Jeffrey McGowan - Major Conflict

That first month of our relationship was truly magical. Since I was on leave and had nothing better to do, we were able to spend a lot of time together, whenever Billiam’s busy work schedule permitted. It was just so easy and right, I could not believe it. It seemed as if time stopped whenever we were together, as we laughed and talked about everything under the sun. He was funny, smart, good-looking, and kind; in short, a dream come true. I knew even then that I was in love and that I would spend the rest of my life with him. It was the kind of conviction that starts in your gut and then expresses itself in the mind.

The neatest thing, which was also a little intimidating at first, was the fact that he was so comfortable in his skin. The old adage that opposites attract could not have been truer in our case. For so long I’d had to censor myself and try to fit in; Billiam just was , and it was great. I was champing at the bit to be drawn out of my comfort zone and create a new life for myself, and Billiam was the perfect man to help me do it.

So here I was, this kid from Queens, suddenly thrust into the town-and-country set, and they took me in like one of their own. I was part of a family that accepted me hands-down and provided me with all the love and support I needed to transition from the army to civilian life. I was a lucky man, indeed.

And I was quickly learning just how wrong I’d been. So much that I had thought was entirely out of my reach—love, family, and the deep satisfaction that comes with them—was, in fact, quite possible. All it took was honesty. I had to find the courage to be honest with myself, and after that, everything fell into place. That did not mean that it came easy. I had to work for everything, and for the first year or so it was very hard.

Transitioning from military to civilian life was in some ways like immigrating to a new country—that’s how different I found things. So many of the rules in the civilian world were completely different. A lot of it was better—the freedom to be with Billy openly for one, and that’s a big one; some of it not so much—figuring out how to dress appropriately for work took some real time and effort; and some of it was actually a little scary—job security, for instance. One of the most glaring differences was the absence of the structure and predictability I’d grown accustomed to in the military. People no longer stood up when I walked into a room. I no longer had a driver. And since I’d reached the rank of major and had a pretty substantial tenure with the army, I had to take a hefty pay cut. So, a lot of the fears that Paul had expressed to me were in part valid, but nothing that time and hard work could not overcome.

I chose to go into pharmaceutical sales because I figured it would give me the opportunity to help people in some small way after having spent most of my adult life focusing on how to kill them. I quickly learned what it means to be an entrepreneur and to have to hustle. The upside to all this was that I had someone in my life who loved and supported me. There was no law that barred my relationship with Billiam or forced us into the kind of weird secrecy that destroyed my relationship with Paul. And there was, of course, no longer my fear of being found out, which had ruined my relationship with Greg. The light was lit. The genie was out of the bottle for good. We could be and do whatever we wanted.

I would be lying if I said that I found this easy to deal with initially. I was so used to being closeted and in denial that I had to unlearn (and am still unlearning and probably will be for the rest of my life) all the ingrained habits and ways of thinking that characterize the kind of unintegrated life I was living. Time, though, is the great healer, and I have managed to shed much of the paranoia that was part of surviving in the army.

Over the years my relationship with Billiam has undergone many changes as we’ve struggled with my adjusting and all the normal ups and downs of life. And through this we’ve both grown individually and we’ve grown together as a couple. When I talk to our straight friends, I’m often, still, struck by how much we have in common, that we are, in the end, just like them, good people working, and sometimes struggling, to stay together and pay the bills.

About a year into our relationship we decided to buy a house in the New Paltz area. We chose the Hudson Valley because of its great beauty and proximity to New York City. We were a little leery of what our reception would be, since it is definitely small-town America. What we found was a wonderfully open-minded community that welcomed us from the very beginning. After introducing ourselves to our neighbors, we met the town supervisor at the time, Judy Mayle, who graciously extended an invitation to both of us to sit on the zoning and planning boards. We accepted immediately, because we both believe in public service and want to help out in any way we can. I serve on the planning board and Billiam is on the zoning board. One year, I even ran for a seat on the town council.

In the early days of our relationship I’d not given much thought to the idea of getting married. But all that changed in 2003 when Billiam attended a debate among the local candidates running for the legislative seats in Ulster Country. That night he came home bursting with excitement about one of the candidates, whose name was Jason West. His exact words to me were, “He is destined to do great things.” One of the main reasons Billiam said this was because Jason was the only candidate for any office he’d ever known who publicly supported same-sex marriage. After that night, he followed his campaign intensely and became an avid supporter.

After Jason was elected mayor of the village of New Paltz, Billiam got to know him better and asked him if he really meant what he said about supporting same-sex marriage. The answer was still yes. Over the next several months Billiam kept in contact with him and helped him formulate how to best go about doing it. Truthfully, I did not think that it would happen because I thought it was against the law, but every time we talked, Billiam assured me that there was a legal basis for it.

A couple months later, we met a gay couple—Charles Clement and Maurice Zinken—who had moved to the area from Holland to open a bed-and-breakfast. Charles is American. He is an extremely talented artist and has the wisdom of several lifetimes. From the first time we met, I knew that he would be a close friend of mine till the end. Maurice is Dutch, and easily one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, speaking four languages fluently. They’d been married in Holland where same-sex couples can do so legally. From the start I was impressed by their great generosity. They opened their home to Billy and me and treated us with kindness and hospitality on an epic scale. What they teach me every time I am around them is that any limitation in my life is generally self-imposed, and I can change it if I want to. They’re two truly amazing human beings who, in a very real way, have become my heroes. Their relationship should be the subject of a book of its own.

One night they invited us over and toward the end of the evening casually popped their wedding video into the VCR. I think to a certain degree their marriage wasn’t entirely real to me until I saw the video. Almost from the moment it began playing, I was awestruck by the beauty of this happiest of rituals. And suddenly seeing two men there instead of a man and a woman made so much sense; it looked so natural, so right. It was a wedding just like any of the weddings I’d attended over the years for my straight friends. But seeing the evidence of their freedom to marry so clearly in front of me shook me to the core and inspired me deeply. The very next day, I asked Billiam to marry me.