My Story--part II

I went to BYU out of default more than out of desire.  I got in without effort and I didn’t really know what I wanted from life so it was easy.  My freshman year I went to church because you have to go to church if you are a member at BYU, not because I wanted to go.  I believed in God.  Period.  End of testimony.  As others on my dorm floor started putting their papers in, I decided I was not going on a mission.   Knowing awkward it would be to stay at BYU without going on a mission I began researching what it would take to transfer.

Everything changed a week before the end of my freshman year when I had a powerful spiritual experience.  It came completely unbidden, in a manner that I would have a hard time denying.  I knew without a doubt that God wanted me to go on a mission.   So even though I didn’t want to and worse that I couldn’t testify to the truthfulness of the gospel I began to prepare to go on a mission. 

I had previously prayed with God to take my homosexual desires away.  As I prepared to go on a mission, my fasting changed.  I’m not sure why, but I began bargaining with Heavenly Father, not to change me, but to prepare a woman that I could marry, a woman who would love me in spite of my attractions to other guys.  And then I went on a mission.  It was a great two years.

When I returned from the mission, I had many first dates, a few second dates, and very few third dates.  There was one girl that I really liked but she mentioned once that a good friend of hers had come just out to her.  She didn’t handle it very well.  I knew then that we would probably be just friends.

I was nearing graduation when I met my now wife.  She was a member, but didn’t go to BYU though she did have friends who went there that she would go and visit occasionally.  On our first official date I asked her what she learned from not going to a church school.  “I learned how to love.  My best friends in college were all gay I have grown to love people who live different lifestyles in a way I would not have learned to love them at BYU.”  I was in love.  A month later I told her that I had homosexual attractions.  Four months later, we were married.

We have a great marriage.  I’m not saying it hasn’t had its rough patches.  There have been eras when I wondered if calling it quits wouldn’t be easier.  And I KNOW there were times when my wife planned an escape hatch, in the event that one had became necessary.  But we’ve worked things out.  And more importantly God has blessed us.  We love each other very much.  And she puts up with me and supports me and loves me.  And I her.

I decided to start this blog because I want my fellow gay Mormons to know that some mixed orientation marriages work.  I’m definitely not advocating this for everyone.  I know that the only reason my marriage has survived is because of whom I married.  It’s much less me.