Falling Into Life: A Gay Exmormon’s Journey

Chapter Twelve – A Slow, Sad Train Wreck: The First Four Years

This is the sad tale of my sixteen year “Eternal Marriage”…

When I proposed, I did it in front of the Mormon Temple in Mesa, Arizona. My Ex was going to join the church and we would be on our way, I tried to make it romantic, and unique. I was truly so excited to marry her, she was, and still is, an amazing woman. I remember stating that the church was the most important thing in my life, and I wanted her to experience that, and that I loved her. We dated for about six months before we got engaged, a true feat in Mormondom. Most Mormons get engaged astoundingly young because they can’t get laid until they do. I was married at the age of 24, she was 21.

Sadly, converts must wait for an entire year before they can go through the temple after they are baptized to receieve their endowments, which must be gotten before you can be married eternally in the temple, and most brides do both in the same morning. This was tragic because we were never going to make it a year before we wanted to screw our brains out. And so we eloped, solving all our problems. And one year to the very *day* of our elopement, we went through the temple, she got her endowments, did the holy hokey-pokey, got saddled with her Jesus Jammies and we were married holding hands across this huge alter with eternity mirrors behind us casting a “forever reflection” that would remind us of our eternity ahead of us.

On what should have been the happiest day of our lives together, I was resigned to failure at that point. I really saw myself in pain for those future eons ahead of me. One year earlier, as we consummated our marriage in Sedona, Arizona, after having walked down to a river’s edge to be civilly married, a moment that was so lovely, and so romantic and should have been something so treasured for my entire life, I knew I was doomed.

A week before we eloped, I was racked with guilt and despair. I sought out sex with a man for the first time and experienced something so mind-blowing, so lightning-inducing that I was rendered utterly speechless. I figured that after I realized how awful it was, I’d be free. I had convinced myself as my relationship became more serious with her that I had created it to be way more than it was. I had to find out, once and for all, if I was truly attracted to men, I did it in hopes of being disgusted and turned off by it, so I could put it behind me and move forward into a wonderful life with my future wife.

In that moment of consummation, that moment where she would give her precious virginity to me, I would *finally* realize that all my leaders were correct, that marriage with a woman really *was* the most amazing thing in the entire universe. It would be completely fulfilling, the end-all of my sexual needs. And in that moment, although the sex was frantic and strong, and sweaty, I was faced with the terrifying knowledge that she would never satisfy me in the way a man would. Everything was perfect, so romantic, except for one big elephant in my room.

A week before that moment, I did a drastic thing, a necessary thing, and an unforgivable thing: I gave myself to a beautiful, muscled, young blonde man in a dark racquetball court behind a high school at midnight. I prayed for forgiveness as I followed his car to the parking lot and we slowly walked through the warm night air through dark football fields to some unlighted, open-air cement courts. I was so turned on with my chest pounding so loudly in my ears I could barely make small talk.

I was literally shaking from head to toe, I wasn’t sure if I was shaking from excitement, or shaking because I was sinning. I felt like I was on fire as he pulled my shirt off, my mind was reeling, I stood before him naked, he slowly helped me understand it, I surrendered to him. It took me ten minutes to make the decision, and in less than thirty minutes I was no longer a virgin…to men anyway.

I was hoping it would be a terrible experience, and it was heaven on earth. I had never felt so alive, so fully connected to anything before. My mind, my body, and my spirit were thrown into the best alignment of my life. I was one, possibly for the first time. I simply could not believe that this felt so good, so perfectly right for something so horrible in God’s eyes. I had fantasized about that moment of penetration for five years or more, and the whole thing took fifteen minutes.

As I walked back to my car, my heart still pounding with lust, I did my best to bury it. I loathed myself for it as I drove home and showered and cleaned up. I told myself it wasn’t that amazing and I tried to put it behind me for good, and I looked forward to my marriage. Never having to be tempted by that thought or act again. As I fell asleep my heart was still racing.

Although our elopement was wonderful, and she was wonderful, it began a slow mental break. I had to somehow stay righteous, stay close to God, and stay Mormon. I was afraid of what I would become if I left anything I was supposed (trained) to be. I was an excellent actor, she never suspected, I hid my pain so well. And from that moment for the next four years I would continue to lie and hide. I simply extended my ability to lie about masturbation in order to maintain the plan. No one had to know, it would be OK.

I didn’t go a full week before I was dreaming about men again, and falling headfirst into cheating. I was sexually straight with her and a raging gay man in all my other moments. It felt like there was no way to stop this, it was worse than ever before, I had a constant hunger to see men naked, to feel them, to feel that again. While we were preparing for our temple wedding, and she was leaving to live in California for six months for her Music Therapy internship, I was out of control.

I found men in the ASU campus bathrooms, at adult bookstores, in the cruising park by ASU, in telephone chat rooms, they were everywhere. I honed my “gaydar”, I learned to find gay men in any setting, in any class, on any bus, in any mall, on any bike, in any store, anywhere. If a man’s gaze lingered one split second too long on mine, I would follow up on it, walk behind them to see if there was another look, follow them into a bathroom, try to make a quick connection, make a fast compliment. I could not stop this. I prayed harder, begged God more, pleaded for some way to end this cycle. I was wired for men, and the electricity had been switched on. My current was blinding.

There wasn’t any way for me to escape thinking about men. And as time wore on, it became the most insidious problem of my life. I did not want this. It scared me, and I ran to it. The more I lied, the more it felt like it was an addiction of sorts, and I began to mentally see it as such. (Evergreen would prey on this feeling later in my life with great success.) The harder I fought against it, the more pull I felt to do it. What scared me the most was that in those moments when I was with a man, it felt so natural, so wonderful, so complete, much more so than when I was with my wife. Men created a spark in my heart.

I felt sick inside all the time, and the only thing that would stop it for awhile was to give in to it. Attending church never helped it, attending the temple ceremonies never helped it, doing every single thing I had been taught my entire life to end sinful behavior never helped it. What the fuck was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I ditch this? I had everything I needed to stop it, but I couldn’t. The structure was perfect, the gospel was true, I was the problem. I began to attack myself even worse. And the lower I got, the only recourse was men.

There were a few close encounters when she asked me point blank if I was gay in those first four years, I always denied it, and I simply cranked up the sex. I was good at sex although I rarely instigated it, and we learned to have it well together I think. I was never good at oral sex; I only tried a few times when she requested me to stop. We kept it always in missionary mode and for the most part, all sixteen years were pretty frequent. I never stopped having sex with her because I did enjoy it, and because that meant I was a straight, good husband. Hell, I was queer and I performed better than most Mormon men did, and we had more sex in one month than most Mormon men have in a year.

When she turned twenty-five, we decided to have our first child; it only took us one week to seal that deal. I was so hopeful to be a dad, and we were fully engaged in every moment of it. I had always seen myself as a dad, and one of the things that kept my excited when all else seemed doomed was the thought of a child. We had our first son and a whole new crazy train pulled into my head.

I now had a male child, and I would ruin him, I was going to surely make him gay just like me. I couldn’t shake the thought that I was going to ruin him. He was a just a little boy, I was a gay man, and in Mormonism that shit can be transferred by association. Gay people could recruit. I loved my new son, and the guilt of cheating on her, and knowing I’d ruin him was mounting an assault on my brainpower.

One day our son had to be rushed to the hospital with RSV. She was working, I was finishing up my degree and the pressure was astounding. I had to have a break, some relief and so I went to a park to find a man. I parked my car, walked a few feet, looked into a window and a very handsome gent motioned me to get in. As we began to get fully into our session, many policemen approached the car and shined in their flashlights. Before I could pull up my pants, they demanded I get out. The moment I did, they arrested me on indecent exposure and breaking curfew and threw me in the back of a huge truck with many more men.

I spent the night in jail completely devastated. More pleading, begging and praying to a silent God that never helped me with the fight of my life. I somehow went through arraignment, ran miles back to my car in the park, and made it back to the hospital in time to take my shift with my son. I eventually confessed to my arrest, but lied and said I was simply masturbating. I hatched a plan to leave Arizona as soon as I graduated. Certainly a geographical move would rescue me from this hell I had fallen into. A fresh start, a new day, a new straight me.

Within months of finding a place in Colorado, I had already cheated. It was futile; I was racked continually with guilt over her, over my son, over my lies. I had to confess and end it. They deserved so much better, I had to let them go, they had to get away from my sick self. I couldn’t stand one more moment of it! This had to end. She was visiting our lesbian friends in Arizona, and I decided that I wasn’t strong enough to face her in person, so I picked up the phone, called her and through tears and sobs confessed that I thought I was gay.

It didn’t go so well…

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

test Filed under Etienne, Falling Into Life | Tags: Etienne, Falling Into Life | Comments (7)