Why now all of a sudden 40 years go down the road and you think you have made it through and then it hits you hard. Its like i am not sure anymore I know that i am a person and who i am and not ashamed but as i sit here i question myself as i think about who i am Or should i just give in and be someone who i am not I am not use to living a life as a gay person and yet how can i when i am married It is so hard for me to feel compassion and love towards my wife I feel like such a piece of crap cause i have left her down. I sit here and as i think what am i to do Why why and more why's Why did it have to happen now What are all the emotions i am feeling and yet i feel like i am crawling back into my shell all over again with no emotions. Its once again is this a phase or not that i have had to get through? Why now why didn't this happen many years ago. I feel so alone i feel so confused I am not sure but at the same time i feel so scared about what if the bible is true in its content about being gay and what if it isn't. It is just so overwhelming. Why did i fall in love with the 19 year old and now i would do anything for him i would go out of my way knowing he is just using me. I just cant bare the thoughts that everyday after knowing what it is to love and having these feelings towards another. How can life go on Why and whats the use if you cant be with him and why is it that he cant understand and yes i know that he is at that age of confusion It is so hard for me to understand these things for i never experienced them as a normal person should. I sit here and knowing deep inside i am becoming isolated from everyone and yet i want to know what it is about and what it feels like to be in love and the need to hold that person close to me When i held him close it was like nothing ever mattered I felt so secure and with peace in myself Totally content. Why did it have to happen I was just learning to have a life with my family and now it is so upside down I am not happy and yet i want to be but don't know how to be. How can i turn that love off and find another to love.
All these things inside me just want to make me go and hide. Yes i know i have been a survivor all these years i have struggled to keep alive and to have some respect if i really want to call it respect I have always thought of others before my needs. I was always the 10th person in line to myself.
I look at my daughter and think how can i be a gay person and yet love my daughter. Yet i cant deny the feelings of something as i look towards her. Nothing feels so right It is like the whole world has come falling down on me and now its there to judge me for all the things i should of done but didn't
I want to cry and yet the tears don't come but i feel it deep inside I hurt. Its like i am scared cause if i dont do the right thing as God intended i will be going to hell forever and if i don't love my daughter instead of me losing my patients with her and yelling I will lose her someday with no respect or she will grow up with problems cause of me My wife i don't feel its right that this has happen.
I don't have no interest in sex with wife We have tried several times and its a dead end. I am so frustrated as i look out in the corn field wondering how wonderful it just might feel to go and bury myself 10 feet deep and never having to wake up to this anymore. I have been fighting not physically but mentally all my life. Trying to do what is right or hopefully it is I have lead what you call a brady bunchs life i copied that to use to how things should be I copied but never felt the feelings that go with the action Till recently I never enjoyed sex with a male or female. It was something you just did you came and that was that. Till recently i kissed another male and the feelings that i received was like no words could explain. How can a kiss make you feel with chills running down your spine and you start to tent from the kiss with such feelings. I hate to kiss i always did it for formality nothing else. I always heard of others saying how they have had sex and they seen fireworks I have never experience this with no one till recently i had made love to another male the same i had fallen in love with It was like no words really can say them feelings but just i felt so at peace with myself and things never felt so right The world could of came crashing down but at that moment nothing matter. Even wife notice the difference in me even though she didn't know what i had done. She noticed though that every time i was with him I was a totally different person. Why why and more whys did it have to happen this way and especially with one who is so immatured and yet i didn't feel ashamed i felt like on top of the world Its like wow i never knew sex or making love could feel this awesome.
I have tried the online datings and that isn't the way to do things for sure cause most of them all they want is to get off and nothing more. I have tried to go to the bar scene and that isn't me at all. I try to go to philly to williams way community center for gays but i am a poor person It cost too much to go down there. Why now its like i have so many things to question and yet so little answers . I am not sure anymore if it is worth to go forward living Maybe i am just better off to leave things as they are and i am use to being the way things are so do i really need to improve my quality of life I guess if it is this so much trouble it really isn't worth but just to stay to myself and give in being a hermit. All i know is i am tired mentally and its like i have no more fight left in me. I just want to know why did God allow this to happen to me and if it is so wrong then why did it feel so right. Why is it worth to keep going forward cause all i do is have to fight everyday not physically and i am tired

(((Josef)))

That's a really tough situation and I'm so sorry you are feeling so lost and confused. There is so much here to respond to, I could write for hours, but here are my immediate thoughts:

1) It sounds like you believe that you are gay but are stuck in a sexless marriage. Many gay men have been there. And the fact that you have a child makes it even more difficult. But what people often fail to recognize is that one of the best lessons you can teach your child is to take care of yourself and face up to the problems in your life. Divorce may be in the cards, but that is something you'll have to search your heart for. But either way, if you aren't happy, your daughter will know. And your marriage is the model she will (unknowingly) be emulating in her own adult relationships.

2) I am a dreamer and I never like to give into absolutes because there is always the exception, but, he's 19. He doesn't know who he is, what he wants, where he wants to be, beyond that moment. That can be attractive and seductive, that may give you the feeling that you are making up for lost time or having something that you missed when you were younger. You may have learned what making love/having sex is supposed to be like and you may have finally come to the conclusion that you are gay and you can thank him for that. But to leave to be with him is really just more heartache coming down the road that you could avoid.

3)You speak about what God says about being gay in the Bible. Some believe that there are positive and affirming messages there too for gays. I believe it is the book of Samuel in which some interpret the relationship between Jonathan and David to be as lovers. There are affirming Christian churches out there. Seek them out for guidance. Because if God made all of us, and we were made to be gay, and God loves all his children, and God doesn't make mistakes, then God must love his gay children as much as everyone else.

4)You mention "I look at my daughter and think how can i be a gay person and yet love my daughter." I'm not sure where you were going with that. I adopted my son when he was 11 as a single gay parent and I would give my life for him. I couldn't love him more.

You had the strength to move on after the abuse, you'll have the strength to face this and move on to a new and happier chapter in your life. A chapter that you write because you are in control, you know yourself better, and you are capable of protecting yourself and your heart.

Peace and love Josef...

Michael

oh my josef, i can sense how deeply befuddled and anxious you are about all of these emerging realizations in your life. so many issues each packing it's own special whallop!

it's like someone opened a dam and suddenly all of this previously pent up emotion is released, and your mind is engaging in an attempt to make sense out of this undesirable situation.

god did not allow anything bad to happen to you.....bad stuff just happens, like good stuff just happens. sometimes the stuff that happens, happens as a result of cause and effect, and that is what has been shown to be true of a lot of us survivors. what is your response to all of this? how will you sort it out? you need help navigating this situation. please try to get support, as it is far too much for you to try to handle on your own.

in the meantime, now that you are beginning to allow the glimmer of light to shine on the situation of your life, rest assured that you will be led to the next realization necessary for a deeper understanding, pointing the way you must go in the next phase of recovery.

in the meantime, may i suggest that all of these thoughts and emotions buzzing around you like bees, be just allowed to do their buzzing for the time being. not ignore or deny their presence and impact, but temporarily detach from them.

keep writing about the thoughts and feelings you are having. once outside of you the negative energy loses its charging power.

tomorrow you will have a different outlook, and eventually, your life will begin to mend itself along with all of the tragic effects that led you to the state you are in at this moment.

this current state of anxiety is temporary, and things will smooth themselves out as you continue to unpack the things of your past, one day at a time.

you are in my thoughts and prayers,

your brother in recovery,

ron

With my daughter i think i am more afraid and not knowing how to love her as a father but at the same time i do feel the compassion and i guess if i feel for her then i might not be able to love someone else Its a hard thing cause remember and no females turn me off totally i have advance so much i know this and what i am saying is i have gone from attraction to young males or maybe that isn't the right word to use but i will use it anyway At one point in my life i could only trust and be around boys underage. Then i started to learn that seperating love and sex are a very fine line between the 2 I learn at a early age that the 2 were the same. I had to figure this out myself and to it has taken so long to feel comfortable around people of my own age and at last i had a enjoyable encounters with a male of legal age and then i also finally learned through another who is a awesome inspiring person be it only for a few days but he showed me that i could beings he is 32 years old that i am able to have enjoyable encounters be it sexually or just friends. He showed me a kiss is very enjoyable and can be arousing. So as i look back i would have to say i have made a lot of progress. I know now that i can have and enjoy a normal relationship with a adult male. What i think i am just so afraid n not sure how to love my daughter the proper way . I just want to be a father that can show her the love and to allow her to be a child to enjoy it and not to allow it be taken away from as i have. I yell a lot i lose myself with her easily and she annoys me so much. I seem to be driven easily up the wall with little things she does.
See i don't want her to be going through any of what i went through. I know that yelling can be abusive and she is scared of me and i dont want that so I dont allow myself to get close i dont want to ruin her life I know what i want in life for her but i just dont know how to bring it about for her to have a life like she should. It sucks cause i have no grounds which to use as a base for any teachings.
I guess i have been taught that being gay you cant raise children and that your a bad influence on them cause it will make them that way too. When i had something in my life that had meaning to me it was always taken away so i am afraid that if i love her something will bad happen to her. People that i cared for i lost them to death of some sort As was my little sister she i cared for and i lost her to being drowned I just started to get to know my real mother and she died Everything that had any meaning to me i lost it some way or another. I guess if i love my daughter that might something might happen to her.

I'm not sure how old your daughter is, so this would have to be taken with that into account.

My son was 11 when I adopted him. He was abused quite severely by his biological mother and step father - the full suite - physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse.

He's gotten into drugs, drinking, stealing, rehab, psych wards, etc. and he's just 18 now. He would terrorize me - I would wake up at night with him standing over me. But I hung in there and what has really brought us close together is me talking about what I'm doing in my recovery. He understands me better, I think he is learning about himself in the process, and he has been opening up and talking to me - good, long, meaningful conversations.

Maybe you should open up to your daughter. Help her understand your intentions and the emotions/history behind them. Help her understand that you are trying to protect her from what others should have protected her from. Come to some understanding between the two of you and negotiate new rules of engagement - even post them somewhere so they can be a reminder. An important outcome of this is helping her protect herself - building the strength within her to say no or to tell and to feel safe enough with her parents to be able to tell.

Recovery and healing are tough, but worth it. You are learning more and more about yourself and that, my friend, is a great thing. Yes, when we learn more we realize that we should have made different decisions in the past, but you can't fault yourself. Those decisions were made on the information you had back then.

Keep talking, we're listening. I think you are going to figure this out and feel better about it soon...

Michael

She is only 4 soon to be a holy terror at the age of 5.
You both sound like i don't know but its like we have so much of the same I am glad to have come here because of the things that you do say it makes me think Thanks Sans logos and M3 It isn't a easy life especially when you have to figure it out for yourself and no one to rely on to help I mean i know i am not the only one that has gone through what i have i know there is many out there that has but to talk to ones that has makes it a different reality Josef

Wow, 4! Well, it's a different talk, but she can understand the basics. Someone didn't keep you safe when you are young and you love her so much that you want to make sure she is safe. Be happy you understand this now and can work to have many happy years being her father. I so miss having had my son in his formative years and still wish at times that I might have more kids...

As for the working things out for yourself, that's the way it is. No matter the advice and support, the stories and suggestions, you still have to figure it out for yourself. The only thing others can do is help you look at it in a different light or provide you with tools and information you might not have already had. Can't tell you how many times I practically begged my therapist to tell me what to do and all he would reply was, "you know."

Michael