The Husband

R. is my husband. He is a very talented artist & designer. He also can be difficult & unyielding, but I have caused him some grief in our 30 years as a team.

We almost divorced in late 2007/early 2008. My choice, I realized, was not whether there was enough room in my life for this man, but whether I wanted to be patient enough & persistant enough to make our relationship work as a team.

We are doing much, much better now & we seem to be finding each other again. I have decided that too many couples are too quick to divorce. Being in a relationship is not a choice you make once & then forget, & maybe because as gay men who often don't have access to traditional rituals that symbolically "seal the deal", "fluidity" is much more of an option for us. It can be unnerving, but it also gives us more of a challange to rise to our better selves. It is a choice I make every day. If I am not choosing it every day, then I'm not really in it. Every day, I choose this house, these dogs, & this man.

We met in 1977. We were both working in the world of theatre. He was a set designer & occasional actor. He had been working in Belgium & had just moved back to the USA with his wife & young daughter.

We new each other for about two years before we became involved. We did a lot of theatre together during that time. On October 9 1979, we told each other that we were in love with each other. We celebrate that date as our anniversary. I felt unbelievable guilt for breaking up his marriage. I still do sometimes. Rolfe remains good friends with his ex-wife & we helped raise his daughter.

We were married on our 25th anniversary in Vancouver BC. Our very good friends Eiric & Ken were our best men. We had a party in Seattle , where we had lived for 20 years, that evening with about 60 friends & family.

He thinks that I am a rigid control freak. I think that he is often "remote".

I also think he is very handsome, an amazing talent, a champion of the underdog & he is admired by many people.

I still love him very much.