Looking4Grace

I've got to tell you guys what happened. I prayed and prayed about how and when to tell my wife. Yesterday afternoon when I got off I called a local Christian Counseling center b/c I've decided I need professional help as well as spiritual- so I was mostly just seeing what they offered, an talked a little about what I was going through. I've got to be honest it felt so good talking to somebody who could actually hear me. But, I digress, my wife called while I was on the phone. I didn't answer cuz I was already crying and didn't want her to hear. I called her back after I was off the phone and I told her sorry and that I was on the other line... well I shouldn't have told her that because she immediately, just being curious asked "with who"? I could feel my blood drain from me as fear started gripping me. I could feel the tears swelling my my eyes and my throat and I knew I wasn't going to be able to misdirect her. So i just asked if we could talk about it when she got home... I could tell she was getting worried and said "okay"...

When she got home I set her on the couch, I was already crying, and she was trying to comfort me- which just made me feel worse. I started confessing everything, starting with struggling with homosexuality, onto the porn. I waited because I wanted to see her response, she just held me and cried with me and told me we would get through it and that she wasn't mad at me- and she understood an that she loved me. I told her that she should be angry with me....and then I told her the rest. She pulled away for a second and began sobbing. I cried and apologized. I begged her to forgive me, and to not divorce me... she looked up at me with sort of a "are you stupid face"... she said "I'm not going to divorce you... but I'm going to need a minute to process this". she left the room and I heard her crying and praying in our room, and I started praying as well.

Long story shorter... After about 30 minutes she came back to me and said "We need to build fences". We are going to have 100% transparency with our phones and everything. I have a "porn blocker" on my phone that when inacted works well.. but I told her the problem was I know the pass code..She took my phone and entered a new passcode that would keep me from knowing it. We talked about it, cried some more, prayed together- and she looked at me and told me how much she loved me.

I still have a heavy amount of guilt on my shoulder that I'm going to have to work through. And I know I have a long road ahead of me...but I told my wife yesterday...for the first time, now that I finally have an accountability partner who is also my life partner... I really feel like I can change. Not saying she is the one changing me, I know it's God, but I believe He is going to be working in this to cause the change. For years I've felt like if I would just take the step of actually verbalizing my struggles and telling my wife about them, that it would lead to healing for me- but I stopped. And I know this is only day one, and I know not everyday I will feel as good as today... but I've taken the first right step in the last 20 years of my life. I put a spotlight on my sin problem, and I'm going to let my wife hold me accountable and keep me honest about my sin problem. With her and God- I will make it through this!

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support!


P.S.  I know my name is "Looking4Grace".... but I don't think I'm looking anymore. I found Grace.. in the arms of my God and Savior and in the arms of my wife. Better yet... I didn't find Grace.. Grace found me. 

Thank you LS! Something I need to focus on now is Holiness! Getting back in communion with Christ and letting Him really, REALLY be my source for everything!

I also wanted to share something with you, and it is just an experience that I have had and reading your thread brought it to the forefront of my mind.

When I was 28-29, I dated a friend of mine and he shared with me that he had been molested from the ages of 9-12 by a boy in his neighborhood that was 16-19 yrs old. It was 'all the way' abuse, and a very painful and confusing ordeal for him to bear.

He said that when he was in highschool, the first person he told about the abuse was his then-girlfriend.
She responded with, "So... are you telling me you're gay now?" and her response obviously hurt him very much because, as he explained it to me, he already had feelings of homosexuality that he assumed was from the abuse, but that was not the point at all of what he was trying to share with her. This made him shy away from talking about it to anyone else for many years.

A year or two later, he joined the army with the intention of coming back home to find this man who had abused him as a child and shoot him.
He was in Desert Storm, and had the intention of finding the man and shooting him as soon as he came back home.
He didn't care about jail and thought it would be worth it to him.

He went through many years of therapy to deal with the pain and to work through it and heal.
It took him most of his adult life to come to a true place of forgiveness and healing.

Thankfully, he never carried out his plan and instead chose to forgive.

He told me that the biggest part of his therapy that helped him understand his occasional homosexual tendencies was to understand that homosexual activity and what it physically means and any pleasure derived from it didn't mean that he was a homosexual. It's not that simple.

Human beings derive many different sensations of pleasure through many different ways in many different parts of the body.
That's the way human bodies have been designed by our Creator- point blank. That's just the way it is.

My friend said that he even dated a man for a while, but "it wasn't for him" -
He came to an understanding about himself that just because he had learned to enjoy certain feelings, that it didn't mean he was a homosexual.

He knew that he preferred women, and through therapy, also learned to let go of the guilt and shame that he felt as a result of the abuse, and also to let go of the guilt and shame that he felt from enjoying certain physical activities that are really just human nature.