I was in France a little less than two years, for part of 1965, all of 1966, and part of 1967. I had been dating a woman since sixteen years old. So at 23 when I got out of the service we got married. Her name was Bernadine Marquez. Her father was from Mexico. Her mother had been born in California and was the great granddaughter of the last Mexican governor of California under Mexico. We had a child right away.

I have three children. My son was the first. His name is Paul Weise, a year and a half later we had Cathy, Catherine Marie. A few years later we had a daughter Janette. I have eight grandchildren now.

We got divorced at thirty-five. So twelve years of marriage. We are still friends. It was not that bad of a separation, other than for the children. We made a point of never saying anything bad about each other to the kids.

I was 35 when we got divorced. The kids were twelve, eleven, and eight. They lived with their mother because I had eight hundred and seventy five dollars of child support. I rented a house and filled it up with people to help me pay for it.

When the kids became fifteen or sixteen and hard to handle, the mom said “you have to go live with your dad.” So the first two came to live with me. My son and daughter lived with me. The youngest one wanted to come live with me. I told her, “You need to think about that because you have your mom and her husband has two incomes, I have one.”

I had a few relationships after the divorce, but nothing that I chose to get married. Friends of mine gave me a gift certificate to Kiva retreat for my birthday. I waited until March tenth. I was sitting in a hot tub. Back in those days, Kiva was a little different. Matt was sitting there. He said he was not from around here. I asked him where he had been. We talked a lot, and then we both left at the same time. We walked out to our cars and said goodbye. He started driving away. I just stood there and watched him drive away.

Then he did a U-turn and came back. He asked if I wanted a drink. I had to get home; my daughter should be home soon, I have to get home to her. So we came back to my house and we talked. I never was the type to just jump in bed with somebody. I had to talk to them for an hour or two first. So we talked for a couple of hours and my daughter never did come home. We had a very nice first get-together and two weeks later he showed up at the front door and knocked. We stood at the front porch and talked. I had people here. I asked him if he wanted to go to Kiva again. And he agreed.

During this time, we had a rocky start being gay. We came out at about the same time even though there is sixteen years difference in our age. We would date people and say “they are not quite what I wanted.” When I started getting comfortable having sex with someone I had just met, AIDS started. Since I only like to have sex with someone I really liked, I did not want to pass AIDS onto anyone that I really liked. So I was celibate for two and a half years before I met Matt.

Coming Out
While I was married, I had close friendships with men. I was sort of a hippie, I loved everybody. I thought I could understand the concept having sex with someone the same sex.

I had witnessed same-sex couples and I realized that they actually loved each other. I thought, “I get it. It can be ok”. People, both straight and gay, have anonymous sex. But I saw gay people who loved each other.

I did not have sex with another man until my wife and I had split up. I kind of felt like I was bisexual. If you date a man, women don’t want to date you. So people who are bisexual have it harder than people who are just straight or just gay. I was comfortable with either one. But I didn’t meet a whole lot of people that I liked who were gay.

I had a lot of wonderful friends, but it seemed like a lot of people were out to just have sex. This was in the seventies. Everybody was promoting free-sex and the playboy club. I was never really comfortable with it. When I met Matt and we got along so well. He is very funny. I was always amazed that we ever got anything done sexually because we laughed so much through it all. We met in 1986.

When we met, we had both not been very happy with relationships. Our theme song was the Eagles “this is the last worthless evening that you will have to spend.” If we hear that song now, it brings tears to our eyes. We have had lots of great friends and done lots of great things together. He has participated in the weddings of all three of my children.