Northern Lights

-L- asked me to respond to the same questions he did. My answers are below. In many ways, since I’ve only been married three years, and was single for a long, long time, I feel more qualified to talk about bachelorhood than marriage.

1. 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 a ton of girls when I was single. Sometimes it was fun. Sometimes I did it because I was “supposed to”. I also did a fair amount of “hanging out”. (Don’t tell Elder Oaks.) I think dating can keep you busy and “on the market”, but there are a lot of people who think that the more you date, the more likely you are to get married. I don’t think so. My late date of marrying wasn’t due to my lack of dating. I had dated more than most of the people around me who got married, and many of my older single friends, even if they were heterosexual, had also dated a lot. I had very few actual girlfriends, however, Most of my relationships petered out after 2-3 dates. I guess we’ll leave for another time the fraught topic of when and how to express affection to dates–hand-holding, cuddling, and the dreaded kiss.

I believe the most important preparation we can make for marriage is internal. Love will come to us when we’ve learned to open our hearts to it. When we can come to it from a position of abundance and generosity, rather than need and greed. We shouldn’t want to marry because it’ll fix us (and SSA guys are far from the only ones who fall into this trap. So many women have the ‘Prince Charming syndrome’ that they’ll only be a complete a whole and happy person when they have a ring on their finger) or solve whatever deficits we have that are troubling us. No one else can give you confidence. No one else will ever be sufficient inspiration for you to be good. You have to find those things on your own. And if you find them before you get married, you’ll have a better and happier relationship as a result, because it will be based on strength, rather than weakness.

2. 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?

I certainly didn’t know it was the right thing to do for me, or even possible, when I started dating her. The very day we went on our first (blind) date, if you had told me I would be marrying a girl, I would have laughed in your face. I wasn’t capable of a relationship with a woman.

For me, the secret was not biting off more than I could chew. Rather than constantly wondering if I should marry her, if I could marry her, I just asked myself what I was ready and able to do right now. As a good friend and mentor who also deals with SSA said when I was freaking out about the ‘M’ word said to me, “Don’t ask yourself–or God–if you should marry her. Just ask yourself how much of yourself you’re willing to share with her, how much of your life you’re willing to include her in, how much you’re willing to trust her, and how much she’s willing to trust about you–at this moment.

That was tremendously helpful. I took it a day at a time. I always felt like I was moving forward. Marriage just seemed like a natural next step at some point. For me, I decided I wanted to marry her about 18 months into the relationship.

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

Yes. It isn’t so much a question of whether you ought to tell her. I think you would want to tell her. By the time I got married, I wasn’t under any delusions that this was going to go away anytime soon. Therefore, I wanted my wife to understand as much as she could about what I was going through, so that she’d be able to support me in the things I know I need to do to keep my homosexual feelings in check. Her willingness to understand and be supportive of my needs in this area were in fact a major factor in my decision to want to marry her.

4. Many single LDS guys with SSA seem to struggle with depression, either because of medical reasons or because of the uncertainty, heartache, and confusion associated with this trial. Did you experience such feelings when you were single? If so, how do those feelings compare after you got married?

Yes, I did. But I also had a very rich life when I was single as well. I really felt like I was able to make some real contributions, and undergo some important spiritual and emotional growth while I was single. A lot of my depression resulted from my feelings that my life was meaningless and unimportant, feeling unconnected. Sometimes I denigrated the simple pleasures of friendship with several dear friends thinking of them as inferior to a romantic coupling. They aren’t inferior, though they’re different. But they’re a lifesaving gift and a consolation, and they still are even though I’m married now.

It isn’t up to us to decide how your lives have meaning, the Spirit told me one night I was in prayer. It’s a fools errand, and too susceptible to vanity. What is left to me is the choice of living my life the way God wants me to. If I do that, I can be confident that my life will have purpose and meaning, the Spirit said, because I have the confidence and knowledge that I am doing what the Lord needs me to. That surety brings a lot of peace and comfort.

I also dealt with a fair amount of anger and jealousy. It wasn’t fair what I was going through. It sometimes seemed harder and tougher than for other people, for whom all of this stuff seemed to natural, so easy. But the more I learned about their lives, the less I wanted to trade their supposedly “easy” way with my own. The answer to that anger was surrender to God, and humility. (I hope to address a great approach to this using the three cardinal virtues of attention, compassion, and gratitude that help us to want what we have in a future post sometime.

5. Most of us single guys (if not all) struggle with masturbation and many struggle with pornography. A heterosexual relationship with a woman does not eliminate these desires. On the other hand, single SSA guys should not think they have to be perfect in order to seek out marriage. How do you know if you’ve got enough of a handle on those things to get married?

Many people are surprised to learn that most sex surveys show that married men actually masturbate more frequently than single men. So I hope to disabuse anyone–gay or straight–who thinks that marriage will be a cure for their masturbation habit. And there are others with even more serious infractions in their recent past. You need to feel like you have a handle on those things. You need a good track record of sexual sobriety (note that this means a lot more than mere abstinence) before you get married, because you’re going to need it even more afterwards. When you start having sex, the genie comes out of the bottle. It’s going to raise a lot of issues that previously you could often just stuff back into the jar and close it. That’s not possible once you’re sexually active.

You’ll still be tempted to have a sexuality apart from your wife. To indulge in sexual release in a way that is yours and yours alone, that you won’t want to share with your wife. The trick is to learn to channel that energy–but not the imagery–back into your relationship with your wife. Sex is a wonderful thing that should only be used to strengthen the marital bond, to be something shared, and given freely, as an expression of love.