For teens, how is it going to get better NOW?

I love, love, love the "it gets better" project. Such a simple idea and yet so powerful. But there is just one thing...

I wish it had gone one step further to "and this is what you can do now."

As gay adults, we all know what it was like to be a gay teenager even if back then we didn't identify as gay. And we also know what we went through before it got better for us. So why not spare the younger generation some of that grief.

Unfortunately, maybe three or four people read this blog so I am not going to suggest you bring your ideas here. Instead what I would like is for the January topic to be about what we did that helped it to get better.

Hopefully, if enough bloggers write on this topic then maybe a few teenagers might read it and apply some of ideas and shorten the time it takes before "it gets better" for them.

Regards,
Philip

Does it get better for gay and married men?

Abe asked a really interesting question...for gay and married men does it get better?

Here is my response,

Short answer: I think for most yes it does to a certain point.

For me, I made extremely slow progress when I was very closeted then rapid progress when I first came out then that tapered off until I was making little or no progress at all.

And I have been in that place of little or no progress for years.

What I have now is a sense of peace within myself. I know who I am.

That differs greatly from the conflict and confusion that reigned supreme prior to my coming out.

Where it has gotten better is that my internal world is OK now and some improvement has been made synching up my internal and external worlds.

I have partially succeeded in synching both worlds because the people most important to me know the real me and accept me as I am so I no longer care who knows.

The only exceptions are my wife's family who I have not come out to out of respect for my wife's wishes. Fortunately, my wife's family live out State.

That freedom from fear allowed me to openly and honestly interact with most of the world.

Then I learned the vast majority of straight people accept me just as I am or could care less what my sexuality is.

This caused me to change my focus to the many that accept me instead of the tiny minority that would do me harm.

This change in focus has had a dramatic affect on my life.

I now feel safe almost all the time except for the rare occasions when it makes sense to feel unsafe.

I never realized how unsafe I had felt before.

So it has much gotten better because I now feel comfortable in my skin and for the most part feel welcome by the outside world.

Where has it not gotten better?

Well, in my sexual relationship or, as I like to put it, in my primary affectional relationship.

I didn't know for years but I know now that I have a much greater capacity for intimacy with a man than with my wife.

There are discrepancies in our marriage caused by my limited ability to relate to her.

There is nothing wrong but there is something missing from our relationship. Something vital.

But, since I have never been in a relationship with a man, I have never experienced what that something or something(s) is.

Yet my limited experience with men and my intuition tells me clearly there is something.

So what to do?

I cannot make progress in a vacuum.

To make further progress would require having some kind of relationship with another man and I know my wife well enough to know the marriage would not survive.

So I have come to the conclusion that I have reached the point of diminishing returns unless I am willing to end my marriage.

Yet I haven't been able to accept this conclusion so for years I have been spinning my wheels trying to make things better while staying within the status quo.

I guess you could say making things better has long been my gay obsession.

Which was OK as long I was making progress but now that obession seems almost counter-productive.

The sensible thing to do if I am to stay married is to focus my energies elsewhere where there is at least some opportunity for progress.

And that means changing my focus from making things better in my gay universe to accepting what I have and instead focusing on other areas that my gay obsession has caused me to neglect in the past.

Makes sense right?

As always there is something I forgot to mention...

I am talking as an older man (57 years old).

One more reason I can be as OK as I am with being gay celibate is that my sex drive is no longer driving me crazy.

But now that that primordial need is receding more and more into the background, other intimacy needs that were there all along are coming into ever sharper focus.

Kind of ironic considering for so long I thought it was just about sex when it was always so much greater than that.

The Five Love Languages

Madame Curie posting on another blog turned me on to the concept of the Five Love Languages.

The concept goes like this...people communicate their love to one another in one of five basic ways through words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, quality time or physical touch. Usually a person has a primary way of communicating love that, if not reciprocated in the same manner, will eventually leave the person feeling unloved.

The problem is, of course, that many couples don't communicate in the same love language leaving both parties feeling unloved.

The solution is to figure out your partner's love language and express your love in their language until they feel so loved that they will no longer feel needy and be better able to focus on you.

The thinking is that your partner will then communicate love in your language so you will no longer feel needy.

And things just keep getting better and better.

What I love about this concept is that it is so simple and obvious yet I failed to connect the dots.

It's always been obvious to me that there are different ways to communicate love and I would have had no trouble guessing what those ways were.

It's also always been obvious to me that some people express their love one way and others another way.

What I was missing was that there is no one way of communicating love that is more right than the other.

I always assumed the right way to express love was to say it (words of affirmation), show it (physical touch) and connect (quality time - sharing feelings). Acts of service and gifts were poor substitutes for the right ways to express love.

I always assumed it was natural for everyone to express love in the right way unless the relationship had been seriously damaged or something in the person's family background had gone amiss.

In other words, if you couldn't or wouldn't communicate love by words, physical touch and sharing then you were psychologically harmed by something in your past.

Why did I believe that?

I think part of it is cultural bias. I'm Hispanic and Hispanic cultures pride themselves on relationships whether it is with family, coworkers, etc. Contrast this with the American culture that prides itself on self-reliance and rugged individualism.

But also part of it is that American culture is shifting away from rugged individualism and more towards relationships. Our movies and TV shows are full of examples of people bridging the distance between them; finally opening up and connecting with one another.

The implicit message I have gotten is that everyone should openly and freely express their feelings and there is something wrong with you if you don't.

This concept tells me that I am wrong. There is no one right way to express love. All the ways are right depending on the individual. But each person needs to be loved in their own way.

Confession time...I have never doubted my wife's love for me but I have long felt there was something seriously wrong with our relationship. Since our relationship changed forever post disclosure, I have long wondered if it had been irreparably harmed because I was gay. I have also wondered if my wife's upbringing was partly to blame. In other words, was she broken and in need of fixing.

This concept is a third possibility that provides relief (no one is broken), clarifies the problem (we are both feeling unloved) and a relatively simple solution (we just need to speak each other's language).

Well, I am doing an experiment.

I think my wife's primary love languages are acts of service and to a lesser extent gifts. My primary love languages are quality time, specifically the sharing of feelings, and to a lesser extent physical touch.

Do you see why the disconnect all these years?

For several weeks, I have been focusing on acts of service and paying close attention to my wife's comments for gift ideas (none so far).

Preliminary results appear promising. There are little signs here and there. We are a little closer.

Could it have been so simple as we just were speaking different languages?

Regards,
Philip