The paths of James and Chy first crossed via a personal ad placed by the latter, which caught the former’s attention. “We chatted through email and then decided to meet at Starbucks for coffee,” James recalled.
In hindsight, James said that “I know that many people do not believe in love at first sight and I myself really did not believe in it either until I met (Chy).” Supposedly, after meeting and subsequently talking with him for hours on the phone, “I found myself in love with (him). One week after meeting my husband I knew that he was the one.”
In Chy’s case, “(I knew I was in love with him) when he’d come to my work (I was a live-in caregiver when I met him) taking a bus for almost two hours just to see me every day. I didn’t want him to go home and I felt this emptiness every time he walked out the door back to his pad. So I figured out he is the one. “
Not long after, they decided to tie the knot.
“As a gay married couple, we have many different challenges and one of the biggest would have to be the misconceptions that gay relationships don’t last as long as ‘traditional relationships’,” James said.
“When we tell people how long we have been together, people tend to say: ‘Wow, that’s a long time!’ As if gay couples don’t have lasting relationships. Yet straight couples are frequently getting divorced. People have the conception that gays should not get married because they can’t have long lasting relationships,” Chy added.
As husbands, James is appreciative of Chy’s “undying support for me,” he said. “He has always accepted me for who I am and all my faults.”
Chy, on the other hand, appreciates “having a friend and a husband who is selfless, a believer, supportive, and who believes that life is about living and keeps our lives exciting every day.”
Already, James and Chy are eyeing to build a home – “We would like to purchase a house in the future and build a family,” James said.
“We have been undergoing the adoption process and hope that in the future we will have a child to love and care for,” Chy added.
Because, indeed, love between two guys (and among LGBT people, for that matter) can last a lifetime.
