Hi Lily, 

I suppose the sequence of "falling in love" transitioning to "real love" varies dependent on the persons character. Maybe... persons that have a strong inner characteristic of faithfulness, the "real love" enters sooner 
(and sometimes too soon). The combination of these forms of love is very strong when met with a same kind of loving person. 

Life can be cruel, bad people, accidents or sickness. The world isn't Eden anymore, it can be hard to deal with this reality. It also hurts to see others struggle with that. 

You wrote earlier about high blood pressure due to stress experienced in a MOM. After about two years in this situation (I was in my early forties) I had a (small) heart attack, in hospital it turned out that my blood pressure was so high that the suppress/upper values on the readout were confusing. Actually I was lucky it manifested itself this way. I mean: it could easily have gone different and I wouldn't be writing about a happy MOM in 2020.

but I am the faithful sort of person.  It is more that it takes an act of will to question whether that faith is misplaced or not.

I agree, this is certainly (and also) an act of the will. 
The deciding word is: "misplaced". It depends on the trueness of the motivations and intentions of the other. And that may not always be easy to determine.
Being faithful to a no good spouse, is casting pearls before the swines. They trample it, turn around and tear you to pieces.

On the other hand, it can also become a challenge to endure long lasting difficulties in a relation, without thinking "I long so much for a happier life". It's certainly the right choice to be faithful through this, but it's not easy. This is the situation where I meant: "love is not a feeling but an act of your will".

After 8 years of my wife's depressions, suicide attempts, alcohol abuse and a lacking sexual relation... at my office I went for lunch at my usual time of day, a certain woman I felt attracted to, always was in the canteen at that hour. At first it felt like harmless interest, but eventually I became aware of feelings being stirred to see her. Then the will had to step in, I said to myself: stop that! ... so I decided to have lunch at another hour (there can be simple solutions for complicated feelings ). Of course this was not misplaced faithfulness.

Some years later, after my wife discovered she was lesbian and she wouldn't let go of feelings for the woman she had fallen in love with (there was more to it, but to keep it short), I really was questioning whether me being faithful was the good thing to do. 
At the time I felt miserable about the whole situation, and it looked to me she was only occupied with her own happy discovery. At one point I was fed up with it, because I didn't want to sacrifice myself for the life that threatened to be unfolding. I signed up on a dating website. I think mostly to proof myself I was a person that mattered too. For a few days I had a online conversation with a woman who was interested in me. But I realized this was not the way I wanted to pursue, so I ended it with a friendly excuse. Faithfulness kicked in, but I decided only to continue this faithfulness under conditions.
I told my wife about it, and with that made it clear she should put an end to her emotional connection she kept alive. Like: "I'm faithful and willing to go for our marriage, but only if you do no less". If not...

From the things I wrote, it may look like my wife is nothing but a lot of trouble But I would do her very wrong with that. So think it's good to write something about who my wife is.
She was victim of a narcissist too, in her case not inflicted by her spouse but by her mother. It took a great part of her life to overcome the damage done, and our marriage suffered a lot from it. Although she grieves about things she has done, it was not by choice. Still, she views the consequences of her conduct as her responsibility. Not as an unforgivable burden, but she doesn't walk away from it either.

Though she grew up in a Christian environment, she never could really accept God as unconditional loving Father. She couldn't lose the doubt whether that was real and for her. ( ... what is really real??? And what is unconditional love??? For someone raised by narcissistic mother). So when she finally truly accept God and His love, and did away with doubt, (this was after her years depressions, but before she discovered she was lesbian) she very much valued realness in her heart. Being honest and real to me, but also being honest and real to herself. 
(often gay people in a MOM may like to think to be honest to themselves, but actually they are not. It takes effort to be real and honest to yourself).   

Later she considered: "I have lesbian feelings, but I love my husband and my family. Is it really me, if I chose to realise my sexual feelings?"
She decided to go for her marriage, because that was keeping true to her identity as a person. And that was a very real and very honest decision. Not secretly keeping a door open to wish for something else. Not secretly hidden from me, but more important not secretly hidden from herself.
Still the lesbian feelings were there and obviously she was aware of that. Sexuallity in the relation with me originated from her will. And that's because she willfully chose it (out of love for me), and so it was not against her will (this is an important twist to notice).

(at this point: I (in the background) was strugling with negative feelings in this situation, not feeling really desired, sex was not connected with her feelings... Followed by that important change of perspective considering my own handling of my feelings).

 
She considered her being lesbian as something of her inner feeling and kept it there. Fully acknowledged, not supressed because she had decided to do nothing with it.
But still I was on the outside of her sexual feelings. So in that regard there was no connection to her feelings in her sexual expression to me.
Nevertheless in many aspects we got closer and intimate to each other emotionally and in openess to each other. 
An actual change in her thinking/feeling came when incidently she heared someone say "you may bring out the image of Christ in each other". This touched her heart. For her it meant reaching out to me from her inside. 
It stopped her gazing inward upon her lesbian feeling, and opened her eyes outward, to me. 
The fence arround her inner feelings was down, and she gave me a place in her sexual feeling. The lesbian feelings shifted to the side so to speak, and feelings for me took that place.

The next time we made love, I felt a total difference. Like it was clear before her feelings were not involved, now it was equally clear to me her feelings were in. A wonderful experience.
In the year that followed, her direct experience of making love changed. For she was thankful for what she had in me, and focussed on the feelings she had for me and that gave her joy. 
And by doing so, she gradually realized actually enjoying all aspects of making love with me. Including who I am as physical man.

In some reaction (to me or someone else) you wrote that a gay person doesn't know what it is to be straight. And you are right I think. Along with the changing of her feeling for me, she realized what it had been for me all those years. For now she knew for herself how it felt, she also understood the pain it had caused me. 

Well here I stop, it's a way-too-long post already.

Oh goodness. I don't know what to say.  I have to admit I find the idea of your lesbian wife shunting her sexual feelings to one side a bit unnerving! 

You call it shunting, but that is not the right word for it. 

At first her lesbian feelings were at the center, like: "this is my sexuality I have to deal with". 
But that shifted to a less important place in her mind/feelings, it made room for sexual feelings towards me. The latter became more important and moved to the center.
She found something better in that, better than keeping her focus on the lesbian feelings.
The more she set her focus on feelings towards me, and experience the joy it gave her, the more she became aware of it and made it grow futher.
So it's not shunting, it's giving it less importance, like: "lesbian feelings are part of me, but it's not my center of the universe. The love for my husband has that place now". 

Sexual attraction really is magnetic, the way I see it you are holding two opposite ends of the magnet together with mutual religious conviction and all I can think is the irritation between the surfaces has to come out somewhere.

No, our mutual religious conviction is not keeping us together. We love each other and have a fulfilling sexual relation, that's already good enough for us to keep us together

Maybe in my previous post, it was confusing what I meant. It's not christian "hocus pocus" The "image of Christ" refers to husband and wife in marriage (in a letter of the apostle Paul) and the beauty this relation represents.
That remark triggered my wife, because it made her realize what the value of HER love to me actually is. The radical effect HER love (as a woman) has on me (as a man) and what a life changing importance this holds for me.
In other words: she already valued me, but now she also grasped the extraordinary value and impact of HER love to me. And she wanted that! She considered it much more valuable and of beauty then her lesbian feelings. Hence the shift, the most important to her was now at center: her love for me.
Once this fell into place, she also understood and valued my returning love for her. Not just in her mind but also in her heart.
Getting what our love relation is really about, the penny dropped. 

That didn't make her lesbian feelings go away, but it did make a huge difference how she related to me and how she experienced me. And most important it was connected to her feelings. 
We don't bother a bit she has those lesbian feelings also. Who cares?

To realize and understand what her love meant, and to experience the effect that had on me (esspecially noticable in our sexual relation) was joy to her. It made her the more grateful what a wonderful relation we had.
And this changed her own experience of sex, to the point she realised: "I'm actually enjoying all of it!" 

Well this is still our situation, so yeah a good place, and certainly not "irritation of surfaces". (when did I give the impression that should be the case? )

One woman I know, her husband has a very strong and loyal sex drive.  There's no evading it even now they are older.  The irritation she experiences is ferocious when he pushes for it, however meek and mild about it he is.  She does not want to do it, and yet she knows she has to let him do it sometimes.

Well, it sounds depressing, not a situation I would like to find myself in. Actually if a marriage gets stuck in a place like this, I think it would be better to seperate. Maybe only their age make them decide to stay? It would have been better if they addressed this many years earlier (assuming it was going like this for years and years before) when they had the opportunity to begin another, healthy, relation. It's sad it came to this.

That's the non-religious experience - what's on the ground.

To us faith was certainly our inspiration to get to the point we are in our MOM. (and also helped us through difficult times).
But I hope non religious people can "translate" our experience to something they can apply to their situation.

Last edited by Dutchman (January 20, 2020 8:06 pm)

Um, Dutchman didn't you say way back at the beginning that your good sexual relation began with religious epiphanies first yours and then hers?

The "religious epiphanies" ( what a word ) made us handle our feelings differently. Not directly our sexual feelings, but rather other feelings and emotions.
The change in sexual feelings and the fulfilling sexual relation that eventually developed, was a consequence that resulted from that. Actually, how it all worked out surprised us, we weren't expecting it would unfold this way. We weren't praying for a change of sexual feelings or something like that. We accepted the sexual feelings as they were and as a fact of life. We were mostly concerned how to deal with it emotionally.

My "epiphany". 

I was running to the ground with my emotions. Not feeling desired, feelings of rejection (not that my wife rejected me, but it felt to me like that), the lack of real emotional connection in our sexual relation (feeling disappointed about that aspect of our relation).

How to solve this? For example: I cannot "decide to feel desired" that would be nonsense, and my wife couldn't summon these sexual feelings for me either.
Still those negative emotions plagued me. There didn't seem to be a solution, the end of the road, no direction forward and stuck in the mud.

But there was a way out: Getting above feelings and emotions. This requires a strong act of the will, a choice, something to go for that exceeds the strength of these emotions. With a motivation that mobilizes your whole being from the heart.

I found that strength to make that choice through my faith. Christ was willing to give up His life for us. That is Love! It's at the core of my life as christian. Resolutely deciding to follow Gods example of Love no matter the consequences, was that act and motivation that was strong enough to put me above my emotions. 
It's may sound simple, but it's not something one (christian) does easily. I had to come to a state of despair first, to make this jump. For at first it seems like it goes against everything you feel, but after that choice I found freedom instead. I decide, and not my feelings and emotions that dictate me.
It is not suppressing emotions, no, that was my way dealing with it before this. After "the jump" I faced emotions and just let them be, I had chosen something far better to live by. Eventually those negative emotions faded.

I don't know whether only through faith it's possible to achieve this, I just know how it was for me.
Without faith, one would have to find another way to find this strength and motivation. I suppose that is possible, it depends on the person involved. 
If someone wants to stop smoking, it usually is hardship, especially when the necessity is not really clear. But suppose he was absolutely certain the next cigarette would mean sudden death, the will and motivation would certainly be there to immediately stop smoking. No way he would smoke that fatal cigarette. The motivation is there and the will power so strong, that quitting actually becomes easy, there is simply no other option. Any longing for a cigarette is discarded as unimportant, it doesn't weigh up to this motivation to avoid the deadly consequences.

Some people may have the will power and an inner place of motivation that enables them to get above their feelings and emotions, and others may not. 


My dealing with emotions, took my vulnerability away. It made it possible to talk much more deeply and openly, without fear of hurting each other. Sex also improved, became much more fun (without those feelings of rejection that's not hard to imagine). Preparing her speech together for church in which she came out, among other things that evolved during that period of about two years, brought us closer together. Our relation was out of the mud and on the move again. It set the stage for more change...

My wife's "epiphany".

That remark casually made by someone "you may bring out the image of Christ in each other", was like something small that had a major effect.

If you have ever rode a motorcycle and followed a curve in the road, you know you have to look to where you want to go. It's like you go automatically in the direction your eyes look at (better not look at the tree next to the road...). So, not gazing into herself and her lesbian feelings, but outward into my direction. Realizing the importance of her feelings to me and what that causes in me, created a major shift in her thinking. (As I wrote in my previous post). And like the motorcycle in a curve, her feelings followed that new focus point.

This came together with the progress of the years before in which we grew closer and emotionally intimate to each other, it all added up to this. And though her faith gave extra weight to it all, I wouldn't know why reaching this point should be limited to believers.
It's about not focusing on the inner self, the sexual orientation and self realization. Instead seeing upon the other as the beautiful and valuable person he/she is. Realizing the possibilities that's given you to make that person grow and prosper. Becoming aware of the joy that gives and be thankful for what you have together that way. And that in turn rewards itself.

It's not a miraculous wonder from heaven, not about healing or change of sexual orientation. It's all about changing the way of thinking. And this has a lot to do with the will and making choices!

I'm enjoying the conversation too. I appreciate your style, also I try to get clear (at least to myself) why our MOM worked out and many others did not.

firstly yes I do have a bit of a way with words, sorry about that - but I have to say I reread your post at your questioning of the word shunting and could see no other word that fits as well.  You used the word shifting - which is fine but less detail in it.  You talk about will and making choices so that again confirms the use of shunting - it is an act of will that moves the feelings.

English is not my native language, so it's harder for me to express nuances. But writing in Dutch certainly wouldn't be helpful understanding each other

Anyway, I interpreted your use of the word "shunting" like my wife would be forcing her lesbian feelings to a closed off spot in herself, and by will power suppressing anything that might arise from it.

Handling it that way would be like putting it (and herself) in a closet (and that's just the opposite of what she did and does).
Suppressing and forcibly keeping it in a hidden place would absolutely be a wrong way handling things. For there it would be smoldering and festering, until someday it reaches a point where it overcomes will power, and... boom!
So I used the word "shift". Shift in conjunction with importance. Like a priority. (I think the word shunting doesn't allow that possibility, to me "shunting" implies "ignore, act as if it wasn't there, denying it's there"). So I stick to "shift" as the better word for it

For example: I'm a straight man, my (sexual) feelings are focused on my wife. But this doesn't mean that my heterosexuality as such only exists in my marriage relation. I still appreciate the looks of other women. But I've no urge to act upon it, nor does it feel like I am shunting my sexuality by denying myself infidelity. No, I accept myself as I am, and there's no need to "closet" my heterosexual feelings in general to keep me faithful to my wife. And this way of dealing with sexual orientation is about the same for my wife.

When I use words like "will power" or "choice", you tend to place that in the context of fighting against feelings (suppressing). And like I wrote in some earlier postings, there certainly can be situations the will has to intervene feelings. For instance when the relation is in a crisis, it can be necessary for the will to go against feelings that pop up. But this should not be the standard way of living under normal circumstances.

My mentioning of the will power and choices, has to do with changing the way of thinking, involving change at a deeper level than feelings. 
Only dealing with feelings, is like handling symptoms, and suppressing them is an endless and tiring job, for they keep coming. In Dutch we have an expression for this: "Mopping the floor while the tap is running".
In contrast, changing the way of thinking is altering the source where those feelings originate from and how feelings are experienced.

But having said all that I am going to say what I think - no shunting involved - you can't push these feelings somewhere different, it is more as you suggest with the bend in the road analogy - it is to step away from them, her  from her desire for women and you from your sense of rejection.  

That's more close to what I meant. I would rather describe it as a change in focus: Not concentrating on feelings, but choosing something better as focal point.
Convinced of taking the right choice, for me that choice was signed and sealed with will power. For my wife it was grasping the value of her love for me and the impact and value that worked out in me. In both cases it led to a relaxed way handling our feelings. For me the feelings of rejection faded, my wife's awareness of sexual orientation became a not-so-important-thing to consider. There were simply much better and more beautiful things we had in sight. As an automatic consequence other positive feelings emerged instead, and we didn't had to make an effort to achieve that. Eventually our sexual relation reflected the actual situation, surprising us how this came to be. On the other hand: how else could it go? It developed naturally, maybe even unavoidable. To expand the analogy: Riding a motorcycle through the curves and enjoying the flow that creates. 

My first epiphany was when I lost my faith in religion and my second was when I realized my husband was gay.

The second issue I can imagine, it casts a dramatic different view on the past. And this would be terribly hard to process. On the other side it might have been liberating to realize, but still at the expense of the best years of your life, all the trust you've given, the hardship endured, and more. I glad I didn't have to enter that land and got away, but I've been close to it and even that felt horrible enough. 

But the first I can't imagine. 
I've felt like Job, lamenting about my life. Sure enough, many years it was like being neck deep in misery. But God is... well, God. And He does what He does, who am I to criticize Him?
"Religion"?...well I don't have a special bond with that concept, never have and it's still not my piece of cake. But God... He's something very different. I have faith in God with all my heart. Sometimes people call that "deeply religious". Yuck! I don't feel "deeply religious" and, generally speaking, I don't want to be connected with people who call themselves that. I don't know if you get what I mean, makes this sense to you?

Both had a profound emotional impact and both changed the way I viewed my past.  The landscape was different to how I believed it was.  Major reframe.  

So you and your wife individually and together have picked up the pieces and remade your relationship - seeing your marriage as an expression of the image of Christ seems to me to be the central tenet the remake is based on.  Yes?

I intentionally quotes these two lines of your posting together. For indeed, we had also a moment of reframing and seeing our past in a completely different perspective. 
But this was after everything had come to pass and our marriage had come to a different place. Only then we realized how all fitted together to result in bearing the image of Christ in our marriage. 
For example, feeling abandoned by God to my lot in life, which ultimately made me decide to follow the example of Christ. I made that choice, but very much suspect God to bring me to that point of decision. If so (and actually I believe that to be the case) I was very much mistaken He had abandoned me to my lot in life, but at the moment I just didn't understand what He was planning.

The strange thing is, by making that choice in desperation: loving my wife more than myself and against all my feelings, I was bearing the image of Christ. I didn't realize that at the time. 
The same goes for what my wife went through, experienced and decided. Everything she did was contributing to bare that image. In hindsight we realized this was what it was all about, and this is our reframe of the past. 
From Gods perspective there are more important things then sexual orientation. There is much more than the wrestle of our lives. Everything that happens in our life, has a place in Gods plan and will ultimately work for the good and towards His goal. 
But hey, I don't think these last thoughts are comprehensive if one doesn't believe, and may be ignored in regard to the topic at hand.

okay so the question you have been asking is what is the difference that makes our MOM successful and I think you have given the answer - "..we realised how all fitted together to result in bearing the image of Christ in our marriage"

For us this was the result, and looking back, our understanding of the meaning all that happend in our life (indeed reframing it). To believe God led us through this to bring us to where He wanted, makes perfect sense to us. But this wasn't due to a series of inexplicable miracles, healings or something like that. 


Along the way through all those years we didn't had a clue it would come to this. Just trying to make right choices, handling difficulties, handling emotion, feeling down, feeling hopefull, the lot, not much different than anybody. From our faith we drew inspiration to go for the good: love, honesty, responsibility to our family, marriage vows, failthfulness, understanding that these, among others, are more important things to go for than self-fullfilment, this kept us on track.

But I think there are concrete objective reasons that can be identified that made the difference. Like one thing I know for sure: NOT following modern cultural pressure ("live out seksual feelings, otherwise one isn't authentic"), was a very important factor. 

I'm considering to start a new topic, the "do's and don'ts". Maybe contrasting one and the other, will make it clearer.