Posted at 4:00 p.m.
He has been married for 30 years. He has an “exceptional” wife, “incredible” children, an “indescribable” family life. In short, he is “spoiled by the gods”. And above all does not want anything (anything!) to change.
So no, even if he is attracted to men, and has always been, Geoffroy, in his early sixties, will not come out of the closet. Never.
“Am I a good person despite everything or a hypocrite? I would never agree to make my precious family suffer. They are everything to me … “, he wrote to us (“a madness”, he admits to us today, a bit stressed, before the interview).
Why confide, then? It was thoughtless, spontaneous. “I also think a bit of a liberation,” he drops, in his soft and thoughtful voice, with this concern for the right and well-felt word. You should know that Geoffroy has so to speak never told. But the testimony of a certain Mickaël*, a man of his generation, in coming out bitter and unhappy, published here in early December, visibly shook him. And plunged back into his thoughts. We will come to that.
Seated in a café in the Center Rockland, far from home, to be sure not to be seen or recognized, Geoffroy confides surprisingly easily. Although modestly, and often returning to what is most important to him. We will have understood: his (fabulous) family (“this is what is most important to me…”). And we will above all understand why (“because I didn’t have that…”).
Fit in the “model”
Geoffroy passes quickly on his childhood (“I come from a family with a very controlling father…”). With his air of an intellectual, he has always felt “different”: “I love studies, the arts, culture. I was not at all in the family standards. »
As a teenager, he knows: “I was gay. Yes. Attracted by guys. Once, and only once, he had a “light touch-wee episode” with a boy. He must be 16 years old. And then ? “It ended there. […] I found it interesting, but no more. »
That’s all ? “I came from a context where that was not possible,” he explains. It wasn’t my main concern either. I said to myself: if it has to happen, it will happen. But he didn’t try to provoke anything, we guess. And so nothing happened.
Conversely, with girls, yes. “Because it fit the pattern. It fit very, very well. But that, we realize later…”
Geoffroy therefore has some “pleasant” adventures (and an “interesting” first sexual experience, he limits himself to qualifying, somewhere at the turn of his twenties, with friends from university.
And then one day, love at first sight. With his wife. The mother of his children. “A university thunderbolt, he ignites. When you say two people who complement each other well, it was extraordinary. We still see that today. And she agrees. It’s going well on all counts. »
All ? Geoffrey nods his head. “Sexually, it’s sweet, pleasant, it completes our relationship well. And it’s always been like that. »
And the men in all that ? Forgotten? Not exactly. “It worried me, sure! he concedes. But since I love her deeply, what do I do with it? “Out of love, we understand, above all never to make her suffer, and because he “deeply” dreams of having a family, he chose his camp. “I’m on board,” he sums up. And me, when I get into something, I go all out…”
But it is sure that I feel deeply cowardly to keep that for me. I have always felt cowardly…
Geoffrey
“It’s not in my nature not to face challenges. However, this one, I decided to put aside. “And his 30 years of “extraordinary” life together confirm that he has indeed met an “exceptional” woman, he insists, and he repeats (we don’t know how many times).
But in bed, do we insist? “Listen, answers Geoffroy, sexuality has decreased because of my health problems. […] The desire is still there, but I am no longer capable every week. If it is satisfactory? “Listen, yes,” he continues. And it always has been. In our sexuality, there is a lot of intimacy. We talk a lot. It’s not just the physical aspect. And that [cette intimité], we have always preserved it. »
If he ever cheated on her? We finally get there. “I’ll have to explain the context to you,” Geoffroy replies first. In summary: no, he never did anything, said nothing, always camouflaged everything, until very recently. A few years ago, in fact, a work colleague finally caught his eye. And for the very first time, Geoffroy dared. Yes, he confided. It did not succeed (the man in question is not interested), but the affair had the merit of jostling him. “You’ll never know if you like men if you don’t try!” said the guy in question. And the idea caught on.
An “objective” choice
So Geoffroy “tried”. Five times, exactly. “But it wasn’t easy,” he says. Me, I’m a person of principles, so contact someone? And pay for it? “Because yes, he preferred to pay, just to be sure not to run into an acquaintance. And then ? Verdict? “Yes, there is attraction, he replies, still as modestly, but it was not an exaltation. »
And Geoffroy takes it up again here, boasting to us of the merits of his wife (“that one”, he says smiling), supporting photos of their youth and their “hallucinating” children.
We come back to the charge: did he tell him? Of course not, we know. And he won’t either. “Never,” he confirms. I’m very aware of missing something, but I do it objectively. I made the decision to be with my spouse. To have children. And I realized it. […] And it’s definitive: I have reached a stage in my life where I will remain in the closet. Probably I will be a coward until the end…”
Before concluding, Geoffroy would like to thank Mickaël here. At this precise moment of the interview, after nearly two hours of confidences, her eyes fill with tears. “He brought me back to myself. To my reflection. And it’s rare that I do that: just think about me, my personal life. […] Me, I completely forgot myself for my family. […] I think he was brave. But it pains me so much that he is unhappy. Except that he is free. I don’t have that freedom. But I take it…”
* Fictitious first names, to protect anonymity