My Patriarchal Blessing

I feel like I’ve mentioned this here before, but one concern I’ve had for a while is the fact that my patriarchal blessing says all kinds of stuff about the woman I will marry and my kids and how I should raise them. At this point in my life I have a really hard time seeing any of that becoming a reality. It’s frustrating to hear that the blessings of a patriarchal blessing are contingent on our faithfulness. There are only so many ways I can interpret this:

1) I’ve messed up too much already to realize this blessing
2) If I start now with more faith I should plan to achieve it
3) It’s a filthy lie

None of those are too appealing. I still have a very strong testimony of the church and for me 3 is automatically out. I also have a hard time believing 1 because if God had this in His plan for me I don’t believe he would deny me the chance to repent enough to still receive it, but maybe that’s the case. This is the mental process I go through when I think about this and I am always left with option 2. 2 is particularly frustrating because it really takes the wind out of my sails to put forth a great deal of effort for an extended period of time and see nothing. I’ve done that for years and I feel further away from marriage now than I ever have, even at my most righteous moments.

Anyway, last night was stake general priesthood meeting and a new patriarch was called so the stake president took the opportunity to speak for a bit about the importance of patriarchal blessings. Immediately this question came into my mind and I sorta said a little prayer in my heart that I would get an answer to it, either directly by his word or by the Spirit. Well, I’m pleased to report that I was given both simultaneously.

He quoted Elder John A. Widtsoe who said:

“It should always be kept in mind that the realization of the promises made may come in this or the future life. Men have stumbled at times because promised blessings have not occurred in this life. They have failed to remember that, in the gospel, life with all its activities continues forever and that the labors of earth may be continued in heaven. Besides, the Giver of the blessings, the Lord, reserves the right to have them become active in our lives, as suits His divine purpose. We and our blessings are in the hands of the Lord. But, there is the general testimony that when the gospel law has been obeyed, the promised blessings have been realized.”

The Spirit definitely confirmed the truth of these words to me as he spoke and I totally knew the answer to my question. Its not that this gives me the out to totally rule out the option of marriage in this life. Basically, what I’ve concluded is that I should prepare as if I will get married in this life but at the same time be okay with the fact that this blessing may very well not be obtained until the next life. Either way any preparation will not be in vain because I will obtain this blessing. I am really thankful for this moment and I feel prepared to go forward and be faithful and not be disappointed when this blessing looks far off. I have no idea what the Lord’s timescale is on this but I do know He has a purpose for things, so I’ll stay on board with Him.

The Response

Wayward Son,

I want to let you know that your brother and I read your email together. I have to admit that I am a little emotional and still processing everything. But I know when you send something like this you are waiting for a response of some kind. First of all I want to thank you for opening up to us. I appreciate your honesty and confidence with us. At this point, neither of us see any reason to tell anyone. Second, nothing has changed in our eyes. I think we have been prepared for this and now we just need to learn more to understand it. I know that we are definitely interested in any information you can get us.

Oh, here goes the emotions. Wayward son, I love you so much. And I am so sorry for the struggle this may be. I am sorry for my constant questions about girlfriends and wife. I truly want the best for you.

We love you so much,
Sister-in-law and Brother

I honestly couldn't ask for any better reaction than that. I feel really good about having told them. Its still a little weird to know that I don't have to hide this part of me from them anymore. I'm sure things will be awkward when I next visit them, but all in all I think this was a really good move.

Coming out to my brother

Brother and Sister-in-law,

So I wasn't really prepared to have this conversation with you while I was there, but now I guess I feel like its necessary. So here's the whole story of what happened with the NGFGF. I have always thought that she is the coolest girl ever and I get along with her great and we have everything in common and she's smart and funny and laughs at me when I try to be funny and she is way interested in me. Seriously she has everything I could ever hope to have in a wife... everything except of course for the fact that I am not remotely attracted to her and even the thought of kissing her gives me the heebie jeebies.

Well the story gets slightly more complicated. You may have noticed that I have never had a girlfriend...ever. And it may or may not be news to you that I have never kissed anyone. Well, despite the fact that I've had ample opportunities, there have never been any girls that I was really interested in. Turns out I'm not attracted to girls, and as you've probably suspected I am attracted to guys. Sister-in-law caught me way off guard when she asked if I would tell you guys if I was gay. I said probably not. I interpreted gay to mean attracted to guys and she I think interpreted it to mean having intimate relationships with guys. Anyway, the former is true of me but not the latter. And I really saw no reason why I should fill you in on my sexual orientation when I have no intention of acting on it. Now I just don't want you to think I am leading this secret life, because I'm not. I'm totally worthy to serve as the EQ pres and my bishop is fully aware of all of my issues and does his best to give me advice and what not.

Anyway back to the NGFGF story, I was well aware of this while I was spending a lot of time with NGFGF and she was actually the first person I told. She was still willing to find a way to make it work. We tried but we both knew that it wasn't right, and it wasn't going to be. This was really hard on her and I felt like I was bringing her down. So I had to finally have the conviction to separate myself from her so she could move on. Well, thats what I did and mission accomplished, she's engaged and when she informed me of her engagement she said she didn't think we could really hang out anymore.

So thats that. I've been fairly successful in finding a support group of people in the same boat as me (people who have same sex attraction but have every intention of staying active in the church). There's like a whole internet community. Actually, it was with one of these guys that I went to Lagoon and spent the day with on Monday, I didn't tell you that because I still didn't intend on telling you how I knew him. But now you know.

I chose the medium of email to tell you this because it allows me to plan everything I say and it allows you to react however you want to without worrying about how I'll take it. And then it gives you the chance to think about how or if you want to respond. I hope this information doesn't make things weird, but I feel like you asked for it so here it is. I'm actually pretty comfortable with it at this point. I've been through a lot of phases of bitterness and denial and now I'm kinda okay with things. I still don't think I plan on filling mom or dad or sister or sister in. Maybe it would just be easier to have it out there, but at the same time I'm not sure how Mom or Dad would take this news, and since I don't have any plans of getting a boyfriend or anything I don't see it as all that necessary. It would be nice though to not have to deal with questions about my lack of a girlfriend/wife. Anyway, I haven't really decided about that whole thing and now that you know if you are in a conversation with them and you feel like letting them know, go for it.

I really don't get where random people get off asking you if I'm gay as like their second or third follow-up question as to how i'm doing. Who's business is it but mine? Anyway, I almost don't care anymore who knows, because it is what it is and I refuse to be ashamed anymore.

So there you have it, take your time to process that and feel free to ask me whatever you want if you want me to clarify anything or if you're just curious. I seriously don't mind. Plus I can direct you to tons of reading material if you're interested.

Wayward Son

ps I'm sure you're curious about how things were when I lived with Gay College Roommate. I was completely closeted while I lived with him and while he suspected I was gay I never confirmed it. I never had any interest in pursuing anything with him and I was adamant about letting him know that.

Called out

I spent last weekend in Utah and my brother and sister-in-law took the opportunity to interrogate me about my single status. It was obvious that they both had in the back of their minds that I might be gay. In fact, my sister-in-law came right out and asked if I would tell them if I was gay.

I said probably not.

Wrong answer.

This got her all concerned and then they turned up the heat, but I really had not intention of telling them anything. For my sister-in-law being gay means having sex with people of the same gender. She interpreted my answer to mean that I would lead a secret gay life and not tell them about it. I just dodged any questions that would possibly implicate me and though they probably suspected my gayness more after the conversation I feel like they were still given enough room to doubt.

Well the next day I was planning on hanging out with ATP, but I didn't know how to tell them where I knew him from, so I just lied about who I was hanging out with. I told them I was hanging out with one of my friends from college.

Everything was going fine with my lie until ATP was dropping me off at their house. He got out of the car just as my brother was pulling up. My brother knows the kid I claimed to be hanging out with and was fully aware that ATP was not said kid. So I was caught in my lie and all of this on the heals of a conversation in which I asserted that I would hide my gayness from them.

At this point I feared that they would believe the worst because I was totally caught in my lie, so I decided it would be best if I just told them. But, I wussed out. I had every intention of having a talk with my sister-in-law as she took me to the airport but I think she maybe was nervous and kept the conversation on what I was doing in school. So I missed my shot of telling them in person, but I still felt like I should fill them in. Thus, I chose the medium of email. I sent the email earlier today, and I still haven't heard back. After finishing writing I hurriedly pushed the send button because I knew if I gave it a second thought I would wuss out again. Immediately I was filled with regret, but as the day has gone on, I'm surprisingly okay with the whole thing. We'll see how I feel about it when I get a response, but I think it was a good decision.

Not my brightest day

So I called to check in with my little sister today. Things have been somewhat unstable for her of late so I like to see how she's doing. Turns out she's got some new love interest and is on cloud 9. At some point in our conversation after she had updated me on her new pursuits she asked me how I was doing. I deflected the question like I always do with some sort of quick I'm fine tell me more about this new guy and she goes off again and I'm off the hook. I never talk about how I'm doing with anyone anymore.

If I were being honest I would say, Oh you want to know how I'm doing? Well lets see, oh yeah I don't know if you've figured this out yet but I'm gay, yeah weird huh. Basically, that means I'll remain just about as lonely as I am now for the rest of my days. Yeah, you know how you daydream about this new guy and your future together, well, I try to avoid thinking about the future all together and if I do I daydream about the day this life will end and I can finally be done putting up with this.

Thats what I would say if I were being honest, but she doesn't want me to be honest. So instead I'll just let it out here.

Surprisingly Uncomfortable

Today I was interviewed regarding my eligibility to serve as a Big Brother in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. After tons of questions about my family background mental health history and drug history she hit me with the sexual orientation question. I really should have seen this coming but somehow it really caught me off guard. I was visibly uncomfortable with the question so she went into a long explanation about why she needed the info and how some families specifically request straight Bigs. It made sense to me but still I was very uncomfortable accepting the label of homosexual in that setting. I really wanted to go into a whole "well its complicated..." explanation. I ended up just saying something like "probably more toward the homosexual side" I found it odd how much prejudice even I have toward homosexuality. I really think my discomfort came from my not wanting her to associate me with any negative stereotype she might have. I walked out of there ashamed that I wasn't able to own it especially because she really didn't have any kind of negative reaction to it. In any case it was a telling experience regarding my comfort level with these things.

At least I tried...sorta

Well I had the conversation with the ngfgf. It was kinda weird because she was having a hard time with unrelated things and wanted to talk to me about it and then the conversation sort of worked its way to talking about our situation. I had been contemplating having just such a talk with her anyway, so I figured what the heck, lets see where this goes.

So I told her basically the things I’ve written in my previous two posts and we came to the conclusion that we would “try.” We didn’t go too far into defining what we meant by that other than to say we would be working toward something and we would be open and honest about what we were thinking and feeling all along the way. Oddly enough I felt pretty good after getting my feelings out. Even odder was that I didn’t wake up the next morning and immediately regret it. In fact it took two whole days before I regretted it, but regret it I did.

At first I was all “kittens and moonbeams” thinking like how great it is that we were on the same page with things. But after a couple of days I came to and just felt lousy about it. I can’t really put my finger on what it was about it but I definitely didn’t feel good about “trying.” So I sorta avoided her for a couple of days. I didn’t go out of my way to do so, because I was pretty busy with school stuff, but generally I can make time to at least call. Then I got this suspicious comment on my last post and concluded that she had found my blog. I wasn’t too worried about it because I had already said everything to her that was on here. But she did take the opportunity to leave her feelings under a thinly veiled pseudonym.

The next day she broke down and called me and I went over and for a while we both pretended that there wasn’t any awkwardness. Finally, we broached the subject and as it turns out she was feeling similarly lousy about our decision to “try.” She apparently wanted to educate herself more about what she was getting into and she had a vague idea that I blogged and that there were more of me out there and some who were making such relationships work so she set out to find information about it. I suppose that’s how she ‘stumbled’ onto my blog. Anyway this search lead her to become much more realistic about the whole thing and she basically concluded that we weren’t ready for that kind of relationship.

So we’re back to being just friends and probably a bit more distant than before, but for the best I suppose. She really wanted to convince me that even though things with us probably were never going to work out, it didn’t mean that marriage would never be in the cards for me. She’s probably right, but I do feel better having spoken to her and having taken the first steps toward attempting a relationship with a woman however ridiculously small those steps were. The most eye-opening thing about it was that now I really don’t have any prospects for marriage. I’ve always had a girl around that I could deceive myself into thinking maybe I will end up with a wife and kids. Now there is no such girl around and its harder to hope for such a future.