A very public marriage ends in furor

Discord grew after gay couple profiled in series adopted a child

GLOBE FILE PHOTOJoshua Glazer (left) and Eric Hyett married in May 2004 on the first day same-sex couples could wed in Massachusetts. (GLOBE FILE PHOTO)

It was a warm, sunny morning in May 2004, the first day same-sex couples were allowed to wed in Massachusetts. Eric Hyett and Joshua Glazer had joined the line of giddy, nervous, hopeful souls waiting outside Brookline Town Hall to get marriage certificates.

Wearing dark suits and blue ties, and flowers in their lapels, they had arrived with a sense of the historic moment, but also very traditional expectations for their married life ahead. They looked forward to sharing good work, travel, a peaceful, happy home and, some day, children to raise together.

And, as it happened, the years ahead would bring them all those things - until, too soon, the happiness ran dry, and peace gave way to war.

Two years into their marriage - a uniquely public affair, chronicled in depth in a Globe series - the two men had been euphoric when a single pregnant woman from New York City selected them to raise her baby. After she delivered a healthy boy on Sept. 11, 2006, the infant went into the arms of Hyett and Glazer, who later jointly signed the adoption papers. Last fall, they moved the expanded Hyett-Glazer household to Manhattan.

But soon thereafter, for reasons they still struggle to describe, their relationship imploded. Now the couple is locked in a custody battle over their adopted child, a battle that would take a bizarre and desperate turn, and lead to Hyett's appearance as a handcuffed defendant in court last week.

The shattering of their family became fodder for New York tabloids which last month chronicled Hyett's decision, after a long-weekend visit with his son, to flee with him to Israel, triggering headlines calling him "Gay Dad 'Kidnapper'." Glazer, who has had primary custody of the boy, successfully retrieved the child with the help of international authorities. The boy, he said, is happy to be "back to his routine."

Hyett pleaded guilty last week to custodial interference. He has been held since Aug. 22 without bail in a solitary cell on Rikers Island in New York City. Under his plea agreement, he is expected to remain there for the balance of his 45-day sentence.

In a prison interview, Hyett, 38, a business consultant who graduated from Brookline High School and Harvard College, said the past year had been emotionally devastating, including coping with news that he is HIV positive. (Glazer said he has so far tested negative.) Hyett insisted he is mentally stable, but made an irrational decision to travel to Israel with his son to try to gain - through a different jurisdiction - more say over the upbringing of his child.

"I don't have emotions toward Josh now," said Hyett, dressed in a tan prison jumpsuit and orange slippers. "He's not the central figure. It's about my son."

Glazer, 31, a self-described "stay-at-home dad," said he too only cares about what is best for the child. Referring to Hyett, Glazer said by telephone, "I wish him well and I hope he gets the help he needs."

Public scrutiny
To many, the dramatic dissolution of this couple's relationship is a reminder of how often, and how quickly hostilities can be unleashed when marriages fail, particularly when control over young children is at stake. But their story is more painful, perhaps, because they held themselves out as a devoted gay couple in a historic season, with an extraordinary commitment to love and communication. Few marriages of any kind begin with such intensity and promise - and high exposure.

"They were so public in their marriage," said Rabbi Emerita Emily Lipof of Ohabei Shalom Temple in Brookline, who performed the couple's wedding. "We could all see the good intentions that they had. I feel such sadness now - first for the child, and then, for the couple."

She said the annals of family disputes include countless examples of estranged spouses resorting to extreme - and illegal - actions out of emotional desperation. "This is just proof that gay and heterosexual couples are exactly the same," she said.

Hyett, at the very least, is likely to face additional public scrutiny in the weeks to come. Though he has pleaded guilty to the New York charges in return for a 45-day prison term, he faces potential federal charges in connection with faking legal documents to secure a passport for his son, which requires the signatures of both parents. Boston's US Attorney's office has jurisdiction to investigate the case because Hyett flew into Logan Airport from Israel last month, prompting Boston authorities to extradite him on the New York charges and launch a probe into Hyett's travel records.

He also faces ongoing litigation in New York family court where Glazer has won a temporary order suspending all visitation and contact between Hyett and the child, as well as between Hyett and Glazer. The couple remains technically married in New York, a state that does not marry gay couples, but honors same-sex marriages from other states.

Hyett and Glazer said their relationship is all but over, and it is only a matter of time before the issue of divorce is raised. Gary Buseck, legal director of the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston, said there are no statistics yet on how many gay couples who married in Massachusetts have split up, though he is convinced it will ultimately correspond to the heterosexual rate - which is about 50 percent of all marriages. Buseck said he knows of no other gay marriages in the country that have broken up as publicly and dramatically as Hyett's and Glazer's, though he said it shows that aggrieved parents, gay or straight, sometimes illogically "take the law into their own hands."

For the sake of gay family rights, Buseck said he hopes the legal system treats Hyett and Glazer like any other feuding parenting couple: Do what is best for the child and fair to each of the parents.

"We don't ask for anything different," he said.

Child-rearing issues
The factors that contributed to the end of this relationship were, in many ways, the ordinary conflicts afflicting many marriages, according to interviews with Hyett and Glazer. Both identify the rigors of caring for a new baby as causing stress on their bond. Hyett, the breadwinner of the family, said Glazer was focusing only on the baby, and "he wasn't interested in doing anything for the household or for me."

Glazer has been less specific about what went wrong, other than to say there were "a lot of different issues."

"Pretty much right after we got [our son], there were problems," he said.

According to Hyett, the two disagreed on the appropriate level of involvement in their life of Glazer's parents, who live primarily in Missouri and have been helping out financially and in other ways throughout the past two years. They clashed on some child-rearing priorities and Hyett kept insisting that he wanted to be a "co-parent" with Glazer, not the marginalized father he felt himself to be. Hyett, who initiated the first child-custody complaint last fall, said Glazer at least three times took their child out of state without Hyett's knowledge.

Under their custody agreement, Glazer had the child Monday through Friday. Hyett cared for him during weekends, with transfers of the child made at a neighborhood police station - safe and neutral ground.

Other factors would also test their relationship. Neither of them have elaborated on just what role Hyett's HIV status played in their breakup, or when or how Hyett may have contracted the virus. Hyett said that doctors informed him that he probably contracted the virus before knowing Glazer. Glazer has said he was not aware that Hyett was HIV positive until Hyett got the diagnosis in the past year. For Hyett, the news was a defining moment in his life, causing him to intensify his interest in being a father, he said.

"When I got the diagnosis, it clarified lots of things in my life and how I wanted to live it," said Hyett, who is, he said, on a regimen of medications.

Hyett said he has received plenty of emotional support after learning about his HIV diagnosis, and during the disintegration of his marriage. Hyett said he has been seeing a therapist over the year and received help from family and friends throughout this ordeal, including from his brother, Brian Hyett, who was also part of the Globe's 2004 series. That same year, Brian Hyett, a physician, married his wife Amy, a teacher, in the Boston area, and the couple now have a daughter.

Hyett said his decision to take his son to Israel was motivated largely by the hope that it would trigger direct communication between him and Glazer. He informed Glazer of the plan after the fact, through an e-mail sent on Aug. 5, and hoped it would cause him to pick up the phone.

"This is to inform you that [our son] will not be returning to New York today," Hyett wrote in the e-mail. "He and I have safely and legally arrived in the State of Israel, where we plan to remain in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as Article 13 of the Hague Convention."

The e-mail contained a special Israeli cellphone number to reach Hyett.

Looking back, Hyett said, he hoped that a different jurisdiction - in this case, Israel - might change the trend against him in their child custody battle. He knew this was a long shot. Mostly, he said, he was overwhelmed with frustration over Glazer's refusal to talk to him. After the e-mail saying he was in Israel with their son, "I wished Josh would have picked up the phone to call me," he said. Instead, Glazer contacted police and lawyers.

Despite their relationship dissolving, both say they continue to celebrate the idea of gay marriage. Glazer said he has fond memories of his wedding vows on May 17, 2004 in Brookline.

"I was in love with Eric, I won't deny that," he said. "I was probably blinded, though, by certain things. . . . In retrospect, he needed a lot of help."

Son is doing well
Glazer, a former wedding planner, who lives in his parents' Upper East Side two-bedroom apartment with the boy, said the child is thriving, despite the upheaval from last month. He said the boy has exhibited some "separation anxiety" issues, which he thinks may be related to being whisked to Israel by Hyett, but the boy is otherwise doing well. Though he plans to seek child support payments when Hyett leaves prison, he said he has generous financial support from his family to assure the well-being of him and his son.

Meanwhile, Hyett has said that after his prison release, he plans to ask a family court judge to forgive him for his "mistake" last month and restore at least some visitation rights. Hyett said he had his son in mind when he pleaded guilty last Thursday to the felony charge. That day - Sept. 11 - was also his son's second birthday and he wanted to provide a future teaching moment for him.

"I went to court and took accountability for my actions," Hyett said. "I believe it's the right message to send to [my son]. People make mistakes."

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.