Bear the burden

I just got back from a vacation. I was visiting my relatives and for the most part had a good time. While at my brother's (who is an LDS bishop of a small town ward) he finally asked me about the condition of my marriage. I told him most of the story, but I wasn't ready by any means to come out to him. He gently gave me a lecture about making a marriage work, and gave me a couple LDS books he wanted me to read, including one about husbands and wives, intimacy stuff from an LDS perspective. He told me that I better do all I could to make this marriage work or I'd regret it my whole life. (No surprise there).

So the next day I read the book on husbands and wives. It was interesting, but of course gives me no answers on a few things--like why on earth God creates all these people who are attracted to their own gender. The book was sort of a recitation of LDS doctrine mixed with a "how to make it work" in the intimacy department. I read pages which were all about sexual dysfunction, and it was like reading about my wife. I read pages which reminded me of many rotten moments in my husbanding days. I could see an awful lot of my own mistakes in those pages from that perspective. I remember when this book came out--it made quite the splash here in Mormon land.

Did it give me "the" answer? No. I sort of feel like asking my wife to read it, but I'm not sure how well that will go. While talking to my brother one of those days, we somehow got on the topic of being gay. I told him that I didn't think anyone chooses something like that. He pretty much agreed, and said something like--its their burden to bear. Meaning, they are just supposed to live with it.

My brother is a party line kind of guy. Right or Wrong, not much inbetween. He is a "true" Republican, and a "true" mormon. That's his way of thinking. He is a good father, and a good husband. He has a lot of attributes. But I sure have a hard time believing that we are just supposed to "live with it, or bear the burden."

My vacation ended badly, with a car accident. Thankfully I'm mostly ok. No bones broken. Scary day, and a trip to the hospital, x-rays, all sorts of stuff. While in the midst of it, I called her. While talking, I got emotional, feeling a longing for real love to come from her. But none was there. She never told me she loved me, or anything of the sort. I got more passionate responses from friends on facebook than I did from her. It just seems gone.