Stakes in the Ground
Warning: Heavy dose of AA follows.
Disclaimer: These are not official AA interpretations. They are my views alone.
In Step Five, we review with the God of our understanding and another human being (usually our sponsor) the exact nature of our wrongs which we identified in Step Four, our “searching and fearless moral inventory.”
Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step Seven: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
These two Steps are about growing up. Growing up to and through humility, selflessness, service and love. Growing up to be the person I want to be so I can accomplish the things I want to accomplish.
Unless I do my best to demonstrate that I am entirely ready to have my character defects removed by attempting to quit acting on them, asking is futile.
When I start acting on my character defects it is because I am feeling things I don’t want to feel, and for whatever reason I choose not to use the tools I know will allow me to feel those feelings in a healthy way.
My Stakes in the Ground for Today:
- I don’t believe anonymous sex is inherently wrong.
- I have made a decision to try to stay married to my wife. I will work to that end each day rather than focusing (obsessing?) on the ultimate outcome.
- I have made a decision to try to be rigorously honest.
- My wife and I have not agreed that our relationship is open to engaging in sexual activity with others.
- I am not comfortable asking my wife to agree to an open relationship for several reasons:
- She does not want an open relationship.
- Deep in my heart I don’t believe I want an open relationship.
- I don’t want to force her to choose between my leaving or agreeing to an open relationship because that would be disrespectful to
her and our relationship. It would exceed the boundaries of taking care of myself and extend to selfishness.- I believe forcing her to choose would be taking advantage of a psychological trauma she suffered as a young child. It is not my responsibility to fix the trauma but would be very wrong to take advantage of it.
- When I act on my character defects I should forgive myself as I would a close friend and then move on without wallowing in guilt or self-flagellation.
- Success is measured by progress not perfection.
Seventh Step prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book) page 76:
My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding.
Thanks for being there.
Flip
10 comments:
Flip,
I see you truly love your wife. It shows in today's posting as it has many others.
However, you don't have to use her fragility as the reason that you won't broach the subject of extramarital sex with her.
But, if that feels like a well thought out reason for staying there in that cerebral and physical space, great.
I'm just hinting that the truth may be this: You have your own reasons for not coming out,(i.e. security issues)and those are the feelings you should delve more deeply into.
I'm thinking it is more about you.
I would like nothing more than to see you happy. Honestly. If that means staying with your wife of many years, so be it.
Just understand, for the forseeable future, any relationship you have might be fraught with issues.
My thoughts are wandering a bit this evening and I find myself thinking of you and your situation more than I should, probably.
You're a good man Flip.
Take care and lots of hugs, my friend.
B.
P.S. I wish I could have summed my thoughts up more nicely, but I suppose I'll leave that for you.
Hi Flip (and Brad - I love the counterweight to it all)
I was touched by this post because it sums up much of where I am at.
One issue is working on thesse relationships without focussing (obsessing). That is a real tough one once it has taken over your life.
Also having been the trigger for my wife's current depression, albeit she had deep seated childhood issues, does feel like a weight.
Most importantly I was thinking of you particularly last night (no it was not homoerotic - that willhave to be another dream) becasue you define your issues broadly the "fealess moral inventory" "character defects" etc. It is not limited to drinking or gay sex. There is an inherent reference to other issues.
My next attempt at blogging has to deal with the fact that to my mind being bi and coming out just does not explain the range of emotions I am addressing and it is time (my therepist needs to earn the reidiculous sums I pay him) to broaden my perspective.
And I thank you for that becasue while you worry way too much about the AA connection, these are broader guidelines than you realize.
And Brad - keep us honest - yes major security issues with us guys coming out - for sure
Brad: Bingo. I'm afraid. But it may be more complicated than that - which you acknowledge.
Brad, you will never know how much your insights mean to me and help me. I often post because you guys help me be more rigorously honest than I can be on my own.
You have summed up my inner thoughts (really my fears) much better than I. I am very afraid that I am making excuses for not being more courageous about being queer and acting on my queerness under the guise of being noble and thinking of my wife. On the other hand my attempt to move out a couple of years ago was so cruel and damaging I am very afraid of what might happen if I act on that again. If you will, I am trying to make some living amends for what I did - or perhaps it's just another smoke screen to avoid doing what I am afraid of doing.
Also, the subject of extramarital sex came up a couple of years ago during that very difficult time. It may come up in the future if I do see that I must have some outlet. I just don't think now is the time. Again, our relationship is still healing. Or maybe I'm just afraid. Or maybe a little of both.
I guess that's why I'm trying right now to focus each day on following the path I've set out on, but realizing that it may need to change sometime in the future. And perhaps if that does come to pass we will both understand it is for the best.
I hope that makes sense. Thanks again so much.
Nate: Thanks to you, too, for helping me understand my own issues, putting some context around them and for being yet another person following a similar path.
Sorry for the wordy, not well thought out response. I only have a couple of minutes but had to respond.
Have a great weekend!
Flip - I found your writings through a friend, and have been touched by your struggle to live an authentic and honest life - and by the empathy of those who comment here.
Much of what I read here tonight reminded me of something I often lose sight of in my own daily struggle: Only one of the 12 steps mentions alcohol - the rest are simply suggestions for living.
And, as such, can be applied to any number of situations.
Thanks to you, and the others who share their thoughts and feelings here - you are all pretty impressive human beings.
bs
Flip:
my comment, as is so often the case, has gotten too long to post here.
Come over and find it at T@C.
For the record:
Dr. August Ferdinand Möbius (born 17 Nov 1790 at Schulporta [SW of Leipzig, near Naumburg]; died 26 Sep 1868 at Leipzig) was a mathematician, theoretical astronomer, topologist and inventor of the famous "Möbius strip", a unique one-sided surface. He was the son of a dancing master. His German descendants include mathematicians, professional artists and over 25 authors.
And not that anybody's interested, but the man Möbius, being German, spelled himself with an "ö", pronounced like "oo" in "good". He either gets anglicized with a plain "o", which means that we all mispronounce him, or with an "oe", a symbol we haven't used since we spoke Anglo-Saxon, which seems a little quaint. And now that I think of it, "quaint" was, Chaucer's word if not the Anglo-Saxon one, for "cunt", but I guess that doesn't really belong here... With computers, you can always make an "ö" with Alt-148.
Well, you can file it all away somewhere along with the rest of this post, if it seems wildly off the mark.
More on Möbius at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_M%C3%B6bius
Brown Shoes: Thanks for stopping by and thanks for your kind comments. As you point out, for many people AA provides not only suggestions for how to not drink but also how to improve one's life - which also helps most people not drink.
Troll: Thanks for commenting on this post on your blog. I have commented on your posted comment there.
To all: Perhaps I have been cryptic in my past couple of posts. The point is that I made a decision last week to do something that is counter to my long term goals, and I did it. I am now trying to remind myself of those goals in specific terms and tie those to my personal program of recovery which includes my higher power. That's who I say the seventh step prayer to.
Thanks everyone for trying to keep me honest. I know it takes a village...and then some.
Flip
OK, call me the lone dissenter here. And feel free to dismiss this if you feel that I am preaching or self-righteous. However, I was bothered by the comment that "I don't believe that anonymous sex is inherently wrong". The problem with this scenario it puts both you and your wife at risk for an STD or worse, HIV. Outside of abstinence of sex with guys, you might consider a "closed loop" relationship.
Check out: www.marriedgay.org
for more info.
AA encourages "Honesty, Openness, and Willingness". Your brutal honesty is to be commended.
Brad: You SO slay me, too! Thanks for bringing some humor to this thread. And if I am ever forced to leave my post as idiot I will nominate you as my replacement.
Hypoxic: As always, thanks for your good wishes. Now that I have had a taste of peace I believe it is what I most desire, too.
Restored: Thanks for your comment. What I should have said is I don't think anonymous sex between two willing people who are not acting counter to a committed relationship and are not putting others at risk is inherently wrong.
I believe that my engaging in anonymous sex without my wife's knowledge is wrong. Very wrong. And BTW, I appreciate your dissent. I've learned that if I don't like what someone else is saying I better listen closely because it usually means I've got a problem. I have already learned a lot from your participation. Thanks.
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