One of my (male) readers recently left this comment on one of my posts on sexual attraction. I wrote about the fact that men are taught to fear sexual attraction – how the different notions of beauty and sexual attraction are taught in a way that causes men to flee from what is sexually attractive to them, and instead go for what (their environment tells them) is ‘beautiful’.
After asking for his permission, I wish to share this as a single post with the rest of you. I think his words are very important and very precious – they need to be heard. It is unfortunate that we have so few men among us when it’s a known fact that they suffer just as much from growing up in these destructive teachings, so I did not want to miss the chance to share that men are just as much devastated by the purity and courtship culture as women are.
“This was difficult for me to read, only because it hits me so close to home. I don’t even know where to begin. How about the “self blaming and guilt”?
But first, I appreciated reading a woman describing how we men learn to avoid attractive women like the plague… We’re taught to feel so guilty about sexual attraction that we really do avoid being around you… I was touched somehow by even reading that bit.
The Courtship movement, fundamentalism, submission to pastoral authority, allowing other people with the “right answer” tell me what God’s will is, as if they knew… well… I allowed myself to go with other people’s ideas of God’s will for my life in the choice of a wife.
Long story short, I married a woman 13 years ago to whom I’m not sexually attracted, and I’ve never lusted after.
I knew it before I married her. I knew it the day I married her. I’ve known it for 13 long years in a passionless marriage.
She’s a really nice girl, and I’m devesatingly ashamed that I’ve ruined the woman she could have turned out to be… I see her as the true victim in it all… lack of passion has done that to both of us.
Warped by church teachings, I literally convinced myself that God was going to bless me with sexual attraction for her, by being obedient to marry her… like some magic wand of his would tap me on the head and “poof” …. Happily Ever After.
And, no, I’m not gay… I can sense you all wondering.
I had cold feet right up until the wedding, but had convinced myself that it was “just lack of faith.” … so I suppressed it.
The night before the wedding, I got no sleep. I had no peace of mind. I don’t remember too much about that day…. and we left the reception early during the festivities… I was too tired to continue. But the full force of what I’d done hit me during the week… like a cold chill of death running down my spine… I was married… marriage is forever, and I’m unhappy…. forever … the exact opposite of what i’m supposed to be… I can’t get a divorce… divorced people go to hell in the express lane or the handbasket, or something. There may even be a reserved section in hell for divorced people, I thought… like maybe even a VIP entrance.
I felt so ashamed of myself. In a foreign country… surrounded by my new fundamentalist in-laws (still my neighbors today after all these years)… I vowed to just stuff it… all of it… just repress it and forget and go through the motions, and to never say a word to anyone. Too ashamed to admit what I’d done. Just put on a happy face… smile…. go to Church… and pray like hell.
Within two weeks I was being confronted by the father in law… something was wrong, since i was obviously not happy, not sleeping with his daughter…. emails were being sent back home to the pastors in the states… who also flew over eventually to meet me and my wife… I was ashamed, alone, and scared … I still believed that I needed to believe in the “right answer” … so I lied to them, and told them that my marriage was God’s will (besides, who wants to go to hell for divorce.) so I tried really hard to “do the right thing…” … and just stuff the negativity and the lack I was feeling….
My married life became one of fear, obligation and guilt.
Well, I don’t have to tell you, that women aren’t stupid. It’s been hard on both of us… and I didn’t become honest until several years and several children later.
I wish I’d never stepped foot in a Church.
I wish I’d never been so easily guided by other people. As a man, there’s nothing more debilitating than that.
I wish i’d never made my wife a victim. She doesn’t deserve this kind of a non-marriage.
I wish I’d stood up for myself, and just spoke the truth to the people pressuring me … Fear, Obligation, and guilt are no way to live.
I wish I’d known that I’m not “evil” or “damned.”
I wish I’d learned to be myself, rather than another cookie-cutter religious dude, prideful of beliefs that aren’t even my own.
I wish I’d learned to have a personal Relationship with MYSELF early in life, before it was too late… to really know myself such that other people’s opinions mattered less to me.
It wasn’t a personal Relationship with Jesus i needed. I needed to know myself… intimately.
I wish I’d learned to trust my intuition rather than to doubt it or repress it… as if it were sinful somehow.
My blood boils sometime with the desire blame others for their influence over me… but I know that I can only blame myself.
Wanting to “please God” led me to not trust my own heart… I allowed myself to believe the Bible literally when it says :”The heart is desperately wicked. Who can trust it.”…
I think that must make me the ultimate people pleaser, or passive aggressive, or something horrible like that.
So I threw my heart away a long time ago. Tragic that it should be the necessary ingredient to the rest of my life… to make me a “Real Boy.”
Your post just reinforces the feeling that everything you said with regards to sex… all these points you brought up about sexual attraction… is entirely beautiful. And entirely right.
I think deep down, I just wish that I had someone in my life that I was attracted to… someone I can’t stop thinking about, someone I would like to do things with, who I get along with, someone I can mutually fantasize with, … someone who is a safe haven for my ever-expanding imagination… not to mention sexual attraction at any age.
I only hope there’s another man actually lurking on the site who reads this, and can learn something from it for his own life.”
March 9, 2013 at 1:42 pm
Wow. Thank you for being so honest. I am heartbroken for all of you: you, your wife, your children. That is such a hard, hard place to be.
Pretty sure then that your wife is not able to provide for herself, if you are following the fundie ideal. Any chance you could help her believe in herself, get an education, get a career (not a job)? If you are not practicing family planning, then please start doing so immediately, so she can have a chance at acquiring these things.
Are you two discussing divorce? If so, please assure her that she is attractive, and deserves to be loved and desired, and that it can still happen for her if she is free to pursue such. I mean, if that’s even possible. You know your relationship, I don’t.
There is also always the option of an open marriage, though I have no idea if she is open to such a discussion. The Victorian ideal was chock full of such arrangements- only back then they were only open to the man. I don’t see why an open relationship in which both parties are free to date as long as they don’t publicly embarrass the union wouldn’t work. You could even agree ahead of time on how you will handle it if one of you decides they’d rather be out of the marriage.
So, so hard of a situation to be in. Every once in a while, when I hear more news about my fundamentalist superstar nieces and nephews, I feel guilty and wonder if I just didn’t try hard enough. Your post helps me to resist that guilt.
My daughter is happy living with her boyfriend, but any relatives on either side who know automatically condemn her and show disgust for her decision. My son is a young adult, pursuing life. He recently told me about a girl he never wants to speak to again, and I bit my tongue before rushing into the “you must forgive” rant I would have preached to his sister.
Your story helps me to know that my problem is not that I wasn’t demanding enough. Nope, I was too demanding. If my kids want nothing to do with religion or the evangelical ideal, it’s because there are problems with the ideal. It is not a problem with me or with my kids.
I may have my son read this….
March 9, 2013 at 11:21 pm
I agree. Help her find a way to move on with her life. You owe it to her.
March 9, 2013 at 4:09 pm
Shadowspring has good thoughts, so I’ll just add my sympathy. Your story is very sad. I hope you both can rebuild your lives into something wonderful – it’s never too late to find more happiness.
March 9, 2013 at 5:48 pm
This is heartbreaking to read. My ex husband was the cult leader of an IFB congregation. When one of my daughters was sexually molested by a pedophile in the church, her father was going to force a marriage between them both. Turned out later, the PASTOR was also a pervert. Organized religion iys no longer’ Godly’… it’s become sick and twisted.
March 9, 2013 at 10:32 pm
I’ve been an evangelical/pentecostal all of my life, and I thought that I’d heard a lot of ‘purity’ stuff in my life, but when I read stuff like this it turns out that it is completely alien to me… WTF???
(see my post http://bramboniusinenglish.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/a-purity-culture-i-dont-know/#comment-1495 )
March 10, 2013 at 10:32 pm
This was very poignant and sad. The section about being taught not to trust intuition (or yourself) jumped out at me. Goddess spirituality is sometimes critiqued for being too “reflexive” or open to interpretation/personal experience, but I read once and I paraphrase now that acting based on how you *feel* may sometimes get you in trouble, but suppressing the urge and doing only what you’re *told* has gotten a lot more people into a lot more trouble over the years.
March 13, 2013 at 8:19 pm
My heart breaks for you and your situation. I think I should tell you that you have sufficient grounds for an annulment. Legally, annulment means that the marriage never happened and doesn’t carry the stigma of divorce. While these are often performed within a few weeks/months of a marriage, they can take place years later and provisions can be made for your children and assets (though the laws on annulment vary from state to state). Being forced into a marriage against your will or under a misunderstanding are valid grounds for annulment.
March 16, 2013 at 7:20 pm
Depends on jurisdiction. I don’t know about American family law, but in Canada, you need more than a misunderstanding to get an annulment. In fact, Canadian case law strongly suggests that as long as you understood you were entering into a marriage and that a marriage is a formal relationship that is intended to be permanent, there are no grounds for an annulment. You can analogize this situation to an arranged marriage (without sexual attraction), which Canadian case law has consistently uniformly denied annulments.
If he is in Britain, on the other hand, I’m not sure. The Brits have taken a very strong stand on forced marriages, and so their threshold for granting an annulment are substantially lower. For example, in Hirani v. Hirani, a 19 year old Hindu girl received an annulment because her parents arranged a marriage with her with a Hindu man to prevent her from associating with a Muslim man, and she married him because they threatened to turn her out of the house if she didn’t. It was recognized at at 19 years old, she would have been terrified, and therefore the marriage was coerced and annulled. Note that similar cases in Canada have resulted in the opposite, because as long as they understand what marriage entails, well, tough luck.
It would turn very strongly on the facts in either case.
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March 17, 2013 at 11:36 am
Thank you for sharing. I know this is painful for you. I wish you and your wife a way out of it, a way to find happiness. I can relate to all that you say as I’ve just left a similar 20 year marriage. Please know that the only thing worse than wasting 13 years struggling this way is wasting 14 or 15 or 20 years. The kids will be OK. Do what needs to be done and move forward.
May 19, 2013 at 12:55 am
This is a really good post. As much as I talk about women hurt by the system, I realize men have also been deeply hurt as well.