(Here’s the letter I wrote to my son in his birthday package. Among other gifts I sent him a book. The link is at the bottom. He’s working a summer job on the other side of the country right now. He’s still LDS and is attending BYU-Idaho this Fall)
Happy Birthday, son!
Since I won’t be taking you out for your first drink at 21, I decided I still needed to get you a gift that says, “I recognize your adulthood and I honor it” in some other way.
I hope you’ll read this explanation thoughtfully before you open what is obviously a book. You probably don’t want to open it in front of your friends…maybe you do. Just read this first.
I’ve researched and asked around and this book comes highly recommended by at least one well-respected LDS marriage and family therapist. It has been adopted as a textbook in several universities for those who are studying marriage and family therapy like you want to.
It’s about sex.
Now, before you open it, roll your eyes at your crazy dad and throw it into the bottom of your suitcase thinking “it’s not something I need yet,” I hope you’ll at least peruse certain chapters when you have the time alone. It’s not necessarily meant to be read cover to cover in one sitting but to be kept as a resource. It uses frank language. It doesn’t shy away from any topics, and you certainly don’t need to be afraid or shy about reading it now that you are an adult man.
In spite of the rather provocative cover and the title, it’s not pornographic, nor is it meant to encourage you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with at this point in time. But as a man, one day your body and sex with a loving partner is going to be a major part of your life. You should be comfortable talking about it and learning about it. I promise you that you don’t already know everything in this book.
It’s funny because there’s a weird paradox that happens with sex. The more you fear it or think it can’t be discussed openly and honestly or that it’s shameful or sinful the more obsessed with it you become. I’ve never seen any group of more sex-obsessed people than my fellow students at BYU. Even in marriage, the more hush-hush and the more “no” that happens in the bedroom the more it will overpower you. Repression breeds obsession.
But when you respect the significant place it does and SHOULD hold in your own life and in your partnership, the more it will comfortably couch itself softly in the background of your life and allow you to live a content, happy, fun and energetic life. I want that for you.
In other words, it’s not everything, but without it everything seems out of whack.
Sex is a gift. Once you start having it regularly with someone you love, a switch will turn on and it will become an enormously important part of your life. Regardless of what you are doing or not doing right now, your body is shouting at you to turn that switch on. And when you do it is amazingly wonderful!
Many people live in frustration because they are afraid of their own bodies or misunderstand them. Or, they misunderstand the bodies of their partner. That’s a cocktail for an unhappy relationship, an unhappy marriage and a mediocre existence. I don’t want you in any way to miss out on the beauty, the fun, the intensity and the intimacy of sex throughout your adult life. You were created with sex to be an integral part of who you are as a man.
Any parent/child relationship gets weird when discussing sex, I respect that. I’m not giving this to you because I’m afraid or shying away from talking to you about these things myself. I’m always willing to talk. I’m hoping that you’ll come to me for opinions or advice at any time. But whether it’s because I’m gay, or because I’m no longer LDS I feel like you think I might not understand, or that I am so bad at it that I couldn’t make it work. LOL
Parenting advice always says you should answer a kid’s sex questions, but not give them more than they are asking for. I think I’ve done that but I may have left out some important talks about sex because I feel like there’s more to say than I’ve said. There’s more to say than you’ve thought about asking. Even if sex is only conceptual at this point for you, you are an adult man and there are things you should know now and not wait only until weeks or days before you get married. School, church, church leaders, the internet or just talking among your friends isn’t good enough. Getting advice from people who have their own awkward relationship to sex isn’t helpful either, which is why I wanted to give you something more.
So, that’s why I’m giving you this book in celebration of the absolute privilege that was mine 21 years and 9 months ago to do my part in creating you. It was fun. It was beautiful. It most certainly has been the foundation for a thrilling roller-coaster of a ride in life in being your dad. And it all started with sex.
I am working on a project with gay-dads.org to anonymously record and preserve stories of men and women who have never come out of the closet publicly. I’m talking about men and women who either remained single or entered into a mixed orientation marriage with little to no discussion of their sexual orientation.
This population of folks will likely be reluctant to share their stories, but if you know of, or suspect you know of, anyone to whom this would apply please share this survey link with them. There is an opportunity at the end to leave an email voluntarily but otherwise no identifying information will be collected or shared.
I don’t remember exactly how it started, but it ended with my 20 year old returned missionary son crying, shaking, bearing his Mormon testimony, and then leaving to “take a walk.” Between all that I said some things, while true, that I regret and that he’s not ready to hear. He and a couple of my other children shared a few LGBTQ LDS experiences, both positive and negative, and things got a little too sensitive.
Without even trying to accurately report the full conversation, I’ll say that at one point my son said that the LDS church is very different from what it was when I was part of it. In 11 years since I left, things have supposedly so dramatically changed from the previous 40 years that I wouldn’t recognize it especially with regards to LGBTQ issues.
I’ve had lots of opinions on that book and the unintended consequences of its publication but I’ve held off saying anything because I hadn’t actually read it.
So, I read it.
I read it after it was being used as a weapon to diminish my voice and my LDS experience or to support an imaginary world where the LDS organization and community is LGBT friendly and anything but homophobic.
I am clearly NOT it’s intended audience.
I had completely forgotten the sycophantic tone of LDS authors but this was a big slapping reminder of that. Every time there’s a grand point to be made an LDS General Authority quote is inserted and the reader is supposed to ponder it in awe that a human being could utter such goodness. Each time that happened my eyes rolled back into my head a little more.
If there’s a sweeping theme of the book it’s that we (and by ‘we’ he means anyone who is a believing LDS member with an LGBTQ person in their midst, family, friend or ward member) should love and accept one another. THAT I can get behind, except that it completely ignores the status quo in most LDS wards, families and leadership quorums. According to Christofferson we’re not supposed to worry about LDS policies or leadership and the damage that they can do. It’s the old, “I don’t know and I don’t care. It will all be figured out in the afterlife.”
That’s naive and not good enough for me.
Let’s face a few facts. This book would never have been published if:
He were not the brother of an LDS apostle
He had not returned to the LDS faith like a prodigal son in his advanced years
He were still in a committed homosexual partnership like the one he was required to walk away from in order to get re-baptized and have his temple blessings restored.
As much as he and others pretend that the intention and message of the book is to honor any path and any choice, there would be no message and there would be no book without those 3 key elements. Those ARE the message. Given that fact, I’m left actually feeling sorry for the poor sap who, after 60 years, couldn’t break from the LDS homophobic indoctrination to remain committed to his loving partner.
The book reads like a tragedy to me for that reason.
It’s about the breakup of a family, but it’s just a gay family so the reality of that crisis never gets the full light of day.
It’s about an aging man who still so desperately wants to please his older brother that he’ll throw himself on the sword to do so.
It’s about the isolated goodness and kindness that some humans can show towards one another when there’s something that they don’t understand.
It’s about those very same humans not flinching at all when their gay brother, son, uncle and friend trades love for a solitary life to achieve their FULL acceptance.
It’s about the depths of indoctrination and how that thick muck NEVER leaves.
If the book was reflective of any sort of change in the LDS faith why didn’t his brother, the apostle, write it?
And let’s not let one little glaring fact escape this discussion: Tom Christofferson left the church and completely ignored the leadership for over 30 years during a time that many of us instead stayed. We followed the LDS plan of marriage, kids, callings, temple attendance, scripture study, etc based on our faith that it was true and that we and our families would be “blessed.” Instead of blessed, we got screwed and we caused a lot of collateral damage in the wake of our following the brethren. He escaped all that.
It strikes me as incredibly callous for someone like Tom to have avoided the pain of church activity and then to re-enter the picture later in life with a softened libido and tell his story of faith and family.
I was WAY more committed for far many more years when it was crucial and my divorce and financial ruin and raw emotions are all a result of following the brethren. His current life is only possible because he DIDN’T follow the brethren. His story, more than anything is a testament that leaving the church allows you you maintain some semblance of favorable attitude towards it.
I do believe that there are loving and accepting LDS members out there and I still desperately want to believe that my own children are counted among them. I’m glad those were exclusively the ones that Christofferson encountered in his east and west coast wards. My experience has been quite different for the most part. And yet I do recall my year long stint in college in a Manhattan ward that was much like he described even back in the 80’s. Nowhere else but in coastal metropolitan areas is it remotely like that.
But my point to my son and readers of this book is that for the most part it doesn’t matter. The end result will still be the same. Tom Christofferson is still alone. He’s still gay. Every single one of those “kind” and “loving” LDS members in Christofferson’s life and in my life will still walk into an election booth and vote exactly as the LDS leadership want them to, homophobic choice or not. They’ll still raise their hands to the square in obedience to the leaders in Salt Lake City even if it goes against their personal experiences and their own moral compass.
Yes, Brother Christofferson, we may all be one. It’s just that that one is in the image of a stale, tired and out-dated group of 90 year old homophobic dudes in Salt Lake City. That’s my perspective on your faith and your broken family.
Three and a half years ago I posted on this site the details of a conversation I had with a friend of mine. In that conversation I related an experience during my first LDS bishop’s worthiness interview at the age of 11 wherein the bishop taught me how to masturbate.
Recently, due to such stories as mine, a gentleman by the name of Sam Young has started a movement to halt such invasive and inappropriate interviews among LDS youth.
I would encourage you and anyone you may know who may be supportive of this cause to sign the petition, read the stories, or even join their March for Children on March 30, 2018 at the Salt Lake City/County Building.
This is important for anyone even remotely connected to Mormonism, in or out. To illustrate that point, here’s a scene with the recently crowned Best Actress Frances McDormand in her film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri explaining to a catholic priest why he’s culpable regarding the abuse of children even though he personally may never have done anything inappropriate:
You know how it goes when you are exposed to something that you’ve never heard of before and then almost immediately begin to see, read or hear about it everywhere?
That’s how this story starts.
Six months ago I’d never heard of anything like ayahuasca or DMT. Have you?
Then, socializing at a party one day a good friend of mine made a comment about a Peruvian shamanic ceremony that he had recently participated in and I immediately dove deeper with question after question. We were huddled together for over an hour while the rest of the party buzzed around us, him relating snippets of what was obviously a significant experience and me pestering him for more depth of understanding. Even as a confirmed skeptic I was fascinated by his telling of his ayahuasca ceremony experience.
Soon, almost every podcast I listened to, every vlog I watched, every news & magazine article I read seemed to say something about it. After checking and double-checking precautions, possible dangers or side effects I fairly soon made the determination that I was going to participate in an ayahuasca ceremony given my first chance.
If your level of knowledge is where mine was six months ago, let me help.
First, the hype
Many Ayahuasca ceremony participants report life-changing outcomes such as,
…acquiring deeper knowledge of oneself, personal and spiritual development, or healing for a variety of psychological and physiological afflictions, including substance dependencies.
Ayahuasca is a shortcut to the unconscious. It allows for the possibility to relive stressful biographical situations again, and repair them, reorder them. This has tremendous therapeutic value
Many interviewed ritual participants reported spiritual peak experiences that fostered a connection with the divine: a spiritual power or existential values infusing life with meaning, providing a sense of relief from confusion, and promoting feelings of wholeness and inner balance.
Participants of ayahuasca rituals often report insights that enable acceptance of previously denied problems and dysfunctional patterns. The visionary state of consciousness produced by ayahuasca can also provoke reflections on personal relationships which provided the motivation for making the changes necessary to resolve interpersonal problems.
Ayahuasca can also improve treatment of PTSD through enhancing trust and social feelings. In addition to these beneficial core effects, in proper settings it may also elicit “moral lessons” with subsequent relief and redemption.
Or as William S. Burroughs put it in a letter to Allen Ginsberg collected in the book, ”The Yage Letters” about his ayahuasca experience in Panama in 1953, ”I experienced first a feeling of serene wisdom so that I was quite content to sit there indefinitely.”
Ayahuasca ceremonies originate in the Amazon basin where a local shaman administers “medicine” to several participants, then sings or plays music called “icaros” while recipients experience a hallucinogenic state. Today in the US, shamans show up all over the country with with varying degrees of authenticity and training. The practice is becoming somewhat of a fad. It has attracted celebrities & soccer moms, but also psychotherapists and scholars.
The ayahuasca brew is made from the bark of a vine which grows in the Amazon called Banisteriopsis caapi and leaves of a shrub called Psychotria viridis. It is all boiled down, reduced and filtered into a thick tea. DMT is generally considered the main psychoactive active ingredient and it typically lasts 4 – 8 hours. It’s usually a nighttime ceremony among a group of participants with a shaman and a few assistants.
Book-ending the hallucinogenic state, vomiting is usually experienced immediately before and napping soon after. The experience itself, however, varies from participant to participant. For some, ayahuasca is often referred to as “grandmother Ayahuasca” referring to the wisdom, compassion and loving gentleness that the medicine tends to embody. For others “Vine of the Dead” is a nickname conjuring up frightening images darkness, torment and ghosts.
What it is not
Ayahuasca is not a religion. While many people describe the experience as spiritual and with a vocabulary of faith-like terms, there is no dogma, creed or prophets of ayahuasca. There’s no need to “believe” anything to partake, just an interest in participating and succumbing.
It is not a panacea for all physical, psychological or emotional ailments. Very limited studies have found measurable benefits for sufferers of PTSD, anxiety, addiction, and psychological trauma such as childhood abuse. But, there are conditions and character traits incompatible with this experience.
It’s not a recreational drug. It is best experienced under the guidance of a trained, experienced shaman using quality, reliable and pure ayahuasca. Consider also the integration or aftercare of an ayahuasca experience. Some may want to involve a knowledgeable therapist in their pre and post-ceremony approach.
It’s not for everyone. If you can’t immediately think of something about yourself that could be addressed in such an intense, focused way you should probably not bother.
I finally did get to participate in a ceremony and for me it was extremely positive and devoid of any sort of torment.
My experience
My ayahuasca experience consisted of a full weekend with two separate administrations of ayahuasca. This happened locally at the above-mentioned friend’s house (I’ll call him Steve) about 5 miles from my home. He invited the same shaman who had conducted Steve’s first ceremony in another US city earlier in the year.
Our shaman (I’ll call him Sergio) was an experienced, South American-trained musician and ayahuasca scholar from the midwest.
On Thursday night about 15 of us all got together to meet the shaman and his 3 assistants and to get an overview of our weekend. I already knew about 8 of these invited guest. The others were friends of Steve’s I’d never met before. In addition to the shaman’s presentation, we all introduced ourselves and stated what our intention was for participating in the ceremony.
My stated intention was to address the latent shame that hovers with me from being a gay ex-Mormon divorced father. Many of us were gay or exmormon in the group so similar intentions were expressed around the room.
We all returned the next day at about 7 pm on Friday. We set up our pads, sleeping bags and pillows around the room with buckets and Kleenex at the foot of each station. At the head of the room the shaman set up a table with the medicine, tools and various musical instruments. We each had a one on one meeting with Sergio’s assistant to discuss dosage and intentions.
By about 8:30 the shaman began. Most of us reclined or sat at our stations in a meditative attitude as the shaman ceremoniously cleansed the room with tobacco and sage. At some point, our serving of ayahuasca was presented in a small Dixie cup. Mine was about 2/3 full and I drank it down in one gulp like a shot. It had the consistency of molasses without the stickiness. The aroma and taste was of the exotic plant and root based brew that it is. Our shaman had previously assured us that the concoction was genuine and safe, having been shipped directly from his personal Peruvian contact.
At least an hour passed as I lie there anticipating….something. One by one, a few participant began purging into their buckets. I still felt nothing. At some point Sergio invited us to partake of a second dose of ayahuasca and I agreed. Within seconds of taking my second tiny dose I began to vomit into the bucket.
I hate throwing up, but this felt different. It actually felt cathartic and cleansing like I was wiping off my dirty windshield and allowing myself to see clearly through the lense of grandmother ayahuasca. I immediately began to feel cold and tingly but peaceful. Sergio began playing some sort of mandolin-like instrument that sounded other worldly and for a short time I saw meaningless shapes and caricatures spinning and shape-shifting. Then, it was as if stepped into another world and I felt as if I were being welcomed into a state of intense pure bliss and clarity.
I wasn’t frightened in the least. Instead, I felt an excitement that I was getting to know something or somewhere that had long been held from my view. It’s as if I were suddenly in an elite club and it was grand and marvelous.
The challenge now is to explain in words that can’t even remotely do justice to the actual lived experience. I remember seeing images, hearing sounds and feeling emotions that hearkened me back to some movie, play, song, or piece of art and thinking, “So THIS is where they got that idea!”
After this initial introductory experience I went through a period of time that the sounds in the room around me coming from other participants distracted me and pulled me out of the experience. So, I kept having to relax, concentrate and let myself back in, but I was continually frustrated by the ambient sounds. I kept getting distracted and pulled out of the beautiful world I was in.
At some point, the visions and activity mellowed out a bit. Nothing was happening TO me but I was still in that world. So, I was able to guide my experience and make some decisions about what I wanted.
I first chose to see my kids and so I was immediately taken to their presence. I saw each of them individually and sensed the energy from their souls. For some of them it was easier to sense than from others strangely enough. I saw my baby girl and immediately sense a young woman full of joy and potential. I didn’t get any energy or angst coming from her so I moved on knowing she was OK. I felt a powerful amount of love from and towards each one of my kids. I saw the beauty of their inner selves, at least enough of it that I didn’t violate any privacy or boundaries. That love was intense and I likewise had the experience of seeing that their goodness stems from both me and their mother. I felt an enormous sense of gratitude towards their mother and for the part of creation that we both took part in. I wanted her to have the same intense gratitude for our kids and who they are.
I next chose to see my mother who has been deceased for 15 years. She died before I ever came out or left Mormonism. Like with my kids, I experienced a powerful amount of love and compassion towards my mother. It’s hard to explain, but I also saw her humanity… that like me she was just a human trying to do her best. Without thinking I blurted out to her, “Thank you for dying and paving the way for me to come out and live the rest of my life authentically and in peace. I love you and will forever be grateful for that sacrifice.” Of course, my mother’s death had nothing to do with me and that was such an odd and new thought to me, but I have to admit that I would never have likely come out and left Mormonism with my Mom alive and I somehow sensed that she knew that. The compassion and love that I felt with her was overwhelming.
After this experience, I was again left to select what I wanted to do. At that point I chose to revisit critical times in my life where I could have made a different decision. I got to live out my regrets and twist them into actionable items. In my vision I made the other decision. For example, I chose to date a guy in my first year of college rather than to suppress my feelings. I let my high school crush know that I was crushing on him. I chose not to go on a mission. Some of this was a struggle but still cathartic and healing to experience. I know it wasn’t actually happening, but with grandmother ayahuasca it FELT real and that’s where I believe the healing comes in.
Those are the highlights of my first night with ayahuasca. By about 4 am we were all napping and then at 8 am we shared a healthy breakfast before meeting together again to share the details of our first ayahuasca ceremony.
While there were 19 of us in the room, each of our experiences were unique and separate. A beautiful side effect of the medicine was to feel connected and loving towards all the others with whome we were sharing that experience.
By about 11 am we all went back to our respective homes to relax for the day. I spent the day thinking, sleeping and caring for myself with a facial mask, bubble bath, etc. I still felt a lightness and clarity about me – perhaps the “hangover” from the medicine. It was a beautiful day of self love and self care.
Then, by 7 pm on Saturday we all returned to do the ceremony one more time. They say grandmother ayahuasca knows us and knows the experience we need and that’s why each experience is so different.
My second night was NOTHING like the first, but I think the medicine knew I needed that positive uplifting experience before I got down to do the real work of healing. My stated intention for the second night was similar to the first as I didn’t feel like the first night really addressed the shame or struggles in my life. This time grandmother ayahuasca thought I was ready.
The ceremony started out the same as the first night. I asked for a slightly higher dose as I felt I was too easily pulled out of the world on my first night’s experience. I had also prepared slightly better. I bought some earplugs to help block the ambient noise, a face mask to not get distracted by changes in lighting and extra clothes to keep me warmer. I also moved my position in the room away from the noisier participants.
Again, it took a while for grandmother to arrive but when she did I was greeted with purging and similar visuals and sensations to the first night. Except this time, at some point in my introduction to the ayahuasca world I felt attacked by a dark force. I wasn’t really afraid at this point as I was aware that I was in ceremony and that this was part of the process. It became a psychological battle of sorts where this evil force was trying to communicate with me and I was fighting it.
I knew exactly what it was. Five years ago I shared on my blog that I had been sexually abused in my adolescence. You can read part I here and part II here. To be honest I have dealt with this issue in counseling and wasn’t feeling especially needy of addressing it anymore. It wasn’t why I chose to participate in an ayahuasca ceremony, but I also knew it was a possibility that it would come up if grandmother ayahuasca so chose.
She chose.
This war took me on a tour of my sexual abuse and the sexual molestation in my extended family and then in generations past and further into the psychological mutation of sexual abuse in the evolution of man. I saw those who had given into the mutation and cursed them for not being stronger. I then confronted “IT” and had a battle where I proudly and defiantly declared it that it never got ME and that I won by protecting my kids from it. I knew in that moment that I was a better man for having done so and for conquering that evil strain of sexual mutation in my family. It was almost like a chest-thumping primal experience to feel like I’d beat the shit out of that evil.
I won in the sense that it doesn’t have me and it doesn’t have my kids. I protected them. And can say I faced it, resisted and am better for having done so. I needed to feel that power…that this pansy-ass gay boy is braver than the darkness. That I was man enough to face it and to resist it was an indescribable privilege.
During this struggle I was sitting up with the purge bucket between my legs, rocking back and forth. I imagine that I was the one making the noises at that time, but no one said anything or complained. When the struggle was nearing the end, the shaman sat with me lightly patting my back as I came down from the battle. At some point he held me in his lap for a couple of minutes and then laid me down so that he could sit by me and sing one of his unique icaros to me. It was beautiful and so, so powerful.
This. was. life. changing.
The night wasn’t even half over at this point and the rest of the night gave me additional insight into myself and the way I present myself in the world. I heard a voice at one point say, “Pretense is the enemy” and that phrase kept being repeated over and over again. Grandmother ayahuasca made it clear to me that being fake or inauthentic was poisonous to me, that my best life was to be lived without pretense. I still have that mantra in my head and in my heart and I believe it will be a guide for me throughout my life.
What I’ve related is probably about 1/2 of everything that I gained and learned from the ayahuasca experience. Afterwards I was raw and emotional, quite a contrast to the insight and clarity I had felt the previous morning. But still, it wasn’t a bad, bruised and damaged sort of raw. It was more of a healing, scab-is-gone, now you are stronger sort of raw that made me feel both insignificant and powerful in the universe all at the same time.
Like I said, this sort of process will not be for everyone, but it seemed to have been tailor-made for me and I’m a better man for having done it. I feel like I was able to clean up some emotional and psychological trash. I would do it again although I would most certainly wait 6 months to a year before joining another ceremony.
I welcome respectful thoughts, questions and reactions. Please don’t hesitate to reach out by commenting or e-mailing me privately.
I’m also adding some additional information with links below:
Ayahuasca Overview
Positive Effects
mild to extreme mood lift, euphoria
ego softening / ego loss
oceanic feeling of connectedness to the universe
feelings of love and empathy
a sense of inner peace and acceptance of self, others, and the world
profound life-changing spiritual experiences
emotional healing / mentally therapeutic
claimed physical healing (such as anti-cancer effects)
Neutral Effects
sedation
strong visions; some typically reported include snakes, big cats, insectoid aliens, female goddesses
meaningless visual “noise”
auditory hallucinations / sound distortions
altered sense of space and time
increased likelihood of embracing magical thinking, paranormal ideation
Negative Effects
nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, body aches, sweats/chills (alternating), and other flu- or food poisoning-like symptoms, much less common after multiple experiences
Please follow the link below to the gay-dads.org blog to read a conversation between four fathers and how they have stepped up to their parenting challenges.
Saw the play Fun Home over the weekend during a getaway in L.A. to celebrate a friend’s 50th birthday. I’m often touched in the theatre, but I rarely cry in the theatre.
I cried on Saturday night. Twice.
As the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist, Fun Home balances humor and tragedy to create an emotional roller-coaster of introspection that left me pondering for days.
First, the little boy inside me cried at the acknowledgement that like Alyson, the protagonist, he saw himself in other gay men at a very young age and knew he was like them. I cried that that little boy felt fear rather than wonder and joy. The song, “Ring of Keys” as performed at the 2015 Tony awards is a beautiful rendition of this pivotal moment for gay youth.
My second moment came near the end when Alyson’s Mom reveals the true extent of her pain in her marriage to Alyson’s Dad, Bruce. He is a closeted gay man who has created a life of deception and untruth for those around him. The song “Days and Days” provides a window into the wife’s pain and hopelessness. I cried both in empathy for my ex-wife and in gratitude that I stopped it before it got this bad. I came out and we divorced in time for both of us to have a life.
I’m so happy that I have renewed my season tickets for the traveling Broadway shows in my area to see this touching play again.
In the last couple of months I’ve come to know at least three individuals in my extended social group of formerly married gay fathers who have experienced close calls with suicide. About 6 months before this, several of us had met to discuss what we could do to help men in our situation.
There are a lot of resources in today’s world for gay teens and young adults. There are coming out stories to read and hotlines to call. That is all fantastic. But a man who has been married to a woman and who carries fatherhood responsibilities lives with an entirely unique weight of responsibility during the whole coming out process. Those of us who have been through it know how lonely, hopeless and yet exciting and freeing it can be.
Without knowing HOW we could help, the suggestion was thrown out that perhaps a website just for gay fathers would help.
But this is just the bare bones of what I hope it becomes. I need your help to provide content. One would think there are a lot of sites like this but there are not. Just google “gay dad” or “gay fathers” and you get discussions about coupled gay men deciding to become parents through adoption, surrogacy, etc. That’s wonderful of course, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.
Men who came out after becoming fathers are different. They and their kids need to know they aren’t alone. They need to know how others have navigated the terrifying waters and how to get help in a crisis. Some of us need to tell our stories. That’s what this site is all about.
If this is you I hope you’ll help me build the site by sending me:
Your story. Anonymous stories are welcome but I also hope to include some out and proud men here. I will be writing mine and placing here.
Your child’s story. There are a lot of fathers who lose contact or enter into troubled relationships with their kids after coming out. I hope that some of us can get our kids to share their stories of how they’ve dealt with their father coming out. It could help some other child.
A blog entry with helpful thoughts, advice, etc.
Any additional resources such as lawyers, therapists, books, links to blogs and such.
This site is not going to be LDS focused. It will zero in on formerly or currently married gay men who have children of any age. All religions and nationalities are welcome.
Please help me make this a valuable resource by sending content and ideas my way!
OMG I just got a text from my ex-wife that she sent to me and my three girls. Tomorrow was supposed to be the wedding. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go back and read: Could This Be About YOU? I explained that I was flabbergasted that my kids’ step-sister was marrying a gay young man.
I don’t know either one of them so I felt hopeless and frustrated that my ex hadn’t intervened somehow.
By some miracle the girl called it off the day before the wedding!
Here’s the text. I was included because it’s my weekend with the kids and they were going to have to leave to attend during their time with me. My ex is the first message. Mine is the last, and my girls’ texts in the middle.
If you’re the girl reading this, good for you. That was probably so hard to do. You’ll thank yourself later and time will heal the disappointment and doubt you must be feeling.
If you’re the guy reading this, I’m sure you’re hurting right now but please take some time to get honest with yourself and find men to talk to who have been through what you’re going through. Your life can still be happy and joyful and filled with love and with a future family.
Live on the outside in a manner consistent with how you feel on the inside and peace will come to you.
Mormon apostle Russell Ballard gave a talk in October 2016 General Conference entitled “To Whom Shall We Go?” where he said the following:
If any one of you is faltering in your faith, I ask you the same question that Peter asked: “To whom shall [you] go?” If you choose to become inactive or to leave the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where will you go? What will you do? The decision to “walk no more” with Church members and the Lord’s chosen leaders will have a long-term impact that cannot always be seen right now.
A new website, wherewillyougo.org, has been dedicated to former Mormons submitting their own answers explaining where they’ve gone and how that’s worked out for them. This is my submission:
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10 years ago as a gay, newly divorced father of four and former Mormon, where I would go and what I would do was indeed the looming question
A lifetime of seminary, sunday school, priesthood, mission, BYU and church leadership had me imagining myself at best as a drug addicted felon like Matt Foleyliving in a van down by the river with no friends, family, job. At worst, I’d lose my family in the eternities.
The fear is real. And some of it is well-founded. I had a difficult time financially and emotionally for several years. Divorce in and of itself can and often does do that to a man. Add coming out and leaving your lifelong religion to the mix and it’s not going to be a cakewalk. But as I tell other men in the same position I was in 10 years ago, don’t divorce thinking you’re transitioning into some dreamlike peace and happiness. Do it if divorce is a reward in and of itself.
I’d offer the same advice for awakening Mormons making a rough decision to leave or to stay. Leaving needs to be a reward in and of itself, regardless of what exciting or terrifying experiences lie ahead. For me, divorcing and leaving Mormonism have indeed been their own rewards. I have had the exciting task of developing my own moral compass and creating a life that reflects my true soul rather than sticking to what some men tell me is “safe” and acceptable.
I’ve chosen to love my fellow man and have rejected doctrine, policies, standards and beliefs that don’t show that love…and it has made all the difference in the world.
Fatherhood has been my crowning achievement in that. In all that has passed, my four kids have always come first. I believe I’m a better father today than I ever would have been working 10+ hours a week out of the home on church callings, unhappily married to their mother and repressing such a fundamental part of my soul. I’ve been fortunate over the years to spend 1 on 1 time with each of my children and I have an unconditionally loving relationship with them, even with the ones who are still gravitating towards the LDS church.
What’s new is that my entire life is patterned after my own hard-fought-for values, rather than the pre-packaged standards and rules created by others. I’m still single. I haven’t replaced Mormonism with a different belief system. I still have good days and bad days. But I’ve experienced deep passionate love, familial love and acceptance, andfinancial successes that shadow the failures.
Where did I go?
Towards love, authenticity, and a genuine daily life. It has made not pretending worth it.
