Boys Cry Too
A Memoir
by John Mark Clubb
boys cry too. Copyright © 2009 by John Mark Clubb
Published by John Mark Clubb at Smashwords
All rights reserved. ebook edition
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, visit www.johnmarkclubb.com
This is a work of nonfiction, and the events described in this book are based on actual events. Names of characters, save for the author’s own, have been changed to protect the privacy of all persons, living and dead.
Book designed by Lee Sakellarides / lee.editor@gmail.com
ISBN: 1-442-10025-7
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, or evil can become a source of beauty, joy and strength if faced with an open mind.
—Henry Miller
True evil has a face you know and a voice you trust.
—Anonymous
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the following people for their encouragement, input, love, and help with the writing of this book. To Lee Sakellarides, I have so much to be grateful for with you. You are a friend, confidant, and the world’s best editor. I’d love to be just like you when I grow up. To the entire Robotham clan on both sides of the Atlantic, I love you all. You adopted a stranger and gave me the encouragement and love I needed when telling the truth was the hardest and most painful. Cool runnings to my Jamaican family. Mommy and Daddy Ro, thank you for giving Jackie to the world. Jackie, you defended me when no one else would and fed me when I was hungry. You are my best friend and I love you with the breadth and depth of my soul. To Sandra Ramirez, you gave me a beautiful daughter, forgiveness and a second chance. I love you very much.
To Madison Howell Crum III, you gave me friendship 32 years ago, encouragement to succeed, and the words to describe our enlisted boot camp experience with humor and dignity. To the therapists along the way who have helped me move forward and continue with my healing, I give you my thanks. Most of all, I would like to thank Sue Ennis. You led me on a journey to the deepest parts of my soul. I cannot thank you enough. Thank you for helping me arrive in a place where I could finally graduate from therapy. I would like to thank my beautiful children for showing me how to love unabashedly, feel unequivocally, and then get over it. Every day you guys show me how to look at the world with innocent eyes. I am so very proud to be your Dad.
There is a very special group of people I would like to thank. They shoulder a tremendous burden and responsibility for all of us as Americans. When they go to work, they say, “Not on my watch.” They protect the innocent and watch over those who can’t defend themselves. To the men and women who work with the FBI’s child exploitation unit, I give thanks, especially to the following agents: Roy, Vic, Gorgeous George and Mark, you guys are wonderful. To my gunslingers who wear silk; Tonya, Felicia, Tiffany, Mags, Mia and Miss Riley. You are the little sisters I never had. To Claudia, you have helped me so much in my search to find who I am and who I want to be. Thank you for teaching me how to stop filtering. I love you all. But most of all, thanks to their boss, Sean, the movie star G-man. You brought the “gang” into my life and I am very grateful and honored to know them all. I love you. You are my brother.
To Lisa Hamilton and the Amish, you taught me that forgiveness is not a pick-and-choose proposition. You taught me how to forgive the unforgiveable. Lisa, rest in peace. I dedicate these truths to all of us who have endured and survived sexual abuse and assault. There are far too many of us. Keep healing. Keep moving forward. You matter. Decide to stay. We need you.
Foreword
I could get discouraged because I’ve been in therapy for over 20 years but I choose not to look at it that way. Sex abuse is part of who I am. I can’t change that part of me any more than I can change the color of my eyes. To deny it gives it power over me. I’ll never be “cured” of sex abuse. It happened. Now I deal with it. I will not be my family’s history. The cycle stops this time around. I’ve heard that when you heal a wound this big, you heal seven generations back and seven generations forward. That’s a pretty powerful legacy. I see therapy as the greatest quest I’ve ever been on. It’s an adventure into my deepest being. Therapy is as important to my daily survival as food, exercise, or breathing is. In therapy I have also found what I have been and what I still am afraid of.
I’m afraid of losing control. I’ve prided myself on being easy going and adaptable. I’m not. I’ve tried to control everything and everyone around me. There’s no way I’m giving up control without running for my life. I’m afraid that someone might see who I really am and find me lacking. I’m afraid that people won’t want to stick around if they know who I truly am. I’m afraid to trust. I want to on a superficial level and at times have trusted too fast with people who are untrustworthy. Deep down I have a basic suspicion of people and their motives. I still have fear around women. It’s tough to get over the pain of loss of the intense connection that any child has with his or her mother.
When that love comes with pain and abandonment, it’s probably one of the worst things a mother can do to her child. It’s made it very difficult for me to understand unconditional love and compassion. It’s made me suspicious of what women truly want from me. In the past it hasn’t been long before I started to feel suffocated when I’ve found myself in what I thought was a “normal or traditional” relationship. I stopped doing that when I got some very insightful advice from a wise friend. She said, “If you have to filter to make someone feel safe, you can’t have intimacy.” When I have to hide who I’ve been or what I’ve done to make sure it doesn’t make someone feel uncomfortable, there’s no way we can have intimacy with each other.
In relationships where I’ve been afraid to share who I am, all of me, I start to drown. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time looking for my mother’s approval through the women I’ve dated. I’ve chosen women with the same dynamics as her even down to the physical characteristics she had. They have brown hair, light eyes, and small-minded judgments about the world and me. Those are the most suffocating relationships because they make me hide. I can’t be honest about who I am.
I finally figured out that the relationships that matter are with people who accept all of me. The relationships in which I am free to be me are the ones I want. Those are the ones where I breathe easiest. In the past, every relationship has been a constant and painful internal battle for me because I feel so alone and scarred. I’m afraid of being alone with my own thoughts. I’ve used a bottle of alcohol to keep me company. It doesn’t work. The people I know who love and respect me asked me why if they respected me so much, I didn’t do the same for myself. They told me they were sticking around and asked me why I wasn’t willing to stick around for myself. I am worth sticking around for and that includes me. I do matter. I don’t like being alone but being with someone in an emotionally intimate relationship can be just as frightening. I’m afraid of being rejected for the choices I’ve made in the past regarding sex partners. I find myself in an interesting situation in my workplace.
When my third wife and I separated, hetero sex wasn’t working for me so I thought that it might be because I was suppressing being gay. I decided I was going to try that lifestyle. I’ve used sexual ambiguity to stay away from who I really want to be because of my fear of women. It’s kept me emotionally charged and doubting myself. I confided in some of the male flight attendants I worked with. I experimented with a couple of them not thinking about how it might look or what it might do to my work reputation. They immediately started spreading untrue vicious rumors about me.
Now I’m paying for it. I lost a relationship with a female flight attendant because she heard the rumors about my past behavior and decided not to ask me about them first and hear the whole story. It hurt when she disappeared from my life without a word. Some women I dated post marriage and divorce decided they couldn’t risk a relationship with me. When I’ve been honest I’ve been told by them that they not only have to worry about me breaking up with them for another woman, they have to worry about me breaking up with them for another man. I only have myself to blame. I cringe when I hear these things knowing that some of my behavior has opened the door to give people who are small and petty something to talk about. In the absence of information people will make up whatever they want anyway.
I’ve been called bisexual. I’ve called myself bisexual. Am I bisexual or just open to those kinds of experiences? I don’t want to be in a relationship with a man. Sex with men has been fun. That’s where it ends. I want to be with a woman long term. I don’t go looking for those experiences. I don’t have desires for those experiences. Everyone is suspicious of bisexual men. Gay men think bi’s are just waiting to fully come out of the closet. Women are afraid that they will lose their bi men to another man. It’s not about the sex anyway. It’s about having a fully committed monogamous relationship regardless of who you’ve been with in the past or who you are with now.
Most men are afraid to admit that they may have any kind of sexual attraction for another man. I have it on good information from a friend who is a captain at the airline I work for who is also a lesbian that she has had more than one man admit to her they are sexually confused or ambiguous. There are plenty of self-proclaimed married bisexual men with ads on “Craigslist” wanting a quickie somewhere in a park. Wouldn’t it be safer if everyone could be upfront and honest about these kinds of issues and where some of that sexual ambiguity might be coming from? There are plenty of women who enjoy watching men have sex with each other. Why don’t we have an open and honest discussion about it and bring it out into the light?
I’m afraid that I will not be a good enough father this time around. I know regrets are a waste of time but I truly regret the decision to allow my son to be adopted by his stepfather. I want to apologize to my son for not stepping up to the plate for him. I want to apologize for not being a better man and father to him. I ask his forgiveness. I ask his mother for forgiveness too; for not being a better father to him when I had the chance. I left her to raise him alone while a full time college student. I could have helped out much more than I did even if I knew we couldn’t be together. It was my arrogance; anger and pride that kept me from helping her raise our son together as a team. I’m still wary of the fear I might feel by being asked to commit even though there’s nothing more that I desire. I’m afraid that I will never get healed enough to have a deeply committed caring relationship with someone, that I’m forever flawed and “damaged goods.”
I watch couples walk through the airport with their families in tow and it makes me ache. At the same time I still don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to be with someone long term. I’ve always been a hit and run kind of guy unless I was married and even then I had an exit plan. So how do I get from here to there? It’s the wall that I have to find my way over or around to get to that place where I find peace and contentment with me. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to keep up the good guy façade. I’m afraid that when someone sees who I really am that they will reject me and run away. I’m afraid that I’ll be rejected for my past confusions and I won’t be able to speak honestly and frankly about how I’m feeling sexually. I’m afraid that I’ll get bored and hurt someone else. I’m tired of hurting people. I start out strong then can’t hang for the long term. I’m afraid of the future with someone. I’m afraid the day to day tedium of being married might be too boring to bear. I know all the words and the phrases that a woman wants to hear.
I get caught up in the chase and then I find myself in another situation I really don’t want to be in because of my fear. I retreat, and then I get tired of being alone so I go out in the world again to see if I can get it right this time. I think I’ll stay in therapy. I wear my scars proudly now instead of trying to hide them in shame. They are the scars from skirmishes fought for my soul and won. They tell my truths. I take responsibility for them. I respect the man who has walked that long, lonely road to this point and survived. I respect even more the boy who survived the worst that parents could do to a son. I will struggle. I am human. I will make mistakes but I will move forward. I am not ashamed anymore. It’s not about color, zip code or position. It’s about the truth. I’ve been rejected outright and embraced warmly and wholeheartedly for my truths.
Interestingly enough this former southern white racist has found overwhelming acceptance for my story from a group I would never expect it from; black women. I’ve been adopted outright by a rather large Jamaican family. Another black woman, Candice, owns a successful coffee shop next to the hotel we stay in while on layovers in Los Angeles. I’ve become friends with her over the last couple of years and we will sit and chat about any and all subjects. For as young as she is, she is one of the wisest women I’ve ever met. Candice is a mix of southern black and Swede. She’s got very dark skin and an interesting set of expressive grey eyes. Her mother was from North Carolina and her father was from Sweden. Her parents had to flee to Sweden because of the death threats they got here due to their interracial marriage. When Candice finally made it back to the US, she was abused by her uncle and then her friend’s uncles. I asked her why she thought black women understood my story so well. She didn’t pause for a second but looked at me and said, “We know what it feels like because we’ve been beaten and raped for over three hundred years in this country.” That statement hit me between the eyes.
Because of our conversations and this story, Candice has decided not hide anymore from herself and has gone more deeply into her own healing process. In therapy I’ve found my voice. I’ve found the courage and the words to speak for that little boy who didn’t have a champion, who didn’t have a defender. My tears flow freely as I write this for that little boy. It’s about time he had someone who can articulate what happened to him and what it did to his innocence, trust and self esteem. I’ve heard incredible stories during the writing of this story and my years of therapy. I heard about Elaine, an abused homeless girl who cut her body so she could feel. Elaine works with the homeless to give them hope and purpose now. I met Amy, a former drug addict and stripper violently raped who lost her little girl because of the choices she made to mask the aftermath and pain of that experience. Amy decided to start dealing with her life instead of running and began making different choices. She cleaned herself up and fought to get her little girl back. Today she lives with her daughter again. I met Brad, a man raped and sodomized as a boy multiple times by farmhands in Nebraska. Brad made the unconscious decision to cope with those experiences by splitting his personality into multiples.
Brad told me he and his therapist counted around 15 separate and distinct personalities. Brad is a loving devoted father who has raised two children who know that he loves and supports them and who love and support him back in his journey. Brad is working on reconnecting himself. He struggles but endures. I met Rachael. Rachael was raped when she was 12 and was then forced to have sex with her brother as the babysitter watched. Rachael is a wonderful mom, beautiful woman and very capable flight attendant raising two well adjusted kids with her mother’s help. There are millions of stories like this around the world. This is for the Elaine’s, Amy’s, Brad’s, Rachael’s, Candice’s and all those others who have never had anyone speak for them. May I honor them in the way they truly deserve it. I’m privileged to know people who are more strong and fierce than any fighter pilot I’ve ever met.
They are the ones who move the world forward, who make a difference and who really matter. I would re-experience what I’ve endured to be at this place so I can give them their rightful voice. These people don’t leave big footprints in the sands of time. They don’t leave sports records or billions of dollars in the bank. They affect the people around them in quiet ways that is so much more powerful because they step outside who they have been, what their pasts are and they have endured. They are the bravest people on the planet. They put their personal demons aside, their pain and they move forward changing themselves through their healing and the people around them a little at a time.
They are the pebbles who create ever expanding ripples in the water of humankind. I am humbled to be a member of this courageous group of people. They are the people who are healing. They are working to keep their pain from spilling out into the world. Unfortunately there is another group of survivors who don’t. Victims of sexual abuse and assault can do equal damage to those around them if they haven‘t addressed their issues. They can be extremely self centered if they aren’t healing and tend to spread their pain to everyone they come into contact with. They perpetuate the negative in life.
Lori was one of those people. She was a beautiful woman I met through a mutual friend, Kate. I say met but Lori and I never saw each other face to face. We only knew each other by telephone and texting. Kate and Lori went to college together and were in the same sorority. Lori was the kind of woman that turns heads when she walked in the room or into a party. Every man wanted to be with her and around her. She knew it too. She was also extremely manipulating, angry and mean. Lori hated men. She grew up in a privileged neighborhood and family. In college she decided to be a call girl for fun. That led to stripping, a porn movie and heroin addiction. One night after a work shift at the strip bar, she was raped. She never sought help. She spiraled rapidly downward from there. Men were something to be used and then tossed aside. She got into trouble with the law. She had to be rescued time and time again. Kate was her biggest life preserver. She made it a game to steal other women’s boyfriends and then flaunt it. Lori desperately wanted to do things differently but couldn’t find the courage to get help or to behave in a different way.
She initially came into my life because of her own agenda. She wanted me to forgive Kate. She contacted me under the pretense of being interested in a relationship with me because she had seen me on an internet site. As we talked she admitted that she was Kate’s friend and asked me why I couldn’t forgive her. Kate and I had a casual sexual relationship during the time when I was angriest and most hurt about my last divorce proceedings. I tossed her aside when I was finished and she wasn’t ready to go away. She started showing up when I would end my airline trips at the airport. She constantly texted me and wouldn’t answer the phone when I called her back. It made me angrier and angrier. I projected my anger with Joanne, my soon to be ex-wife towards her. She kept trying to have a relationship with me when I didn’t want one. It got ugly. I finally complained about her to our employer. They told me they were going to fire her. I didn’t want to see that happen so I withdrew my complaint against her and then they threatened to fire me for filing a false complaint. It was a mess. I thought she was stalking me. What I didn’t know and what she didn’t understand was that she is psychically connected to me. She couldn’t go away. She didn’t have to check my schedule.
She just knew where I was going to be. The universe kept putting us together so we could work it out. It’s like she’s my soul twin. It confused her because she could feel my pain like it was hers. She felt my darkness and despair. She’d been seeing me in her mind and dreams for years and finally met me on an airplane one day. She knew what I was doing and who I was with without being told. She knew when I was having sex with someone because she could feel it too. She knew that if she told me what was going on inside her head, I would accuse her of being crazy. Kate defended me against those same people that were spreading ugly rumors even when I didn’t deserve it. She knew I was sleeping in my car in the employee parking lot one night because I couldn’t afford gas for the drive home. The outside air was below freezing. The next day she put money into my checking account so I could have gas and groceries. She gave me more loyalty than I gave her. I didn’t talk to her for almost a year.
Kate took some serious heat for her behavior from the company because she took full responsibility for what happened between us. They made her scramble to change her schedule to stay off my trips. They put her on probation. It was the first time in my life that a woman has ever done something like that for me. I didn’t think there was anything I could do to salvage my behavior towards Kate. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to go back there or cared to go back there. Lori convinced me that it was worth forgiving Kate for both our sakes. I asked her how I should do it. It was an interesting coincidence because at that time in my life I was exploring forgiveness and asking questions about how to forgive. I was trying to figure out how to forgive the unforgivable. As part of my therapy, I have asked how I can forgive. Since I’ve declared myself ready for it, I’ve begun to be shown the way.
I read an interesting article in the USA Today newspaper about the Amish and how they approach forgiveness. Never ask for something you aren’t ready to receive. “In it Steve Nolt, the writer of, “Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy Need” talks about how the idea of forgiveness is central to the Amish way of life and to their values system. They believe that unless they are able to forgive others, God won’t forgive them. They don’t try to forgive completely and totally at once. They don’t have to have all of the emotions sorted out before they extend forgiveness. Forgiveness is a long painful process that requires faith in God’s grace eventually taking care of the feelings of bitterness and disappointment when someone wrongs you. It simply takes expressing the intention to forgive.” (paraphrased from USA Today article by Kim Naseef dated October 2, 2007).
I realized I didn’t need any bible verses. I didn’t need any preachers. All I needed was the faith to accept the beginnings of forgiveness in my life. I decided I could do this and the transformation in my life has been amazing. Lori suggested that I write Kate a letter asking for her forgiveness and giving her mine. So I did. I think Lori’s purpose in my life wasn’t to help me forgive Kate, but to take me down the road to forgiveness for myself. That night I decided that if I could forgive someone else, then I could start to forgive myself. So I wrote myself a letter too. Here are both letters:
Dear Kate,
I hope this finds you well. I’ve done something that I shouldn’t have and I was wrong about in my relationship with you. When you came to me in honesty and tried to apologize for what happened between us, I ended up using you as an outlet for the anger and frustration I was feeling about the end of my marriage. I took it out on you personally and professionally and thankfully didn’t cause any more harm than I did. I did not return the loyalty that you offered. I did not return the understanding that you offered. I did not return the compassion you offered. You defended me even when you knew I was ridiculing you. You defended me when no one else would. You refused to let the rumors swirling around me affect the way you felt about me. You fed me when I didn’t have the money to do it for myself.
You came to me and in vulnerability you sought my forgiveness. In my stupid arrogance and pride, I refused to give it to you. I now understand that forgiveness is not a pick-and-choose proposition if you want to live the life I am choosing to do so now. I’ve spent a lot of my life asking others for their forgiveness and refused to give it when it was asked of me. So it’s my turn to ask the same of you. Please forgive me. Tonight Lori told me if I asked these questions about someone it would reveal their true character.
1. Would you give me a coat if I was cold? Yes you would.
2. Would you give me something to eat if I was hungry? Yes you would and have.
3. Would you come and get me out of jail at 3:00 a.m. if I needed help. Yes you would.
4. Would you give me an ear if I needed it and a shoulder to cry on? Yes you would.
5. Would you give me permission to be myself honestly and vulnerable without judgment? Yes you would.
So I would like to talk with you about this in person sometime if you would be willing to. I know that your intentions were honest, honorable and were coming from a gentle and loving heart. Please forgive me. I forgive you.
John
After I finished writing Kate that letter I sat down once again and wrote myself a letter of forgiveness.
Dear John,
I’ve owed you this letter for a very long time. You came into this world blameless. You had exactly the same innocence that every child who comes to this life has. In your pictures, you look so adorable and full of life. You look full of the things that make little boys who they are. You came to this world expecting and rightfully deserving the best that life has to offer. You deserved the full support love and protection that your parents could provide for you. Along the way though, you were robbed of that by a monster who called himself your father.
You mother is equally culpable in this because she was the adult and didn’t protect you from him even though she knew what the monster she was married to was doing to her little boy at night. Do you remember when you bounced on the bed and told her that you loved her “this much” while stretching your arms out as far as they would go in your little red plastic snow boots that were so popular in those times? But the monster came to visit in the middle of the night under the cover of darkness when he knew the light wouldn’t be there to illuminate his evil. He changed you. He took your innocence. He took your trust. He took your self-worth. You’ve blamed yourself for all these years for what he did to you. If you had just been a better boy. If you had just been more lovable perhaps the monster wouldn’t have done it to you.
But John, you were never at fault for that. You can forgive yourself for that. Even though you don’t have an obligation to. You can forgive yourself. As you got older and the aftershocks of his evil started to hit your life, it became confusing. The depression and anger towards yourself began to manifest itself in ways that led to shame for you. You experimented with other little boys begging them to fuck you. You were already withdrawing from the people around you into the shell you built to protect you from them and the world. You isolated yourself through your books and fantasies. You can forgive yourself for that. You spent hours alone in the bathroom. It was the only sanctuary in your own home from the monsters of your childhood. You can forgive yourself. If he had only left and stayed gone, it would have been easier on you.
But the monster stayed. He stayed and abused and took from you. You can forgive yourself for the casual sex, the manipulation and lies you told to get what you wanted from women. It has brought you much shame throughout your life. You can forgive yourself for that shame and for the behavior that leads to that shame. You can forgive yourself for the shame that the sex with men has brought. The disgust you felt in yourself and about yourself when you started having sex with men. And the confusion of who you really have been all of these years. You can forgive yourself. You can forgive yourself for the anger and petty resentments and grudges you’ve held over the years. You can forgive yourself for the immaturity that has held you back in your relationships and in your profession. You’re forgiven. You can forgive yourself for the many indiscretions you’ve had over the years regarding sex.
When you had to drink in order to have the courage to use self destructive behavior. You can forgive yourself for having sex with a man for the first time two nights before your first wedding. You can forgive yourself for cheating on her during your marriage with the men and the woman you had sex with. You can forgive yourself for allowing your beautiful boy to be adopted by an alcoholic abuser because you didn’t have the courage to stick it out and be a father to him. You can forgive yourself for the multiple relationships you’ve had over the years and the fear of commitment that has kept you from truly enjoying good women and the gifts they wanted to give you of their time, emotions and love. You can forgive yourself for almost having sex with a married woman in the bathroom of the house where your going away party was in front of your girlfriend who was later your wife.
You can forgive yourself for manipulating her back into your life so you could feel in control again when you were so out of control so much of the time. You can forgive yourself for having sex with her best friend those times at the end of your marriage to her. You can forgive yourself for being emotionally needy and wanting a relationship at any cost. You can forgive yourself for the affairs you had during your third marriage and the constant anger you felt towards her. You can forgive yourself for not being a man and a husband and a leader in your family during your last marriage. You’ve had so much sex and been used by so many people because you didn’t love and respect yourself enough to say no. You can forgive yourself. You can forgive yourself for the sex you had with men and women during your marriage when you were trying to fill an emptiness that no outside source could fill.
You can forgive yourself for wandering the halls of seedy gay bathhouses looking for a quick fix, a quick orgasm with an unnamed stranger. You can forgive yourself. You can forgive yourself now for your shame over financial struggles through a very difficult time. This truly will pass. You are a remarkable man, John, given where you’ve come from and what you were handed to deal with. You have accomplished so much in life. You’ve lived, loved, laughed, and cried many tears along this path and this road to redemption. You are remarkable in your emotional depth, your acceptance of people and who they are and all of their messiness. You are a warm, genuine, real man who knows how to forgive completely and totally. You have empathy for struggles because of your own. You have incredible loyalty to the ones you love and the ability to do the right thing because you come to the world from a true and honest place in your heart. Your heart has been broken so many times but you have more hope than anyone I have ever met in the potential of love with someone else. I truly admire and respect the man you’ve become and want to continue to become. You work harder at healing than anyone I’ve ever met.
Your presence and ability to make people feel at ease is a skill not many have. Your direct honesty is a refreshing change of pace in a world of people who are afraid of the truth. Your ability to boil a situation down to its most basic level is refreshing. Your ability to see yourself for who you truly are and your self-awareness is amazing. John you matter. You’re worth sticking around for. John, you can forgive yourself now. You have that pass that you so readily give out to others. I forgive you completely and unconditionally.
With much love,
John
When I finished writing those two letters the change in my life was amazing. I knew that I had to start telling the whole truth, not just the bits and pieces that make me look good. I started writing. I felt if I could face my demons and truths in all of their unvarnished ugliness, I might finally be able to cut away the psychic backpack I’ve been carrying around all my life given to me by my father. I didn’t need to abuse myself anymore. Little did I know that at first in my healing, those demons would still have a voice to remind me of their power. But they have eventually become quiet. When I asked Kate to forgive me and told her I forgave her, our relationship was renewed but in a different place. Today Kate is one of my most staunch supporters and defenders. She is my best friend. She has taught me lessons in the power of true forgiveness and unconditional love that no preacher can touch. I love Kate with the depth and breadth of my soul.
I tried to be friends with Lori. She was a nurse and mother of two. She was also still stripping and selling her body. Her self-destructive behavior finally overcame my patience. I told her to go away. She kept coming back because I wouldn’t give her what she wanted the most. She wanted to have sex with me so she could throw it in Kate’s face. I refused. She offered to pay me to have sex with her. I refused. I was the only man who had ever turned her down. She played games and harassed me via text messaging. I thought she had finally given up when I didn’t hear from her for awhile. Sam was her long time lover. He got tired of her games and told her to go away and grow up. She was married to a divorce lawyer until he found out about all of her extracurricular activities. He took custody of her children away from her.
That was the final straw in her pain. I had the bizarre experience of witnessing her suicide by text. I thought the last night of her life was just another game she was playing. The first message came to me on a drive home to NY from Boston. She said, “I always wanted to see the lights of New York before I left this earth.” I thought she was looking for attention. She asked me to forgive her for all of her behavior. I refused to because of her past behavior. She never once asked for real forgiveness even though she gave it great lip service. Her behavior never matched her words. Her text messages became more self pitying. I asked her if she wanted me to bring cake and balloons to her pity party. She asked me to tell her she was beautiful before she died. I refused. She asked me to forgive her again. I got angry. After a few more desperate text messages, I started to get concerned. I asked her where she was. She kept playing games with me. I called Kate who in turn called Sam.
He’s a highly placed law enforcement person who can find people quickly. He started looking for her. I told her I would come and have sex with her if she would just tell me where she was. She wouldn’t. At 2:00 a.m., I finally went to bed not knowing if this was another game. They found her in a hotel room overlooking Times Square at 3:00 a.m. She died two hours later. She left one last phone message she scheduled to be delivered to my phone after she knew she was going to be gone. I listened to a dead woman’s voice. It was sick and creepy. She didn’t focus on her children and the ultimate selfishness of leaving them behind. If I focus on the outside world instead of going into my head I feel much better. The work that we do really gets us through the hard times. Looking inward without healing equals depression. Focus outward instead of inward and you don’t have to be a therapist or author. Take a walk and observe the world. Otherwise the inward focus becomes like a boulder rolling downhill until all of the light is obscured by the granite. It’s like heading into a hole into further darkness until all of the light is gone. Lori existed inside her head. She lived in self-centered self-destruction and that‘s how she ultimately died. She tried to bring me with her. That’s what made me so angry with her that night.
She tried to bring me along on her final path to destruction. She tried to take me on her journey to death and it was up to me not to go there with her spiritually or mentally. I declined that invitation by getting angry about how stupid and self-destructive it was of her to do what she was doing. I asked her if she was thinking about her children. She told me they would be better off. That made me angrier. It was a measure of how far I’ve come not to go there with her. She was oblivious how to make life good and meaningful. She didn’t inquire and search it out. That’s always been my strength. I’ve constantly looked for ways out of the darkness. That’s your challenge too. Darkness wants company. Drinkers want drinking buddies because they want the alcohol. They don’t care who brings it or who is sitting next to them. Drug addicts want junkies for friends. They want junk and the junkies have it. Addicted people want to know there are others in their club. The darkness envelops them.
Looking and living outwardly is a more giving gesture and positive behavior. Quiet time, internal time is important and it allows you to take refuge from the world. It has to be done in a replenishing way instead of an isolating way. Farmers know this by not using the same field every year. It’s the same with humans. Conservation of energy is important but it can’t be self-centered. Lori was playing with my boundaries until the last moment possible in her manipulating and self centeredness and I wouldn‘t let her. She chose to die a long time ago. You make the choice. No one makes it for you. I got angry because she never tried to make meaningful changes until it was too late and then she lay dying in a lonely hotel room overlooking cold impersonal streets. Don’t wait, make the choice now. There was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. So in the end, a hooker, nurse, recovering heroin addict, stripper and mother of two helped m forgive myself. You never know whose life you are going to touch and in what way.
1
I had sex for the first time when I was six years old. One morning I lay in bed beating myself up pretty badly over having casual sex once again with a woman I barely knew. But I had to laugh. At least it was with a woman this time. The self-beatings around the subject and my behavior are brutal and come almost immediately after I finish the act. They last the entire day and sometimes drag on for days after. Sex is no fun anymore. I don’t think it ever has been. I’ve had too much for too long. When I’m having sex it’s like I’m standing on the sidelines watching. It’s called dissociation, which makes perfect sense given my first sexual experiences. I do the same thing under times of great stress. Sometimes I wish I had gotten paid for even some of the sex I’ve had over the years. At least I would have had something to show for it. I sometimes break the monotony while I’m with a woman by having private contests to see how many times I can make her orgasm. Sex with men has been different. I don’t have to be the aggressor, the dominant one. It has felt safer, almost too familiar in a sick kind of way. I don’t have to perform; I just have to be used. I haven’t really liked having sex with men or women. But most of all I haven’t liked myself. The chase was what it was all about. Sex has been about the thrill of seeing someone naked for the first time. It’s been about feeling yet another new body. I’m tired of it. Masturbation is quicker and easier these days. I don’t have to be concerned about being turned down.
Today’s technology adds a dimension, but the basic pattern was always the same: I’d find her through a personal ad or on the Internet. I’d fly to wherever she is to meet her for lunch. I was sure I was serious about developing something with the one in Syracuse. She wanted to check into a hotel that afternoon. She had plans to go with her friends to the Caribbean the following week. She asked me to meet her there. I hesitated because I didn’t want to barge in on a girls’ vacation. She assured me that it was OK. I felt sure I wanted to develop a future with her. I flew to the Dominican Republic and checked into my room. We were having sex five minutes after I got there. She had blond hair and a definite agenda. She was going to have me at any cost and when she was finished, tossed me aside casually with complete indifference. It was like I spent the next two days by myself. She and her friends talked about which restaurants had opened and closed in their town, but it was though I didn’t exist. She dismissed me with the same casual disregard I’ve shown so many times in my life to others. I remember at the time thinking, “So this is what it feels like.” It was a return of some of my own karma. It hurt. It happened to me a few more times before I figured out I was being used.
I’ve been confused about my sexual preferences all my life. I’ve been in continual relationships since I was 17 years old. I’ve been faithful very few times to my wives or girlfriends. In my marriages, I strayed when I knew that the relationship was past the point of fixing, but there are no excuses for being unfaithful. It didn’t have anything to do with my wives or girlfriends. It was about my own self-esteem issues and feelings of being unworthy and unlovable. My relationships have been about pain and abuse. She’s been abused too. It was her pain and my pain attracting each other like beacons in the dark. And then once together I could never separate myself from hers, mine and ours. Eventually we would use what brought us together to wound. It would drive us apart and sabotage what we were trying to create. In my relationships I’ve always been looking for the “greener grass.” I’ve looked to upgrade or improve on what I’ve had in front of me no matter how good it was. I’ve looked for the new chase and conquest. My relationships and my search for love have always been tainted with desperation. I’m like a wounded whipped puppy looking for a crumb of affection. But then I bite the hand that reaches out to pet me. There was one notable exception to my cheating.
I met her in Maine when I was serving in the Naval Reserves full time while waiting for my training slot to open at Always Airlines. We met one cold, snowy winter’s night on the sidewalk outside one of the many bars in downtown Portland. She was exotic and beautiful, an aerobics instructor. I wanted to be faithful to her because I was desperate not to lose her. I felt like the president of the chess club who finally gets to date the homecoming queen. I stayed in that relationship for as long as I could. But I eventually ran away from her because she was too normal for me and I was afraid my lies to her would eventually catch up with me. She didn’t make up drama and trauma where there were none. She was intelligent, grounded in her religious and spiritual beliefs, and wanted to live a simple life. She had a strong sense of right and wrong and was generous and warm hearted. She scared me. So I ran away and married my third wife. We reconnected about ten years later. She told me she had been carrying a torch for me the entire time we had been apart. She kept all the cards I sent her while we were dating. She told me she cried once a year when she read them. I told her two lies when we were dating 10 years prior.
When we were together the first time, she asked me point blank how many sexual partners I’d had in my life. I lied and made up a safe number that wouldn’t be too shocking or make her run away. She asked me if I had ever cheated on any of my partners. I lied again because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. This time around she wanted to make it work and so did I. We told each other we were in love. We began to plan for a future together, but I knew in my gut it was probably just a matter of time before I lost her again. I had to tell her the truth this time or it wouldn’t work out again. My lies would chase me until they came out, or I would end up sabotaging the relationship because I didn’t feel I deserved her one more time. I had to take the risk. It was terrifying to me to offer her the truth because of what I knew in my heart of hearts was coming.
When I finally told her everything, she was speechless. She cried. She had a panic attack. She asked me to write this story under an assumed name so her friends and family wouldn’t know it was me. I went home and tried to edit my truth to make it more palatable for her. It made me angry with myself almost immediately. I put everything back in. I let her read it in all of its brutally honest glory. She told me she couldn’t do it, that my past was too “colorful.” She was very kind about it, though, and I told her I understood. This is way too much even for me to absorb sometimes, let alone ask it of someone else. Her reaction and rejection of me for being honest with her brought up all the feelings of fear, shame, and embarrassment about my behavior and life. It took me the next 24 hours to work through all of these feelings and just sit with them instead of doing something self-destructive once again. I know that hiding would have ultimately cost me more in the long run. I’m glad I told her the truth. I won’t compromise and edit who I’ve been, who I am, and who I want to become ever again. It costs too much. It puts my truths back into the shadows. That’s where they grow in power and come out to defeat my efforts at being who I want to be. It’s scary to think about telling the whole truth. I’ve tried it a few times recently and have been surprised with the support and understanding I’ve received in return. But I’ve also still been rejected for it.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been truly in love, but I know I love my children. I’ve lied to countless people about my past with the rationale, “They don’t need to know all about me. It wouldn’t add to the relationship.” I’ve never really believed it myself. The one thing I’ve never kept a secret from anyone is that I do have children, who they are, and how much they mean to me. I’ve been married three times and engaged numerous times to various women. When people ask me how long I was married, I ask them if they want to know just the last time or the cumulative total. I laugh, but I still cringe inside. I tell people that I don’t have girlfriends, I just have wives; or, I’m not single, I’m just between marriages. I’ve fathered nine children. Five of them are still alive. Two of them have been aborted. Two were miscarriages. I could either be a poster child for Planned Parenthood or a guest on the Jerry Springer show. Laugh outside, cringe inside.
I’ve lied, cheated, and manipulated my way through sex with over 250 partners. Women have made up the lion’s share, but I’ve been with a fair number of men, too. I’ve gone through cycles where I think I’m gay and find men more attractive sexually than women. I know what triggers these impulses and responses. Wanting men usually comes during times of stress, or if I’m in a place where I don’t feel centered emotionally. These feelings come when I want to be used and debased by a man once again.
At times I’ve thought that I’m just avoiding commitment to anyone, including myself. That way I can keep the self-beatings coming for not being able to make a choice. Sometimes I’ve thought I want sex with men because of the experiences I had growing up, but I’ve always come back to women. Having sex with men was easier than picking up women for that purpose, but sex with men still left me feeling bitter over the fact that I was so afraid of being loved by a woman. For much of my life sex has been reactive and unemotional without much thought for the consequences or the psychological aftershocks. Most of all, I haven’t given much thought to how it might affect someone else. It’s been just another way to run away from myself, a way to fill a void with something on the outside. It’s been a self-destructive way to use myself. It’s never worked.
Emotionally during sex, I can stand at the side of the bed just watching, numb, and never participating fully. At various times I’ve used exercise, food, alcohol, relationships, and moving to different locales and cities in the same ways. But at the end of the day I’m still stuck with me. Sometimes I’m amazed I’m still alive. It’s been exhausting and demoralizing to me to live my lies. It’s given me plenty of time to think that I’m worth little to the world and to the people around me. That’s the lie my father taught me. I’ve chosen people who are not good for me and to me. I’ve chosen people who have victimized me, who have used me and thrown me aside. I’ve been scared out of my mind for most of my life. I haven’t been able to make up my mind because I haven’t been able to be clear about who I am and what I want. The fog is slowly starting to burn off in my consciousness, and I am beginning to see where I want to go.
Mostly I’m focusing on what has kept me alive to this point so I can stay that way. I graduated from college. Not that a college education is the end all be all to a successful life, but I was one of the few people in a pretty large extended family to do so. I’m a former enlisted U.S. Marine and retired Naval Officer who completed one of the toughest flight schools in the world. I went from E-1 (Private) to O-5 (Commander, which is the same thing as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force or Army). I served my country with distinction for 22 years. I’ve managed flight test engineers for a leading defense contractor, I’ve owned my own business, and now I fly people around the world for a major commercial airline. To the casual observer, my life has been a nonstop success, but my past has kept me in constant self-sabotage mode. For all my successes, I’ve had abysmal failures that I didn’t need to have. I’ve destroyed personal and professional relationships and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I’ve carried around terrible secrets. My father had the same confusions.