A sham

I have, as documented here, often been reduced to almost inarticulate frustration and annoyance by some of the attitudes and opinions of certain of my work colleagues, but I think something that was said this morning has surpassed all that has gone before on that front, leaving me almost in tears, tears pretty much equally engendered by the need to suppress the urge to choke the living shit out of the person who said it, and by the knowledge that I would be tarred with exactly the same brush if the reasons behind my divorce came to light. There have been aspersions cast in the direction of one of the staff at my workplace, who I very rarely work with myself, because of the way the roster is constructed, to the effect that, in spite of the fact that he's married, for a second time, and has children and grandchildren from his first marriage, that he's actually gay. Having a marriage and children is, of course, no guarantee that a person isn't gay, as I know from direct personal experience, but when someone casually, and pretty brutally, on more or less zero direct evidence, says that the man's marriage is 'a sham', I'm afraid I find that completely unforgivable. I have no idea whatsoever whether my colleague is gay or not, and, in terms of the frustration I felt, it doesn't actually matter. For someone who barely knows the man, beyond a working relationship, to arrogate to himself the 'right' to such an opinion is just disgraceful. The second half of my upset at what was said came about because of the expectation that the same person would judge my marriage 'a sham' as well, something which I would absolutely deny. I loved my ex, genuinely, and did what I did, as I've said before, for genuine reasons. I decided that I wanted to spend my life with her, and honestly thought that, when all was taken into account, that I was doing the right thing at the time. I can admit now, with the benefit of that most useless commodity, hindsight, that I made the wrong decision, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't committed to the marriage, or that it was undertaken for any reason other than love. For someone to imply, albeit through a comment not aimed at me, that my marriage was a sham, simply because I'm gay, is something that I find deeply upsetting and offensive. When some so-called 'normal' marriages can be measured in hours rather than years, the fact that I loved and cared for, and was faithful to, one person for twenty years gives the lie to that implication, as far as I'm concerned. This isn't the most fluent post I've ever written, I know, so maybe some of the inarticulacy I felt this morning is still there. It is from the heart, though.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B