The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story by Doug Wythe, Andrew Merling, Roslyn Merling, Sheldon Merling Page A

me. He was the kind of
father who would sing me to sleep. It was a fairly idyllic childhood, until I
felt certain expectations were made of me - prospects I simply couldn’t
fulfill. For one, I wasn’t interested in sports. Although my father would deny
that was ever an issue for him, I couldn’t help but be aware of how important
sports were in his life. His office is filled with pictures of his many
basketball teams. He was even captain of McGill’s varsity squad, and later a
member of the YMHA Canadian championship team. And as long as I could remember,
tennis and golf seemed to occupy his every free afternoon.
    Maybe it was only my projection, perhaps I
wanted to believe he was disappointed in me because I wasn’t the jock he had
been. Or conceivably he was frustrated, and still isn’t in touch with it.
Regardless, by the time I was twelve, he was very angry with me. Basically, I
felt he didn’t like me. I wasn’t doing well in school, both in terms of
academics and behavior problems. I knew too well his hard earned, unblemished
reputation. Family history recorded that he was Mr. Perfect as far back as
elementary school, always the proper child, student, teammate, notary, husband,
and father. What must it have been like for him to get calls from my teachers,
saying, among other things, that I had a big mouth? I was embarrassed, and it
was clear; I’d let him down.
    My mother also seemed to want to change me. She
was anxious for me to be outside, and active. If I was watching television when
I heard the garage door opening, I shut it off and ran upstairs to pretend I
was doing something busy. She egged on my involvement in sports more than my
father. Though I don’t know if my mother consulted with him, she was almost
always the one to push me into it.
    She’d ask me regularly, “Why don’t you play
tennis with Daddy this weekend?” He’d ask too, but he seemed to sense my lack
of motivation. And since I saw myself as a constant source of aggravation and
disappointment, I figured he was probably happy to play tennis with somebody,
anybody, other than me.
    At school, I was pretty much a loner, depressed,
disgusted with myself, struggling with feelings of inferiority and inadequacy.
Until later in high school. Then something clicked. People started to appreciate
my sense of humor. I felt better, looked better, and suddenly, it seemed, I had
more friends than I knew what to do with. I started to connect particularly
with female friends, like Diane and Maxine, and a few male friends, who (not
coincidentally) revealed in the next few years that they were gay.
    Lorne was the first one to come out to me. And
as incomprehensible as it sounds, when he told me, I didn’t identify with what
he was saying at all. That’s how separated I was from what was going on inside.
I tried to be encouraging, and sympathetic, but when he went to a support
group, rather than offering to go with him myself, I asked Maxine to go with
him. (After Maxine attended the group, her parents told her not to go again.
They felt she was “impressionable” and feared that she’d become a lesbian.
Where exactly did this concept of contagious sexuality come from?)
    Over the next few years, I lived vicariously,
though subconsciously, through Lorne. I would get a thrill out of hearing about
what he was doing. Things that I couldn’t do. I knew why it sounded exciting,
but I was so isolated from my own desires that I couldn’t imagine that I wanted
to do any of these things myself.
    Things continued to get worse at home. I was
constantly butting heads with my siblings, and my parents both seemed
perpetually angry with me. My mother had suggested several times that I try to
go for therapy, and by the time I entered McGill University, I finally agreed.
    The therapist I went to see was a psychology
professor at Concordia University, with his own private practice.  I think he
was recommended by my mother’s friend, Ida. A couple of my friends