How we stay together: 'I still think he’s the most beautiful man in the world'

Names: Kevin Klehr and Warren Brown
Years together: 29
Occupations: Retired

Warren Brown remembers the exact time when he first laid eyes on his now husband, Kevin Klehr, even though it was almost 30 years ago. It was 10am on Wednesday 13 June 1990 and both were working in the engineering department at the ABC in Sydney. “There could have been a war going on or somebody could have been having an argument, but it was just this intense attraction,” he remembers. Kevin agrees: “We couldn’t take our eyes off each other. Even though someone else was talking to me, I didn’t lose eye contact with Warren.”

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But the pair didn’t act on the attraction. They worked together and Warren, in particular, wasn’t keen on mixing work and love. So for six months they socialised together, got to know each other and became close friends.

There was something else, too. Although Warren knew he was gay, he wasn’t yet out and Kevin didn’t want to upset their friendship. And so one night, after eating pizza and drinking champagne together, they crashed in the same bed. Kevin was on high alert. Yet Warren kept the conversation going instead of sleeping. “As the gay person I could most certainly fuck it up,” Kevin says. “If I responded and he freaked out, then it’s his gay friend hit on him. So, an hour later, at about 4am, he finally says, ‘I’ve never kissed a guy before.’ And I’m going, ‘OK, good, just a kiss and that’s it.’ And then it just went on from there.”

For Warren, taking that step was a revelation. “When I met Kevin, all of a sudden it’s like the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle came. I was missing that one piece.” He hadn’t planned it but he was thrilled. “After it all happened, I think Kev was a little bit unsure, [but] I had a spring in my step. Ta-da, look, I’m here. ‘I’ve got the T-shirt’ type of thing.”

If they hadn’t got together, he says, he might have kept his sexuality hidden for years. “I might have gone down the road of getting married, having children, all that sort of stuff,” he says. “I don’t have children. I envy people that have children, but I don’t like the fact that they had to wait all that long time to actually say, ‘Hey, I’m a gay man.’ So I’m very grateful.”

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The couple bonded over their love of the arts and socialising, and they both loved music: “In the 90s [it was] the whole rave dance culture scene, they were our courting days [and] we had a lot of dance parties together,” Kevin says. Yet both recall feeling as though they were hiding their true personalities behind a facade.

“We were both a little bit broken from different experiences,” says Kevin. “And as friends, we helped each other. When we became lovers, then there was the extra bit of Warren coming to terms with his sexuality and me learning to be trustful in a relationship again.” Their strong friendship helped. “We had to work through these issues with each other and help each other to grow stronger.”

They don’t remember making a decision to be together long term, it has just turned out that way. “I think that it just evolved,” Warren says, “because we didn’t know that we were going to still be here 30 years later madly in love, still enjoying each other’s company.” He adds: “When you get together at the beginning, no one knows what the journey ahead is going to be, but why not enjoy that journey and learn?”

Looking back, they’ve both changed together. “We’re not those spring chickens that we used to be, going to the 90s dance parties,” Warren says with a laugh. Says Kevin: “But it’s been nice to see those changes in each other. Because I always say, ‘Look, I know what his body looked like in his 20s. I know what his body looked like in his 30s, et cetera.’ I still look at him today and, if he’s put on weight or he’s lost some weight or whatever, I still think he’s the most beautiful man in the world.”

For Kevin, a successful relationship comes down to planning. “I always say what makes a good relationship is sharing your dreams together, whether it’s planning a holiday, planning a mortgage, or doing the renovations that we’ve just done …

“Warren always says communication. I always say plan projects together. That makes you closer. You’re both working on something, towards the same goal.”

Affection is important to them and they catch themselves holding hands and touching reflexively. They snuggle up together, even on hot summer nights. “It’s just our toes touching, so there’s still some sort of connection.”

One of their strengths has been their communication skills, and they’ve always been open with each other. They’ve also improved the way they deal with conflict. In the early days they would go for days without speaking but now issues are resolved quickly. “A lot has to do with just growing older,” says Kevin.

Age brings wisdom: “You understand [more]. You talk about what your own underlying issues are. You recognise underlying issues in your partner which they don’t see yet. And you work around it. I think as you get older and you get softer, you don’t sweat the small stuff anymore. You’ve been there, done that.”

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And their relationship has always been a priority. “There was not one moment where we had to really talk about our relationship or anything like that, because it’s always been a good relationship. We’ve worked on it but [not] because there were issues with it. We just worked on it to keep it strong to keep each other happy.”

They’ve also learnt by watching other couples and trying not to make the same mistakes. “If it’s hard work, if one person is working harder than the other, then it’s like you’ve got to question why,” Warren says. “We’ve seen that happen in other relationships and we’re just thinking, ‘They’re putting so much effort in it, but the other person, they’re just winging it. They want the other person to do the whole thing.’ And that’s not how it works. It doesn’t work, whether it’s a heterosexual relationship or a gay relationship. It’s two people, not one.”

They married in November 2018, after the Marriage Equality Act was passed. It wasn’t something they’d planned, particularly as they’d thrown a big 25th anniversary party a few years earlier. But they gave into gentle pressure from friends and family. “When it got voted in ... my brothers were all saying, ‘When are you and Kev going to get married?’ So in a way, [our] family and friends actually forced us to have a wedding – and it was lovely,” Warren ays. “[At the wedding] we told everybody that it’s not for us. It’s for you guys. That we happened to be getting married is the added bonus and they all found it quite funny.”

These days, they always make sure they have a cup of coffee together each morning and say ‘I love you’ countless times a day. “A work colleague pointed that out,” Kevin says. “[At the wedding, she] said, ‘I used to work with him. They’d always have to call each other about three or four times a day [and] they always say ‘I love you’ at the end of it.’”

Those demonstrations of love have spilled over into other relationships, too. While it was normal for Kevin and his family, it was unheard of for Warren’s family to say ‘I love you’. “Now, it just rolls off the tongue with my nephews and nieces, and my brothers and sisters. So, that’s quite lovely and that’s one thing that I appreciated learning from Kevin and his family is that expression of love.”

For them, a successful relationship is a partnership where nothing is taken for granted. Says Kevin: “We’ve worked hard for what we’ve got in life and we’ve worked together towards common goals, because we wanted to be together. We wanted to go to bed at night together and wake up with the same person.”

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