Help Me If You Can I'm Feeling.... Human

[Galien]

Hi. I could use some feedback.

 

I stopped going to church 4 years ago after I decided I was tired of living my life without sex. 9 years in a cult and 10 years in a Pentecostal church drove me as close to crazy without committing suicide as I could possibly get. I had developed a serious obsession with doing the right thing, with pleasing god.

 

For most of my life I have had fairly stringent morals, for want of a better word. I don’t lie, ever, except about three that I told over the deciding to have the sex affair about where I was going those nights to my over inquisitive child. I still feel very guilty about those lies four years later. Other people and their needs and hearts always come before mine, a variation of Jesus first, yourself last and others in between. In my head, everyone is equal and everyone’s heart is precious. You don’t ever fuck with anyone else’s emotions. You never cheat on a partner, ever. You don’t worship stuff, your inner life and character development, and how you treat others is more important than anything. Status, ego drivenness and the need for power and control over others, the stupid hierarchical pecking order of this world are stupid illogical concepts that don’t deserve my though time. So that’s about where I have been at for most of my life. Needless to say with attitudes like that in this charming world I have been fucked over again and again in my naivety and even innocence in some areas. For a long time I believed that every one else was like me inside, until the pain produced by multiple fuckings over proved to me otherwise. Jury is still out on what I believe about god, the universe and everything.

 

At 17 I married my boyfriend because you don’t have sex outside marriage. He punched me around for 2 years till I left and in my despair and emotional damage from a very abusive childhood and a marriage breakdown at 19 I became a prostitute for three months. The guilt over that kept me drunk for the whole three months and stayed with me for the next 20 years. I could not forgive myself for it, and I believed my love for god and my guilt would keep me free of “sexual sin”. In the end the pressure grew too much and after nine years of celibacy and and a change of medication my hormones went off like a volcano.

 

Since then my sex drive has been momumental and I am having trouble working out who I am now. How do I rein this thing in, and what basis do I use for deciding what is okay and what isn’t?

 

Eighteen months ago I was seeing 2 guys for 5 months. I loved them both. they both knew about each other. I never do anything under wraps. I never even knew a person could care about more than one person at a time. At one point I had five fuckbuddies and was happy seeing all of them.

 

Does that mean I am a shameless slut? Probably. Slut doesn’t even have any meaning for me any more. I seem to have no sense of guilt over my sexuality at all, which is directly the opposite to the way I used to be. What I don’t want to do is hurt people. I have a partner at the moment I have been living with for 3 months. I love him, but am not “in love” with him. I chose him because he has a beautiful heart and I know he would not hurt me. I don’t want to hurt him either, but I find myself having strong sexual and emotional feelings for other men.

 

Does this make me an evil bitch now? I am not even sure. I don’t know what other people do with these feelings because I have been out of the loop of normal human behaviour for so long. I repressed every single need I had. I can create the opportunity to meet other people and fuck them. Should I do that, would I, and if I did what would that say about me? Do I have the capacity to look into the eyes of my partner and lie to him? I don’t think I could. I would be more likely to tell him what I am considering. where is the person I used to be?

 

Now Pandora’s box has been opened and I am fucked if can get the contents back in. I know I have the capacity to love more than one man at the same time. Who will I be now? I no longer have the same base I had before to make these decisions.

 

Help.

[florduh]

There is nothing intrinsically abnormal about having multiple partners. Society's rules vary in time and location. Your pain and confusion comes from the fact that most other people in your society currently don't understand or endorse your natural state. No one should have any guilt because of their sexuality. We love whom we love whether it's one, two, three or more people. Society tries to limit us to one each, however.

 

Unfortunately, western society raises insecure and jealous men (women too, but men are real pissers about that stuff). It would be difficult to find two or more suitable men who wouldn't feel threatened by the presence of other men in your life. Still, it's worth trying because it's the right thing for you. Good luck, and don't feel weird about it.

 

Damn, I wish I lived in Australia.

[onequestion]

Note from moderator:

 

No proselytizing allowed in the Ex-Christian Life forum. By definition, a Christian knows nothing of life after leaving the cult, therefor, they have no cogent advice to offer. An honest Christian would realize that right away.

 

Christians are welcome to post in sixteen of the fora on this site, but not in Testimonies at all and only in Ex-Christian Life if it's damned appropriate. Whether it's appropriate or not is subject to staff approval and usually comes down to a Christian struggling with not being able to believe any more.

 

Since the OP replied to this poster's comments, the following posts as of Feb. 2 will be allowed to stand.

 

Moderator Loren

[florduh]

The response from 'onequestion' is not helpful. It should be excised, in my humble opinion. It was religion that inflicted a lot of the damage in the first place.

[onequestion]

The response from 'onequestion' is not helpful. It should be excised, in my humble opinion. It was religion that inflicted a lot of the damage in the first place.

 

I wouldn't have posted it that way if she hadn't said, "Jury is still out on what I believe about god, the universe and everything." I was just giving one perspective, since I figure most of the posts will be different from that. If I offended anyone, I'm sorry, and I wouldn't have said any of it if the post had seemed decidedly ex-christian or otherwise uninterested, but when I was "jury is still out," I thought, well, here are my 2 cents.

[florduh]

The sexual repression from the church pushed her into a premature marriage. When you have normal sexual appetites with no outlet but marriage, it causes problems. I would venture to say she may not have encountered an abusive husband were it not for the religious brainwashing.

[onequestion]

I'm not sure how all of your posts have ignored the childhood abuse aspect, as if it has nothing to do with anything. And I also don't understand the sexual repression thing. I'm a 21 year old and I've never had sex in my life, but I'm not getting married or seeking abusive men.

[dagnarus]

As to the one question, thing, I agree with florduh. He's She's just trying to guilt you into signing your life over to Jesus.

 

As to your question. I'm getting the sense that your problem is something along the lines of, before you had Christianity to tell you who you are and how to think, now you need to find out who you are and how to think for yourself?

 

Anyway I personally would advise against lying, as being a bad idea, if you start fucking people over you may find yourself in a situation where you alienate people. Other than that the question really should be, is your partner comfortable with an open relationship? Are you willing to have a closed relationship to stay with him. Basically you need to work out what you really want out of life and how to get, you probably won't be able to get everything but you should be able to get at least something. Also is probably the matter that considering other peoples needs doesn't automatically mean that you have to completely relegate your own. You might want to consider counseling if your sex drive truly is so high as to be causing you problems.

[Galien]

I'm really sorry for everything you've been through. I don't know if I really have a right to post here, but I just wanted to point out that I'm really sorry about your childhood abuse, and I can't help but think that led into your abusive marriage, or at least has something to do with this lust stuff you have going on. It's none of my business, but have you thought about seeing a counselor to try to work through some of the childhood abuse and get perspective on where you are now?

 

Thanks onequestion. Life sucks for all of us at times. I have been seeing counsellors for the past 20 years and have finally worked through a lot of my childhood stuff, but mainly since I left church. All they did was confuse me further.

 

Onequestion:

You called yourself a slut, as if that's who you are permanently, as if God wouldn't forgive you.

 

 

I guess I am really at the point now where I don't really care if he does or not. I do have PTSD, but ti is mainly from my invovement with a cult, a church and then a christian organisation I worked for. For me the word slut no longer really holds any meaning, there is certainly no emotional response. I thought everyone knew a slut is just a woman acting like a man.

[Loren]

I thought everyone knew a slut is just a woman acting like a man.

Perfect!

 

Just like King Solomon.

[Brakeman]

galien28,

 

People have sex for more than one reason. I greatly regret trashing a couple of relationships in my younger years because I couldn't stop wandering. I'm not sure if was the adulation of someone new, or just the morbid curiosity that drove me to cheat. The sex was definitely better with the girlfriend than with the strangers. I guess what I'm advising is the grass isn't really any greener over the next fence, so ponder what you really really want. Good luck.