Negative Space

I know a bit about art. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of negative space. Occasionally I draw. One of my favorite exercises is drawing the negative space. Creating an impression of what is there by focusing on and drawing what isn’t there.

My wife and I met jointly with a counselor for a couple of months after I had announced my so-far-unfulfilled intention to move out. Even with the horrible rift between us, in these sessions we always sat close together on the couch holding hands as though clinging to each other for dear life. We were facing a common enemy; the genie I had invited out of the bottle.

Let me be blunt. Initially I arranged for this joint counseling because I thought it would "help" my wife deal with my official coming out and subsequent departure from her life. My coming out counselor (a different person from our joint counselor) had told me that it was critical to orchestrate my coming out to cause the least possible emotional and financial damage to my wife and children. This was good advice that I focused on too much in order to assuage my guilt about what I was planning. (Surprise, surprise, as the drama played out my wife was not entirely appreciative of the way I was showing my compassion and love.) As the joint counseling sessions - and my aborted “coming out moving out” – progressed, out of fear I would not admit to my wife the original purpose in arranging our counseling.

I set off numerous hand grenades during these joint sessions. Among my revelations: for the first time in my life having sex with someone (someones!) other than my wife, not always practicing the safest of sex in those encounters, often begging off sex with my wife in order to avoid exposing her to some of the critters I might have caught in the encounters (how noble), and the fact that another man and I were deeply in love with each other.

I made these into confession-sessions out of fear. I wanted protection; a referee. No surprise that I was often terrified for the session to be over. Another week alone facing my wife's anger, pain, sadness and grief as she tried to process each revelation of betrayal and what it meant for her.

In one of these sessions the counselor asked me to describe my ideal life. This was a fair question for which I had no answer. I couldn't even fake an answer. What did I want my life to be? I was completely baffled. I only knew what I didn't want my life to be. I didn’t want more lies, more stifled feelings, more hiding, more nights in front of the computer drinking and cruising for Mr. Right, more secret liaisons. If the hole in me got any bigger I could not survive, but I had no idea how or with what it could be filled.

For 30+ years I had concentrated on the negative space. That’s all I could see. That’s all I could feel.