I see
Testimonial of a personal story
This website aims not only to focus on marriage and relationships but also emphasizes the importance of core values such as promise, trust, and acceptance as essential ingredients.
Too often, sexual preference is equated with complete authenticity. However, it is clear that while these are important aspects, our story also reflects other elements that are decisive and they should not be seen as equal to each other.
Compared to those who understand their sexuality and preferences from a young age and make choices, my journey was somewhat unusual. But precisely because of that, it has given me more insight into who I want to be, how I am, and how I want to deal with such matters.
Being real, being authentic, in other words, being true to yourself and to your moral values, where choices are not optional and do not form a one-way street, has taught me a lot and has been rewarding. Of course, our faith played an important role in this. That is not surprising, because it is also an integral part of who we are as a whole. I would even dare to say that it has brought me closer to my true self and purpose.
To specify this definition:
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It is not about being healed of homosexual feelings, but a more important healing: that of a wounded heart.
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There is no yoke by which I deny myself happiness, and our marriage continues as a kind of farce, because joy would only be very limited. After all, behind the front door lurks: the ever “struggling” underlying, shoved under the rug, feeling, which actually longs for (in my case) a woman to love. In other words, trapped by faith and marital ties, well...because they are sacred.
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It is not about wearing a stifling armor of frustration. Neither regarding sexual preference nor as a Christian. However, it is my responsibility to deal with what has been entrusted to me with truth and sincerity. Those choices always start with yourself.
He interacts with each person individually.
Growing up in a Christian family, or at least, that's how it had to appear, especially to the outside world, there was a lot of agitation and little love. The message "you are allowed to exist" was countered with "I wish I had never had children." My mother suffered from narcissistic personality disorder.
I think that's why, as a young adult, I remained stuck in whether I was allowed to exist at all, Whether I was adequate enough and desired. Or what it meant to truly love someone. To learn about yourself in terms of self-worth and beauty and being wanted. Being affirmed, and being known were quite distorted as essential characteristics for personal growth to develop sexuality and personhood in order to reach authenticity, but none of it was there.
Also in terms of belief in God. Theoretically I knew everything pretty well, but practically? As much as I wanted to believe it, if my parents did not love me, why should GOD?
Alternately in a valley woefully lacking and rejected by God, then again in the so-called seventh heaven. Oh well, some times I gave my heart to the Lord. I just didn't understand how His love could really accept me in it.
A long time I struggled with intimacy and sexuality and blamed myself that there was something very wrong with me. Ultimately, this led me into a long and severe depression, which created a heavy burden on our family, with all sorts of unpleasant consequences.
Whereafter we decided to try couples therapy.
At first I thought it wouldn't change anything, but that turned out to be a misconception, individual therapy, however, was needed first. Slowly but surely I learned to accept and acknowledge myself, recognizing a different value than my upbringing had led me to believe. Old thought patterns were broken, and I gradually I began to see myself as a full-fledged person and was able to shoulder the burdens of normal life again.
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A significant turning point occurred when I once again gave my heart to the Lord completely unexpectedly, through an event that put my youth and my faith at odds and threw me quite off balance. I ended up crying in my car and simply brought my pitfalls to Him because I just couldn't hold on to Him, as every time a bucket of doubt was drilled.
And maybe it wasn't so much that He removed that doubt, but rather that He gave me enough courage to believe. Enough to break through my own downward slide of faith.
I know I have never doubted His love for me since then. He freed me from the oppressive grip it had had on me, finally allowing me to move on....
“Real,” a simple word but with enormous authority. Real. What I had been looking for all along, what I longed to be. Real, desired, sufficient and unconditionally allowed to exist.
All in all, these events caused me to see life very differently. Much more confident. Gradually I was allowed to realize what grace from God meant, even for me, without price tags and imperfections. He loved me and wanted to be present in my life.
Also, I could place my feelings better to a certain point I noticed that I was falling in love with a woman. I noticed all kinds of new and unfamiliar feelings, which of course brought confusion. I was married and loved my husband who had always been there for me, despite our problems with intimacy and sexuality.
This was so different. More alive, more relaxed.
Feelings I didn't remember from our courtship, but felt them very strongly. It didn't go away and felt exhilarating and exciting. I longed to meet her or look at a picture of her. I listened to songs that reminded me of her and felt like my heart was in another world.
A good friend advised me to keep these special feelings to myself if I did not intend to act on them. It would jeopardize our marriage unnecessarily. But after a few weeks, I decided to do just the opposite. It felt terrible to keep secrets from Bert and he had a right to know.
This was the answer to the long-standing problems we had, a puzzle piece that fell into place after years of lacking feelings sexually. I was actually happier with this piece finally becoming clear than with the reality of falling in love itself. It didn't even feel strange, rather logical and natural, and it explained so much...
From the moment I realized my preference for women, it took on a life of its own and shaped my thoughts.
“That's why intimacy and sex felt like a battle with myself! This is why I was not aroused by my husband!
It was explainable and concrete, and thus the only way to deal with the problem. I am a lesbian. I couldn't do otherwise.
It took me a while to put a better foundation under this line of thinking and reach the point that “I couldn't be any other way” didn't also mean: “I can't do otherwise.” Like being helpless to your feelings.
At that time I couldn't, no. There had been too many obstacles to have a clear view of the difficult collection of factors that had been playing an important role. Things that had been piling up and were not been properly adressed because of inadequacy and ignorance. Things like inferiority and “who am I? Not knowing what love means, powerlessness.... and what sexuality is loneliness... and what is love... etc.
Even if I had acknowledged my “preference” as a teenager, but had not fully accepted myself including the rest of the inner doubt and complexity of it all ( including discovering the impact of being raised by someone with a narcissistic personality disorder) I still would have only half accepted myself: just to make my feelings feel (maybe for a moment) a little better. I think God also figured this would be important for me to realize, in order to arrive at truly right paths. To accept myself as a whole.
There is a distinction between identity and sexual preference: It is something you have, not something you are.
Equally important, being married is also something that belongs to me, that concerns me and which I had chosen with full conviction. I did not want to give up my family or marriage. The question then is: can we shape this issue together, within the marriage? And we chose to move forward together.
These feelings did not disappear overnight and impacted our relationship. Slowly but surely, my frame of mind became more and more limited. My “I” actually sought constant affirmation, approval and validation of my feelings.
We talked a lot together and looked for answers, but often from a kind of moral reassurance to validate the feeling of helplessness that my husband had to join and adapt to. Social media also always emphasized: you are who you are, you must not suppress your feelings, otherwise you deny yourself. Keep exploring, do something with it....
So inevitably it became the center. In a way, sliding more and more toward an alignment with the feeling of lack.
It was less and less about me having found the answer, but more a kind of willing burden with the best intentions in the relationship. I didn't want to break up. My husband had always been the rock. However, I didn't realize that by doing so, without explicitly saying it, I was still hurting him a lot and even pushing him away from me.
It took time to notice this underlying current in my mind.
Yet this was a direct effect of a weekend we participated in and a phrase that casually dropped, “You may bring out Christ in one another.”
Husband and wife, the difference in relationship and marriage. Christ's love for the church equal to marriage, the love between husband and wife. It felt like someone clicked on the right link somewhere on my website.
I recognized for the first time my husband for who he really was, his purpose as deep value. Which should have been present, but I had been too preoccupied with my own being and direction.
This was the link I needed; http colon slash slash: “Your husband is faithful and I gave him to you.” Somehow this was my entrance to recognizing what I had never been aware of until then. The key of the door to my emotion for letting him in.
God healed at that point not my preferences, but my consciousness, new values that were still missing because of the distorted metaphors of my youth.
Priorities for every marriage, a choice for together, but especially in a MOM. Otherwise, you shouldn't continue together.
The promise of fidelity you gave one another is not an obligation. It is total acceptance.
Love that carries and does not want to restrain. Neither of feelings, preferences, pain, or shortcomings should be stuck hidden. It also encompasses a real emotional connection that fully wants to understand the other as they are. I began to understand the meaning and value of this.
This understanding brought about an inner change, it felt so different. The hesitation was simply gone. And sex... it felt fundamentally different, to the core. The first time was an overwhelming feeling of togetherness, of beauty and vulnerability, of being loved and feeling loved. Just amazing. Full acceptance both ways.
A New Path
Funny, isn't it, it no longer really revolves around sexual preference...
In the Bible it says: "Let your mind be renewed." Well, I think that's exactly what happened, and it was a gradual process. Hardly a day went by without circumstances putting things into the right perspective, things that had been as clear as mud to me until then.
I found myself able to increasingly open up from different angles, embracing fully who I truly wanted and could be. It was like finally giving myself permission to no longer claim my sexual preference as the sole and most important aspect.
Without the bars "having to endure, coping with the best intentions" or a focus on "only my sexual excitement" or the internal search of "getting sexually excited by my husband."
It's not an obligation! Not for me, nor for him.
This allowed something entirely new to emerge: total acceptance for each other.
Funny, isn't it, how it no longer really revolves around sexual preference but all about how you want to deal with everything together and find your way together. Then the question "what do you want, and do you truly choose" comes into play.
A completely new path for both of us, completely unexpected. And taking a dive in realizing the (unconscious) tunnel vision in which my 'self' had been trapped and the pain that had been caused. I started calling it tunnel vision when I made this discovery.
A form that imposed limitations and fencing in the playing field.
It is making one a victim of feelings by a sort of denial of who and what you are. That's a poverty for both despite both aiming for something different.
Unconsciously, I had held onto my lack as a burden and effectively prioritized just my feelings, and placede my husband in the closet I came out of, if you will. Feeling were directed inwardly only.
Good intentions are by no means equivalent to lovingly investing in one another and mutual relationship that is chosen. That was the first core, deep within myself.
The second core was the next step towards total acceptance of each other: to discover how the marriage, in a concrete sense, was built all around the missing OR rejected feelings. Taking into account..., accepting each other but still..., in short, desires from both sides that are never fully fulfilled... pain that can never be completely alleviated.
Trust that cannot be fully restored. A desire to be fully known by the other but never fully understood. No matter how good your intentions are, it's never the intention to hurt each other.
Realizing that you are not a helpless victim of your feelings, somewhere you'll have to fight against your weakness, means accepting who you are and knowing with all its ins and outs. That's not shame or weakness, but the recognition of all facets that make you complete within conviction behind the choices you make in life. That is genuine strength.
As long as I see preference as weak and wrong, it won't give me freedom.
If I give in to culture, I'm not following my own path and choices, but those of others...
If I follow the religion, I have to suppress my feelings and bear the 'yoke'.
But if I see preference as something that just belongs to me and understand that I will be occasionally be confronted with it, then it brings me to a point where I, just like any other heterosexual marriage, deal with the normal challenges of a relationship, where fidelity and investment are also important values. And that's a different truth.
The feeling that deep down you're missing something and not as complete as you would want. As if you've lost yourself in a process, having a secret and shortchanging yourself in not fully accepting who you want to be, or who the other person is: an other gender.
Apparently, you've made a wrong choice which was not entirely sincere and wouldn't have wanted?
Because it directly opposes who you truly want to be as a human being, your personality, your total identity that says: this is who I am, this is what I believe, and I stand for it.
I have a certain preference, so be it.
But my partner means much more to me, and that result in beautiful, relaxed, romantic, intimate, sexual, and enjoying each other.
No victim here.
Not being a victim