Re: Here's something
Submitted by F.O.D. on June 14 1999 at 14:19:00
In reply to Here's something Submitted by Adam TBK on June 12 1999 at 23:08:05
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Hi Adam, I want you to know I appreciate you sharing with us what happened with you and your OF. I hope you'll feel comfortable to talk to us about everything that might be on your mind. I figure it will be good for us, to get another perspective about the effect we might have on our YFs, and good for you too I suppose, to let it out. I can see how much love there was between you and he, and I can understand the anger and frustration you feel from having that love pulled away. Feel free to vent on us, and if there's anything you ever wanted to say to your OF, but didn't feel you could say it face-to-face, then maybe you can express it here. There's one thing in your history that's not clear to me. You said he brought religion into the relationship only after a couple of years. Do you mean he only became religious himself at this later date, or that he was religious all along, and just hadn't shared it with you at all at first? If it's the former, then I'll pass on another thought or two, but it won't make sense unless he was suddenly converted like that, so I'll wait for your answer. I suppose it's not going to be much consolation, but in my opinion he was wrong to pull back from you like he did. The way I view my relationship with my YF, we've invested so much emotional currency into each other, that I believe it would be criminal to abandon him at this point. Having started loving him, I feel the responsibility to continue loving him to the end. That's why I continue to provide for him as well as I can at long distance (I'm waiting for him to get online any day now), why I'm having him visit over the summer, and so on. I'll keep giving him hugs as many as he wants and more than he wants. But it is true, I don't consider having a hug to be quite the same as having sex, you know. Still, it's hopeless, in some ways, I'd hope he'd do what you said in your other post, about convincing me not to hold back. There's something else I noticed in your history, I don't know if you ever thought about this angle before. You said he started pulling back from you at the same time he brought religion in, but you also said this was the same time when he told him about your attractions to other boys. That makes me another dynamic at work here. If I am going to enter into an intimate, sexual relationship with someone, I will want us to be committed to each other. I will want to know that I will be able to give all my love to that person, and he to me. But, what you were expressing to your OF, as it appeared to me, in seeking a sexual relationship with another boy, was that either he is not going to be able to be enough for you - you will always be looking out for another, or that you will not be able to be wholeheartedly committed to him, or both of these. Jealousy, and an acceptance on his part that he is not what you ultimately want. Jealousy can tear a relationship apart on it's own, you don't need to bring religion into it to get that done. If this was the case, then you could say he was really hiding behind religion as a means of pulling back, but the real reason was simple jealousy. I can't know if that's the case or not, but have you ever thought about in these terms? I know if my YF started telling me about everyone he was falling in love with, I'd take it as clear indication he's not fallen in love with me, and so I should consequently be careful not to think of our friendship as more intimate than it really is. Is your OF online today? Do you think it could be useful for him to invite him here to CBF? He probably has absolutely no one in the world to share about the feelings he had (and still has?) towards you. Bottling it in sucks big time. All the best Adam. I hope the smileys will yet return. Fod |