Charles Vollmar - successful chef…married with 2 kids; wife discovers he's gay and outed him to everyone - Out Late With David

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Watch the video version of this podcast at outlaidwithdavid.com

(00:07):
Hi, I'm David Cotton.
I'm a father, a brother, a son.
I'm a retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General, a former senior executive in the Department
of Defense, a corporate vice president, and now a life coach.
At the age 59, I told my wife, my kids, and the world, I'm gay.

(00:33):
Join me, as I talk with others, who have made this coming out journey late in life to become
who they really are.
You're listening to Outlaidwithdavid.
My guest today was a successful California chef, married with two kids until his wife discovered
he was gay and outed him to everyone.

(00:56):
Following all his possessions behind, he started a new life and is now living authentically
in San Miguel, Mexico.
Today, he has his own culinary travel business, teaches cooking classes, and shares his personal
adventures with thousands of followers on social media.
Today I'll talk with Charles Volmer.
Well, Charlie, welcome today.

(01:17):
I am so glad that you're joining me today for Mexico.
I am moved by the powerful, vulnerable post that you put in social media, like threads
is where I watch a lot.
My understanding is that you were outed.
Tell me how that transpired.
January 23 is when I looked in a mirror and admitted to myself that I was gay for the
first time in my life.

(01:37):
And it came with a lot of angst, a lot of fear, a lot of peter, a lot of pain, but a lot
of self-relication as well.
That led to being on an app and within a week of that revelation to myself, I had acknowledged

(02:00):
my sexuality with someone else, and then it became kind of a obsession for me to explore
that side.
Then I had never explored my entire life.
You'd have to 30 years of marriage I had never been with another man before that.
My ex and I were at this point, were kind of living separate lives, so I kind of came at when
it as I pleased.

(02:20):
But then I was traveling in Europe and in May, February 23, and when I was away over a two
week period, she had found out and she had outed me to my children, to my brother, to my
family, to her family, basically to everybody.
So I was having the time of my life in Italy and London, and then I came back to the doors

(02:46):
of my house being locked and basically shut out.
My ex added me to my kids, to her family, to my brother, who then added me to my sister,
to my dad.
And I never talked to anybody.
I just was ostracized and erased at that moment.
And to this day, I have not, since that happened, I have not spoken to my ex.

(03:07):
We've filed divorce.
I've not spoken to my ex, I was involved with her family for over 40 years.
So I have reached out to everybody, but nobody has responded.
So I then traveled September through the fall of '23 and then ended up here in Mexico
in November last year and that's where I'm planning to stay.

(03:31):
So yeah, it was pretty tumultuous.
You say?
It sounds like it.
So what did she find out and what was her motivation then to talk to your brother?
Yeah, and my brother, my kids, her family.
Yeah.
The only thing I got from her was a text that said, you know, you can see the first two
sentences and that's it.
I knew that it was going to be this explosive thing.

(03:53):
So all I saw was, you're not the person I thought you were.
That's all I saw.
And I deleted it because I wasn't even, and it goes through that and this is too much.
She was going to say.
So to that end, her point was to, I mean, and we divorced in 45 days.
We did a mediation.
She wanted me done.
She wanted me out.

(04:14):
She never wanted to.
I will probably never speak to her again.
This is her personality.
She took it personally.
It became part of kind of a dark stand on her personality or her person that she had been
duped by me all these years.
And she had been duped.
You said you're loyal.
These are complete assumptions.
All that I was admitted I was gay.

(04:37):
And I never, she never asked.
I never told her, you know, we just, what about our lives in for sunrise sunset for 30 years,
raising our family, doing all the, all the quote, unquote, normal things in life.
Didn't have much of an intimate relationship for the last 10 years of our marriage together.
So it was just a combination of things that I just know her personality.

(04:59):
And the fact that I got very public with it on social media about my coming out, it wasn't
anything about our divorce.
It was just this is who I am.
This is what I'm doing.
How about you?
I did the same thing and I got negative comments back too.
I was talking about myself and others took that on as if I was assaulting them.
Yeah, the whole family, I believe, but that's why they'll respond back to my inquiries.

(05:23):
Basically just, they wanted me to kind of just, you know, just kind of disappear and go
off and live my life.
And I became very public about it because it was a part of my, my journey and being out.
And so I had a persona that I had to maintain through my work.
And so I had to let people know that I was sleeping, that I was closing my operations and

(05:47):
I was not going to be there.
And they're all kind of look for me and what I'd got.
So I had to be very public about it.
So when you got married, did you think you were not straight at the time?
Is this?
Oh, yeah.
I remember I posted about it recently.
I remember putting on that, the ring on my wedding day and saying to myself, okay, now I can't
be gay because now I've got this credibility.

(06:09):
I've got this cover.
And yeah, the day of that I was, other than the distraction of guests running around and
putting together this big extravaganza we planned, it was right there with the priest
and the whole situation in front of my family and the whole world.

(06:30):
And I remember putting on that ring and just feeling that sense of cover that I could now
be part of my layers of trying to keep it straight.
But you did nothing with it.
Visit me.
No, never.
I mean, I watched porn like most of us do.
That was my outlet.

(06:50):
But I, yeah, I knew David that if I admitted to myself that I was gay, like I did when I was
60, if I'd done that when I was 30, which I thought about, I remember two years into my
marriage.
How long can you do this?
You're right.
And I remember where I was, that was gardening in my front yard and I was just struggling
at two years, saying, how are you going to do this forever?

(07:15):
And then I just pushed it down.
I pushed it down.
I pushed it down.
And the layers just built up.
And then, you know, it just becomes, you do the next thing.
You know, the next thing was we built a career.
We built, we built a home.
And then we had our, we had our children later.
So we, and they were through IVF.
So there's this huge process of getting pregnant.

(07:36):
And so you just delve into the project, you know?
And then, and then they were born.
And then it was dedicating 20 years to my life to my children.
So yeah, it was just a layer on layer, always distracted, I wrote about the other day, it
was always distracted by men.
I was always distracted by good looking men in public.
I was always trying to keep it from my family.

(07:57):
I was always kind of like, you know, blinding the head.
So yeah, it was, it was just that.
It was just this building up the normalcy of what, what a life should be.
And I did.
I built up the career of the home, the picket fence, the community.
I was highly involved, civically in my community.
I was involved with my kids swimming there, still swimming, politically right now.

(08:22):
And I was just, and I was very independent in that, in that lifestyle.
And the only thing.
Because you were actually a stay at home dad, weren't you for the first five years of their
life?
I was.
I taught at night.
I taught cooking at night.
So I would be, you came in the morning and my wife worked sales, or from, also from all,
so she would take him at three o'clock, I'd go teach in the afternoon.

(08:43):
And I was with them every minute of the day until they were five until they went to get
them.
Yeah.
And then I drove to school after I was a drug school every day until mid, high school.
So it sounded like you're very supportive involved father in the family.
Yeah.
And even that being the case, still no communication with you now, once you came out with, uh, no children

(09:05):
because, well, my, my daughter is, uh, let's be clear.
They neither of them cares.
And I'm gay.
They both made that clear.
Um, they're more concerned with the trauma of the divorce, the infidelity, which was right
at the tail end of my relationship with their mom.
Um, I had had a chance to tell my son about how that played out between January and May

(09:25):
and that was the only thing that that happened and, I mean, never change.
But if you really value that relationship, you've got to be patient and just do what you're
doing, you know, can do that through that.
Yeah.
Meet them at their, at their.
And I'm blessed, dude.
And every friend, you know, I have people say they lose their friends, they lose their family.
If, with through this process, um, you know, I have 12 brothers and sisters in law on my,

(09:47):
um, my wife, I was a site who I was very close to and they all have families.
And, um, I've got me and laws who I've known for 45 years who are in their mid 80s, late
80s.
They're not going to be around much longer.
They will never speak to me again.
Um, I have my spouse.
I have my kids.
Um, the rest of the world is, uh, right behind me.
What about your professional life?

(10:08):
Because you had the, uh, in the cooking school and didn't you also sponsor tours, your travel,
you were very involved, you know, successful chef in San Francisco of all places.
Yeah.
I've been teaching cooking for 25 years.
Um, though the school I established was in my home.
And that was my absolute biggest fear, frankly, was to make a change to lead my marriage,

(10:31):
not because of gay, because I would have loved to have just left and then just become gay
and just lit my life and let them find out or not over time.
I didn't expect to blow up the way it had.
So I'm reinventing myself here in San Miguel.
And I'm also going in June.
I'm going to begin looking for a space to reopen my school year.
So I'll be teaching.

(10:51):
Fantastic.
Four of my interview with Charlie in just a moment.
But first, I'd like to recommend a book I found helpful on my coming out journey.
The book is "Gay Men and the New Way Forward."
The author starts with "The Coming Out Continuum and the Gay Heroes Journey."
He then challenges the reader to consider the impact they can have on others simply by

(11:12):
being their full selves as a gay man.
The premise is, the more out someone is, the more confident they can be in their daily
actions and therefore can have greater impact on the world around them.
Coming out is on a continuum, spanning from the denial of one sexuality with the least
impact on the world to full integration of their sexuality and thereby the most impact on

(11:34):
the world.
The book builds on this premise as it explores the many facets of gay identity and masculinity.
Again, the book is "Gay Men and the New Way Forward."
For more books and online resources about coming out late in life, visit outlinkwithdavid.com.
Now back to more of my conversation with Charlie.
I know you talked about the way you split up things, the assets and all that.

(11:56):
Remember a post that you did, I think it was on threads and I've got it right here that
says, "You know, divorcing, giving it my San Francisco Bay home of 30 years and everything
in it, donating 99% of my clothing and personal belongings and selling my car, I left for
Europe to begin my life over at 61.
This photo shows all I had with me to begin my new life.

(12:17):
Two carry-ons, my red backpack, laptop and coffee to go.
How did you get to that point to where two carry-ons, a red backpack and a coffee to go, was
all you had?"
Yeah.
You know, I made a determination that my own life was so very toxic, David, that I didn't

(12:41):
want to negotiate anything with her.
I didn't want to sit down and divvy things up.
I just really, and I knew that everything I took from that house, which we've collected
together, others and some very personal things, some official cooking equipment, and things
like that, would remind me of that, of her.
I just determined that I needed a severe break and that means that I wanted to get rid of

(13:03):
everything I owned, I didn't want.
I'm going to start over with nothing.
And then just having those two possessions, I did.
I sold my car the morning, in the morning, back to the dealer who I bought it from and I
got on a flight 5 PM later in the day.
You said you have a new life purpose as well.
You said to share your story, what's the motivation and intent behind that?

(13:24):
I discovered that the later, coming out later, particularly as a dad, as a real dad, coming
from a heterosexual marriage, was a really unique subset of the community.
We have particular needs that need to be addressed completely separately.

(13:45):
These journeys, we have that commonality, but then how it plays out and how we come out
and how it's told to the world and how we then begin to live our new life is very, very
different.
I have a unique story and I have met hundreds of men who are in my position, they are in
their 60s, they have been buried forever.

(14:07):
They have children, they have no options to escape, they have no means to change.
They are in the middle of the country, they are in small towns.
I have this guy about who he and his wife run a business together.
It's a family run business, it's a generational business and if he comes out, it's going to rip

(14:29):
the whole thing apart and what is he going to do, right?
And then a lot of gay men who are married and this is coming up a lot which shocks me to
no end.
I tell my espouse that I'm gay and she says that's fine, let's just stay together.
You can be gay, that's okay, I'll live with you being gay but you can't be with men, you

(14:49):
have to be stay monogamous with me, you can just be gay and you can go hang out with guys
but you can't have sex with men.
And I'm just going, I don't know how that fits in and there are some who are considering
it and some who are trying to figure out how their relationship will change based on the
dual sexualities and then trying to make that happen.

(15:11):
And trying to make that happen.
Exactly.
I also have grown, they're seniors and college, they are grown adults, I don't have to worry
about visitation, I don't have to worry about alimony, I don't have to worry about all
those other real complex things that keep couples together.
And I stayed together for my kids, I didn't think I would, I will tell you right now, I never

(15:33):
thought that I would come out, ever, I was going to go to my grave because which as
it played out and I will tell you the way that my outing happened, it was horrible and terrible
but the silver lining is it ripped off this bandaid that I probably, if that not had happened,
I would still be in California in my house wondering how am I going to tell my family because

(15:55):
I didn't think that I had the courage to sit them down and look them at the face and tell
them.
I would, it would probably have been in a letter or some kind of something, right?
But I don't think I could have looked at that.
In my case, I was the point where I didn't want to live anymore and I had to come out to
stay alive.
Yeah, just, I didn't want to wake up the next day.

(16:16):
Yeah, I had to, over the last 20 years, I had to unsuccessful attempts at taking my life
because it was just too much and luckily I made the through but I will tell you that depression
and that anxiety and that sense of dread, it still comes up, it still comes up on their
days when I feel like I did 10 years ago, even in my new life, my gay life, on where it's

(16:42):
too much, you know, the weight.
So when that comes up, what do you do to make sure it doesn't overtake you?
I have three people I call.
I have resources I call people and I reach out and I'm not one to, I don't like to overplay
how I'm feeling or to worry people too much.

(17:04):
So I don't tell them that I'm thinking those thoughts, those are my private thoughts, I don't
tell them, you know, I'm ready to go jump off a bridge but it's more of a, I heard more
than I tell them I'm hurting but it's enough, their feedback is enough that it takes me back
from the edge.
Well, it's good you have those three friends and that's a good idea to even have them on

(17:25):
speed dial on your phone to do that.
And then for those that live in the United States, if they don't, 988 from their cell phone,
that's the National Mental Health hotline and if you're better and 988 won, excellent as
well.
And we do have those friends and there are also, I have signed it out here within the Mexican

(17:47):
culture and the government here, there are, there are suicide resources as who prevention
resources also, there are LGBTQ resources as well.
I've researched all that and they're close at hand in case I need but there are enough, frankly
enough people here in San Miguel who I know, gay men who I know who I have gotten to know

(18:12):
very independently, closely that they're also a great resource for me.
Absolutely.
I'm going to encourage everyone to do the same, make sure you've got close people that you
can contact whenever you have that need.
Yeah, absolutely.
So now that you've got been through this, you gave us a little glimpse of what you have
planned for the future.
But really, what do you see as your future?

(18:33):
You know, let's jump 15 years.
What do you look like?
What are you doing?
Where are you?
What do you want to have accomplished and what's still on the to-do list?
My future is going to be the last third of the book is going to be about coming out and
how that all translated together to living my best life where I'm cooking and teaching
and doing all the things that I love and adding on my authenticity and my true self.

(18:58):
And that will come eventually because I'm not there yet.
I'm still challenged by that every day about I wrote today.
I just posted on Threads today about I have so much support out there and I've got all
these people in just rooting for me and every day they're just propping me up and pushing

(19:18):
me forward.
And I'm still in my head.
I told somebody yesterday I was always trying to be this moral compass for my family, for
my kids.
And I was the protector.
I was the provider.
And my father was not such a great dad that I wanted to be a better dad.
So that was my challenge all my life.

(19:39):
And right now I'm in a place where as a married couple, my wife and I even knew we were
talked about sex with my kids, we never even discussed our intimate life at all, right?
The challenge I have right now, David, is that I feel a bit of shame and guilt in that
being gay is the thing that makes it different is that it's about sex.

(20:06):
It's about intimacy with men, to me, men to men.
And that is a conversation that I've talked to my son about a little bit and my daughter
not at all.
But that's still as a gay person but still as living a straight life for as long as I have,
there is this struggle for me to be comfortable talking to my son about having relationship

(20:31):
with a man, right?
About being intimate with a man, which is, you know, and I've had to be able to tell
him, I told him once about when I first got with somebody and I said, I needed to do that.
I cheated on your mom because I needed to do that to know that I was who I was and I wanted
to validate that.

(20:51):
But I'm still challenged in that little back of my mind, that little thing about morality,
that little thing about, you know, the male to male intimacy is not natural.
It's not the way it was supposed to be and I still carry that and I can't be honest and

(21:13):
I'm going to write about it today because it's so fresh in my mind that there's the one
thing, there's an embarrassment for me, there's a shame and there's a guilt that I have toward
my kids about being able to openly discuss that, you know.
So if that's the old rule that you have linked to shame and embarrassing with me, what's
a new rule that you could replace that with that would better serve you in those conversations?

(21:37):
You know, there are two lessons I've learned and there is not one conversation that I have
with anybody that is lost on me.
Everything I listen to is become a part of my head space and I process that I write about
it, I put it down on paper.
I also was with a guy in Guadaluatu I put up online the other day and I call him unapologetically

(22:06):
gay and this was a guy who's very hyper masculine, just big and burly and bearded and just his
big burly guy who looks like he should be like the man's man or the women's man or whatever
he's bet the whole, he mentioned at one point during the weekend he said, "You know, I've

(22:27):
been gay since I can remember, I said I've never had sex with a woman, I've never been
with a woman, I never wanted to be with a woman, it was never even in the cards for me."
And he is unapologetically gay, meaning that he's gay, he doesn't care who he knows, you
can't tell by outwardly because he's so straight acting but he just has and that that's and he

(22:52):
has a confidence about himself, then I really admire.
So I learned from him just to not apologize, he says, "We are who we are and that was the
message all last weekend, I was with him and we were the butt to wrist friends and stuff
and we were just out having a great time."
And nobody, it wasn't even brought up, it wasn't even a question, we were just all paying
ourselves.
And it sounds like on those two stories that you have your new rule, replace your old rule.

(23:17):
Which you're going to tell me is, just we are who we are, you just said it, exactly.
As a life coach, I'm committed to help you discover the passions in your life and help
you map a course to achieve the things you really want.
Together we will unwind those persistent self-doubt that are holding you back, you'll

(23:39):
begin to see your passions more clearly and set achievable goals.
Throughout your journey I'll be there to challenge and encourage you in moving forward to
discover your authentic self.
For more information about my personal life coaching services or to arrange a complimentary
consultation, visit davidcottoncoaching.com.

(24:02):
We're listening to OutLate with David.
A lot of it, I think frankly David is, I wrote about everything also that I've been lost,
I've lost a routine and kind of my life structure was just kind of ripped away.
That's when I'm rebuilding and I have to rebuild it as a gay person, which means I'm looking

(24:25):
at, I came out for the first six months, I said, "I'll never get it."
I just came out at 30, your toxic marriage.
Why would I ever want to be with anybody again?
Why would I ever want to be in a relationship?
All these men who want to say, "I want you to be my partner," would you be able to partner?
I'm like, "No way, I'm not ready to do that."
I do know that, and I fall in love probably a dozen times over the last year.

(24:46):
There's this, and it's something that as a heteroman, when you married your wife, who
I loved her and I respected her and I adored her and I was attracted to her physically for
a period of our life.
I was never 100% in love with anybody in my whole life.
That's physically, emotionally, all together at the same time.

(25:08):
That is a combination that cannot be pulled.
I've had that at least a half dozen times in the last year.
It's an emotional, intellectual, and physical.
All three of those, you know, it's the...
Yeah, and at 61, I never had that in my whole life, never.
So to feel that for the first time was dramatic and traumatic, but also exhilarating to the

(25:30):
point where I thought I could follow them for somebody and be together.
So knowing what you know and having been through this experience, what might you have done
differently?
Or would like to have happened differently?
Ideally, I'd like to have been my friend Daniel, who came out when he was, you know, in
his teens and his unapologetically gay.

(25:51):
And he knew it from the beginning and he just, a lot of these guys just decide that's who
they are and, you know, and then to never have ever touched a woman or been with a woman
or had sex with a woman your whole life because you knew all your life that was not for you.
It was not...
It was almost, you know, that...
And I had, I had girlfriends all my life and I had sexual relationships with women all my

(26:14):
life up to the point that got married and then I had my...
And I didn't cheat on my wife during our marriage, she had married years.
So if I had to do it over again, I would have loved to have been an environment what I
could have come out early, you know?
If I had known what I know now, I would have come out earlier as painful as it would have
been to everybody around me.
I would be talking to you right now, who knows where I would be.

(26:36):
What I'd like to have come out when I was 20?
Absolutely.
And who knows where I would be, you know?
As people said, I probably would have had a, you know, been married to a, to my husband
for 30 years and be really happy, you know, I would, I don't know, right?
So that is my, my only regret is that I didn't have a foundational foundation in my life,

(27:00):
in my family life, to be able to be myself early on.
And I wasn't myself in so many parts of my life, I was just trying to just keep my head
above water and trying to just survive.
And that was, you know, which is hard to be an adolescent and have all these secrets
and all these things you can't talk about.
You can't mention it.

(27:21):
Not for bad, I brought up, you know, wanting to have sex with men when I was 15 with my
parents.
I mean, it was just like that would never have happened, you know, or at least have an
ally.
I had nobody.
There was, there was nobody that I could talk to.
You know, and then I'd been through therapy for one reason or another.
And somebody asked me, you've been to therapy, sure, and my mom died.

(27:44):
I had therapy for a couple years.
I have just having family issues.
All those times, I was three different therapists, all those times over the course of maybe a decade.
Not once did I feel safe to even mention my sexuality to one of those therapists ever.
And that's how deep it was.
That's how deep it was.
That's how deep it was just embedded.
Last question, you know, one piece of advice would you have to provide to men who have

(28:08):
this realization that they're not being true themselves about their sexuality?
The only thing I can say, what I say to most people is you have to do it in your own
time, right?
You have to be, yeah, a lot of it, for me, it was a layer.
And that coming up to myself was the first barrier, the first thing that I never thought

(28:34):
I would do.
I couldn't even say to myself, like I just did, I'm gay in my head.
I couldn't just say it just at all ever.
I knew that if I did, I would go to that next slide.
So you need to know, for me, even though I didn't have a plan, and I'm a very prescribed

(28:55):
planned person, and I like everything to be very, you know, set and determined.
This was one of the few things I've done in my whole life that was completely off track,
completely out of character, completely over the out of the box, completely out of the
lines.

(29:15):
And that was all that fear was I didn't know how it was going to play out, no idea.
And the only way that it would happen is to let it happen that we did, and let the chips
fall where they may.
And the pain and the trauma of it lasted for a couple of months until I got my footing,
you know, at least the first month was just tragic and horrible and awful.

(29:37):
But then you find your way, and you start calling out those favors, you know, I tell people
all the time, I would have been lost if I didn't have my friends, if I didn't have these wonderful
angels who offered me, you know, places to stay, and places to recover and places to kind
of regroup and not have to worry about, you know, a place to stay and food and everything

(29:59):
that I needed to do just to settle, get my head straight.
And I get it.
Most people don't have those resources with that, those networks.
And I will tell you too, it's like you got to rip off the bandaid, you can't just let it,
it can't just piece me on it out.
We have a mutual friend who I think, you know, Mark in Florida, New York, he sat down with

(30:23):
this kid the other day and they just told him.
And he said it turned out beautifully, so much better than he would have expected it would
have.
But actually, and I remember he told the community that he was going to tell everybody
and my heart was in my throat thinking about, because I never had to do that.
I never had to sit down with him.

(30:43):
But I'm just in my own, it's just that all that anxiety came to me was how would he do
this and good, and I just said, I'm with you, good luck.
And he came back a few hours later and said it was awesome and the kids are amazing and
people, you know, he's all surprised you.
So to me, it's you, my only advice is take your time with it, don't let it.
And he push you beyond where you're comfortable.

(31:06):
Know that it's going to be a challenge.
Know that it's going to be really, really hard to be the hardest thing you do all your life.
But like you said, you had to do it or it was your salvation.
It was your life.
And as painful as it will be, you just have to do it.
So chef Charles Boomer, thank you very much for your time today from your two carry-ons

(31:30):
red backpack laptop and a cup of coffee to go.
You're very welcome.
Thank you for sharing your story.
As you and I know, others are going to hear this.
It's going to provide comfort and insight because they may be really early and raw and not
sure and it gives them hope to know that you can go through what you've been through and
come out pretty well in many ways.

(31:52):
You're rebuilding, as you said, trying to find a community, rebuilding your business and
there's hope for you to go forward.
So I really, really appreciate you being so open and honest and vulnerable, not only
here today, but what you're posting on a regular basis for others.
Absolutely.
Thank you also for the invitation, David.
It's people like you that's making this worth doing and keeps us kind of moving forward.

(32:15):
My last point is if there's anybody out there who is in our position, particularly gay dads,
who are stuck or stifled and can't figure out.
Reach out through me through threads or whatever and maybe and I have side bars with you guys
all the time and just kind of helping them walk through things.
I do as well.
Both members of gay fathers worldwide on Facebook, which is a great support group and there's

(32:37):
husband and wife or two that I'm part of.
And again, just like you're available, contact me as well and I talk to guys as well.
Likewise.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome to you.
And I say good luck to everyone who's listening because it can be rough but it also can be the
most amazing thing you ever do in your life.
So keep moving forward.

(33:00):
I think so many men can relate to Charlie's story.
He'd always known he wasn't exactly straight but hope marriage could change him.
I think Charlie would agree his coming out story was to put it simply a disaster.
His family is still hurt by what they see as an unforgivable breach of trust and rebuilding
that trust will take time.

(33:21):
So my takeaway is in your journey of self discovery, well it may be hard to find the courage
to share your truth, to rip off that band-aid covering your biggest secret by sharing the
secret yourself, you're giving others the chance to accept you for who you are.
By taking control of your own story, you may help mitigate some of the impact on the people

(33:42):
you love and allow yourself what might be in your path to your own happiness.
We thank Charlie for his courage in sharing his story and invite you to join us next time
on Outlate with David.
To hear more episodes, visit OutlatewithDavid.com and to learn more about personal life coaching

(34:02):
services go to DavidCottenCoaching.com

All Episodes

Charles Vollmar - successful chef…married with 2 kids; wife discovers he's gay and outed him to everyone

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Crime Junkie

Ridiculous History

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Charles Vollmar - successful chef…married with 2 kids; wife discovers he's gay and outed him to everyone