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Preference Conviction and Motivation

There is so much to say on this topic. Much simply comes from my heart, belief, and conviction. Also, choice and motivation that support purpose and meaning. But my conviction is undoubtedly very strong. It has to be. Precisely because otherwise integrating or letting go of certain ideas remains a dubious, even (internally) painful, struggle. One that 'culture' all too eagerly cries out: "See! You're denying yourself and your feelings! Silly goose!"

With which preference and conviction being squeezed into the same category, allowing it to take away control and be its victim.

If that motivation and relationship is not addressed by both partners, there is a chance of a permanent defect in the undercurrent of the relationship for both partners. Exactly the same as each other, but each from their own perspective of feelings, emotion, longing, and pain. I did not understand that for a long time, although the consequences did have their impact.

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But could it be it is precisely this aspect that remains underemphasized by 'important' matters like 'exploring' and 'finding yourself', resulting in people getting stuck at the checkbox ...

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I accept that I have SSA feelings, they are allowed to exist!

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I want to continue with my partner because we're good together.

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I can't imagine another relationship.

While the inner emotional life remains stuck in a combination of complex feelings that do not quite combine logical, practical, usable unifying deductions.

But choosing a MOM is: choosing your relationship, not (just) the SSA feelings!

In fact, I heard recently: "The term 'Mixed Orientation Marriage' is, from a Christian perspective, actually not a good, even contradictory, name for a couple choosing to move forward together."

Especially when it comes to living according to God's truth, what He intended with marriage in the Bible, it has absolutely nothing to do with sexual preference. Or the struggle to combine two different preferences.

So the objective and moral characteristic for the marriage shouldn't lie there, nor for the heterosexual partner, nor for the Christian with SSA. 

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Marriage is not a tolerance construction.
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Struggle to combine two different preferences.

The orientation and moral setting lies solely and exclusively with: the identity of what a marriage is = two people choosing each other, being faithful to each other, connected and loving each other in unity to the promise you made to each other and wanting to pursue that. That is the essential core one mirrors as a man and woman in dialogue with and in intimacy as God intended. 

So that does not mean a struggle (with SSA = orientation of 1), or the heavy yoke: Against one's will and 'to the best of my capability' !! As if the core, or rather, the marriage, is woven around SSA. Because not only is that the wrong approach, it's also a lie. A lie that I myself did not recognize for many years.

So it also does not mean a kind of tolerated construction and yoke of and with the heterosexual partner: who understands the SSA feelings and does not want to stand in the way.  As if he/she should tolerate, being moved slowly to the sidelines and 'turning a blind eye' while watching the partner drifting further away to lgbt(-performance). Stemming from kind of loving humane approval confirmation to further explore the SSA, unto dating sites even etc. 

It's not about merging SSA and Hetero-being, but about the meaning of love for each other that breaks open something new and brings passion and growth. A choice. A choice for each other.

A yes, that means consciously and motivatedly wanting to let go.

The truth lies in: It's not a matter of giving up!!

There are alternatives that can address SSA feelings without causing problems and difficulties. For example*:

  • Going your separate ways, as friends and with love, each taking their own path that can meet their own sexual feelings and preferences. 

Either celibate or in a relationship, but in any case no longer feeling that sense of powerlessness and fighting.

Powerlessness = I am not doing justice to my partner, I do not feel enough.

Fighting = avoiding intimacy or, for example, experiencing SSA feelings but feeling guilty about them in your relationship. By not discussing the difficulty openly together and silencing the (uncomfortable almost secretive) feeling.

  • There is also the possibility of opening up the marriage, which either supplements only the SSA, or both, their own feelings and sexual deficiencies. (It should be clear that we mention this option merely for the general picture)

In other words, no struggle and internal conflict within yourself and 'ignoring' feelings. No letting go, no loss, no integrating something you cannot really fulfill from just your feelings.

Or in other words... the burdensome factors that continue to gnaw and actually, in the deepest sense, support a lie, i.e. grip and deceive your being and shortchange the heterosexual partner.

No power struggle between what you feel and what you want, causing the feeling to constantly compromise.

I call it *lie* on purpose because it involves thinking and substantiating (wrong) reason that allows that powerstruggle to remain unresolved in her rightful place. Or maybe I should say...lying on her back with paws up surrendering all the time.

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If a Mixed Orientation is not the right description. If in a marriage it is not about SSA. then that means something different and deeper in yourself must be touched than intention (= doing what feels right and seems intellectually the right way)?

Choosing one means letting go of the other.

You can't serve two masters...😱 ouch.... maybe I should say, keep wavering between two thoughts.

A MOM (or marriage) does not aim to revolve around the feeling of SSA (which the other (hetero-partner) somehow has to learn to live with or encourage their partner at the expense of themselves. Nor does it aim, at the expense of the SSA partner themselves, to deny oneself and be a (kind of) victim of being married.

It aims for a complete loving relationship that fully accepts each other, is not a burden but a privilege. Where marriage is not the prison wall because God wants it and the prison guard to keep you to a promise that, in essence, you don't want to keep.

There are things that belong simply to acceptance, as a total and satisfied and complete part of yourself. Because one is just as true as the other...: You are not a victim of your feelings. That means you can also clearly distance yourself from something that prevents you from being who you want to be.

So that you can ALSO fully experience and enjoy what you choose BECAUSE you not only accept yourself but also accept what that should not mean for yourself and marriage. Because what you choose is more valuable and precious than what the opposing means: holding on to what does not belong in the relationship you want to have as a man and woman as God intended.

Because that is the powerful result that confirms and builds on what love and responsibility are. And being able to truly, confidently, and willingly experience that new truth.

They are the building blocks for a different situation: wanting to stand authentically and primarily in your relationship. Because you are not choosing those other options that were also available* but for: wanting to become one, being 'a unity' in mutual love as God originally intended.

Building blocks that are held together by the concrete conviction, carried by the firm cement in between...

Too watery...? Too sandy....? It washes away or breaks when effort or other forces are unleashed to it. Doubt e.g. or the power of the sometimes confusing feeling that excitement can do to you....

Acceptance & distortion & idols

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Sin wishes to master you, sin wants to have the upper hand and control you.’ A remark I recently came across. That is precisely what happens when integration (no matter how well-intentioned!!) remains at an intention. In other words, I will try my best to seek the good feeling on my own and to put away what is not good in a jar. That is called carrying SSA as extra baggage...

And that is such a shame. Because Sin is no different than missing your target.

It twists the blinds so that the truth is only seen from a certain (personal) perspective. But never in a way that gives a view of the whole picture.

And without really realizing it, it comes to stand between yourself and God and keeps you from really trusting God in that place you don't really want to part with. Thus hindering you from growing further than merely 'restraining' feelings. And so, that 'place' also stands between you and your partner.

And that is exactly where sin's center of gravity lies. It holds something where God has no say. It makes you weak and dependent on "the spot" and muddles truth. It makes you feel shitty when you encounter it in practice.

It is not a sin to feel your feelings, or preference, at certain times ... sexual feelings make you face them in everyday life. Just as it is for a heterosexual, it is no different. It is no different for my husband!!!  

Beautiful huh...that is also something God made. An attribute to cooperate in His purpose...so that you can find and love a man or woman etc. Mind you, I am talking about the attribute as such, as God once created and intended it in Paradise. Not about experiencing it, expressing it or its imperfections.

 

But it is such a waste if you put that place away in the category...I can't do anything with it because I also get excited by something else...and God may not and cannot take that away. In other words, having no choice and options and disdainfully shoving away your responsibility. 

Because you know ... the simple truth is that God is allowed, can and does ask that of you in a marriage: a man-woman relationship. The structure in which that creation, that which God has made, that attribute, must be expressed and to which you have committed yourself by the choice you have made for yourself. 

He does not take that away by changing your physical structure, and curing homosexual feelings. Supernaturally going from gay to straight or something. But by presenting healthy and right choices for the sake of where you are set and want to be: The promise and responsibility of marriage. By giving an extensive account of what love is. 

In that, He asks that you give yourself completely and let go of the substantial importance(richness) of your SSA.

SSA has no (pre-eminent) position with status there. In that you have and can make a very conscious and convincing choice and renounce that which you do not want to keep, do not want to hold, do not want to nurture. That should not be answered with a vague feeling.

You are not a victim of your feelings. But accept (= in harmony and contentment) its consequence.

I.e.: fact is that you not only have to accept who you are, BUT ALSO, in that same truth, acceptance of what you choose. One is never separate from the other. Inherently that means letting go of something. You emotionally detach yourself from that which does not prefer, for the sake of something much more precious and valuable that goes beyond your own interest. You cannot serve two ideals (=idols).

The point is... it is not sexual orientation in itself that explicitly exposes sin. As we have concluded several times, even a heterosexual has sexual feelings that require certain (moral) choices.

What I mean is that sin actually lies around the corner. What am I doing, what do I want, where am I taking responsibility, what am I allowing, which feeling am I making into an idol and feeding (negatively), or what am I allowing myself or deliberately limiting emotionally.

Which specific things do I not want to let go of, at the expense of, for example, the marriage and partner... at the expense of the image that God has placed and asked for in, like, the marriage and thus also at the expense of the partner who does not achieve his or her original purpose in it.

Even uneasiness about e.g. arousal can e.g. be an inner 'power cable' that ties you in deepest essence to that which you 'don't have'. A little inner idol that makes you unable to get into the right position and try to hold on to something but!!! with the best intention.

Is something not allowed because God says "NO"? Or is something 'not allowed' because God says: "My image of love in a marriage is different"...
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Yes, I am sometimes stirred in my thoughts, BUT: I don't have to do or act on anything, I don't want to do anything with it! Because I have a loving partner. Why would I find it appropriate to feel the need to look beyond him. 
If I were straight and married, wouldn't it be strange for me to allow those feelings to that extent? To look at a man other than my husband with more interest? Then why would it be a tolerated option, now just because it involves a woman, because of my preference? Of course not. 

I am thankful that I have a partner whom I can love deeply,  who needs me and wants me and is all I need as I want to give him what he needs. 

Nowhere based on an undercurrent, of servitude of "I must" or "I have no choice and I can't do otherwise."

Because that's actually the negative whispering voice in your ear, where perhaps even a kind of fear of God lies at its foundation: "I'm not allowed to feel SSA feelings!"

But are you not allowed because God says "NO"? Or are you not allowed because God says: "The purpose of marriage is different?" One that touches the deepest, most precious passion, an image of love that fundamentally expresses who I Am, be faithful to that because it mirrors My love.

Ehh... just following the simple NO? Searching and inwardly almost a bit angry and doubtful?

Or, because you see the purpose that He has placed in your relationship. Giving meaning to peace stemming from fidelity and faith, the legacy you hold. 

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In a marriage that identifies itself as something unique, that emphasizes love between 2 people. People who need and complement each other, without restrictions and shame, for neither of them, no question of carrying a (loving) yoke, but (dealing with) sexuality together and being known by the other in your marriage relationship: it is two-way traffic.

Then it becomes a garden of freedom defining and supporting the frameworks of marriage in the right way. In which faith, choice and intention is not a fickle bystander at the balance of our (SSA) feelings but a constant driving factor.

I wish everyone who reads this His love and truth, insight, AND perspective.

Guidance on the way, every step, every hour, every moment.

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