Attracted but Married?

There's a part about identifying as gay, and staying in my church that I haven’t talked a lot about, and it’s balancing my “desire for women” with upholding the standard of not experiencing sexual relationships with the same-sex. Mainly I don’t talk about it because I’m married which obviously affects my experience. But maybe that needs to be said.

From time to time people have asked me why it matters that I’m attracted to women, if I’m married to a man. And that’s a fair question. Honestly, I ask myself that question a lot too. But it does affect how I interact with the world. Mostly at this point, because people know about my attraction to women, it becomes a perception issue. I spend a lot of emotional energy worried about how I’m interacting with people and hoping I’m not sending an unintentional message to anyone.

I’ve talked about this before, but because I am married, I am no longer “out shopping” so to speak. Therefore, I really don’t think about anyone in a sexual capacity except my husband. However, it’s not quite that simple. Male relationships and female relationships are obviously different. My male relationship bucket is filled by my husband, and he does an excellent job doing so. I love him and I know he loves me. But he obviously does not fill my female relationship bucket. Most women, straight or gay experience this. The concept that they need female friendship and companionship in addition to their male companions is normal. Right? Because of this I still actively seek female “companionship” in my life. And I have several women who help fill that “female bucket” but none of them fulfill it in any sexual capacity. And part of me mourns that, but as I said, I love my husband, and I’m not seeking a sexual relationship with any woman, let me make that clear, but I am seeking friendship.

However, because I am attracted to women, this gets a little tricky. There’s a passage in the book “Tender Leaves of Hope” by Meghan Decker, that addresses the difference between celibate straight women in the church vs celibate gay women in the church and it’s this: “your daughter can pray every day that she will meet someone and fall in love. A celibate gay member of the church prays every day that she won’t.” And that sums this up for me. There is a part of me with every new friendship I make that is praying every time that the switch won’t flip in my brain, and that I won’t develop an attraction for this person. Because I don't want to feel that painful pull. I mean I suppose I could just make a rule to only be friends with blondes because I know they’re not my type at all (no offense ladies!)… but that seems like a rather arbitrary and limiting qualifier for friendship 😝

I’m currently reading the book “The Holy Covenants: Living Our Sacred Temple Promises” by Anthony Sweat and there’s some interesting passages about the law of chastity in there, but one line I want to share is this: “….the innate human desire to create children, form families, and have intimate union with someone symbolized in sexual expression is heaven sent….”

And that simply and beautifully illustrated something of what I feel about women. My brain is not sitting here desperately wishing to have sex with women. My husband keeps me happy. But my instinct is to yearn for a deeper union with a woman, and at least in this life, it feels like that deeper union is symbolized through the physical acts we attribute to sexual expression. I love to know and understand women on a deeper level. I do. And in my brain it makes logical sense that the next step of that would be symbolized through sexual expression. But because I am married, I do not want any of my friendships to progress to the point of wanting that with them. I’m terrified of it, honestly. Because I know that the instant that were to happen, I would need to back off and distance myself from that relationship, and I don’t want that because I love my friends. But more importantly, I love my husband more and so I will choose to back away from someone I deem to be a possible temptation every single time.

Recently I’ve had the experience of someone believing that I was attracted to them. I won’t go into a lot of details about this, but the short and sweet of it is that I am not, nor have I ever been attracted to this person. But in reflecting on that situation I have realized that when there is no attraction for me, and I trust their character, and there is a perceived friendship and mutual trust, I have the tendency to get more relaxed in my interactions. I trust they know my character and that I wouldn’t want to betray my husband. I trust that they care about me enough to look past my awkward moments and see them for what they were... awkward moments. I trust that I can be myself without stressing so much about filtering myself. This becomes a problem if they don’t have that sense of trust in my character or our friendship that I hope they have. Misunderstandings abound. In my last blog post I talked about discussing boundaries with people. And I realized I never did that with this person because nothing about our relationship indicated to me that I would need to. I wasn’t spending one-on-one time with this person that would potentially indicate a need for boundaries. I regret that my communications were able to be misconstrued and caused discomfort. But something that came out of this I suppose is just a reminder that boundaries are a good thing to discuss with people even when you don’t feel your relationship puts you in positions where you feel it would be necessary because you never fully know where someone else’s head is at.

I’m still not sure exactly what that will look like, because I don’t often discuss the gay thing with my more shallow friendships unless they bring it up. And for those of you who have experienced me “coming out” to you personally, you know that I am not graceful about it. I am awkward and sometimes confusing. And I don’t always feel it’s necessary to talk to people about it because it doesn’t define everything about me…. Nor do I really think I should feel forced to discuss it. Maybe it just needs to be something as simple as "please know that it will never be my intention to make you uncomfortable, and I hope you will tell me if I ever cross any lines."

It's important for me to remember that while I am hoping and praying with every friendship that I make, that the switch for attraction won’t get flipped in my head, that my friends are probably experiencing something similar: a silent and perhaps unrealized prayer that I won’t be attracted to them. And that is perhaps worth addressing for the long term comfort of everyone involved even if it is awkward.

In short, not acting on my sexual attraction to women for me… most tangibly comes down to a desire to be faithful to my husband. But it remains an active balancing act in my life. And I'm still learning.