"Lovey" Finally Levels

Well, “Lovey” finally had the courage to tell her friend, the minister who married us, the sad news of our imminent divorce!

Allow me to drag you down my memory lane for a moment.

As posted earlier, “Lovey” and I entered wedded bliss on December 12, 1981. Harold, the minister, had been her friend forever. He came from his little Pentecostal church driving some 2.5 hours to our bigger church and performed the ceremony at “Lovey’s” insistence. Because he knew her so well, he performed the ceremony and waived his rule of premarital counseling he always provides to couples.

So, on December 12, 1981 at 2pm, I heard Harold’s booming deep voice inform the congregation, “And there was a marriage at Cana of Galilee…” That recording of the ceremony is priceless. His voice booms. My voice is strong and full of youth. “Lovey’s” is breathy and with a southern twang. (She’d returned not long before from the hills of Appalachia….a story for another day.) It’s amusing to hear her twang as she says “I, Lovey, take THEE, Frank, as my lawfully wedded HUZband.” For meanness I would load an audio clip for you pleasure, but won’t.

I’ve enjoyed talking to Harold through the years. Although he’s wound a bit tight and is VERY fundamentalist in his beliefs, he is a good man and I believe means well. However, he is one of those straight men that I have intentionally kept at an arm’s length. He’s even remarked to "Lovey" that I am not easy to get to know….and that I’m rather distant.

Well, after I came out to “Lovey”, I found out that Harold was one of the first people she outted me to. He responded that he already knew this. (I love it when straight folks make this pronouncement.) This was probably one of the reasons I distanced myself from him.

Harold also had a gay brother that was an interior decorator I became friends with. But, the gay brother joined one of those “ex-gay” ministries and was delivered and he was able to change. I never was able to confirm this directly with the brother because he died about six months ago.

I digress.

After “Lovey” decided to divorce me, she said that she did not want Harold to know that we were divorcing because knowing Harold as she did, she was afraid he would drive up here and try to fix us. Looking at it from hindsight, it’s kind of odd that she was afraid of this.

I agreed to not tell him. So the many times he has called and talked to us, we have played happily married couple! We did this even when he told us about his eldest son getting a divorce from his wife. (Harold performed that ceremony too. However, I guarantee he did all the premarital counseling on that one!)

It seemed so hypocritical to me to play happy, when in fact were such miserable wretches.

But, I cannot be accused of not being a team player. I went along.

So, today the little game we played is over.

Harold cried.

I assume that “Lovey” told him that it was because of my gayness. He probably will call and talk to me about it. He’ll probably think I have lost my Christianity or better yet, “turned my back on God” or something awful like that.

We’ll see.