Finding Strength of Will

Got an email from a friend this week and I wasn’t sure how to reply. You’d think it would be easy. Something simple would suffice, like: “I wish I were there to go with you. Sounds like a lot of fun.” But for some reason I found it difficult to say even that. Here’s why. We’ve been friends for a long time now. Since our first teenage years. We were friends by nature of a mutual friend first, but over time our own friendship grew. He was quiet and reserved, introverted. He like to have things just so. His room was always in order and he paid attention to the details but without getting bogged down by them. He seemed to know what he liked and what he didn’t like without much hesitation. All quite different from me. My room would go through fitful bouts of cleanliness and disarray. My likes and dislikes related much more directly to my mood rather than to any empirical method of elimination of less appealing options. Even my favorite color varied from day to day. He and...

I originally wrote this early October, 2012.  It's now eight months later.  I feel like I have slowed down and stabilized but that has brought it's own challenges.  More on that later. So the complications of affection and intimacy have been weighing on my mind this week.  I feel that I’m confused about what is right and I am hoping that writing it down will help.  As I’ve talked to Wrylon about some of it, she answers in such a matter of fact way that I am envious of the clarity that has been gifted to her.  However I must admit that I enjoy the complexities and facets of life.  She sees the diamond and that it is beautiful, I look at each cut and facet and how the reflections play off each other, dividing the light and creating rainbows. I'm not sure what I wanted to say but suddenly my thoughts are clouded.  Clarity is replaced with a fog.  I want to push on, to try and to pursue this line of thought, to chase the thought that has just...

Finally updated the site with a new look.  Not bad for my first attempt and tweaking a blogger template, if I do say so myself.  I've wanted to get a new outfit on the blog for a while but other things kept taking priority.  However, the embarrassment of having an unformatted blog has escalated the priority of giving it a face-lift.  It's sort of like inviting people over and realizing the paint on your front door is peeling. Actually it's a lot like that.  You see we've been sharing our blog more frequently to friends and neighbors.  Sort of a scary experience.  Well, really frightening to tell the truth.  I keep wondering how long it will take before I stop feeling a twinge of nervousness and fear when my wife and I bring me out of the closet in a social setting.  Remembering the many men and women I talked to, who feel completely alone in this, keeps me going. So far we've had nothing but encouragement and support a...

Today I told a stranger I was gay.  It was just the right time.  It surprised me how easy it was to say, how little I cared if he knew.   “I wondered,” he replied.  “But I thought I was wrong because you were married.  So are you like Josh Weed and Ty Mansfield?” “Why did you think I was gay?”  I asked.  So far most people have been surprised. “I read people pretty well,” he answered.  I should have seen it coming at this point.  Maybe I did. Because I asked, suspiciously, “How do you know about Josh and Ty?” I saw it then.  I knew the look in his eyes.  I knew what he was feeling. We talked for quite some time.  We shared a lot--the same beliefs and religion, the same attractions.  We had similar fears and cares. Ten minutes, then fifteen.  Already we were sharing things more personal than I share with opposite attracted friends, friends I have known for many years. That is my experi...

Just faced another of the scariest moments of my life.  I wonder if I will ever get used to it?  This morning I came out to a friend I carpool with.  His friendship means a great deal to me and I have wanted to tell him for some time, but have not had the courage.   I used to think that I was a pretty good judge of character, and while I still believe it to be true in general, there are the secret workings of a person’s heart, their true character, that are difficult to see.  There are moments, though, when we truly see a person’s character, moments when guards are down, moments of vulnerability.  When talking to someone you care about, outing yourself is definitely one.   For both of you. “I’ve got to share something with you,” I told him this morning.  “Before I chicken out.  You never know where God is going to take you and he has certainly taken me on a strange path during the past year.” I explained that I had spent the majority of my li...

Over the last week or so I have found myself thinking of and even saying to Will that I wish we could go back to the way things were. Not, that I really want that, but this new path is a bit scary and in a lot of ways uncomfortable.   I have heard Will say quite a few times over the last little while that he is so far out of his comfort zone that he doesn’t even   remember where it is anymore.   I didn’t think much about my wishing things to go back until I was talking with someone Sunday night and they said at this point many wives try and pull their husband’s back. I thought about that for a few minutes then and I was thinking about it again today. I have NO desire to go back to the ways things were. Was it safer?   Perceivably, but not necessarily. Will was getting tired of hiding such a big part of him.   Was it more comfortable? Maybe, but it was preventing us from having as close of relationship that we have now; no secrets, no elephants in the room, a...

I wrote this post two weeks ago, as you will see at the bottom.   I’m actually glad I didn’t post before as it gave me two weeks to put everything in a better perspective. Will has always been gay or attracted to men.   Since he was 8, he knew he was different.   Then, I assume, sometime a few years later he realized he was SSA (Same Sex Attracted).   He had a goal in mind though; he was going to go on a mission, he was going to get married, he was going to have a family, and he was NOT going to be gay.   Though that did get him where he wanted to be, and we think that the goal to not be gay was a good thing for our journey, the time comes when you have to be honest with yourself or you might explode!   :) When Josh Weed came out (you can read our story about that here ) it allowed Will to be OK with being gay.   That means he isn’t squashing those feeling anymore.   And if he isn’t squashing those feelings, that means he is having them. ...

OK, just found something I want to share.  The reason it is going to be remotely coherent is that I wrote it almost six months ago, just after  Josh Weed's coming out post  on June 7 of this year.  Just six months ago.  A friend of my wife shared Josh's post on Facebook, my wife read it, and shared it with me.  Up to this point in my life, I was blissfully living in denial.  I read the article and my world  turned upside down.  Here is a portion of an email I wrote to Josh a short time after. " I have started and restarted this email more times than I can count in the past few days.  There is just so much bottled up that I have never really been able to share, now that I am able to share it, I don't know where to start.  Oh, well.  Might as well get straight to the point:  I am an active Temple-attending Latter-day Saint, have served a full time mission, have been married to a wonderful, amazing woman for 10+ years, and...

I've finally worked up the courage to start blogging.  Been thinking about it for a long time but somehow there was always a reason not to.  Now I've got a reason.  Still nervous, though, as I'm generally not the sharing type.