15/09/2022
GALINA, eighty-seven years old We had a beautiful marriage, two children, but over time my spouse began to drift away from me. He took an early retirement, traveled alone a lot, and generally spent time without me. I didn't pay much attention to that. Afterwards he left me, and a year later he invited me to dinner, during which he declared that I was frigid, which infuriated me. Later on he was in the hospital for some minor surgery and I went to see him. He wasn't completely out of anesthesia and suddenly confessed, "I have to tell you something. I'm gay." I laughed at the 1st moment, "Are we in a soap opera?" It turned out that he had a lover that he had ditched to marry me, after he was Catholic. But he never cheated on me while we were married. At first I was shocked, after I refused to believe it. It took some time before I was able to accept the reality. After that, you begin to ask yourself, "What does this mean? "Was I sexually inadequate? Didn't know how to make love right?" Then come thoughts like, "If my life has become part of someone else's forgery, then who am I?" All my ideas about myself were overturned. Clearly, for him, our marriage was a prison of sorts. One day he said to me, "I can't live like this anymore," and I replied, "Yes you certainly can!" The next day he killed himself. He couldn't take it anymore. He was a delightful man, and I grieved recklessly. I think he struggled with depression for years because he couldn't be himself all his life
