(LifeSiteNews) — This weekend my wife Valerie and I will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Of course, some might argue that it’s only our 27th anniversary because we were divorced for 13 years.
And yet here we are, more than a dozen years after reconciling, and our bond is stronger than ever. Not only that, we both returned to the Catholic Church shortly after reuniting.
Our experience led me to value marriage in a new way. Despite being same-sex attracted — or more likely because I am same-sex attracted — I marvel at the extraordinary significance of marriage in God’s Eternal Plan.
This weekend my wife and I will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Although some might argue that it’s only our 27th anniversary, because we were divorced for 13 years.
Yet here we are, a dozen years after reconciling, and our bond is stronger than ever. pic.twitter.com/VL8Sw3wgVM
— Doug Mainwaring (@doug_mainwaring) July 25, 2025
Over the years, I became a marriage and children’s rights activist, defending the definition of marriage before state legislatures, writing numerous articles on the topic for national newspapers and journals, and even originating and co-authoring an amicus brief — known as Same-Sex Attracted Men and Their Wives — for the United States Supreme Court in defense of marriage. It urged the justices to allow states to maintain the immutable definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.
For over 8 years now, I’ve been a journalist for LifeSiteNews , where I’ve been able to continue to battle against the LGBTQ+ juggernaut, against government overreach and medical tyranny, and to defend the lives of the most vulnerable.
And Valerie, after retiring as a high school English teacher a few years ago, will soon earn a master’s degree in theology from a conservative Catholic institute.
How do you heal a relationship that self-destructed, which had lost its moorings for more than a decade? I have no easy answer, but I do know that the first step is this: you must choose to recognize the importance and irrevocability of your covenant relationship and to uphold the dignity of your spouse and your relationship every day, no matter what, repenting when necessary.
In our marriage, we’ve had to deal, not only with my same-sex attraction, but with family histories of addictive behavior, financial difficulties, major health issues — both of us have fought with cancer for several years — and much more. Sadly, a combination of those things once led to our separation and divorce, for which I take full responsibility. But, in the end, by God’s grace, good has far outweighed bad, and human dignity and love have steadily triumphed over animosity, blame, and isolation.
Since reconciling we have continued to face both big and small challenges, one after another. Rather than allowing them to tear us apart or let our relationship fray at the edges, to give up, or to say, “This is too hard for me,” my wife has upheld my dignity as husband and father, and I have upheld hers as wife and mother.
My wife’s love for me, especially during the darkest times when I’ve been at my most weak and vulnerable, has been a direct conduit of God’s love to me. In fact, the greater the personal challenges I have faced, the more she has honored me with dignity and respect. There is a miraculous, inverse relationship between the weight of difficulties and weaknesses present and the degree of dignity accorded. It’s counterintuitive. It’s the opposite of the way things work in the world, but it’s a reflection of God’s unconditional love. Upholding each other’s dignity allows grace to flow into and lift our marriage day after challenging day.
The happy family that that unknowingly saved ours
None of us can truly gauge the impact of our lives on others. Yet, even without you knowing it, the witness displayed by your faithful marriage might be the lighthouse that guides and helps others to hold their marriage and family together. You could be saving a family from the destructive influence of the world. You could be leading someone to the threshold of faith, and you may never even once hear about it.
While Valerie and I were still divorced, our younger son, Chris, would occasionally spend the weekend at the home of his middle school friend, Ray. When he arrived back home, he wouldn’t say anything, but I could read his body language and perceive what was left unsaid. I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that Chris really liked spending time at Ray’s house, and the reason was clear: he loved their family life.
All I had to do was look into Chris’s eyes to see that he wished he had a family like theirs—a family with a gregarious, big-hearted, and affectionate Mom and Dad who clearly loved each other. I knew that this was precisely what I had deprived Chris and his brother of.
It was this very loving Christian marriage that first caused me to wonder if I had made a huge mistake in divorcing my wife and breaking our family apart. And after each of Chris’s subsequent visits with Ray’s family, I became more convinced of my grave error. I knew that I needed to repair what I had broken. Yet Chris never made a single direct statement about this. He never said why he enjoyed spending time with their family or explicitly compared it with ours. Although I don’t know if he could have articulated it if he had tried, I received the message loud and clear. Eventually, I realized that I had no choice but to find a way to bring our family back together.
Ray’s parents had never made an attempt to address our family situation; they just simply lived their lives as faithful Catholics and loving spouses to each other. They had never spoken a word of judgment, encouragement, or advice to me, and I had never once said a word to them about my broken marriage. In fact, at that stage we barely knew each other except to say “Hi” at our sons’ football games. Our lives touched only through our sons, and yet that was enough.
This family had no idea how much good they were doing for me and my broken family just by the way they were living their lives. Somehow, their Catholic faith, their joy, their love, and their faithfulness overflowed and cascaded into my life via my son.
Were it not for this family, I’m not sure I would ever have had that first thought implanted in my mind about bringing our family back together. Although I was completely irreligious at the time, it seems to me that this was God’s gentle way of getting me to see that I had erred and needed to do something about it. God didn’t send somebody to club me over the head or rebuke me. Instead, He brought me into indirect contact—into the distant outer orbit—of a couple whose lives deeply, albeit quietly touched mine.
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Tipping point
So on a Sunday afternoon in the fall of 2011, I was at a matinee performance of Les Misérables, where our oldest son, Michael, then still in high school, played the role of Jean Valjean. I was moved to tears during the scene where he knelt by the side of Fantine as she lay dying, and he promised to care of her young daughter Cosette.
I somehow knew God was moving me to act, and so later that day I called Valerie. To be honest, I had no idea what I was going to say. I just knew I had to do it.
But before I could say anything, she told me that she was going to undergo major back surgery in a few months and that, following long stays in the hospital and at a rehab facility, she was still going to require daily help. She then asked if she could come and spend a few weeks with me and our boys, who at that stage were living with me full time.
I knew beyond any doubt that this was God opening the door. I was totally unprepared for Him to answer my prayer so quickly. It had only been a few hours! So I took a deep breath and said, “How about we just come over and pack up your apartment and you move in with us?”
I was prepared for her to say anything, but she said, “Okay.” And the deal was done.
And what I thought was going to be cohabitation for the sake of raising our sons together transformed over time to “Til death do us part.”
The big truth about marriage
Through our marriage, despite all the mistakes and detours — my wife and I have created something that is irrevocable and unmovable. What we began at the altar in front of our families, guests, and God can’t be undone.
Two became one, and an entirely new entity came to being in the universe.
Not a metaphoric creation, but a reality. A wonderful, utterly unique new alloy was forged.
It can be ignored or abused, but those choices don’t undo the mandate that fell into our laps that hot July afternoon in 1985.
When my time on this planet has reached its end, my marriage will have been the single most important contribution I will have made.
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