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My life before: I was addicted to promiscuous homosexual behavior for 14
years and to pornography for 20 (starting at age 16). I lived a secret
double life while married with children. I met countless partners at
pornography stores and other places for one-time encounters. I was a sex
addict. I always returned to my “sex drug,” even though I must have promised
myself a hundred times that I would stop. I was happily married, had a
testimony and enjoyed the Mormon family life, but I was so desperate for
male love, I would do anything to feel it, even for a moment, even if it
were counterfeit. I lived in shame, fear and isolation. My wife knew
something of my struggles, but I lied and minimized them, and she wanted to
believe me.
My life now: After 14 years of trying in vain to stop, I now have been free
of homosexual sex for three years. I have a solid identity as a heterosexual
man. My marriage is better than ever, my family happier. I have been
excommunicated and rebaptized and know the joy of having repented and living
honestly and in integrity now. I have the most positive friendships with
other heterosexual men that I’ve ever had in my life. They give me more joy
and masculine affirmation than gay lust ever did. I have overcome a lifetime
of shame as a male and fear and distrust of other men. Instead of lusting
after their masculinity to fill my emptiness, I now identity with them as
men and relate to them as a man among men. Same-sex attraction has been
replaced by same-sex affinity.
How I got here from there: It began with hope, when I met an LDS reparative
therapist through Evergreen who had made the transition from homosexual
attractions himself. I finally understood that it was really possible to
change. In crisis, I surrendered my will to God and became willing at last
to do whatever it took to change, even if it meant others finding out. As
long as my first priority was keeping the secret, and the second priority
was change, I made no progress. I went into reparative therapy for 21/2
years. I confessed my sins to my bishop and was excommunicated. I found the
courage to reach out to men in my church to ask them to mentor me –
spiritually, athletically, and simply as a man with other men. Painfully, I
started to change. Overcoming my “heterophobia”–my fear of straight men–I
learned to pick up the phone and ask for help when I was tempted, instead of
going into isolation. In the moment of temptation, I learned to seek out
unconditional brotherly love from righteous friends who know of my struggles
and loved me anyway, instead of seeking the counterfeit of homosexual lust.
Brotherly love began to replace lust. Then in March 1998, I experienced a
spiritual epiphany: A love of men and maleness washed over me like a
spiritual wave. My shame and fear fell away. All my life, I realized. I had
lived in fear of men, ashamed to be a man. Now, I thrilled at the goodness
of masculinity and my place in the world of men.
In August 1998, at the invitation of my therapist, I went through the New
Warrior Training Adventure weekend run by the ManKind Project (www.mkp.org)
and was “initiated” into a new, healthier masculinity along with 30 other
men. Through it, I gained a profound connection to other men and a new
understanding of true masculinity. Through a weekly follow-up New Warrior
“Integration Group,” I gained a sense of being a man among men and belonging
to a trusted community of men that was more accepting, authentic and loving
than I had ever known.
Like so many others, I once begged God to change me with a single touch, the
way he healed the blind man. I prayed and read scriptures hoping at would
change me, but all the while I remained locked in isolation and shame.
Ultimately, I learned that trying to heal my emotional wounds through
spiritually alone was like putting a cast an my arm when I had the flu. I
was treating the wrong problem. I was emotionally broken and weak, but in
many ways spiritually strong. Trying to strengthen myself spiritually, alone
in my room in prayer, wasn’t going to heal the isolation I felt in the world
of men. I started to change when I saw the Lord as a guide who would lead me
through a healing journey if I did it his way, not mine. As long as I
mistook the map (spiritually) for the path (healing my emotional brokenness
as a man), I remained stuck at the starting gate.
It has been difficult, trying, terrifying, enlightening, beautiful, joyous,
miraculous, journey. I see now that I could not have received the same
healing with a single touch of the Master’s hand. Rather, by holding his
hand, and walking with him on a healing path, he didn’t just relieve me of
lust, he changed my soul.
Richard, Virginia (relyw@aol.com)
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