OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum / Righteousness

**Posted by lily** February 24, 2022 4:50 pm

Victo wrote:
Conversion therapy is clearly about pleasing the society, not the individual. And so the cost of individual unhappiness and trauma is just expected to be borne by the converted homosexual, but the poor undeserving straight partner who gets caught up in this ickiness is yet another casualty that is not even considered. But again, this is about pleasing society not the person. Individuals are forced to bear the terrible cost of appearing normal to the outside world.

The question is why? What is the point?

I have been thinking about this Victo and all I can think is who came up with conversion therapy in the first place, who runs it - my bet is that it is married GID men. they are scratching their own itch.

Last edited by lily (February 24, 2022 4:54 pm)

**Posted by walkbymyself** February 25, 2022 4:48 pm

Ugh, entitlement is exactly what my husband specialized in. Before I knew he was gay (or as he called it, bi), I remember him talking about a discussion of the issue on the radio, and how unfair it was to women to be stuck marrying gay men. So why did he think it was okay to marry me? I suspect he placated what little conscience he had by insisting he was "bi", not "gay", but ultimately whatever dictionary you decide to choose -- he was satisfying his "need" for men for two decades but never once seemed to feel any particular "need" for women. As I'd written in "our stories", his response to the suggestion that he should have been faithful to me was "but how would that be fair to meeeeee?" As if cheating with men really was an entitlement.

He came out of the divorce with three or four times as much as I got -- but I know for a fact it won't be enough. He'll be sulking that I even got this one-bedroom apartment. In his mind, he deserved 100% and I deserved 0%.

**Posted by lily** February 26, 2022 1:38 pm

yes, the sense of entitlement is staggering isn't it. I still can't wrap my head round it.

They're such fakes.

I remember sitting at the table on the verandah, we'd just had breakfast and were still sitting there and I looked over at him and this image rose in my mind of my future sitting at that table with him, it was grey and dismal to appalling - like he'd be making cigarette burns on my arm just in an attempt to amuse himself. And yet everyone thinks he's so nice!

Including me back then. Why didn't I run, I think maybe it is a loss of self worth that happened so quickly I didn't even notice it had happened until I left and it improved so quickly.

**Posted by LMM** March 18, 2022 8:01 am

My husband received years of conversion therapy because he grew up on a missionary compound overseas and the Exodus Int’l folks arranged visits there to “save” missionary kids. Then he found a therapist for this back in the states. We went to a counseling graduate school in a seminary, where they taught us conversion therapy principles. I remember many of the case studies being people who thought they were gay, but our professors brought them back to the truth and restored their marriages.

So I heard the principles of this horrible stuff my whole life. It was included in youth retreats, sermons, Christian magazines and books. I was t allowed to have secular media, but they made me afraid to be deceived by that side.

It’s such a deep, dark system and Christian kids are brainwashed by it. As adults they can get out if they first doubt the church teachings about other things. But this will never be the first to go! We’re taught that even thinking a church teaching is wrong can send us to hell for rebellion. God knows our thoughts. It’s almost impossible to see that being gay isn’t evil when you’re in that system. They always say it’s the same as being a pedophile, an unnatural attraction that will be punished for eternity.

**Posted by lily** March 18, 2022 11:12 pm

yes that sounds appalling and from such a young age - I can see why you wanted to give him a chance to see if he could be nice in his treatment of you now that he was getting therapy.

Personally from what I have seen, even though it might start out all romance and flowers, married gay in denial men are not kind to their wives - I think maybe they can't stand the feel of the sexuality of a straight woman attached to them.