Northern Lights

After my series interviewing bloggers married for 25 years, one blogger e-mailed me privately to ask about my own marriage. Initially I didn’t think I would ever blog the topic, because there were way too many personally identifiable details, but I’ve since sanitized it a bit, and decided to follow his advice to share it. Here are his questions and my answers:

Many single SSA guys fear or hate dating for a variety of reasons. Dating presents unique challenges for SSA guys. Could you summarize your dating life while you were single (i.e., did you date a lot?)?

I dated quite a bit, but I never seriously dated. For me, it was more hanging out–just with structure. From my sixteenth birthday (when I went out with two girls simultaneously!) through high school and college, I had a pretty good time dating. I didn’t go on a whole lot of second, third, and fourth dates though, and that probably raised some eyebrows. But, the folks who wondered probably just chalked it up to my irritating personality. ;-) j/k

Perpetually dating without any progress toward serious relationships got me into trouble with my wife. Part of what attracted me to her was that we could date without it feeling formal and strained. We worked together in leadership positions on campus, and we found plenty of opportunities for low-stress socializing. We hung out with our group of friends in our corner of the cafeteria as if it were Central Perk. We just plain liked being around each other, for whatever the excuse. And so it went for years.

Eventually I had to face the music: she liked me in a different way than I liked her. She liked me in the way I probably would have liked her, if I were straight. And so I had to decide if I really believed that and what I should do about it when she told me one day she couldn’t be “just friends” anymore. It was either going to be more than friends or nothing at all, because the perpetual in-between was too hard for her. I hadn’t realized she had been suffering.

So, I recommend starting off like I did–date without stress or over-thinking the possibilities–but also learn from my mistakes. Think about how the dating is going, and anticipate a time when you’ll need to discuss the sexual issues to decide together whether you want to go forward or move on. That time should be before someone gets hurt, but I don’t see any reason it needs to be in the first few dates or even within several months.

Please describe your courtship with your wife. How did you decide to get married? How long did you date? How did you know marriage was the right thing to do?

My wife and I dated for several years. I never did come out to her after she said she wanted to be more than friends or be nothing at all. So we ended up growing apart and she moved away and went on with her life. In the mean time, I kept dating other girls and having a pretty good time. There was never anybody I connected with so well, though, and I slowly realized it. After I had graduated, she moved back to the Provo area. We decided to date again and I came out to her. I didn’t think we’d get married, but I didn’t completely rule it out either. I had close friends who told me they didn’t think we were right for each other, and in retrospect I wonder if they were jealous of our steadily growing friendship. She wasn’t perfect for me and I wasn’t perfect for her, but I think life is like that. Not being perfect, my question was, could we successfully make it work anyway? Was it going to lead to the happiness and fulfillment that I always wanted to have in a family? Often I had a hard time seeing it, despite that I couldn’t get enough of her.

I moved away to medical school and one day discussed her with my older brother. He’s a pretty smart guy and I consider him to be very spiritual, so I thought his advice might be helpful. I’m not out to my brother, but I told him honestly that I’m not sexually attracted to her. He (assuming, I think, that it was because she’s not a Victoria’s Secret model) suggested that there are more important criteria than that, and that attractions have a way of working themselves out when we’re keeping the law of chastity. I was skeptical of his optimism, knowing what I know about my situation, but in many ways it made sense anyway. There was quite a bit more advice given, but that was the key thing I took away. If he would counsel a straight guy not to worry about attraction as the key issue, I imagined that should apply to me just as much.

I prayed about it and kept in touch with her. She remembers feeling foolish as I again responded to her affections in a sort of luke-warm way. I didn’t mean to be so wishy-washy, but it’s a hard issue to really figure out, and you don’t want to screw it up. Just when she was feeling most discouraged and that she had made a big mistake in continuing to date me or holding any optimism that I might ever consider marriage, I proposed.

I wish I could say the proposition came from a complete certainty that I had studied everything out and this was clearly the best thing for us. But it was more that I had studied it out, we had dated for years, and even though it didn’t feel completely right, I was happiest when I was with her, and if I wouldn’t be sexually attracted to any woman ever, I might as well be happy with her in the mean time. I prayed about it and it was right. And, with a feeling of assurance from God, that turned out to be enough to carry me through.

I think the common consensus for SSA guys is that they should tell their girlfriend about their trial before getting married. Do you agree?

I understand why some people don’t talk about their SSA before getting married. There’s a hope that it’s gone or that it’s not really an issue, or that marriage itself will change it. However, this is a regrettable mistake in my estimation, despite that it may not be willful deception. My advice is definitely to talk about it beforehand. I think that’s reflected in the information on the church’s website too.

Reading this now, I want to clarify that I’m not presenting my experiences as the template for a gay guy who wants to get married. First of all, this story seems so sad in so many ways. And it really was. But, it does have a very very happy ending (as much as has ended to date, I should say). I present it only as one more data point for consideration in how life’s choices might turn out. It’s the honest story about a struggle–a real struggle that doesn’t apologize for being what it is–persisted in faith and ended with a blessing.

Last night FlameRetardentMormon and I were talking about things, and she reminded me of something particularly important. She said that although people have to do what’s right for them individually, and that may not be the same thing as for the next person, there are still right answers for that person. I honestly hope that each person who struggles can find the right answers.