As many other LGBT websites--towleroad, advocate, and andrewsullivan.com--have reported, Gareth Thomas, a rugby star in the UK, is gay.
What is meaningful in his story is the story of his now former-wife, Jenna, whom he married when they were both younger. Having been married myself, I find their story eerily the same as mine, in which Gareth and I both threw ourselves whole heartily into our heterosexual marriage, hoping beyond hope that it would change us, or we could change ourselves in that context...but being who we are, as God created us, won out in the end.
Here is Jenna's incredibly moving words:
'This was who he was, something I could never have changed, something that was nothing to do with his feelings for me as a woman.
'I knew that whatever he had done had not been done with malice towards me and I could see how much he was suffering and how sorry he was for hurting me. Gareth was still the same Gareth I'd fallen in love with. He was just as loving and caring as he was before. He didn't change at all, so for a month nothing happened and both of us thought that somehow we could stay together because we depended so much on each other.'
But Jemma was in turmoil. After a month of drifting along, as if nothing had changed in their marriage, she returned from France to Wales.
'I had to tell my parents because I just didn't know what to do. I stayed up with my dad Trevor talking until 3am and I told him everything,' says Jemma.
'I remember my father saying: "Poor lad, what must he have been going through all these years." There was no anger or aggression, just enormous sympathy for both of us.
'I knew I still loved Gareth, but that our marriage could never survive this, no matter how much we both wanted it to.
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