Bad Gay: Episode 13

I didn’t think much about marriage when I was a kid — it was just a fact of life. Almost all the parents I knew then were married. Only two of my friends had divorced parents. Their moms were always going on dates, which I found wildly exotic but the married moms regarded with pity. I’d overhear them clucking about it as they guzzled wine spritzers and needle-pointed.

These were the same women who spent considerable energy launching a daily fusillade of insults at their husbands and seemed mildly depressed. It was the 1970s, when none of the moms worked or had much else to do but ruminate on why their husbands had all the fun.

My childhood played out like a Cheever novel — all perfect, posh suburban comfort scented with freshly mowed lawns, chlorine and gin. The dads disappeared in the mornings and left us with our authoritarian mothers, who ruled through forced naps and threats to reduce TV time.

As a kid, it seemed like my parents had things under control. But they did fight. A lot. When I was an adult, I asked my mom if she remembered what they fought about. “Easy,” my mom said, “kids and money.”

They were worthy adversaries, and their fights could be terrifying. Equally terrifying was the fear that the fury would end their marriage, my mom would have to start dating and everyone would feel sorry for her. But that didn’t happen. They stayed married for 50 years and their marriage improved considerably once their kids were out of the house.

At the time, I thought my parents were the only married couple who fought. But then, when I was a teen in the early 1980s, the divorces started. It was like a marital version of the

Berlin Wall — a heavily guarded fortress that kept people prisoner for decades until, suddenly, the oppressed stormed it en masse and tore it down.

The moms — most of whom had degrees from fancy colleges and no work experience — took jobs in florist shops or became interior decorators. The dads continued working at their mysterious jobs and picked up their kids every other weekend. Many of them married again within a year, which made no sense to me. If marriage was so hellish, why would you choose to march back into it?

Like many women of my generation, I blindly assumed I’d get married one day. Your choices were well-defined: get married and have kids or live a sad, lonely life. My mother used to use my dad’s best friend George as a cautionary tale of what life would become if we didn’t get married.

 “Do you want to end up like George?” she’d say. “Lead a completely selfish, unfulfilling life?” It wasn’t a compelling argument because George’s life seemed a lot of fun.

George was a handsome scamp. He was forever bringing women who looked like showgirls to our house for dinner. He had loads of disposable income and a bachelor pad in a luxury high-rise overlooking the lake. And, sure, he was obsessed with ridiculous things, but it was because he had no one else to consider in his life. But even his obsessions were fun — cars, gambling, women.

Still, I never considered not marrying until I realized I was gay in the 1990s. Back then, the thought that gay marriage would ever be sanctified was laughable. Suddenly, not being married was the only option. And it came as a surprise that it was such a relief. I was off the hook! I could live like George! I could date showgirls! It was society’s choice that I live a “selfish” (read: fun) life, not mine.

But then, surprise! Gay marriage became legal in 2015, and everyone started marrying, including me. I still didn’t understand what marriage was, but I knew I was in love. And, according to all the movies and musicals I’d seen, that seemed to be enough.

Ten years later, I’m still in love and still married. But we fight. A lot. Mainly about kids and money. Some days I’d like to trade it all in for a couple of showgirls. But most days I’m content to bicker over what to have for dinner and cluck over the sad, lonely (read: fun) lives of our single friends.