I thought that everything would turn out fine. After all, I was surrounded by stories of ex-gay ministries and reformed gay people that were now straight, but I had no counter examples of actual gay people to know the falsity of these movements. I proposed to her in August 2005, only a week before we moved down to Savannah, Georgia for graduate school. I played everything by the book—living in separate apartments, attending church, not hanging out with those crazy “hippie” art students—but as our wedding date neared in the Fall of 2006, our relationship devolved into constant stress and arguing. I toyed with the idea of telling her about my brief sexual experiences when I was a kid, but justified those feelings as unimportant. Surely marriage had to be great. It would all work out—that’s what I had been told my entire life, that lust could be controlled in a committed marriage.

All of the steps leading up to the wedding were like a blur. I was managing a coffee shop and taking full time graduate coursework back in Greenville; sadly I saw the wedding as an event to be managed, rather than as a life-altering commitment. So I menu-planned, designed invitations, and picked out flowers—I put my heart and soul into the event that would mark our union. But after the wedding was done, the Japanese lanterns were taken down, and the flowers put away, I was left in a relationship feeling insufficient and unprepared. I had been so focused on planning the event that when real life happened for us as a couple, it felt like a huge letdown. And while most couples may believe that the unfulfilling part of the relationship is the emotional aspect, that was all we actually had. The physical aspect of the relationship quickly fizzled, and I tried to compensate by doing more for her in other areas. I took over the domestic chores, tried to make extra money so we could do special things more often. After less than a year of marriage, we closed on a house and moved even closer to BJU than where our first apartment was. I once again imagined working for the university as a faculty member, understanding the potential for becoming the first terminally-degreed professor in the art department. But then the first bomb dropped on my utopian plan—I had filed paperwork to teach a course at BJU as part of an internship requirement for my MFA at Savannah College of Art & Design. But the committee that approved those requests apparently performed an Internet background check, for whatever reason, and they found photos on my blog of my wife and me toasting our engagement with glasses of champagne. They rejected my request for an internship on the basis of my sullied “testimony,” and I recoiled, trying to cover up the situation to save face. But the damage was done, and I knew at that point I could never return on any level. That was the first time I had ever been in “trouble” with the university—the people I had grown up respecting—and the feeling of rejection was palpable.

I moved to a better job within my field doing strategic design. But even while I had achieved everything that should have made me “normal,” I was not happy on a very fundamental level. I was beginning to question the substance and validity of the religion I grew up with. I started to work at a consultancy where my boss was in a long-term gay relationship. After the initial shock of this discovery (in Greenville of all places), I found myself envying him for being in the type of relationship that I wished I were in. I finally knew that being gay could mean something significantly more than trolling the Internet for porn—there were people in long-term, happy relationships out there, and I was trying to settle for occasional lust while interring myself in an unhappy marriage. Both my wife and I were emotionally close, but as our physical relationship continued to falter, we both grew angry at each other and at the system that we had put our trust and hopes in. Even as our relationship grew more distant and unhappy, our expectations and frustrations remained unspoken. Admitting fault would be akin to admitting that I couldn’t control my life and could no longer conform to the ideal I had set for myself. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I wasn’t attracted to her physically, because I thought it would kill her to hear that, but in the absence of my revelation, she silently suffered, assuming that I had fallen out of love with her or that she was unattractive. Neither scenario was true, but wrestling with the possibility of my being gay was even more painful, and neither of our backgrounds permitted that possibility to exist.

I was comfortable in my job and felt like the “adult” I assumed I would end up to be. I had all of the things that should have made me happy, but instead, I was restless, ready for the next challenge. I did freelance design work and taught online courses to distract myself from my failing relationship. I had completed a second masters program while working full time. I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher, but it was about finding the right field in which to finish a terminal degree. After my successful masters program, I chose to apply for doctoral work in instructional technology. I had been thinking about transitioning from design work to full time graduate education for over a year, but the big moment of change came when I was officially accepted for doctoral study at Indiana University in the spring of 2010. Deep down I knew—as we sold our house, left our church, and said goodbye to family and friends—that things would never be the same again. I left the Greenville of my childhood and innocence behind, with full knowledge that I, at some point in the future, would never be the same person that I had presented myself as. My internal conversation shifted from if I should tell my wife I’m gay, to when I should tell. There were times before the move when, after work, I would drive for hours through the streets and places that I had called home for almost all of my life, imagining how much things would change if everyone knew my true identity.

As we moved to Bloomington, Indiana, nightmares grew more frequent and intense, and sleep often eluded me altogether. I was surprisingly happy away from Greenville. We joined a “good” church like I knew that I should. I immersed myself in new relationships surrounding that church, and tried to do all of the things I thought I should do to conform. I struggled to make friends within the academic environment, so I turned to people at church that I felt should understand me. During my first two weeks of graduate coursework, I once again met a successful gay couple who had been together for close to twenty years—and who had both been previously married to boot! It was as if fate kept reminding me that love was still possible in any circumstance.

So in November of 2010, in the midst of my first semester of coursework and preparations for Thanksgiving, I chose to come out to my wife of four years. I had embarked on the journey that had become increasingly inevitable; I had to tell her the truth and be honest with myself for the first time. That was the hardest thing I have ever done because even though both of us were unhappy in our then-current relationship, we did love and care about each other. I felt that I might never find love or companionship like that again, but I knew she deserved better—soul, mind, and body. I told her that she deserved someone who could love her completely, and that I needed to be honest with myself for the first time. After a couple of days of shock, we started conversing by text message while I was away from her, visiting my family. And we slowly worked through what our relationship meant and could or should be. I called my small group leader at my church and told him I wouldn’t be returning because I was gay. My family was all around me, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them and bear the backlash that I felt would be inevitable.

The next few months were a whirlwind of activity and a time of self-reflection for both of us. Those months were the sweetest I have ever experienced in my relationship with her emotionally—true honesty and raw feelings. We started to really understand each other for the first time. I went through countless meetings with church officials, coming out to family, enduring long conversations with family and so-called friends from my new church about why I couldn’t just “make it work” with her.

Colin and Austin

And then in the middle of my emotional turmoil, I started talking with a wonderful man online. We had been in a class together during the fall semester, but I was so withdrawn, working through my coursework and relationship issues, that we had never talked in person. I assumed that I was past being considered “lovable”—I was depressed, married, and still only out to a handful of people. But as we talked, our shared interests turned to infatuation and then to love. I finally understood, for the first time, that the concepts of love and attraction are real, and not just some cognitive fantasy. I loved someone completely for the first time, and he loved me! Austin has been there for me throughout the pain of my marriage ending in divorce, the terror of coming out to family and friends, and in so many of the good times since then, so much so, that we just celebrated our first anniversary in January, and look forward to what the future might bring for us.

During this difficult time of transition, I started to see the value of a community that could look beyond individual compliance and conformity to truly see the person underneath; a community that recognizes that all of us deserve love and acceptance, and understands that being “different” may actually be the most beautiful thing of all.