Netherworld
I've often referred to myself as an addict, but when I look at the impact my behaviors have on my life and the people around me, it doesn't quite seem to fit. Of course, there are going to be many 12-steppers out there who are going to denounce this assessment as a rationalization born of denial. That may be, and I am going to continue in my current 12-step program in the hope of dissolving any remaining illusions that may stand between me and full realization of my identity in Christ.

I am attending a "Bible-based, 12-step program" known as Celebrate Recovery Monday nights at my church. I've been able to come out of my isolation as a result of putting myself into this type of sharing/confessional mode. Right now, we are working on Step 4, which is doing a searching and fearless moral inventory of self. I am really trying to focus on this, in addition to developing an accountability framework with others to help me see things more accurately.

Given recent events, my biggest fear is that I am a sex addict. Despite my beliefs and the miracles of God's intervention in restoring my marriage to D., I continue to struggle with living a secret life. While I have committed myself to avoiding the kind of fantasy porn (swinger) that causes me to be emotionally unfaithful, I have been finding myself attracted to blogs written by women who identify themselves as sex workers of one type or another. I don't find myself obsessing over their stories in a way that leads to bad behavior, but I catch myself longing for the freedom to go back to the swinging lifestyle. Of course, I reject those desires on the basis of my Christian beliefs, but I still feel the desire and wonder if it will ever completely leave me. Or will it continue to plague me and my marriage indefinitely?

Therefore, as part of my own Step 4 inventory, I've decided to put myself through the Sexaholics Anonymous questionnaire.

1. Have you ever thought you needed help for your sexual thinking or behavior?
Yes.

2. That you'd be better off if you didn't keep "giving in"?
Of course.

3. That sex or stimuli are controlling you?
No.

4. Have you ever tried to stop or limit doing what you felt was wrong in your sexual behavior?
Yes.

5. Do you resort to sex to escape, relieve anxiety, or because you can't cope?
Absolutely.

6. Do you feel guilt, remorse or depression afterward?
Sometimes.

7. Has your pursuit of sex become more compulsive?
No, actually. Since I've faced the impact that my behaviors have had on my marriage and my relationship with God, I've acted much less compulsively.

8. Does it interfere with relations with your spouse?
When I indulge, yes.

9. Do you have to resort to images or memories during sex?
Do I have to? No. Do I? Yes.

10. Does an irresistible impulse arise when the other party makes the overtures or sex is offered?
No, seeing as the only 'other party' is my wife. However, I greatly fear being propositioned by someone I find attractive and go to extraordinary lengths to avoid prolonged interactions with any woman who gives off a 'vibe'.

11. Do you keep going from one "relationship" or lover to another?
No, I've never been that way. Even when swinging, my participation was always anchored in an ongoing relationship with a partner willing to engage in a polyamorous lifestyle.

12. Do you feel the "right relationship" would help you stop lusting, masturbating, or being so promiscuous?
No. I am tempted to believe this, but choose to accept the responsibility for these behaviors as the result of my own desires.

13. Do you have a destructive need -- a desperate sexual or emotional need for someone?
No. This is a very subjective question, however. My decision to marry my wife was heavily influenced by her own sexual appetites and willingness to swing.

14. Does pursuit of sex make you careless for yourself or the welfare of your family or others?
No. My current 'pursuit' of sex is limited to conjugal relations. I've made some unwise choices in the recent past, however.

15. Has your effectiveness or concentration decreased as sex has become more compulsive?
Since the degree to which my sexual behaviors have been compulsive is steadily decreasing, I'd have to say no.

16. Do you lose time from work for it?
Never.

17. Do you turn to a lower environment when pursuing sex?
I'm not sure how to define a 'lower environment'. If that means cruising the red light district for services, then the answer is no. If it means that I compromise my personal standards of attraction to settle for a willing and available sex partner, then the answer is yes.

18. Do you want to get away from the sex partner as soon as possible after the act?
No. I'm not a big cuddler, but I don't feel this huge urge to get away from them. Again, I've not had any partners other than D. since we stopped swinging, but I don't recall having that problem with others.

19. Although your spouse is sexually compatible, do you still masturbate or have sex with others?
Yes, but with steadily decreasing frequency. I've gone from daily (often multiple times) masturbation without my wife to only having indulged a few times in the past two months. I don't have a totally accurate count prior to last week's incident, but I would say it's in the single digits since the beginning of November.

20. Have you ever been arrested for a sex-related offense?
No, never.

OK, so now that I've gone through these questions a couple of times to make sure I was being as honest as I knew how to be, I have to come to the conclusion that my struggles constitute a moral struggle -- not an addiction.

So, faithful readers (if there are any left), am I lying to myself?

- posted by The Drake @ 1:33 PM 3 comments

 
Into the Light
My journey into the light began with D. leaving me this past spring. As she was leaving, I found myself in the midst of a homeowner's crisis. Our house is built on a plot of land that is near the top of a significantly steep and terraced hill. Built on the fourth terrace down, our backyard contained an inground pool with a concrete deck that sat at the top of a really severe slope -- darn near vertical -- overlooking the neighbor's back yard. And the privacy fence which had been built atop this was leaning over the hillside.

In early April, I led the children and D. in a work party to dismantle that section of fence in order to scope out the logistics in replacing it. Money at the time was in very short supply, so once we got the fence torn down, I put up one of those orange, plastic mesh barriers to keep small children and animals from falling into the pool and drowning. While waiting for the money to install the new fencing, I decided to begin preparations to open the pool. However, when I went to check out the skimmer, I discovered that it had become torqued and cracked as a result of the concrete apron sliding over the hillside. The previous owner had built this pool on top of this steep hillside without installing any kind of retaining wall. As a result, the pool was now unusable.

After discovering that the cost of repairing the damage to save the pool would be in the tens of thousands of dollars, I decided to fill in the damn thing and plant a lawn. Step one in this process was to rent a 90-pound jackhammer for the next two weekends to break up the concrete decking. As I mentioned, I had little money, so this was going to be a total do-it-yourself project extending out over several weeks.

I had no idea at the time I started this just how 'by myself' I was going to be. D. left just after I finished the concrete demolition. As she took load after load out of the house with the assistance of a neighbor, I stood atop 60 tons of rock-riddled fill dirt with shovel watching her departure and felt that old, now-familiar sense of abandonment.

By all existing standards, our separation was a rather cordial affair. D. and I seldom raised our voices to each other, and while we disagreed on the need to end our marriage, there was no name calling, no villification.

D. decided to leave, in my opinion, because she saw no hope of fulfilling her vision of what a happy, loving marriage should be. We are two very different people in many ways. There are few interests we have in common. I like sports, literature, politics and trying different types of food. She prefers music, dancing, basic meals and working on household projects. The only affinities that we shared were for freaky sex and a tendency to isolate. Neither of us had any real friends that we could do things with, so all of the weight for our personal happiness fell onto our marriage. Collapse was inevitable.

Beyond that, we each were having problems relating to each other's children. Her boys are starved for male attention, affirmation and guidance -- having been essentially abandoned by their father in toddlerhood. While very eager to provide that for them, I found that their damaged psyches were producing behaviors that I could neither understand nor tolerate. Gradually, my attempts to provide structure and discipline became lopsided -- to the exclusion of patience, gentleness, kindness and respect -- and they and their mother aligned against me with the effect that their behaviors worsened.

D. was equally flummoxed by my children, who being older and much more like me, were acting out in their own frustrations over losing part of me to these strangers and having their space invaded by the two little boys. D. also experienced for the first time the clash of cultures that I had been dealing with since V. and I divorced. You would never confuse V. with June Cleaver, whereas both D. and I like to keep a neat home. I sort of fall in the middle of this scale, having lived with V. for 10 years and learning to accept a certain amount of chaos that comes from living with a messy wife and four small children. D. had a very difficult time with the fact that these children, coming from a home where it was OK to eat bowls of cereal while watching TV in the living room, didn't value a clean home. And she found herself reacting to some of the things my kids said -- and did -- to hers.

For my part, I had pretty much withdrawn into anger and sulleness over being trivialized in the day-to-day raising of her boys. She often overruled me in front of them, giving them the excuse to disrespect and disobey me. Not that I let that slide, but the situation deteriorated rapidly into a power struggle of futility. I decided to just avoid as much as I could by watching TV, and if they got in my way or damaged any of my stuff, they got whacked.

However, there was another force pulling on me during these days. The power of the Holy Spirit. We had been attending our church since February, and I was finding the teaching compelling, biblical and convicting. After D. left, I began attending an evening group called Celebrate Recovery, a Bible-based, twelve-step program and support group. Between these two influences, I made a commitment to remain married, even if D. refused.

This was an interesting and difficult concept for me. It meant that I was not going to give in to her attempts to divorce, nor give her quarter in her rationalizations for this course of action I took every opportunity to counter every argument with my understanding of the Biblical principles concerning our situation, and I was as tenacious as a pit bull. There was another aspect to this chosen path: I was choosing to remain married, even though my wife had left. Previously, I had taken off the wedding ring in anger at her leaving, but now I wore it again. I had thought that maybe it would be nice to find someone new from the church to date, but I closed that door. The only things I continued to struggle with was the occasional lapse into smoking pot as a way to numb the pain -- and several binges into Internet porn.

I also had to choose to forgive when I could have easily ended it because D. slept with someone else.

D. and I continued to see each other and talk to each other during the entire course of our separation, and we often ended up sleeping together. I'm not sure if that was always the best idea, but I figured that we were married and that it was better for us to relieve our pent up desires with each other than it was to pursue other outlets. This arrangement was disrupted one weekend in June when I called D. up to ask her out to dinner. She informed me that she was unavailable until Sunday that weekend. When I asked what she had going on, her instant hemming and hawing told me all I needed to know. So I asked her straight up if she was going out on a date. She said she was going to see an old friend in Akron who happened to be male, but stopped short of calling it a date. I stepped back, took a deep breath, and accepted that this was not an unexpected thing, considering her refusal to place any hope in the restoration of our relationship. Then I asked if she would be available to get together on Sunday, and she said that we could get together for lunch after church.

Well, D. does not show up at church, and my anxiety deepens. I called her cell to see if she was still available for lunch. No answer. Later that afternoon, she calls me and tells me that she is sorry, but she just got my message. We agree to have dinner together.

Dinner was uneventful, until I start asking how her date went. She was vague on details, but it was clear that she had slept with this guy.

After quite a bit of cat-and-mouse, I look over at her and say, "Look, I don't know what the deal is, but I need to know what happened before I can continue in any kind of sexual relationship with you."

"You don't have anything to worry about," was her reply.

"What does that mean? Did you have sex with him or not? And, if so, were you safe?"

Ultimately I came to know that she had had protected sex with the guy both the night before and that morning.

Now here's the interesting part. We went into the house, continuing to discuss this new turn of events. As we talked things over, I found myself becoming extremely aroused, and we ended up having very hot sex shortly thereafter.

The next morning, I was deeply troubled. Not only by her infidelity, but by my willingness to brush it aside in the face of a sexual turn on. So troubled, in fact, that I called the church and made arrangements to see a pastor for counseling. There I was challenged to choose between the paths of forgiveness and reconciliation or divorce under the justification of 'adultery'. Given my own history of depravity, the right path was pretty clear.

I went back to D. and told her that I still wanted us to get back together, but that I could no longer be sexual with her if she was involved sexually with anyone else. She decided the next day to end all contact with her friend from Akron, but didn't make any commitment to anything else other than going to counseling.

D. was very convinced that divorce was the right thing for her to do in the situation. She looked over the issues we'd had, our differences in interests and temperament, and concluded that we had made a mistake in getting together. My position was very different. Yes, we had differences and hurts accumulated in our time together. And, yes, our decision to marry was driven more by our genitals than our brains. Certainly, we never prayed to God to affirm our decision, nor followed any of His precepts in how we conducted our relationship from the very start. However, we WERE MARRIED, and now God was a part of our lives. If we were going to continue to claim to follow Him, we needed to start at the point where we were placed in His Plan.

Over the course of the next few months, we continued to spend more and more time together, worshipped together at church, and continued our counseling sessions. D. was still very skeptical about taking that plunge to trust God and come back together under the same roof.

Beginning in late August and into September, God began to do some amazing things that softened D's heart. It's difficult to enumerate or even remember them all. In fact, I'm sure I don't even know all of the things that were going on with D. Nonetheless, every day seemed to bring a new word of encouragement or act of kindness or startling collision of circumstances that all pointed to God's blessing on our relationship. Finally, D. agreed to come home. She and the boys stayed with me at the house for most of the month of October, with us finally moving all of her stuff back at the end of the month.

Despite the miraculous turnaround, the past two months have not been easy. The move back was kinda rushed in order to have us all together for the holidays -- and therefore very stressful. I had grown accustomed to having my own single guy routine back again, and I found myself resenting the 24/7 intrusion. The move resulted in quite a bit of clutter, as boxes blockaded most of the front room on the first floor. There were school activities and football practices, work and every other weekend crowding with my kids. It was like starting the adjustment process all over again.

The counseling sessions became roller coaster rides -- one week we'd be up and chummy, the next near despair and enmity. One theme did emerge from this period of upheaval, however, and that was that we were doing this in faith and obedience. We didn't really know whether we even loved each other, but we did know that God had affirmed His Will that we be together as husband and wife. We simply fell on our knees before God and submitted to the circumstances.

Once we made it to Thanksgiving, however, things started to settle back into place. Over the past few weeks, we are finding those feelings for one another that we feared we lost or never real in the first place. We talk, laugh, flirt, kiss and even cuddle in a way that is not fearful. We've weathered so many storms and come back together, that I believe we have finally given up our contingency plans.

Oh, and by the way, we now know that we love each other, even though it's sometimes scary to admit.

I'm not going to close this with some cliche happily-ever-after homily. Things can still get tough. Two days ago, after a wonderful weekend with D.'s father and step-mother, I sucuumbed to the temptation to get on the Internet and look at porn. D. busted me when she was trying to fix the Internet connection later that evening and saw the recent history. This sent her into a tailspin where she gave in to her worst doubts and fears.

Thinking that there would be more evidence of malfeasance on my part, she dug into my email and saw some correspondence from blog readers and drafts of the last few entries I've made that I emailed to my home account. She read my thoughts and feelings concerning my journey and came to the conclusion that I had unfinished business with V. There were other violations of my privacy, but I don't need to go into that.

So we are faced with another challenge. I've been confronted with the devastating impact that having a secret life can have on our loved ones. The hurt I caused by my foray into swinger fantasy cut me to the core. I risk the loss of one the most wonderful restorations I've ever seen. For nothing. A fantasy.

This is the walk, however, as I've come to experience. This entry is not a testimony of reaching a faultless state, it's a chroncile of a sinning stumbling through a journey in the light. The light exposes all that is wrong, as well as that which is right. It is only when I crave the darkness to hide the black splotches staining my soul that I risk losing it all. I have been learning, and continue to affirm, that it is my willingness to examine these blights in the illumination of God's Spririt that provides the real hope.

Because only when I face my ugly truths for what they are, am I in a position to be set free from their curse.



- posted by The Drake @ 3:54 PM 0 comments

 
Life in the Wilderness
This is Part 2 of my 'redemption story'. I apologize in advance for the length, but there was a lot going on. Besides, this is really about me bringing these events to light for my own inspection. If others find it interesting, great, but I am not very invested in that.


After I walked out of the apartment V. and I shared with our children in early June 1995, I still had some hope that God would intervene on my behalf and convince V. that we should stay together. I spent the next three weeks as a guest of a sweet old Christian lady on her family farm northwest of Pittsburgh near the Ohio border. This situation was arranged by my drama professor from college, who knew her from church. This woman was extremely encouraging to me, having lived decades with a husband who was a mean-spirited non-believer, only to see him come to Christ in the months before he died from a fall from the barn roof. My hopefulness grew as she affirmed my essential belief that it was better for V and I to live through these terrible times seeking God's Help than to just dissolve the marriage.

At the end of the three weeks, I had to leave that wonderful place because she had family coming for a big 4th of July thing. After praying, studying and talking with this wonderful saint of a lady, I arrived at the conclusion that I needed to take charge of the situation and resume my place as the spiritual head of my family. So I called V. and told her I was coming home. She said that she wasn't ready for me to do that. I argued that I wasn't making enough money to support her and the kids and live outside the house. I had no place to go. She told me to find some fleabag flophouse with a hot plate and stay away. I told her that it was clear to me that God wanted me to come home, and that was that. I would be there the next day.

Instead, the next day I was served with a Protection From Abuse order.

There it was again. V. seeking refuge under that hideous label -- this time from the legal system. She even twisted my words to say that I said that God TOLD me to move back home. That was all the judge needed to hear. And so I was prohibited from going near V. or the kids until a hearing 10 days later. On July 3, 1995, I was informed by a Family Division judge that I was not enter V's home or have any contact with her for a period of not less than one year. There was no clarity about child visitation, other than some stipulation that I was to have 'reasonable' access to them. However, V. had a different point of view. She demanded that I see them so that she could have relief from her burden as a single mother. I've always found it interesting that someone who convinced a judge that she was in fear of me could so easily hand her four young children over to my care.

At that point, a switch flipped inside of me. I was no longer going to live for V's approval, acceptance or love. I was going to take care of myself. If she was going to use the legal system to get what she wanted, she was going to have to use it all the way. I went to an ATM, took out all of the money, opened a new account in my name only and found an apartment. I had been sleeping in my car for several days, sneaking into my job before anyone else got there so I could wash up in the bathroom.

And I had had enough. Both with V. and with God. I told V. that I no longer considered myself a Christian, since all I knew of Christians (at least in what I was experiencing at the time) was judgmentalism, rejection and abandonment. Then I walked away from any hope of having my family united together under one roof in love, hope and Christ and didn't look back.

Knowing that the court would be taking a big chunk of my paycheck soon enough, I found a one bedroom, furnished apartment near my hometown for about $200/month. I bought a TV, ordered cable, and settled into my isolation.

I cried every day back then. I'd be watching TV, and any tender, heartwarming or tragic moment involving children would have me blubbering uncontollably. Of course, it didn't help that i'd fallen back into the pot smoking habit several months after moving into the apartment. Pot tends to make me very susceptible to such emotional manipulation.

I lived this way -- going to work and coming back to an empty apartment to smoke dope and cry at the TV -- for the next two and a half years. The only positives in my life being my rising income as I prospered in the IT world and my evolving routine of having my children every other weekend. These visits were very hard for me. After all, they were still so young. Two of them were still in diapers during this period, and I really didn't know how to be a care-giver. But I learned.

I dated no one these first 30 months. I was nowhere near over V. I wouldn't be for several more years. I did, however, get to experience the joy of seeing another man with his arm around her when bringing the kids home one Sunday. That was a fresh dagger. And a new hardening.

Toward the end of 1998, I decided to start looking to get into the 'dating' life, thus kicking off a series of ill-advised dalliances that were motivated primarily by me desire for sex. On the one hand, I had more fun getting laid as I approached and passed forty than I had during my entire previous adult life. However, I also developed and fed sexual habits that I continue to struggle with nearly ten months after turning back to God.

The first relationship I had started in December 1998. I moved in with her about a month later and left after about 8 months of struggling to intergrate my kids into her domain and deal with her jealousy over V. That was the lengthiest and healthiest relationship I had until I met D. (my wife now) in 2002. In between, I had only two relationships of any duration. K. was a 32-year old single mother with a bad coke habit. She was also an angry person who jumped out of the gate demanding my utmost loyalty while playing around with an old flame on the side. We dated for less than two months.

Then there was B -- a 26-year old, overweight survivor of childhood abuse. B. and I met at work, became friends, lovers, roommates, friends again, fuck buddies, boyfriend/girlfriend and swinging partners between early 2000 and mid-2002. B. introduced me to the sexual ethos of GenX, and I gotta tell ya, I had a lot of fun. During the period that I was involved with her I had more sex than I had ever had in my life.

B. was a wonderful girl. Very pretty, funny and endowed with a lot of good sense. She also was really into NFL football -- a real fan who understood the game. We used to watch every Sunday and get into friendly little bets over who would advance in the playoffs. She was my best friend.

However, I could never bring myself to commit to B, for a number of reasons. She was, unfortunately, in love with me and had convinced herself that the only reason that I wasn't willing to settle down with her was her weight. B. was five-foot-three and easily weighed 175. While that did pose somewhat of an issue for me, the weight was really a symptom of a larger problem of overall insecurity and neediness that I did not want to deal with. B. was a perpetual victim and tended to see the disappointments in her life (her job and relationship with me) as the result of things outside of her control. As a result, she tended to let people treat her like a doormat. I knew that I could not bear the responsibility of rescuing her from this ongoing cycle of self-imposed victimization. Even if I had wanted to take it on, I would never have succeeded.

B. lived with me for about a year and a half, during which time we were almost always sexually involved, but seldom in a romantic relationship. She claimed to be able to treat the situation as 'just sex' -- which was great for me -- but after a while it became clear that she was trying to win me over by being my ever-present sexual outlet. I decided to start using online dating services to meet new women and try and break this cycle of co-dependency that had evolved between us. I really did love her, but I could never respect her as long as she was willing to behave like this. I needed someone who had enough sense of self to be emotionally honest and develop legitimate boundaries. There was no way that we could ever be a couple without a dramatic change.

By this time, I had become very sexually charged. B. and I messed around with porn and group sex, and I was hooked. I was smoking pot heavily by this time, and it had become intertwined with the sex. Sex and porn had become my new addiction.

I won't bore you with a listing of all my sordid encounters, but I was driven to each new sexual experience. I spent exhorbitant amounts of time and money trying to hook up. Once I drove almost two hours to get with a woman whom I found personally repugnant just because she had a body type I wanted. If she had slept with me on the first date, I wouldn't have gone back a second time. Add to that two months-long obsessions with people I 'met' online and had phone sex with, but who never sent me a picture and never agreed to meet me. Finally, I took vacation time and flew to Salt Lake to spend a long weekend in Yellowstone with someone I met Web Camming on Yahoo. She was also not ultimately attractive to me, but was very sexually adventurous.

Soon after I got back from my Yellowstone trip, I realized that I was out of control. I took myself off the market for a while and contemplated going back to B, but she had by now moved out and was not willing to put herself into that situation any longer.

In the midst of this hiatus, I met D. at work. Again, the attraction was heavily sexual, but the circumstances were a bit more complicated. Ironically, I met D. as a result of a problem with V. receiving her child support payments, which are snatched right out of my paycheck. D. was very helpful and professional in getting this situation resolved, and I determined to seek her out and thank her. That happened a couple of weeks later in the break room. I was late September -- still warm -- and she was wearing a mini-skirt business suit, strappy heels and no stockings. I was aroused immediately. When I started to thank her, I was looking into her eyes. I don't know what was going on, but she began to blush and get flustered. As she walked away, I was determined to have her. For the next three weeks, I waited for her to show up in the break room at a time when no one else was around. When my opportunity finally came, she said she didn't see how it was going to work, as she had two small children at home and very little opportunity to get out. So I suggested that we take lunch together to get to know each other and see if this was worth pursuing. She agreed, and for the next week or so, we had lunch together every day.

After our initial lunchtime courtship, we decided to take it to the next level, which meant I started going over to her apartment after work during the week. She and her kids also started coming to my place for the weekends. We took a weekend trip together to New River Gorge in West Virginia in early November. I introduced her and her kids to mine, and thing progressed quickly.

There were several factors driving our relationship along at that time. First, we were very hot for each other. I perceived in her many things that were missing in my relationship with B. She seemed confident and competent -- able to keep up her side of the bargain. Plus, we each lived 45 minutes from work -- in opposite directions -- making it difficult to see each other while maintaining something of a normal routine. Especially since she had kids. Lastly, I had just procured a relocation bonus from the company that would enable me to buy a house closer to work. That's when we decided to get married, in order to maximize our house buying potential.

The next six months were the happiest time of my life, in terms of sheer fun and things going my way. We were in constant motion, working so well as a team as we worked out our mortgage pre-approval and shopped for our new home. We found a 3-story brick with extensive remodeling and an inground pool located within a five-minute walk from work and moved in at the end of January 2003. Using our relo and tax refund money, we were able to take a trip to Jamaica in March to get married. Life was good.

And then the honeymoon ended.

Right after we got back from Jamaica, I began having problems which ultimately ended up with me having emergency surgery at the end of April. Then, after taking less than two weeks off, I returned to work at the urging of my boss, who said he needed me to come in. I was not feeling totally up to it, but I felt I needed to go in. Turns out the only reason he wanted me to come in was so he could fire me and didn't want to pay me the extra week on short term disability. The reasons underlying this termination are a subject for another posting.

I was unemployed for two and a half months, and when I finally was able to find a position, it was a temporary contract at a rate that equated to a 10K pay cut from my previous position. D. and I were getting along, but we each were having great difficulty dealing with each other's children. By the time I got the child support situation adjusted to reflect my current income, we had been living on credit cards for about four months. In October of last year, I was forced to file for bankruptcy.

Another aspect of our relationship was swinging. During our initial courtship, D. had brought up the subject of fantasies and wanted to talk about threesomes and orgies as a 'conceptual' way of spicing up the already great sex we were having. I took that opportunity to tell her about my experiences with B. and swinging -- and how much fun I had with it. She seemed open to exploring the possibility. And so we joined an online community and started hooking up with other couples. I had some very fun experiences, but D. did not seem to be getting very many guys she found attractive enough. I figured at the time that it was because of our age difference. Most of the couples who were interested in being together were closer to my age than hers, and several of the guys just looked too old. They reminded her of her stepfather, so she got the willies.

In retrospect, I believe that it was much more than that. Over the past year, I've realized that D. is not really as confident as I originally perceived her to be. As a result of trust issues she had from her first marriage and her last live-in relationship -- which ended when he left to marry someone he had been screwing for several months -- D. was feeling very threatened by seeing me with other women. Once I realized that, I pulled us out of that lifestyle. I wouldn't subject her to it anymore, but I was very disappointed. I had grown very fond of our fun, and I felt in a perverse way that it actually put more spark into our marriage. With that illusion now shattered, I sank into a deep depression as the weight of my recent failures and struggles hit me full on with no available diversion.

Christmas was a big, huge bummer for us. The bankruptcy filing meant that we could not use credit cards to buy our presents. And we were drifting farther and farther apart. Shortly after Christmas, D. told me she was looking for an apartment and wanted to leave. I convinced her to stay for a bit and try to work it out. She agreed, but things were pretty far gone by then.

Then in February of this year, we decided to go looking for a church. We found an Evangelical Free church nearby, and things started happening to me as I remembered my life in Christ from so many years ago. There were people I knew in this church, and the music ministry is awesome -- which won over D. However, our problems were far from over. I had retreated to my recliner and TV in a big way, and we were overwhelmed with the decay of the house and the tension with the children.

On the day of our first wedding anniversary, D. had her things packed and was ready to move into a rental house owned by the boyfriend of our babysitter. It happened to be a Sunday. We had continued to attend church, and I was being profoundly affected by the teaching and had re-dedicated myself to bible study and prayer. However, I continued to be distant from D., as I recognized in her a desire to leave. It was V. all over again, only this time I wasn't going to let myself feel the rejection.

So I got up before everyone and got ready for church. D. got up -- late as usual -- and wondered why I wasn't waiting for her and the boys. I told her that I wasn't going to play the happy family in church knowing that she was packed up and ready to leave. I was going to God alone to seek His Help in dealing. However, once I got there and the singing started, I saw her walk in and sit by herself on the opposite side of the sanctuary. At once, I began to feel what we evangelicals call 'convicted' about being in a worship service with an unforgiving heart. So I got up and walked over to join her and put my arm around her. She began to cry. After the sermon, she leaned over and said, "I give up."

It was a lift I had seldom if ever known. At that point in my life, I realized -- maybe for the first time -- that God loved me despite my quite-obvious moral failings. I was encouraged to take my faith and walk to a level heretofore unknown to me.

I wish I could say that the same applied to D., and that that experience had settled the issue of her commitment to our marriage once and for all, but that would be too easy, too fairy tale. No, what I've found out in the eight months since that anniversary miracle is that God works in real life with real problems that don't always have happy endings.

A month and a half later, D. finally did move out. Thus, began a journey out of the wilderness and into the light.


- posted by The Drake @ 2:04 PM 1 comments

 
Bush Insight
Found this link on Drudge. I think it's a very good perspective, and one that many evangelicals would do well to understand.



- posted by The Drake @ 11:12 AM 4 comments

 
Life On The Outside
I found Sarah's comment about my being 'naked' in my last blog entry intriguing. Of the maybe three or four people who read this blog, only one knows me personally. So how naked am I, really? One of the nice things about blogging is that you can easily retain your anonymity and thus enjoy greater freedom to put some real depth and grittiness to your musings. If you are lucky enough to have a readership, then the feedback can be both cathartic and encouraging while diminishing the risk of shame.

That aside, Sarah's comment reminded me of something that I've been avoiding for the past few weeks. I've been asked by the fellow who leads my Sunday morning group fellowship to consider sharing my 'testimony'. For those of you not familiar with the phrase, one's testimony is basically your story, given with an emphasis on how Jesus saved you from your sins/road to destruction. In particular, this guy and I have been talking about how I came back to the Lord after 9 years of apostasy. I believe it's his hope that I will be able to weave a story not unlike that of the Prodigal Son.

I'm not so convinced, however, that my story is ready to tell to that audience. Part of it is that I am still really struggling with some of the results of life choices I made during those years. Another part of it is that I am not sure I have truly left it all behind.

But it is a story that I've decided I want to tell. I'm just not sure how to go about. So given my relative anonymity in this little slice of cyberspace, I've decided to go for it. Sarah, get ready for some real nakedness. No, not pictures! Sheesh! I'm trying to have a literary moment here, not make people ill.

To my friend who shall remain nameless, I beg forbearance and an open mind.

I had composed a few paragraphs of backstory, but decided that would bog down the narrative.
Suffice it to say that the title of this post comes from my lifelong feelings of alienation, isolation, abandonment and rejection. I've struggled to find acceptance and significance from those important to me for as long as I can remember. As for my history coming up in my family of origin, I will only say that I did not learn how to be in a loving, respectful relationship.
Now on to the story.

A little over ten years ago, my life was in a downward spiral of doom that would continue for the next eight months. I had just been fired from a job that I hated. My marriage of just over eight years was in a shambles. We had just finished having four children together in less than 5 years' time -- the oldest being 5 and the youngest only 7 months. And I was still recovering from the debilitating effects of a marijuana addiction that I had, with God's help, shaken about 18 months prior. Up to that point, I had not made much more than 20K a year in any of the food and social service positions I had held since my graduation from college with a 3.8 GPA.

Now it would be easy to conclude from the prior paragraph that I was just a victim of my circumstances, but I want to dispel that straightaway. There was only one thing that was going that I did not seem to be able to bounce back from -- my failing marriage. V. was the love of my life. I fell for her the instant I laid eyes on her, and the depth of feeling and desire I had for her is something I've never since experienced. Unfortunately, I was, and still am, a deeply flawed human. I could not seem to put aside my addiction in time to focus on showing her every day just how deeply she had gotten into my soul. And once I did, there was too much damage done.

Moreover, I was unable to cope with the intensity of my feelings, sorrow and desperation in knowing that I had lost my soulmate. And so I became a raging idiot, saying anything I could think of to stop the pain -- to make her stop stabbing me in the heart with her disapproval and rejection.

I still remember the day the other shoe dropped -- September, 21, 1994. We sat in the office of a therapist, and as V. rattled off all the horrible names I had called her during our many arguments, the counselor looked me in the eye and asked, "Is this true? Is this the kind of thing that goes down?" When I answered in the affirmative, she shot back, "That's abuse, and it has to stop. We can't do conjoint therapy as long as this kind of behavior is going on. You need to go into a group for batterers in order to get this under control."

Game over.

Batterer? I never so much as raised my hand to this woman I loved so much, but now I was a batterer? I could go on and on debating this, and I did back then. But it's irrelevant. That's how she saw me now, and as the counselor related the bleak recovery statistics to V, I could feel it all slipping away.

We had been attending church and having fellowship with other believers for several years, and there is no doubt that God did a lot to heal me during that time. As I mentioned before, I was delivered from my desire to smoke weed in early '93 by virtue of a prayer I said with a men's Bible study I had been attending for several months. Prior to that, I had seen the Lord move in several instances to provide jobs and housing and finances during very difficult times. And even at the time of the marital collapse, God was continuing to direct me towards the career in IT that has been so rewarding and successful.

And so, I really believed that God would take care of this as well. And that my brothers and sisters in Christ would rally around us and encourage me and pray with me, and the Lord would make everything all right. But that's not what happened.

Batterer.

Abuser.

As V went amongst our fellowship armed with these new labels asking for them to support HER, I had a sub-conscious recognition that she had found her way out. Implicit in that realization was another that she found living with me unbearable, and THAT I could not take. So instead of our congregation coming together to support a marriage in trouble, I found them arrayed against me in a way that I found very threatening and discouraging. To be fair, I'm sure that some of these folks were trying to exhibit tough love towards me. In fact, 3 of them agreed to meet with me to discuss the situation and pray with me every week.

On the surface, the battle devolved into a theological dispute over whether one spouse's angry rantings justified the other spouse's ending the marriage (her position), or whether divorce for any reason other than infidelity was disobedience to God (my position). At a deeper level, however, it was really only about my perception that I was being utterly abandoned despite my best efforts and desperate prayers. That unending feeling of rejection drove me to the brink of insanity over the next 6 months. Every outburst was magnified, every failure to meet an unspoken need was viciously condemned, and everyone just plain gave up on me, including me.

One day I just snapped. V had just finished up a run of acting in a play in the city the previous night, and wanted to sleep in. I wanted to talk. I told her how I was feeling like everyone was rejecting me, and she just said something to the effect that that was what I deserved. From the depths of my being, a howling arose raging against the 'fact' that I was so personally deficient that no one wanted me in their lives, and I found myself on top of her screaming into her face, "You mean like my mother? LIKE MY FUCKING MOTHER!!!!"

Then V punched me as hard as she could in the jaw. I barely felt it, but it was the final act of ultimate rejection, accompanied by the vicious spitting of her invectives back into my face. Then I was on the floor howling like I imagine the Gerasene demonic must have when under the control of Legion. I remember my daughter in the doorway crying, but most of it is just a surrealistic blur.

I left that day at her request and never returned. In the days, weeks and months that followed, my anger and bitterness grew towards God. I couldn't believe that He hadn't helped me out of my insanity. Or softened V's heart enough to see how hard I was trying. Or how my efforts, unsuccessful as they were, were a true reflection of my love for her. Instead, she and her 'Christian' friends threw me into the streets and took away my children.

And how I blamed God.

Next: Life In the Wilderness

- posted by The Drake @ 2:44 PM 2 comments

 
The Veil Rent
I met with my pastor last night to discuss some struggles I've been having lately. He trotted out an old chestnut I'd not heard in a while, as pastors are wont to do. He reminded me that what you feed grows, and what you starve dies. That principle is so true for the subject at hand.

I used to listen to Howard Stern every morning on my drive into work. I started listening to him about 3 years ago, and after an initial dislike, became a fan. I thought he was funny and honest. I still do. The reason that I no longer listen to Howard Stern is not because I think him evil, but because after I returned to the Church and began to study the Word of God and pray, I realized I was fighting against myself. The humor presented on the show is mean-spirited, and I had become influenced in that direction over the course of my listening. This spirit was in opposition with the Spirit of God, to whom I was trying to subject myself.

I choose to starve my own mean-spiritedness and try to feed my soul with radio programs from the Christian station. I do not miss Howard Stern, and I call people names a lot less often.

I struggle with watching too much TV, while my family craves my attention. It is a form of escape. From what, I'm not totally sure. Recently, I have been choosing to turn off the TV (except for Sunday football) in order to spend time with my wife and children. Or to do stuff around the house that makes the wife happy.

I am a big fan of naked women, but that has obvious drawbacks. So I try and stay away from porn, especially on the Internet.

I am a self-centered, inclined to self-destruction, want-to-be-pleased individual. This state of being is contrary to my stated goals as a believer and wannabe follower of Jesus Christ. Every day I struggle with conflicting desires to serve God and my own self-serving agenda. My likelihood of succeeding in my walk with Christ depends on two things: His Hand at work to protect and guide me through this conflict I have in myself, and my choices to feed my soul and starve my selfishness.

To diminish this struggle and the experience of grace by eliminating the element of personal choice from the societal equation misses the point. Most people don't want to give up their agendas. I often don't, despite my belief in Christ.

It's difficult to find Christians in this culture living compelling lives. In other parts of the world people are being persecuted, hunted down and killed for simply believing that Jesus of Nazareth is the Savior of the World. And we in America are playing politics with the Lord's teachings.

It just doesn't make sense.

- posted by The Drake @ 10:24 AM 2 comments

 
Rending the Veil

OK, I've had it with this FCC indecency bullshit. And all of the so-called watchdog groups that are contributing to the ever-increasing bloat of our federal government. And this occurring during a 'conservative' administration.

According to the latest Nielsen's, the latest slut-drama, Desperate Housewives, is pulling in 25 million viewers (or is it households). The Parents Television Council (PTC) is making a lot of noise about how that number, taking into consideration a nation population estimated at 290 million, does NOT reflect the tastes and values of the majority of Americans. These media Nazis further postulate that it is the government's job to protect our innocent children from such smut. The recent spate of indecency fines levied as a result of various titillations and moral 'malfunctions' airing before the universal kiddie bedtime implies that this administration is more than willing to buy into this load of marmalade.

I am embarassed to be identified with any group of so-called believers who think this is the way to go.

First, you need to understand how things work. Follow the money. Instead of whining how Hollywood is ignoring the moral sensibilities of the populace, pull your collective head out of your collective ass and face reality. Hollywood is out to make money, not propagate false morality. The fact that they succeed in selling titillation, adultery, senseless violence and amorality simply means that there is money to be made from it. This should come as no surprise to the Christian.

What Christians in America have always seemed to struggle with is the fact that the tactics of prohibition simply do not work. Jesus didn't walk into the dens of sinners, tax collectors and whores and say, "You shouldn't be doing this, and I shall endeavor to force you to stop." No. Instead, he went into their vile dwellings and offered them a better way. Jesus attracts sinners. The Pharisees were the ones to 'bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders' (Matt. 23:4), not Jesus. Yet that's what we really are here in America. A bunch of fucking Pharisees. Drunk with our political power and looking to lord it over the 'publicans and sinners'.

And just like the Pharisees, it's all about appearances and perceptions. We'd all love to believe that there are 59 million devoted followers of Jesus 'embedded' throughout our nation, but that's just not the case. If it were, this indecency in TV would not even be an issue. The sobering likelihood is that there are less of said disciples in this country than there are devout watchers of Desperate Housewives.

So what does that really mean? It means that these well-orchestrated shows of 'moral force' fester with the stench of hypocrisy! And those so-called 'innocents' for whom these charlatans claim to speak are becoming increasingly alienated as a result of severe neglect and forced moral conduct.

Face it, America! You don't want to make the sacrifices necessary to protect your children from the moral rape perpetuated on commercial television. You either like what is put on, or you want the government to force your babysitter of choice to behave in a manner you see fit, or you simply are too stupid to recognize your alternatives.

Even if the PTC's premise is true, and most folks in America are disgusted by what's on TV, why not put the effort into making an effective change? Go after the money!

You can do this one of two ways. Either orchestrate a campaign with advertisers to exert a greater influence on the content, or put your money where your mouth is and make your own TV. If there is such a market for an alternative, then the advertising money will follow. Of course, this is an oversimplification. There are broadcast licensing issues, etc.

But the bottom line is that, for the Christian, what's on TV is a trivial matter. There are millions of people in our own country starving for the peace and purpose that living for Christ brings.

I fail to see how playing along with the PTC's campaign of coercion contributes to the meeting of that need.

- posted by The Drake @ 9:24 PM 5 comments

 
100 Things You May Not Know About Me (Part 2)

69.  I am impulsive.  I tend to make major decisions in the spur of the moment.  Hence, the 3 marriages.
68.  I've been called 'The Grinch', but I actually really enjoy the holidays.
67.  The last work of fiction I read was Tom Clancy's Red Rabbit.
66.  I couldn't wait to buy U2's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, but I like All You Can't Leave Behind better.
65.  My favorite TV shows this year are Smallville and The West Wing. 
64.  My favorite TV show of all time is probably Northern Exposure.
63.  I will never again spend money on anything put out by Bruce Springsteen.
62.  I used to wait on tables for a living.  As a result, I will tip generously any server who puts forth an honest effort, but will stiff anyone who conveys indifference or annoyance.

61.  Speaking of tipping, I always leave a tip that will result in an even dollar amount when added to the bill.  Does anyone else do this?  It feels kinda OCD.

60.  I use my left hand to write and eat, but I do all athletic things (throwing, golfing) right-handed.
59.  My favorite actor is Johnny Depp, heartthrob status notwithstanding.
58.  My favorite actress was Meryl Streep, but I'd probably go with Nichole Kidman now.
57.  I have a weird food allergy to raw carrots, apples, celery, peaches and certain kinds of nuts.  Any time I eat any of these foods, I get an 'itching' reaction inside my mouth and throat.  If I ingest too much, I can have an anaphalytic episode.   Bad news.  However, I can eat any of these foods cooked.  Take that, raw food nazis!

56.  I wore my hair in an afro when I was 15.
55.  I rarely wear cologne and despise it when anyone -- man or woman -- over-indulges.
54.  I was given the nickname Gopher in junior high school by this weasel of a kid whom I beat up regularly.  In fact, I was beating him up at the time.

53.  My favorite meal is a Porterhouse steak, baked potato w/ sour cream and asparagus.
52.  My favortie dessert is Tiramisu with coffee.
51.  I am a morning person.
50.  I am a more thankful person with each day I wake up alive.

- posted by The Drake @ 10:53 AM 3 comments

 
Spyware Scumbags!

FYI to all bloggers!  There are some among us who are hosting one of the nastiest, most difficult to get rid of spyware annoyances to come down the pike in a while.

To those of you who are deliberating cooperating with these lowlife bottom feeders, shame on you!  You are not worthy of the blogger fraternity.

To those of you who are just trying to use the Internet as a way to express yourself and connect with others across cyberspace, beware of the following scenario:

You are are browsing the blogs, when you come upon one of those annoying sites where people are just content to post thoughts and pictures, but have to jazz up the place with animations, scripts and banners.  As you sit waiting for all their stupid crap to load (onto to your PC, btw), you get a pop up informing you that you need to upgrade Internet Explorer.  It seems legit to those of you who have been faithful with Windows Update, because it has the new Shield symbol on it.  Do not go there!  Run away, and get off of the loser's blog that launched it!  Even if you close the window, you may see a new message in the main browser window, placed in a thin yellow bar right below the URL box.  That is also a legit convention new with Windows XP SP1.  That's what got me.

If you, like me, are fooled and click in the wrong place, you have opened Pandora's box.  In my case, I loaded a malicious browser hijacker running under the name Elite Tool Bar.  This guy puts a new toolbar on your browser with links to:  Premium Sites, Adult Sites, Dating Sites, Online Drugs and Casinos.  Give you an idea of the scum you're dealing with, doesn't it? 

You cannot uninstall this using conventional means, and it also changes your home page and search engine to become enslaved to the ultra-sleazy website known as searchmiracle.com (i wouldn't go there if i were you).  And then the real fun begins.  About every minute or so, whether you are in IE or not, this bane from hell launches a new IE window with links to porn, dating sites and other crap.  If you are in IE, a load of a new web page will often trigger a 'search window' to appear with a list of 'related' sites as a docked window on the left.

The bottom line is that you spend half your time shutting down unwanted windows as they interrupt the work you are doing by taking Windows' focus, and your system's performance goes right in the shitter.

Here's what i had to do to fix my system (at least, i think it's fixed):

1. Downloaded HiJack This, Spy Sweeper and Startup Mechanic from download.com
2. Ran Microsoft's Cumulative Security Update for IE6 SP1 (KB889293) to plug the most recently discovered weaknesses
3. Disconnected from the Internet.  Pull the plug, baby!  Take no chances.
4. Ran Startup Mechanic to identify any Hijack programs set to load at start up. I found the entry kalvsys listed as harmful and disabled it.

5. Ran HiJack This and fixed anything related to EliteToolBar or searchmiracle.com and also anything identified as a BHO (Browser Helper Object).  These are generally bad, and if there is one that is part of an application you need, you can always re-install.

6. Disabled System Restore.  Go to Control Panel | System, click on the System Restore tab and check Disable System Restore.

7. Ran full scan using Spy Sweeper, and cleaned out everything it found.
8. Re-connect to network and re-boot.
9. Once the symptoms stopped, re-enabled System Restore.
Quick note to my fellow freeware junkies.  Ad Aware DOES NOT catch this bug!  Nor does PAL Spyware Remover (at least not in the free online scan).

Best of luck to all who have been victimized by this heinous crime against all bloggers of good will.  Unfortunately, these sleazeballs are making money by causing our PC's to hit web sites whose owners are paying searchmiracle and their ilk advertising fees based on hit rates.

These people are the lowest of the low.

- posted by The Drake @ 1:47 PM 3 comments