This is the end of my story (part 2)IT HAS BEEN VERY HELPFUL TO WRITE IT DOWN AND TIE THE FABRIC OF MY LIFE TOGETHER.

I was just starting to get my sexual addiction under control when my Dad got involved with another woman. He filed for divorce and left. Sexual transgression and dysfunction was about to invade my life again. It was like the foundation of all my values was pulled out from under me. I again felt my Dad did not love me. The hole in my heart widened. It was at this time of my life that I returned to my “drug of choice”-- sexual addictions. I felt if my dad had no morality why should I? I allowed my dark side---Mr. Hyde to take all the books down from the shelf opened them and read them with vengeance!

My grandfather was a raging alcoholic, my father was a rageoholic, What was I becoming?... a raging sex addict?

The perfect storm that I had calmed a few years earlier returned with twice the force.

I raged!

Within a few weeks after my dad left, I found myself parked in a secluded dark spot in my car with a girl I just met at our young adult group at church. She was about 21 and had been divorced. I was 22. I don't even remember her name. It wasn't long before we were into heavy petting and pretty much undressed. In the back of my mind I was thinking as long as we don't go "all the way" it's ok. We went back to her place and slept together all night. But we didn't go "all the way." I think I just wanted to be close to someone. I felt totally disconnected in my life…again. When I didn't come home that night my mother called the police. I didn't think she would notice I was gone. I continued to strive harder in a negative way to have my LOVE needs met. But it didn’t work.

Of course the emptiness and rage did not subside, so like the alcoholic who will drink anything to medicate the pain and darkness, I tried medicating with hard core porn and sexual raging with other men. The hard core porn was found in the only Adult bookstore in the city at that time. Our church group would be picketing out side during the day and I would be there best customer at night. This brought nothing but total despair and a dull numbness which included the worst self hate I had ever experienced. I was completely out of control. I can not count the number of men and women involved in my sexual raging. It sickens me to even write this but as a single college student I was involved with married men, threesomes, and virtually any one or anything sexual. I even had an encounter with the essence of evil. I met this man at the porn shop in town. I can’t explain the evil that radiated from his countenance. He wanted me to go to his apartment. I have never had such a strong prompting to get out and leave. For the first time in a long time I headed the prompting and left. I don’t think I would be hear today if I hadn’t.

At this point in my sexual raging I felt like a male prostitute… only I wasn’t getting paid. My only “pay” was the shame and self hate that I thought I deserved. I was not calm. I had no feeling of “All is well.” I cared about no one including myself. I just strived harder and harder to fill the hole in my heart, to erase my emptiness, to find some connection. Of course sexual raging didn’t work. It doesn’t work and it never will work!

I didn’t know where LOVE was…I didn’t know where I was or who I was..

I was leading a double life – again. It is hard for me to believe even as I write this that I never stopped praying, I never stopped going to church, I never stopped believing God loved me. As I mentioned earlier in my sick mind all the sexual raging had very little to do with sex. I was again using my drug of choice ... sex. Fortunately, I still had a very small amount of light deep inside me because of my mother.

I could go on and on about my dark episodes, my addictions, and sexual raging- but why? I can't change the past. All I can do is repent-“shelf if” and live in the present…Forgive others and most importantly forgive myself.

Keep in mind, I think my Dad was a better father than his dad and was doing the best he could. In his later years he made great progress and became more active in church and in life. I love him.

My mother who it seemed to me was verbally abused or ignored every day of her married life, did the best she could. She was a woman who never received a birthday gift or Christmas gift from her husband but gave continually to us and others. Dealing with my dad’s mental illness and rage took a heavy toll on her. This made it hard for her to work full time and be a mother and love 6 little kids. Fortunately she is a very strong woman and never gave up. But she was not calm. She was not in control. She did not have a feeling of “All is well.” How could she when she is living with a rageaholic? She didn’t know where LOVE was. Never the less she did the best she could. I love her very much.

She was strong, determined and a very hard worker! She taught us all to work hard. It was because of her all five of us boys are Eagle scouts, all are college graduates, two of us have masters and one Doctorate in psychology-what else? My mother did everything. She hauled hay with us on the farm, worked harder than any of us, went deer hunting with us –even gutted the deer!

When I was first married I told my wife “I hope you’re half the man my mother is!”

My mother taught me to pray always. She told me about God in my very early years. She planted LIGHT deep in my heart that has been with me through out my live.

So you can see I can't blame all my problems on others. I should have asked for help earlier. I needed to be responsible for my own actions but I didn't. Even with all this good stuff and good people in my life, the sexual addictions raged in my youth.

My journey back to the LIGHT began one difficult step at a time. It began just before I was married and included confessions, forgiveness, reading positive self-worth books, and being married to the most compassionate and understanding woman in the world who I love more than life because without her I wouldn't have one.

My wife was raised in a very loving home with loving parents and grandparents. Since she was raised with love she knew how to give it. She was calm and in control…just what I needed. I know God sent her to me to fill the hole in my life and my heart.

The night after our first date my wife told her mother "He's the man I am going to marry." I didn't know it at the time but God had a plan for me. She is the brightest light in my life. I can honestly say that in our 35 years of marriage she has never, never said no to sex. In fact she often instigates it. It is because of her I have now learned to love sex in a healthy way and myself without guilt or shame. She helped me realign my sexual compass back to the light. She has done what no other person on earth could have done for me. God sent her to rescue me. When I say she is the LIGHT of my life, I truly mean it!

She had her work cut out for her when we were first married. On our wedding night because of my sexual addictions, guilt, and feelings that sex is always bad, I could not perform. I was surprised-- nothing had ever stopped me before! Fortunately, my dear wife was kind and patient. Which was good because it took seven days including our entire honeymoon to get my head straight. I needed to relax and learn that sex was good and that I was a good person. Well we kept trying but still with no success.

What happened next seems surreal. God had a message for me. After the honeymoon was over and we had been married for a week and still no real success in the sex department, we left on a 500 mile trip to the Spokane’s Worlds Fair in Washington. On the way to Spokane we stopped for the night in Idaho at my Aunt’s house. I had not been back to that house since I was a child. We spent the night in the same basement bedroom where my sexual odyssey began 14 years earlier when I was molested at 10. It was in that room that night that God showed me the end from the beginning. By bringing me back to this place, He was telling me its over and I needed to move forward and heal.

The perfect storm started to subside, started to calm.

For the first time in my life that night I had complete, legal, moral, marital sex…and it happened in the same room where it all began. It was good. It was a climax in every sense.

I started to calm down. I started getting my life under control. I started to feel “All is well, other people’s welfare is more important to me than my own.” I was finding where LOVE was.

I put the books back on the shelf…and that’s where they have been for many years.

They have come down a few times as I battle pornography and my sexual addiction still invades my mind but I don’t respond-I don’t act, I do not focus on it. I focus on the space between the rocks…my vision!\

A person I admire said, “We get what we focus on consistently.” I believe we all need to find our vision-our goal, fight for it, and focus on it! We can not always change our feelings, our past, our SSA, our addictions or our orientation but we can change our focus!

I have complete faith in Christ when he says, “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my spirit shall be in your hearts and mine angels round about you to bear you up.” Christ is now before my face straight in front of me. Many times in my life the rocks have been on my right and left but now I have Christ there to help stop me from hitting them. I focus on my vision which is always straight in front before my face, the space between the rocks. As I do this His spirit fills my heart and His angels bear me up.

All I have ever wanted was to have someone or something fill the hole in my heart.

His atonement and LOVE filled it and healed it.

I cannot even put into words my gratitude for the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ. We can not sink lower than the arms of the Atonement can reach us. He has saved me from my sins and the sins of my fathers. I have never felt closer to HIM.

I continue to pray for moral balance and peace in my life. I check my "sexual compass" almost daily, directing it towards light and focusing on my vision, especially in my thoughts.

In all eternity (and that is a long time) we are all only a child once. And that is here on this earth for just a short time. A child needs to be nurtured in LIGHT and LOVE in the safe circle of a good family, not by the DARK things of the world.

LOVE is a calm, in control, all is well feeling—“Your welfare is more important to me than my own.” It is free of fear and anger.

Remember the need for LOVE is as strong as the need for air or food. It is a basic need for every child born on this earth. If the Love needs are not met the child or adult will strive in a negative way to meet those needs. Many will cycle into addictions. Some will survive and some will not. I have been so blessed. I survived.

Thanks for listening,
Ted Ure