The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story
Read The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story Online
Authors: Doug Wythe,Andrew Merling,Roslyn Merling,Sheldon Merling
The Wedding
A Family’s Coming Out Story
Douglas Wythe and Andrew Merling
Roslyn Merling and Sheldon Merling
Copyright © 2000 by Douglas Wythe, Andrew Merling, Roslyn
Merling, and Sheldon Merling
All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the
U.S. Copyright Law.
This book is for our beloved grandma, Esther Briskin, who
gives us all cause for hope.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are
indebted to the many editors, friends, and colleagues who’ve counseled,
coached, and cheered us along the way: Hamilton Cain, Charlotte Abbott, Bret
Witter, Jed Mattes, Eric Marcus, Lori Huck, Jacqueline Bolduc, Nancy Distel,
Judith Kiersky, Roma Shuker, George Barrett, Geri Wolfsheimer, Nahum Gelber,
Rebecca Posner, Mark Mazer, and Lona Lapin.
Like a
team of surgeons (except that they never operated in the same room), these
psychologists helped each of us survive a delicate procedure: Dennis
Karogeropoulos, Ph.D., April Martin, Ph.D., Lisa Kayata, Ph.D., and Elizabeth
Halsted, Ph.D. We offer our heartfelt thanks to all of them.
Finally,
our deep appreciation and admiration go to the team from ABC News who made network
TV history with their
Turning Point
program “For Better or Worse:
Same-Sex Marriage.” We owe a particular debt of gratitude to the producer,
Denise Schreiner, who gave freely of her insight, intuition, time, and much,
much more.
CONTENTS
Coming Home -
And Making a Home
Location,
Location, Location! (or: Fait Accompli)
Father, mother, son... and the man who popped
the question. The four of us, Sheldon, Roslyn, Andrew and I, waded together
into treacherous waters at the instant I surprised Andrew with a proposal of
marriage. And, though we didn’t know it at the time, we did the same thing once
again when the four of us decided to tell that story here, in print.
Once the very words ‘gay marriage’ were an
oxymoron. Now, the words - and the deed - seem to be everywhere. More and more
gays and lesbians are getting wed. The news media is pushing gay marriage into
the limelight. And as politicians debate whether or not to block recognition of
same-sex marriages, the topic has become a lightning rod in ‘culture wars’
across North America.
Our family learned first-hand how gay marriage
polarizes society. Even on the very day of the event, we still couldn’t agree
on what to call it. Was it, as Andrew and I said, “a wedding”... or the
“commitment ceremony” Sheldon and Roslyn described?
No mere semantics, the disparity in those terms
begged some enormous questions. Exactly what separated our union from that of
any other couple? Was it simply different, or somehow less important? Was it
cause for celebration, or shame? Or could it be, incredibly, a reasonable cause
for both?
Every wedding is fraught with complications.
Through them, we all learned how much our experience was both like, and unlike,
that of any other family. Like most large weddings, this one was to be a
gathering of three very different entities: family, friends, and community. For
ages, interfaith unions have split these groups along a generational and
philosophical divide. And although our ceremony brought together two Jewish
families, it raised even deeper questions about faith, tradition and the limits
of love and acceptance.
Once we decided to tell this painful, joyful
odyssey of discovery in print, our initial problems were twofold: how much
would we tell and how would we tell it? We decided there wasn’t any point in
going through all the work unless we exposed ourselves fully, revealing all our
doubts, fears, countless mistakes and misunderstandings; in short, telling the
truth.
Next problem: what, exactly was
that
? We
soon discovered that truth was relative; we each recalled even the most
unforgettable moments differently. Some discrepancies were staggering. It often
seemed we were further apart than different planets; we weren’t even in
neighboring galaxies. So the format for the book came naturally. We would tell
it all from four separate perspectives, in our individual voices.
Now that we’ve put it all on paper, I’m personally
struck by how many times, at crucial crossroads, I was right on the facts, but
wrong on the reality. I could see tiny details others seemed to miss, but was
often blind to the bigger picture. It’s an understatement to say all of us now
view ourselves - and each other - with far more clarity and understanding since
undertaking this book.
In deciding to expose ourselves, we couldn’t
help exposing - though to a lesser degree - family, friends, and acquaintances
as well. For that reason, some names have been changed. There were other
people, like Andrew’s siblings and my parents, who, though we respect their
very private natures, could not remain anonymous. They are each featured within
the text to varying degrees. Certain aspects of the book’s narrative might have
been explored more fully, but we tried to regard our families’ wishes.
So what motivated us to tell this story? First
let me say what didn’t drive us to write this book: We don’t think gay marriage
is the only - or necessarily the most significant - issue facing gays,
lesbians, and their families. And we certainly don’t advocate that every gay
and lesbian couple run out and tie the knot. Of course, now that the book is
complete, we hope it can help other families embarking on a same-sex wedding. If
there had been a book like this when we faced our greatest conflicts, it could
have helped us understand we weren’t alone in our fear and frustration, and it
might have also given all of us hope. Yet it wasn’t marriage, per se, that
moved us to begin this project. Rather, the inspiration for this book came
months after the ceremony was over, when we realized that this story is
ultimately about something much more important than a wedding. As out subtitle
implies, getting married was another - and perhaps the biggest - step in
“coming out.”
For the four of us the wedding - like the
“coming out” it demanded - was a process, not an event. (The same, it turned
out, was true of writing this book.) Every step of the way, since the
engagement was announced, each challenge was part of our process. All of the
internecine haggling and negotiations, about everything from the location for
our reception to the minutiae of the ceremony, turned out to be conduits
through which we could channel our real concerns. The subtext that had long
lurked beneath our relationships was slowly being forced to surface, with the
wedding as a catalyst, driving us to find a new level of communication. At
last, we were required to reveal the secret fears we each had sought to hide
even from ourselves. Confronting these fears, and the private guilt, anxiety,
anguish and shame that touched each of us in different manners was complex. Each
of us needed to “come out” and reveal his or her pain in personal ways. And
while we each waged an internal battle to overcome our own demons, we had to
negotiate a family struggle as well - endeavoring to gain acceptance from each
other. And, ultimately, thanks to each hurdle we passed, we came within reach
of accepting ourselves as well.
- Doug Wythe
June 1999
1
Becoming Engaged
It’s why things will change, have changed.
As much as laws, it’s love that does it.
- Anna Quindlen (1995)
January 1995
SHELDON
Roslyn
was out that Sunday morning, so when I answered the phone I was the first to
hear Andrew’s announcement: “Doug proposed. We’re engaged.”
Honestly, I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant.
So I asked, “Engaged to be what?”
“Married.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to say next. “We’ll
talk about it.”
ROSLYN
Now,
four years later, when we hear those words, “Engaged to be what?” we smile. And
we’re amazed at how differently we all remember this pivotal moment.
ANDREW
You see,
I remember telling my mother first. And every one of us recalls crucial details
differently. You’d expect our
opinions
to conflict. We were each seeing
the world through our own filter. It appears those filters have shaped not just
how we think, but what we remember.
So, given the wide spectrum of our individual
perspectives, it seemed fitting that when we decided to share our journey in
print, we chose to relate each of our experiences in our four separate voices.
DOUG
Among
the many truths that this journey has revealed to us, we now understand that
getting married is the ultimate act of coming out. That’s not to say it’s the
end of anything. With no final step, coming out is a ceaseless dance between
concealment and disclosure. Yet there is perhaps no expression both so final
and so inaugural for a gay couple and their family than pledging troth in a
public commitment.
Over the span of almost two years, every comfort
zone each of us crossed was a tiny point on an infinite graph, whose perhaps unreachable
end is unfettered freedom to love who our hearts choose, wisdom to remain
honest in the face of unenlightened judges, and strength to replace shame with
unconditional acceptance. As we inched along that graph, each of us came closer
to an absolute coming out - finding acceptance for ourselves, and each other,
with a new willingness to be truthful about our loves with everyone in our
lives.
