we are not alone
We knew that already... but today we received a note in a series of communication from a new reader. I thought it would help some of you that have yet to speak-up if you could be reminded again that there are many of us. Here is Pete's message to us and his short story on life...
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It was great hearing back from you. Delighted to make your acquaintance, to be perfectly honest.
Just wanted you to know that through my own bits and pieces of conversations with Gock, that I have been challenged by God to continue on in my 'leaving behind' of this adulterous behavior that I had been participating in over the last 5 or so years. When I first started talking to Gock on line, it was to see if he would be a good "long term" dude for me to develop a sexually and relationally based ongoing friendship with. He ducked out on meeting up, (I may well not be the type man he wants an intimate relationship with) and next time we talked, he told me of the "Renewed Vows" site that you and he had been formulating and had made generally available. The first time he told me of it, I was too scared to actually go to the link he sent. Then, as God continued applying the gentle pressure that only He is able to apply, I actually wished I could go there and check it out. I knew and I know that without serious, gut-level connection with other males who have either BEEN where I have been, or who are still THERE, that I was not gonna go anywhere very seriously that would take me out of the miry bog of man to man sexual involvement as a married guy.......
I read the site about a week ago, and unsuccessfully tried to post to it. (I am a techno idiot, Other Guy) so I have posted the damn thing, but have NO idea where it went. It surely is NOT at the site, this I know. Anyway, I also tried writing to the site (as amorphous as that may seem) and your email this morning is my response from "the site" for which I am very grateful. I just have to ask that you would also forward this along to Gock, so that he knows more completely where I am coming from, and that I am not just a dip on the horizon of his life.
My story? Way too long to go into here, at least for the moment. Suffice it to say that I have survived incest (at the hands of my mother) and physical and verbal abuse at the hands of my father. They are still married, and still living together and in their 80's now, because I would not encourage them to divorce and give up on each other even though I second guess myself constantly as to the wisdom of that counsel that I gave them. My man to man interest has always been there, at least I always thought I wanted a man to be my lover for as long as I can remember. I seduced a kid from the street I grew up on when I was 15 and he was 17, and we did the mutual "butt fuck" thing, which when I was doing him, was no great shakes, and when he did me, approached nightmarish proportions. I had picked him, because he had the biggest pouch on the bus, and baby, there was a reason for it. And as he tried to shove all 8.5 thick inches of his cock into my virgin asshole, it was VERY painful, and he did it with all the sensitivity of a Mack truck trying to mate with a BIcycle. I bled internally for 2 days afterwards, and was sure that my life was over every time I tried to take a bloody (literally) bowel movement. Swore off men "forever" and was sure it was just a mistake. Have never spoken to this guy since, even though our parents are still close friends. I know that he has been married a few times, and his IQ is probably still the size of his dick (8 or maybe 9) and he runs a tire store in Ohio someplace, but that is the extent of my further interaction with him.
I moved out of the house when I was 17 and lived abroad til I was ready to start college in the USA. Italy has a great number of very sexy males, but I kept my hands to myself, and my mind raced with the possibilities, but never acted on it. Was approached by a guy on the University of Colorado wrestling team to be his male lover during my freshman year, but decided that would make me "gay" so I turned him down and took up with the best looking woman in the coed dorm in which I lived. Got engaged to her by age 20, so figured my man-to-man days were done. She and I came to Christ at nearly 20 and realized that our love life was not taking place in the proper way, so we stopped sleeping together. She got married to someone else almost immediately, and I went on to dilly dally around with campus ministry until I was out of college, and then, at 25 married my best friend who is still my best friend today. I told her about my high school activity with the guy before I asked her to marry me, and I also told her that I was still not "over" my guy to guy attraction, but she wanted to marry me anyway, so we are still married, at nearly 28 years later.
About 6 years ago, I stopped having sex with her (it had diminished to the point of virtually none anyway, but I stopped approaching her at that time) and began spending an inordinate amount of time on line, seeing "who was out there" in terms of guys. I met up with and had oral sex with a few men, but then met a just divorced man whose wife had cheated on him with his best friend, who seemed like someone I could really connect with. I actually talked with him on line for three months before going down to his apartment in Denver, where we met and talked for hours that first time. I went down there and we talked DEEPLY for three times before we actually went to bed together, but I had a fear of just hopping in the bed for the sake of sex, and so this was my way of proving that I was not just out for sex, but really and truly wanted RELATIONSHIP with anyone before he would be allowed to be my lover.
He is my age also (or nearly so. I am 52 now, almost 53, and he is 50 now) and totally closeted about being with another man sexually. He is very athletic, very handsome, and has ladies throwing themselves at him all the time. We have been together now for over three years, with me commuting down there weekly to spend either a morning or an afternoon or a full day with him. that was until I began feeling the Lord's direction to come out of this relationship which had to have begun in earnest about this time last year. I began to meet with him less and less often, and have not seen him regularly since last summer. The last time we were together was in late December, and then for a very abbreviated time in early January. For us, this is practically no time at all together, because we have been lovers in the truest sense of the word since early 2003. I can honestly say that I have loved him, and I have shared Christ with him repeatedly, however, he is unable, (because of having been raped endlessly as a foster child within the Missouri state system) by his foster fathers and their friends to use the name "Father' with any degree of safety or positive image. He has serious lack of trust issues, and it took forever for him to believe I actually loved him and would not just leave him. We love to make out, to cuddle, and to orally enjoy one another. He has penetrated me a few times, but our primary means of making love has been orally. He is absolutely the best cock sucker I have ever EVER met, and I miss that part of our sexual life enormously. About a year into the relationship he began to allow me to suck him as well, but never yet to completion, because he is just totally inhibited about doing that inside of me, whereas I have never been remotely shy about feeding him whatever he is able to coax out of me. It has been a relationship that has worked, but God's instruction to be done with that has been becoming more and more clear, so I have been winding it down, and he has been taken away from the area with great frequency to deal with some crazy stuff going on in his own family (his ex-wife and his ex-best friend are now married, and the daughters from that marriage are each getting married (one a month back and one in another month) and he is allegedly going to move back to CA to be near the entire motley crew, so when I met Gock, I was hoping to find a man to replace this guy in my relational life.
Phew
Long story, and that is the abbreviated part.
The exciting part is that as I was talking with guys on line again, I met one who is also a Christian, who is a counselor and social worker (I don't THNK you and he are one in the same, Other Guy) and we have begun talking about God and His role in our lives, and why is it that we were each seeking out another man as our partial fulfillment anyway! It has been an amazing dialogue, and I am really seeing incredible steps out and away from where I ahve been willing to go, and I am actually not planning on replacing the guy who I have been seeing for three years now with another one, unless he is a born again guy who is willing NOT to be sexual with me, but rather, to walk out and away from the adultery that I have been involved in for these years.
That is my intention, and without God's grace, of course, I will not be able to have that kind of relationship. But since He is real, and since I am truly His kid, I believe that He is going to complete this incredible work of deliverance that He has begun in me, and I hope that He will bring to completion. i don't want you "Other Guy" or Gock to think that this is something that I have dreamed up on my own, but it IS something that I have been praying about and hoping to find my way "out of" for years. My spirit and soul KNOW that the adultery that I have been involved in is not what He intended me to live in. I have a wonderful woman as my life mate, and a wonderful adopted son who is turning out to be an absolutely fantastic young man (nearly 17 now.....), and I do not wish to soil them as I have been soiled. I wish to learn, even at this late date, to walk with God, and to walk with other men who have the same damage that I have experienced and entered into, into His fullness for us none-the-less. He is a God of new beginnings, and He is a faithful Father to an unfaithful and prodigal son, and I intend to walk in newness of life rather than continuing to root around and try to find fulfillment in some other man.
Clearly, this is not a completed work, but this is Pete (my real name) and this is who I really am, and who I believe that i am becoming. I hope to God that this is an appropriate message for me to pass along to the two of you. You have permission to post this to the site if you wish, and I ask you in all seriousness, to please pass it along to Gock if you will be so kind as to do so. I want him to know me better on paper before we actually get to meet up one morning to be of encouragement to one another in person, here in Colorado.
Take care, guys. Be strong, be courageous, and don't believe that the way we are is the way we are condemned to remain. He IS the God of new beginnings, and of gracious "forgetting" of the past, once we come to Him yet one more time, confess and repent of our ways.
One final request. please don't leave me hanging. This has been a major work of attempting to summarize my spiritual, personal, sexual journey. It costs a lot to try to be so open. Would love to hear back from you guys when you each have time/inclination/opportunity.
posted by Restored Vows @
3:34 PM
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