Decisions, decisions, continued . . . HELP!!!

My best hetero-dating experiences came after admitting to myself that I was attracted to men.  What is that all about?  I have some theories but I will save them for another post.

I spent many, difficult, exhausting months working with a university campus counsellor, a psychiatrist, an LDS Family Services counsellor, and a bishop before I came to terms with my sexuality to a sufficient degree that I would not break down into tears upon thinking about it.  Most of my "work" in an effort to allow my attractions and my religion to occupy my mind with some level of harmony came from the workbook created by Evergreen International that was provided to me by LDSFS.  While I have much to say about EI at a later time and have since come to disagree with their approach, the workbook really did help me survive those first difficult months.  I bought in to the idea that homosexuality was an "issue" that one could "work through" by becoming more masculine, participating in masculine activities, and resolving childhood problems.  I had done the work, to the best of my ability, as prescribed and was confident that I was now ready to seriously date and marry as a final step in my treatment process.  So I did.

That three word sentence might seem a little simplistic in describing my getting married, but in some ways it was as simple as that.  Getting married was next on my list of essential to-dos that had been carefully planned out by generations of Mormon forebears.  I was supposed to do it.  I had never imagined any other way.  So I did.

That is not to discount the fact that I love my wife, that she is a wonderful friend and companion, and that I really do feel that there is something special about her, something different than any other girl I have met.  But I never did spend much time really questioning if I was ready.  The idea of a mixed-orientation marriage had still never crossed my mind.  I had come to terms with being attracted to men, but somehow that did not translate into being aware that I was gay (a large part of this had to do with the way EI and LDSFA presented ideas about SSA to me).  That awareness would have left me with a HUGE DECISION to make in my life.  But without being aware of such a decision I moved forward as planned.  I told the girl that is now my wife that I struggled with same-sex attraction and porn.  We shed some tears over that revelation.  I asked her to read the Evergreen website.  And we moved forward, with some measure of caution, but without the slightest clue what a trial this would prove to be for both of us.

My inner mind knew, right after getting married, that things were not going to be a smooth-sailing fairy tale as we had hoped.  But I tried desperately to push those fears away and have hope that time would make everything better.  It was about three months in to our marriage that I slipped up by looking at porn and soon felt that I should be honest with my wife and confess my mistake.  Nothing could have prepared me for the deluge of tears, the blood-curdling moaning and wailing, the palpable distrust and sense of betrayal.  She believed that our marriage was over.  The wailing went on for days and I just could not stand it.  The sound of pain in her cries made me wish I was dead - that is no hyperbole.  I was scared to death and just wanted to run.  I did not know how to console her.  I did not know if she wanted me to console her.  I felt MUCH more devastated about how she felt than I did about what I had done.  My heart was in an emotional vice.  I can only imagine what she was feeling, but the overwhelming emotion made my heart die a little more each day.

Things did get a little better over the following weeks, but life was little more than surviving for us.  I remember reading on some website the following statistics (the numbers don't seem exactly scientific, but my sense of these marriages from my readings of others' situations makes me believe that they are not too far off the mark):  It said that upon coming to terms with a spouses homosexuality about one third of couples divorce almost immediately, about one third takes time to really think things through (over the course of a few months) before divorcing, and only the final third decides to try to make things work.  Of those in the final third, about two-thirds end up divorcing within a couple of years.  Maybe someone out there has more reliable statistics?  But those were very staggering numbers for me.

We decided to stay together.  Or perhaps more accurately, my wife decided we would stay together while I tried to avoid making any decision either way at all costs, resulting in a de facto decision to stay together.  We sought counseling and my wife was convinced, or so I thought, to give me at least 6 months to really start to work through things if it was her desire to stay together.  However, it didn't take long for her to start trying to force me to make a decision and that sort of forcing brought me to the point of being suicidal on more than one occasion.  My mind could not grasp fully embracing either decision.  I attempted to take my own life at one point . . . insert very long story . . . and as a result spent four days in a mental institution (no wonder I can't make any friends - I'm crazy!!!).  It was only after that that my wife decided that she really would leave me alone to really figure things out.  I think that she must have counted out exactly 6 months from that decision because it seemed like things started to get heated again overnight.  She was threatening to move on if I did not decide to make things work.  I was, and still am, not fully decided.  I don't know how to even begin to make such a decision.  But I said I was going to give it my best effort to make things work.

That was almost a year ago.  I have still managed to somehow avoid making any real decisions in my mind.  About 8 months ago she started pushing me to find out when we would start having kids.  I kept punting the question.  I finally convinced her to wait until October before we tried having kids.  As you may be aware, October is coming very soon . . . and . . . er . . . I am almost out of time and definitely out of excuses!  I really do want kids.  I really do love her.  I really do like men.  And after reading about so many failed marriages, if I am eventually going to break or go insane I would rather do it before adding kids to the equation . . . HELP!!!!!!

P.S.  Maybe I should have titled this post "Procrastination, procrastination" because there is not much decision making going on here.

Decisions, decisions

In my last post I stated that I hate making decisions and I hate being told what to do.  It is a miracle that I even decide to get out of bed each morning.  Apparently this is obvious to those around me as well.  I have an aunt (who is not shy about sharing what she thinks) who described me thusly:  My only coping mechanism when making difficult decisions is to pretend that the problem doesn't exist.  Sad, but true!

I really miss the luxury of having the first twenty-something years of my life planned out for me.  I always did well in school and generally enjoyed being there.  I had an inner drive to go above and beyond by taking advanced courses, especially ones that would transfer to a university.  My parents did not go to college and I don't remember them really reinforcing that I needed to go to college, but I must have had good guidance from teachers along the way.  I knew from an early age that I wanted post-secondary education and did everything I could to be ahead of the game when that time did come.

I was always busy in the church.  Very few months would go by with me in a new quorum before I was called to a leadership position which I always took very seriously (what is that saying about all work and no play?).  I remember being the Teacher's Quorum President and having the quorum advisor calling me the night of our weekly activity to say that he had not had time to get anything ready.  I took it upon myself to get a structured activity ready.  When he showed up and said that we were going to just go hang out (I think he wanted to just get some food and play some sport) I was visibly annoyed and ended up just going home (yes, I was one of those Mormons that annoy the hell out of me right now - self-righteous and uptight, even from a young age).  I really procrastinated my final paperwork for my Eagle Scout award, but finished it in the end.

I had female friends that would drag me out of my house to do stuff.  I did not date, per se, but I did end up taking someone to most, if not all, of the school dances during my junior and senior year.  I had a best female friend that I hung out with a lot, which caused some to assume that we were dating, but I always said that I did not want a steady girlfriend before my mission.  I really did like being around her, but there was never any draw to hold hands or kiss or anything.  I had male friends as well but never seemed to really connect with the ones that I really admired.

Since I started kindergarten almost a year later than most of the kids with whom I graduated (my birthday was two weeks too late to start kindergarten the previous year - I was devastated that my friends from primary were going to school and I wasn't) I only had a few months after graduation before I left on my mission so I did not have to worry about making decisions about college right away.  An in-state university had offered me a full-ride (plus money for books) academic scholarship without me even applying and they agreed to hold it for two years while I was on my mission.  I did not have anything against the school but was not sure that was where I wanted to go and just did not want to make any decisions about it so I asked them to just hold it for me.  I got BYU fever while on my mission.  I had contemplated going there before my mission, but with the majority of Elders around me saying they were going to BYU I felt a strong desire to follow suit.

In the end, money ended up making the decision for me.  My dear mother did most of the footwork (because I was trying to focus on being a missionary) of applying for me to attend BYU and two other schools besides the one that had offered me a scholarship.  BYU offered me a 50% tuition reduction scholarship and I knew that the other in-state schools would match the full-ride scholarship I had previously been offered.  I really wanted to join my comrades at BYU, but with a little encouraging from my mom I agreed that a full-ride scholarship was not something I wanted to give up.  I also liked the fact that the school was a couple of hours away from my family - far enough to have my own independence, but close enough to visit or be visited by them without too much advanced planning.

After my mission, school and work kept me pretty busy.  I did not really date at all during my first year at the university.  The singles' ward I belonged to was made up primarily of people who were close to being dishonorably kicked out of the YSA program (i.e. turn 30) and cliques of people who had grown up together in the same town their entire lives and consequently did not make any effort to get to know the new-coming college-goers.  I just did not really fit in there and kept to myself as much as possible.  I would later learn the boundaries for wards that had younger college kids that had moved away from home to go to school.

I knew I was supposed to date (and hated when my parents would ask me about my dating life) so I dated enough to show that I was putting forth some effort.  Almost without exception I would go on a date or two with a girl, not feel any real desire to go any further, and then wait a couple of months before making myself try again.  I often enjoyed the idea of the date (trying to make it unique or creative) more than I enjoyed the actual date itself.  There were only two girls that I took out more than a couple of times before dating the girl that is now my wife.

Marriage was next on my to-do list so I kept going forward as I was programmed to do . . .  To be Continued . . .

Why Do You Hate Women?

Yes, I am talking to you, you male-loving, chauvinist, homosexual man.  Why do you hate women?

This is a question my wife asked me during one of our many heated exchanges about my attractions towards members of the male gender.  Before I go any further, let me say that I love my wife.  She really is the best woman I have ever met.  This situation is probably at least as difficult for her as it is for me and probably much more so in some ways.  We had discussed, prior to getting married, that I had such attractions.  I told her about the therapy I had been through and how I was working through my "issues."  I directed her to the Evergreen website to help her process my initial confession (partially because I believed at the time that it was a good source of accurate information and partially because I could not handle all of the questions that I knew would ensue).  More on this in later posts . . . but to make a long story short, neither of us could have guessed what this would entail for us in the days, weeks, and months following our wedding.

Do I hate women?  I don't think so . . . most of my friends growing up were female . . . big shocker, right?  There were lots of girls that wanted to date me.  I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I was generally pretty popular among the lady folk both at school and at church.  Maybe I just "hate" motherly figures?

Let me clarify:  I do NOT hate my mother.  But throughout most of high school and ever since then I have not exactly seen eye to eye with her.  I really dislike getting advice from her.  This is likely due to the fact that most of her advice is unsolicited, blatantly obvious, sounds an awful lot like nagging, and generally misses the point altogether because she is so eager to give advice that she does not even listen to what is being said before climbing aboard her oversized soapbox.  WHEW!  That's been building up a while!  In her defense, I think it's genetic.  I think she inherited the worthless advice gene from her mother and I have likely inherited it too.  My poor children . . . (that is, if my seed ever does sprout - no attempts just yet).

Also, I really DO NOT see eye to eye with my mother-in-law. . . likely MUCH more about that to follow in future posts.  She also likes to give advice.  It usually comes by way of her daughter (my wife), but boy do I hear about it!

What is wrong with me?  Aren't gay guys supposed to have especially close relationships with their mothers?  My siblings often teased me about being her favorite (although that has definitely changed since coming out to my parents), but I do not think that I was ever so close to her that she squeezed my love for women right out of me (is that how the close-mom-relationship=gay-son argument goes?).

In summary, I do not like being told what to do (but I am oh so humble about it :) and it seems like it is the women in my life that like to tell me what to do.  BUT, I also don't like making decisions.  Go figure!  What's a guy to do?  In conclusion, if telling other people what to do is the essence of being a woman then I am guilty as charged!  But I know there is much more to being a woman and many men also like to tell people what to do.  I am grateful for good women in my life.  I do not hate them.  I just happen to have a broken sexual-attraction-for-females gear.  Wow!  I did not anticipate this post going this way.  Hope in makes sense should anyone actually read my ramblings!