When Letting Go Is Only One-Sided

When I finally admitted to myself—and eventually to everyone else—that I am a gay man, I knew my life was going to change.

What I didn't fully understand was just how long the aftermath would last.

I was married for 22 years. Twenty-two years is not something you simply walk away from and leave behind like an old pair of shoes. There is history. There are memories. There are children. There are holidays, birthdays, family traditions, photographs, inside jokes, arguments, forgiveness, and an entire life that you built together.

When I came out, I wasn't trying to destroy a family. I was finally trying to stop destroying myself.

That distinction has been incredibly important to me.

I have spent a lot of time trying to move forward, rebuild my life, understand who I really am, and become comfortable with the person I spent so many years hiding. I have made mistakes along the way. I'm certainly not claiming I handled every moment perfectly. But I have tried very hard to be honest, take responsibility for my part, and move forward with compassion.

Unfortunately, moving forward has not been a mutual decision.

Even after all this time, I continue to deal with accusations, stories, and versions of events about me that I simply do not recognize as true. Things are said about me that are hurtful, damaging, and, in my experience, completely disconnected from reality.

At first, I tried to defend myself.

I explained.

I corrected.

I showed receipts.

I tried to have conversations.

I tried to reason with people.

Eventually, I realized something: when someone has already decided what story they want to tell, sometimes the truth isn't actually what they are looking for.

And that has been one of the hardest lessons of my life.

I have blocked my former wife and others because I reached a point where I needed boundaries. I needed peace. I needed the ability to live my life without constantly wondering what accusation, message, or new version of my story would appear next.

And yet the attempts to contact me have continued.

I've encountered what appear to be fake or anonymous social-media accounts, messages from numbers I don't recognize, and other attempts to get around the boundaries I have put in place. I don't know who is behind every account or every message, and I'm not going to pretend that I do. But I know what it feels like to repeatedly have your boundaries tested after you have made it clear that you want no contact.

That is exhausting.

There is another layer to all of this that makes it even more difficult. My former wife's current husband has his own serious and documented history with the law, and I believe his involvement has contributed to the hostility surrounding me. I don't say that lightly, and I don't say it because I want revenge. I say it because it is part of the reality I have been trying to navigate.

But here's what I have learned:

I don't have to participate in someone else's version of my life.

I don't have to answer every accusation.

I don't have to chase down every rumor.

I don't have to convince every person who hears something about me that it isn't true.

And I don't have to keep reopening wounds just because someone else refuses to let them heal.

The Family I Have Now

There is something else I don't want to lose sight of when I tell this story.

I am happy.

Truly, genuinely, deeply happy.

I have been married to my husband, Mat, for many years now. We have been together for 12 years, and when I look back at everything he has walked through with me, I sometimes don't know how to adequately express my gratitude.

Mat didn't just get the happy ending.

He got the complicated middle.

He got the phone calls, the drama, the accusations, the family complications, the emotional baggage, and the difficult aftermath of a 22-year marriage ending. He has had to watch someone he loves be accused of things he knows aren't true, and he has had to deal with circumstances that he never created and certainly never asked for.

And through all of it, he has shown me an incredible amount of grace.

He has never tried to erase my past.

He has never expected me to pretend that my first family didn't exist.

And perhaps most importantly, he has loved my children.

He has treated them as his own.

That means more to me than I can put into words.

Mat didn't have to do that.

He could have looked at the complicated circumstances and decided that it was too much. Instead, he showed up. He loved them. He supported them. He celebrated them. He became part of their lives without trying to replace anyone or rewrite their history.

That is what family looks like to me.

Family isn't always defined by biology, religion, or a last name.

Sometimes family is the person who chooses you and keeps choosing you.

For 12 years, Mat has chosen me.

And I will never take that for granted.

The Pain I Can't Pretend Doesn't Exist

One of the most painful parts of this entire experience has been watching the relationships between my former wife and our three children deteriorate.

I won't pretend to know everything that happens inside their relationships, because those relationships belong to them. But I have watched from close enough to see the pain that has resulted.

One moment in particular has stayed with me.

My former wife chose not to attend her only daughter's wedding.

There are some moments in life that you simply cannot get back.

Your daughter's wedding is one of them.

And now she isn't involved in the life of her grandson either.

That is heartbreaking—not just for my daughter, but for a little boy who should have the opportunity to know and be loved by his grandmother.

I don't say those things to shame her.

I don't say them because I want people to take my side.

I say them because they are part of my reality, and because pretending that these things haven't happened would be another way of hiding.

For years, I tried to understand how a mother could become so disconnected from her own children.

I tried to find explanations.

I tried to find ways to fix it.

I tried to encourage forgiveness and reconciliation.

Eventually, I had to accept that I cannot repair relationships that I don't control.

My children are adults. They get to make their own decisions about who they allow into their lives.

And I have to respect those decisions, even when they break my heart.

Faith, Shame and Finding Myself

Religion has also been complicated.

For years, the Mormon Church was an enormous part of our family and our identity. My faith, my sexuality, my marriage, and my understanding of myself became tangled together in ways that are difficult to explain to someone who hasn't lived it.

I have seen religion used in ways that, from my perspective, became less about love and more about control, shame, guilt, and punishment.

That doesn't mean I hate the Church.

It doesn't mean I hate everyone who believes differently than I do.

It means I finally had to recognize that faith should never require me to hate myself.

Coming out didn't make me a bad person.

Being gay didn't make me a bad husband.

And choosing to live honestly after 22 years of marriage didn't erase the years of love, family, or experiences that came before it.

I am still learning how to separate guilt from responsibility.

I am responsible for the things I actually did.

I am responsible for the ways I may have hurt people.

I am responsible for being honest about my life.

But I am not responsible for every story someone chooses to tell about me.

That has been a difficult lesson for me because I spent so many years trying to keep everyone happy. I was the person who wanted to fix things. I wanted everyone to get along. I wanted my family to be okay.

Now I'm learning that sometimes you cannot fix a relationship by yourself.

Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is walk away.

Sometimes love means establishing a boundary.

Sometimes peace means refusing to respond.

And sometimes healing means accepting that you may never receive the apology, closure, or understanding you hoped you would get.

I Am Finally Living

I wish things had turned out differently.

I wish my children didn't have to experience the pain they have experienced.

I wish my former wife and I could have reached a place where we could simply acknowledge the 22 years we shared and move forward separately with dignity.

I wish there weren't accusations.

I wish there weren't fake accounts.

I wish there weren't messages from strangers and unknown numbers.

I wish there weren't people trying to pull me back into a chapter of my life that I have worked incredibly hard to close.

But wishing doesn't change reality.

What I can change is how I respond.

I can choose not to retaliate.

I can choose not to answer every accusation.

I can choose to protect my peace.

I can choose to be present for my children.

I can choose to love my husband and appreciate the incredible life we have built together.

And I can choose to be grateful.

Grateful that I finally had the courage to become the person I was meant to be.

Grateful for Mat, who has stood beside me for 12 years and somehow continued to show grace even when the circumstances didn't deserve it.

Grateful that my children have allowed me to remain part of their lives despite everything.

Grateful for the family we have created.

And grateful that I no longer have to live my life based on someone else's definition of who I am supposed to be.

For a long time, I thought moving on meant that the other person had to move on too.

I don't believe that anymore.

Maybe moving on simply means that I stop allowing someone else's inability to let go to determine how I live my life.

I spent 22 years trying to be the person everyone else needed me to be.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing that.

I finally know who I am.

I have a husband who loves me.

I have children who I love more than anything.

I have a grandson who deserves to grow up surrounded by love.

I have a life that, despite everything, is beautiful.

And I'm not going back.

Not because I'm angry.

Not because I want revenge.

But because I finally understand that choosing peace isn't giving up.

It's choosing myself.