Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
I married my college sweetheart
I met her in 2006 when we were first-year students of the same course in university somewhere in Selangor. I’d only ever dated girls at the time; it never occurred to me that there were any other options. We hit it off immediately and started dating.
We were very close to one another throughout the time we were dating. Of all the girls I dated in high school and college, I felt the most comfortable with her and our relationship was the best fitting one.
I brought my secret into the marriage with me
I always knew I had some sort of attraction towards men.
I think I was around 13 when I realized that because I kept staring at the boys in my class during PJPK, but I’ve always reminded myself to stop doing that because it always felt wrong.
By the time I got married, I had already known I was attracted to men, but I also couldn’t quite figure out what that meant. I have dated girls and performed perfectly well sexually with women but I had never been with a man – even touching or being touched by one was foreign to me.
Being a 24-year-old Christian man at the time, you could understand why it wasn’t easy to just come out as a queer. I had just graduated university about a year and a half ago, I was getting married to my long-time girlfriend and I had a stable career. At the time it felt like it would be stupid to jeopardize all of that for my sexuality.
So I decided to keep that away from everyone.
My plan was pretty simple: get married, live a normal life with a successful career and have a respectable reputation. It was as simple as that.
There was a lot of societally imposed internal homophobia, especially in Malaysia. Relationships with men are always deemed unacceptable or something to make a mockery of. The word ‘gay’ always carried a negative connotation.
So if I had to weigh those things on one side of the scale against respectability, social acceptance and a lovely wife… It felt like it was no choice at all.
I was faithful to my wife until I wasn’t
After being married for about 6 years, I thought I had the perfect family with a child and the perfect marriage. Of course, I still looked at men, but I always compartmentalized and then put it away. I wasn’t going to let it affect our family.
I occasionally had to travel away for work, and when I did, I would hang out at bars by myself. During one of those trips, this guy walked into the bar and started a conversation with me. He told me that he was married with two children. Which was a shame because he was really cute.
After a while we started to realize that we weren’t just simply talking. A couple of friendly lines of banter turned to flirtatious ones and the next thing I knew, he was also gay. One drink after another and suddenly, an invitation to go back to my hotel room was on the table. The night ended with me having sex with a man for the first time.
Afterwards I struggled with what to do next. I had just cheated on my wife, and the circumstances of this infidelity were much more different than most. I couldn’t look her in the eye. I felt like I should tell her. But eventually, I arrived at the decision to continue living a double life: being at home with my lovely wife, and seeing other men whenever I made trips away from home.
It was almost irresistible.
I started making more arrangements to travel for work so I could be with other men
At this point, I took any opportunity my company had to send me on a business trip. I would travel twice, sometimes even 3 times a month. I wanted to have an ‘encounter’ with another man again. During one of those trips, I met this young man at a bar who was also interested in men, and we spent some time together during my stay there.
After that trip ended, I went back home and couldn’t stop thinking about him. I remember the way he laughed at my stories, and the way he looked at me. It was more than just a physical thing –
Then it hit me. I was in love with another man.
It was difficult for me to believe it. I had never felt that way before. I didn’t think it was possible for me to love anyone other than the woman I was married to for almost 6 years at the time.
But there I was. I fell for a young man I barely knew, thinking about him while my wife and daughter were on the couch next to me. I went straight to my office so I could break down alone. It felt like everything went horribly wrong.
Eventually I stopped thinking about him. It would have never amounted to anything anyway as we didn’t have any affiliations to one another. But this experience led me to an important revelation: I realised I should live an honest life, with integrity and pride.
Only then would I be able to be happy with myself.
It wasn’t until about a month later, after I’d collected myself and came to terms with what I am, that I told my wife that I was sorry and I am gay.
I had to leave my family because we both agreed it didn’t feel right for either of us. My daughter was only 4 years old at the time. I can’t imagine what it was like for her when I said goodbye.
The next week, I moved out.
I no longer talk to my ex-wife
When I left in 2016, I maintained a relationship with both my ex-wife and our growing daughter. There were a lot of tears and heartbreaks for all of us, but despite all of that, my ex-wife understood the position I was in. This allowed us to function pretty much as a family, distant, but still a family.
I never missed a birthday, any milestones, or celebrations. My daughter is the most important person in the entire world to me, and I’m lucky to have the best mother in the world to nurture her.
This was all possible because of the kind spirited person my ex-wife is. I can’t imagine it to be anything less than very difficult for her, we had a wonderful relationship, but I think she knew it was the right thing to do. I was very thankful to still be able to have a relationship with my daughter.
She wrote me a letter in 2017 thanking me for always being able to count on me as a father. But then after a year, she more or less stopped talking to me and put a wall between my relationship with my daughter. Don’t get me wrong, she had put in a lot of effort, but I think one day it just took a toll on her. I believe I really hurt her.
So now we don’t have a relationship anymore. It broke my heart because I spent about 10 years with her. She is the mother of our daughter and I love both of them very much. I wish she was still in my life, but I can respect that she doesn’t want that anymore.
It took me a long time to figure out whether or not I regret getting married in the first place
It’s a difficult thing to think about because if it wasn’t for the marriage we wouldn’t have our daughter. On top of that I genuinely had amazing years with my wife too. But with that being said, the marriage came with the expense of heartbreak.
I don’t know if I wish I had been out sooner either. It’s optimistic to believe that my sexuality would still grant me the security of my career at a young age or the possibility of having the same people in my life.
I believe things worked out in the end the way they would. I have had more blessings to dwell on than any regrets.
All in all, I constantly try to do the right thing for the people in my life, whether it’s my ex-wife by respecting her space, or my baby girl.
For more stories like this, read: My Family Asked Me “Are You Gay?” While We Were At A Strip Club In Thailand and I Told My Parents I’m Gay, and Here’s How They Reacted
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