Marital bliss

I like it when people I've blogged about come to pay me a visit. I dunno, it just makes me feel important. Maybe Elder Oaks will come comment someday. :-) More likely an impersonator, now that I've said that!

In the mean time, Ron Schow stopped by recently to clarify his position on so-called mixed orientation marriages. The data for success is unfavorable, and given the recent planned divorces mentioned in the gay Mormon blogs I read, this has never been more emphatically on my mind.

Gushing about how great our marriage is and how happy I am has become a favorite past time on this blog of late, and I'm still standing by that. It's alarming to me how happy I am sometimes. Seems sort of indecent. Seems like I ought not allow myself such bliss while still struggling with so many issues in my life. I wonder whether it appears that I'm not struggling at all anymore--that things are sufficiently resolved (or repressed, depending on your inclination to cynicism) to put me riding off into the sunset. This makes me chuckle a bit, but I've been told I seem to handle everything with "relative ease" before, so perhaps people may get that impression.

The fact is, a couple years ago I wanted out of my marriage too. Not in a formal sort of way that involved conversations and rational thought and solutions (things I tend to advocate), but in a desperate, under-the-surface, frantic sort of way. This was before I had kids. I wanted to be freed from my marital situation in a way that wouldn't involve any pain for anyone involved--no blame, no long conversations, no tears, no betrayals. I wanted out scot-free. I wanted, during my most miserable moments, for my wife to die.

Yes, that is shocking and horrible beyond words.

But it was there, and I've since talked to my wife about it, and I'm telling you now because I tend to say stuff that no decent person ever would. So, I can understand when Laura says in her blog that she couldn't get married and be miserable for the rest of her life, because I was miserable for a while and there was no end in sight. I can understand the reluctance to consider marriage at all and the hopelessness that comes from feeling there are no happy alternatives.

But, somehow I'm still here and I'm now happy, and every once in a while when my wife takes longer than I expect at the store I have a horrible flash in my mind in which I wonder if there may have been an accident. And then I check the messages, look out the door, and fidget a bit until she arrives, safe and sound. If she takes particularly long and doesn't have her cell phone on, I may even start to ruminate on the worst possible scenarios, and they literally bring me to tears. Being a father and a husband makes me cry a lot, it turns out. I cry for happiness mostly, but once in a while it's out of fear of losing any of mine. I can't imagine life ever ever having the meaning and peace that it does without them all in it.

I can't explain how I got from point A (wanting my wife magically out of my life) to point B (horrified that anything bad might ever happen to her), but it surely has to do with Christ and positive change.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

She took his hands and her eyes were shining. "And you did it," she whispered. They looked at each other for a long moment, and in that moment all was as it used to be--it was as if they had never parted; but she did not offer to go into the Darkness with him and he did not ask her.

"One day," he said, "I shall find the right spell and banish the Darkness.
And on that day I will come to you."

"Yes. On that day. I will wait until then."

He nodded and seemed about to depart, but then he hesitated. "Bell," he
said, "do not wear black. Do not be a widow. Be happy. That is
how I wish to think of you."

I'm not quite capable of really being happy with the club's fiction choices. I'm conflicted between my desire for complexity that mirrors life and happy endings that leave me feeling optimistic and gratified. At the end of Kavalier and Clay, Sammy left his family to go be gay... to live the happy life he deserved. And it made me miserable. Because I am Sammy, in a way, and I know with absolute certainty that such a move on my part would be devastating all around. It would be a tragedy despite all the back patting I would get.

Jonathan Strange had eternal darkness surrounding him. What of it? A little darkness never hurt anyone! Just drink your vitamin D fortified milk and buck up, for crying out loud! I spent the whole book in love with his wife because she reminded me so much of my own wife. I cried when I thought of her miserable and trapped in a place that was inaccessible to me--in a manner that I couldn't overcome. And then... just when the enchantments start to be defeated, they decide to just part ways and call it good? Just until later, of course. When that pesky SSA, err, darkness is overcome.

Yes, yes, I realize this is supposed to be a poignant statement about love and sacrifice and a testament to their commitment to one another. But I'm not happy. I want my money back. Oh, wait, it was a library book.

Amazingly, my wife disagrees with me about all this. If I felt that to be happy I needed to leave her, she says, she would understand. She says it so lovingly, so sincerely, so unbelievably unselfishly that it makes me want to just make out with her right there and then.

Bring on the storms! Bring on the darkness! Bring on the otherworldly fairy-demons! We'll be holding hands resolutely through it all if I have anything to say about it.

More sex

In a way, my wife and I are achieving what some think is impossible. We're happily married, we've got a couple cute kids, and we manage to have sex even though I'm stark raving gay. Since I already opened the sex topic a few days back, I figure I might as well put in this little addendum while the subject is already on the table. Again, it's a topic that I approach with some reservation, because where is that line between appropriate and too much information?

Oh, well. I always did live my life as an open book.

The biggest challenge with having straight sex is making it an intimate experience between me and my wife rather than having my mind elsewhere (i.e. thinking about a guy). I could be wrong here, so feel free to argue with me, but I think the issue of intimacy focuses on not only what you do, but what the results are--are you more connected and intimate as a couple afterwards, or just messy? My wife pointed out to me after my last post on sex that I didn't really convey the parallel importance of physical gratification and intimacy--neither should nudge out the other. I mentioned that we love cuddling, but that's not the whole story. There is also that need for just the plain sex, I think.

I recognize that there's a commandment not to lust after anyone but one's spouse. So, there's that. But I want kids and I'm married, and so I'm willing to tolerate pushing some limits temporarily to make things work. And the way it has panned out is that I've thought about guys at certain times while having sex. This seems sort of pathetic, I grant, but it seemed requisite to achieve sex at all at first. It has become less so over time.

I haven't brought it up before despite that people kept saying "you must be bisexual if you're able to have sex with a woman." Folks, I'm really not. Or wasn't. Even now, I have some pretty good data to suggest that for all the progress I've made in being adequately turned on during intimate experiences with my wife, my responses are far more potent with guys.

Anyway, my point here is not to ruminate on my ambivalence and confusion on that topic. My point is to say that the raw physical component of sex is kind of important for a couple. The cuddling type of intimacy and pillow talk are great too. Neither should be the whole story or at the perpetual expense of the other.

To marry or not?

I wrote this a long while ago, but thought it was relevant to a few things I've read by others recently, so I went ahead and busted it out of draft status:

I remember the ache in a deep place in my heart. I wanted to be married so badly. I felt alone and needed someone to love me unconditionally--not just as a friend.

I've always been one to make friends pretty easily. At least, the kind of friends who are well above "acquaintance" but not quite intimate enough to call on a moment's notice to demand a shoulder to cry on. They would have said yes, of course, but I'm not one to make myself so vulnerable... even if it means being miserable in my wallowing loneliness.

Amidst the misery and self-pity, I had little insight into the fact that I was gay. I mean, I knew it in some sense. But it didn't weigh in consciously as a factor in my everyday decisions. So I still dated as if I were straight. I found no girls to be particularly what I was looking for, but I had a lot of fun just the same. On the rare occasion that I could comprehend the fun simultaneously with the inadequacy of it all, I realized I was in deep trouble. Fun wasn't going to get me a soul mate. And the soul mates I wanted were unavailable to me (as men).

Finally I got some good advice from my brother. He's an ardent Mormon in the true sense--works for the church, loves it, gives everything he has to it. I explained to him that there was a girl I had a lot of fun with (and had for years), but that it just didn't seem to be romantic or sexual. It didn't seem to be enough. Now, I suspect that he might know about my gay feelings even though we've never discussed it. He suggested that I consider all my feelings for her and not demand that it be a perfect fit. We had a connection, he said, that he had seen first hand. If we were both committed to each other, to the gospel, and recognized that life wouldn't be perfect, we might be right for each other.

Ultimately, God knows what is best. I'm one who believes there is not just one person in the world right for me, but that I could be happy with many of them. So, I asked God if she was right for me and he gave an affirmative answer. This woman knew by this point that I was gay. She accepted me anyway. We had a long history that I had never had with any other woman. We had had a lot of fun over the years. I thought that we could make it work. But there was a still a reluctant part of me that wondered if there was someone better. Should I hold out or should I just settle? My pride got in the way and the issue was suddenly not about sexuality at all, it was about finding perfection rather than accepting the love that was right in front of me. She loved me. I knew that she did. And on reflection I knew that I loved her. But the fact that it was only a deliberative love, not an unreflective one, gave me a lot of concern.

It took me several years to finally mature to the point where I realized that love can be something you perfect over time, given the proper quality and a sufficient quantity of raw materials. My gay feelings would be an obstacle more obvious than those imperfect character qualities that everyone has to deal with in marriage. And yes, it's qualitatively different, but not unmanageably so. We've made it work. And we continue to make it work. And despite all the nay-sayers who refuse to give any validity to our testimonial because of our relatively young marriage (not quite 5 years), I'm 100% confident that we'll continue to make it work.

I've never been happier and my loneliness is gone. The work continues, certainly. It's not all automatic.

But it's real. It's not a sham marriage. Despite the charges that I'm deluding myself, that I'm in denial, that I'm just a few months from melt-down... it's absolutely wonderful.

So. To the person who recently asked for advice on how to tell his family to lay off a little with their advice, I'd say just listen and relax. They might actually have something of value to relate, even if they know nothing about your sexual situation. Don't assume you will or won't marry. Live and learn, and stay open to God and his miracles. In my mind, it can always go either way until you close the door with your own self-determination.

Unreflective love

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love! -- then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

-John Keats

I love this because, after years of dating women, I never found unreflective love to be possible. But after some lengthy deliberations, I found my love for one woman in particular was real: reflective or not. Now, I'm enchanted at times with the stomach spinning realization that unreflective love has blossomed from our shared destiny.

I love you.

My valentine

What does a guy do for the most amazing woman in the world for Valentine's Day? Please keep in mind that the guy is dirt poor... and busy... and not terribly creative about such things.

I've seen all the crap people buy, and that's just not our style. But I would like to do something special. I might even pony up some cash in a completely unprecedented show of spendthrift indulgence and get a really nice piece of jewelry.

But even then, it would be nice to give it to her in a creative way. And some of the readers here are particularly creative, so I'm petitioning for your advice (or stories of things you've been impressed with before).

Full disclosure

I recently discussed with my wife that moment when I came out to her. I remember it as awkward, very embarrassing, and still sort of heroically wonderful. It was the first time I ever admitted I was gay to anyone other than a therapist.

But, I have a terrible memory, and for this reason I generally charge my wife with keeping track of life's most important reminders. And my wife's recollection of the event is a little different from my own. She remembers me saying, "I think I might like boys... sometimes." The careful reader will note that this is not identical in declarative solidity or content to "I am gay."

Over the last several months I've read with interest the accounts of other gay married men who either came out to their wives before or after marriage, as well as Oaks' comments on the subject and others' takes who are only spectators to the situation. The general sentiment seems to be, shame on you if you didn't tell your wife exactly what she was getting into before you married her. And, in some few cases, this may apply. But I really feel that the majority of cases (mine included) suffer from a lack of full disclosure not because of some sneaky reluctance to be honest, but because there has been such a lack of self-understanding that one could just as easily say, "Based on my feelings, I'm not sure if my gallbladder is performing at 100%."

I still don't fully understand the nature and depth of my homosexuality. But neither of us quite knew at the time we were dating and engaged that it would be as hard as it has been. I didn't think pornography was going to be the long-term problem that it has been, and she interpreted my "coming out" as a turning point--believing that having finally admitted it I was in a position to just walk away from it.

Back when the SLT article came out about gay married Mormons, many an idle commenter declared us to be naïve in believing our marriage could work. I believe we were naïve in the same way everyone is naïve when starting something as strange and new as marriage--there's no way you can know the odd ins and outs without experiencing them firsthand. And we were ignorant to the depth and breadth of the challenges my homosexuality would create for us. But we were not naive in the largest sense--we knew marriage would send us all sorts of curve balls, and that we would need all our loyalty and commitment to one another and the gospel to make it through regardless of the nature of the challenges.

We still believe (and I don't think it's naïve at all) that our marriage is and will be what we make it. Our marriage has improved and strengthened consistently over the years despite our growing understanding of the sexual challenges. It's not an overstatement to say that our family is thriving. Although my initial admission to my wife was something short of full disclosure, it represented an honest effort to communicate what I knew and understood at the time, and so the real measure of the success of our communication is not in whether I told, but in whether I continue to tell.

Johnny Lingo

Johnny Lingo, I think, was not gay.

If you're going to spend that many cows on a wife, you'd better really be fixin' to enjoy your investment. And to make that work, she's gotta know that she's worth every scrap of that beef. And that's just the trouble for me. I've become worried over the last several months that my Mohanna doesn't appreciate my appreciation... that she doesn't feel desirable. That she doesn't feel worth 8 cows. Or 4, or even 2.

Walking the dog through the park one day, I asked her whether she felt that my being gay subconsciously affected the way she perceives her own attractiveness. I asked her whether knowing that I was not strongly sexually attracted to her made her feel unsexy. I expressed my concern that she realize the difference between how a wife might normally interpret a husband's response, and how she should interpret mine.

Let me just say that walking over a bridge in a gorgeous park on a nice summer day is a good time to have this conversation. There was peace in the air, and we felt very close as we expressed our very real love for one another.

But it's one thing to think rationally through something holding hands in a scene from a Hallmark card, and quite another to have estrogen forcing you to cry when you don't want to, alone in the middle of the night. Err... so I've heard. A couple times since then things have turned hard and we've talked about it again. Something I've said or done has reminded her that our sexual situation is not ideal, and she realizes she does want to feel validated in that way... she does want to feel pursued, and sexy, and... worth 8 cows.

In my discouraged moments I think my efforts to give her 20 cows worth of affection and love are just an apology for the kind of love I'm not able to give her. And then I feel like I'm a bad husband. But in my good moments I know that 20 genuine cows worth of affection IS the kind of love I can offer and with some conscious appreciation and thoughtful effort we can work together to make sure we both have a healthy approach to our self image and our beautiful relationship. My Mohanna is worth more cows than any other woman (or man) on the island! I just need to make sure I send messages consistent with that fact.

Kissing

My first kiss came at an embarrassingly old age and under mortifying circumstances. A girl I had dated for some time suddenly asked me to close my eyes without offering any explanation. Doing odd things like this was not in the least unusual for our relationship, which was fun and spontaneous at the core. I did as I was told and she planted a big fat kiss on my unexpecting lips and walked out the door without a word.

It was... get ready for it... an assignment for a class. Students in that class were asked to do something outside their comfort zone. However, this friend's comfort zone was pretty darn broad to begin with, so she knew actually fulfilling it would take something extra. She would have to face one of the few things that intimidated her. Among them was me--the enigmatic boy with whom she had been best friends for quite a while, but who had somehow failed to take the slightest initiative in escalating the relationship.

After being relieved of my lip-virginity, my innocence unwillingly taken from me, I sat pensively wondering why it felt like such a big deal? Why should I care? Why didn't I experiment more? I decide I had better get comfortable with myself enough to explore. The idea made me slightly nauseated.

I remembered a time during high school when I had watched my buddy kiss his date on the porch when we dropped her off (we were doubling). It had made me really angry. I don't know why it was so hard for me to consciously understand what is so obvious to me now--I wanted him to be kissing me. Although I told myself I was losing my two best friends (to each other), the real problem was that the relationships between the three of us hadn't played out in the impossible way I secretly preferred. So, I was miserable and channeled my displeasure into a ridiculous philosophy that kissing was cheap and insincere. It got me out of a lot of kissing for several self-deluding years.

My kissing boycott extended to hand holding, rubbing backs, or any other mild publicly acceptable affection as well. I attributed my reluctance to hold hands during dates to my virtue--I wanted it to really mean something when I was affectionate with a girl. I once forced myself and was rewarded with sweaty disgusting hands for the evening as well as feeling cheap and dishonest. It was not particularly pleasant, but I gave it a shot. In a laughably stupid lack of insight, I was completely mistaken about my motivations and my conclusions about why it was unpleasant.

Fast forward now to my first real kiss. I was at the airport with a girl that I was thinking about asking to marry me. It was awkward because I loved her, but as with the other women in my life, I wasn't sexually attracted to her. Could it work? I had to try to make it work. So I kissed her. The kiss was powerful in some ways and disappointing in others. It was powerful because I initiated it. It was pathetic because I had no idea what I was doing. It was powerful because I loved her and I wanted to desire her. It was pathetic because the desire was all wishful thinking. I just wasn't feeling it.

We got engaged and made it our habit to get lots of practice making out. I got a lot better. ;-) We got married and I got better still. One may even say (if that "one" is my wife) that I'm a really good kisser. And she has, ahem, lots more experience with other kissers than I do!

So, now, when I read posts about being repulsed by the prospect of being affectionate with someone to whom there is no sexual attraction, I get it. And this post has no great moral to it--I just note that somehow I used to be at point A and now I'm at point B (getting lots of hetero kissing action, and thoroughly enjoying it). The getting from one to the other is quite a mystery.

My sweetest

I've been wracking my brain to think of something else to say about Twilight. I spent several hours of my life reading it, and I figure I need to get at least 2 posts out of it. At least! C'mon!

The problem is, as was previously mentioned, this book largely sucked. All I really have to say about it that hasn't been said is that fairy tale love isn't always unreal. Bella was in love with Edward so much that she was willing to say "consequences be damned" and go after him despite the whole murderous hunger thing.

My wife is like that. Not delicious, but so in love with me that she was willing to look past the impossibilities on the surface. She still looks past my faults on a regular basis and never ceases to amaze me.

Last week was Sweetest Day. I had never heard of it before this year. I guess it's kind of a regional 2nd Valentine's Day in October. You know, because October needs another holiday based on consuming large amounts of candy. Anyway, my sweetest has proven to me that she's the sweetest of all. Imagine a woman who can look past my faults... who can somehow feel validated even when conventional attraction isn't there to validate. How does she do it? I don't know. I just know she's amazing and I love her and I'm grateful for her.

She makes me happier every day. I hope I can return the favor.

Cute boys boxing

My wife hated the movie Annapolis with a passion, and when I defended it as "not that bad" she just said I only liked it because of the cute boys boxing.

The woman knows me all too well. And that's why our marriage rocks.

Eternal sex

There is, I admit, something definitionally inadequate about sex with my wife. I deny charges that we don't have adequate emotional intimacy or sexual intimacy or more intimacy than you can shake a stick at, but there is something there to be desired. And that's why I'm trying to objectively look at the data about changing my sexual orientation. It's actually quite difficult with the shrieking always in the background from people who (wrongly) claim that the question is already answered, or that I'm bound to end up suicidal if I undertake such an interest and hope.

Not to worry, I'm not going to become suicidal. And even if I don't achieve certified straight sex in my life, the sex we do have will suffice quite nicely, I'm sure. And the happiness and intimacy we currently share in our marriage increases constantly and I have no reason to believe that will stop despite the expressed fears of some that marriages like mine end up like some prison sentence.

Even if, as the data seems to suggest, deliberately changing one's sexual orientation is unlikely in this life, I still think I'll achieve "full sexual expression" in the next life. I mentioned something about resurrection in the SLT article and it was quoted on some blogs and ridiculed savagely. (Savage ridicule is so... worthy of reciprocity.) Granted, I can't annotate a great concordance with all the scriptural references for my belief in this department, but my thoughts seem highly consistent with what I know about the gospel and our eventual destination.

I think the biological components of same sex attraction--the actual neurological pathways and genetics and brain imprinting--will be "healed" in the resurrection to be consistent with the actual purpose of the reproductive system. The psychological aspects like emotional ties and relationships I'm not so sure about (which is one reason I think chastity is an eternal true principle). Ties to men loved during mortality will no longer be supported by physical attraction nor sanctioned by legal or divine authority. A life of love and common experiences will end when we're set to whatever our eternal jobs will be. But the emotional ties will probably remain, and to that end gays will have inadvertently created an eternal situation ironically similar to the temporary one I'm in now--one in which they are not fully sexually compatible with the person with whom they've shared their life. I imagine this might be an instance in which my imagined explanation of why gay love is ultimately wrong applies... of why gay love is good, but not good enough.

Anyway, those musings are ancillary to the true point of this post. The point is, I look forward to a time when, if not in this life then the next, I will be fully sexually compatible with my wife. What a foolish thing, some believe, to gamble so much on faith in a situation after death. But, I'm happy to do it. Gambling on my spirituality has yielded nothing but returns so far.

A live-oak growing

I SAW in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches;
Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;
But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near—for I knew I could not;
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away—and I have placed it in sight in my room;
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them;)
Yet it remains to me a curious token—it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,
I know very well I could not.

-Walt Whitman

Being the artistic type, I made my own Christmas cards for friends one year in high school. They were pretty great cards, actually. They were a watercolored painting with a calligraphied poem, both chosen because they reminded me of that person. I gave a painting of a tree with this Whitman poem to my best friend. I didn't mean anything gay by it. I just meant that I loved him. I think he took it just the right way (but now that I know Whitman was gay I sometimes wonder what his parents thought of it!).

I like this poem because, despite how Whitman may have intended it, it describes well the visceral yearning I have for a man's love. It's something reparative therapists describe just as gay advocates do. There's a need there for companionship and love irrespective of sexuality. But in my case (and some would argue every case), the need is a paradoxical need of sorts. Ideally, one's companion could be everything to that person, including sexually. But a man could never give me a family. And a woman could never fulfill me sexually. My yearnings for mutually exclusive ends need a little cognitive oversight.

Despite how hard it has been to give up on my desire for a fully deep and sexual relationship with a man, I took the step to build a relationship with someone who my feelings never told me was ideal. Because, despite that I loved to be around her, and she was my best friend, she was a woman. The decision took a long time coming. And the relationship building has a long way to go. But I'm delighted to find myself uttering joyous leaves of dark green. I love her more every day. And although I'm getting used to the nay-sayers, it's sometimes scary to think about the terrible possibilities for future failure.

Perhaps I'm less like an oak in Louisiana, and more like a juniper on the coast of California. For whatever reason, I find myself growing on a hard craggy slope, I'm windswept and bent, water is scarce. Anyone might have a hard time uttering joyous leaves under such circumstances, but my friend and lover brings me water, helps prune at times, and together the design we're pursuing is God's.

And for now, I grow.

A Congregation of One, part 6

I was not well. Becky, my wife, was in class in the Library and Information Science Lab in the main campus library while I was sitting on a toilet on the second floor. And had been for a while. Oddly, a foot belonging to the man in the next stall inched toward me under the wall. It started tapping slowly and insistently. Deliberately. I recognized the proposition. One of the many skills my 35 grand yearly tuition had paid for. Placing catheters, IV lines, and recognizing anonymous gay sexual propositions.

Human Sexuality was an integral part of the Foundations of Clinical Practice course in medical school. Our small group was visited by a member of “the community” in an educational venture that was criticized by conservative students for its irrelevance and liberal students for its sensational “petting zoo” feel. There we were edified on the definitions and customs of tea rooms, Turkish baths, and “the family” by a middle-aged gentleman who audibly sighed as he expressed his deep regret that barebacking with strangers was no longer safe. When the meeting was over and the physician facilitator was gone, two of my peers began loudly endorsing the lesson, among other things. “I can’t believe people in our class are so narrow-minded. I mean, those guys who left the cerebral palsy video the other day just missed out on the most profound lesson we’ve had in months.” They were referring to an optional video in which sexuality for handicapped individuals was eplicitly explored. During this exchange, the two students steadied their gaze far away from me—a subtle clue that this conversation was being broadcast in my direction. They knew I was Mormon. And, I doubted the fact had escaped them that I was one of those who excused myself from the video. They didn’t know that my reason was a scheduling conflict. Or that I was gay.

Gay, perhaps, but uninitiated. Thanks to my tea room friend, I knew that the main library second floor bathrooms were once the best place on campus for gay pickups. Ostensibly in the past. And yet, there was the tapping foot.

Had I been tripping gaydar? I knew I had in the past. When I left my long-time girlfriend before coming to medical school, I finally decided to level with her. We sat under the stars on the edge of a playground in Sandy, Utah. The playground felt familiar. It felt as if our whole five-year relationship had happened on a playground. We were giggling children—fun, happy, and platonic. I stammered out an explanation on that night as to why our relationship had never gone anywhere—why she had suffered as I retreated from commitment again and again. She replied that she already knew. She hadn’t always, but she did now.

What tipped her off, I wondered? How many people suspected? Would most people be surprised if they knew, or would it have been like me with Jeremy—a confirmation of what had already been suspected.

The foot tapped.

This was ridiculous. I was in a filthy restroom feeling sick, and yet there was a feral urgency in me that wanted to tap my foot back. Something was inexplicably taking hold of my thoughts and desires. Allowing me to wonder what would happen if I tapped back.

After coming to medical school, my long-time girlfriend moved to Iowa as well. We were soon engaged, then married. We had taken the risk despite the weighty realization that only about 6 or 7 percent of marriages with one gay partner last beyond 7 years. We loved each other enough to move forward. The years being married had been difficult not only because of uni-directional sexual compatibility, but also because of clinical depression on Becky’s part. We made it through the depression and being gay, and we sure as hell were going to make it through the disembodied tapping foot.

I had read on a gay Mormon blog once,

In my studies of relationships, I've come to understand that every pairing, after two years on average, settles into things, and whatever feelings of infatuation they had for one another dissipate and either the union crumbles (if there is no fundament of true friendship and real love) or is replaced by a more profound love (if it is founded on true friendship and love). I avoided that entirely. I don't have to worry that one day I will wake up and not be "in love" with my wife because those twitterpations that convinced me to forge a union with her have dissipated... no. Our love HAD to originate from the real and the profound and the deep swellings of actual interpersonal comprehension and appreciation and real communication and mutual desires for true happiness... the things that LOVE truly is.

A few minutes later, the foot walked past me in the library hall while its head glanced sideways and then steadied its gaze ahead.

Index for A Congregation of One
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8

Angst

A German word which means "anxiety" or "anguish." Technically, this is a term used in Existentialism which expresses the dread reality that the future is an unknown chasm; therefore, the choices that a person ( the existent ) makes are the determining factor in the outcome of one's future - thus, the cause for "angst."

My angst ebbs and wanes. For several weeks now, perhaps months, I've felt quite comfortable with where I'm at. But yesterday things boiled over and it reminded me that this journey is not going to be a short one.

My wife brought a gay-themed DVD home from the library this week. About 10 minutes into the show it was pretty clear that this show was not going to be good for me. I was turned on by the graphic portrayal of the characters' lives (nudity, sex, hot models dancing... it was all there). My wife asked if I was okay watching it, and I said that I didn't know. She asked if I wanted her to make the decision and I said yes. We turned it off.

Later in the day I confessed to her that I had watched a bit more of it. It was hot. And I was hungry. Plus, I had considered ripping it to the computer so I could watch it later when she wasn't around. I told her these things because I work through my angst, my conflict, my turmoil by discussing it with the person who loves me most in the world. And she said I had no need to hide it from her. If I wanted to watch it, we could watch it together.

I broke down. I was more emotional than I've been in months. Perhaps years. I said, "No! We can't watch it together. You don't get it! I'm addicted to pornography and that's exactly what this is for me. 90% of me wants to watch it with you. But the best 10% wants to get rid of it. It's not your fault. I know you are trying to help me and be supportive. But if I'm giving you mixed signals, that's why." My face scrunched and puffed. My dignity evaporated. My humiliation set in. Of course, being the saint she is, she apologized and agreed to help me be my best. She hid the DVD from me knowing I would probably want to watch it later that day. She loves me and struggles to know how to do what is best for me.

But this experience underscores the source of angst in my life. It's the divisiveness between the part of me that wants one thing and the part that wants the opposite. Someday I might make it to 100% one or the other--like Hurc or Kim--and that angst will be thankfully gone. I understand that neither rode is easy.

It would be hard to leave Mormonism for me. Despite my occasional doubts and struggles with the faith, I think the process of rejecting Mormonism would be a means to the end of embracing my gay desires. And I don't think I could be satisfied with leaving Mormonism as a means to an end. I'm in too deep.

And Kim says it has been 3 years angst free for her, but I know her struggles with the issues have lasted over a decade. No picnic down that road either. I've chosen this road for myself. The road less traveled? From all indications, I think my particular combination of choices and circumstances could be described as such!

Hence, the angst.