Retreat?

While things have continued to evolve as will become clear in my next post, the only way I can track my own evolution is to remember all of my steps, even ones that have already modified. So here is the other post I wrote last week on vacation:

Our vacation continues. Things continue to become clear. Carrie and I talk, we think of our situation and the possibilities, and we make love – passionate love borne of desire and surely a dose of terror. I realize that this talk of a marriage of convenience – share a bed but not our bodies – can never be. Our relationship while built on friendship was forged with passion. That “ring” cannot be changed – thrown into the fires of Mount Doom and destroyed, but not bent into an unnatural configuration.

So we lay there discussing where next. CL, looking to “force” a relationship: the madness of that became clear in the last post. Carrie suggests finding a retreat. Last month in my other online world, that was mentioned. A man – Richard – went on one, a country setting under three hours from where I live: a controlled environment for emotional exploration, not an orgy.

At the time it caught my eye, but there were two problems: how to broach the subject with Carrie and my fear of retreats. The first problem: solved when she broached it with me. The second is much more problematic. The thing with retreats is they require an element of letting go. As you may have discerned from my writings I have some issues regarding control. There is no solution to this problem – no solution other than take a risk and leave the comfort zone.

As I have thought of this, it feels right as a next step. And if not this, a bi/gay husbands group – not online but in the flesh. The issue is simply that I need to better understand myself. I do not believe I can save my marriage – at least not in a healthy fashion - through repression or avoidance. Trying to answer “Who Am I” by looking for a “boyfriend” may lead to some pleasurable times – innocent and carnally – but ultimately I am not sure it gets me closer to that answer.

And if the answer is simply I am a gay married man, then I can make decisions. A reasonable decision may very well be to table the gay for many reasons – you know them all. It also may not be. But after close to a year, TGT is apparently not going quietly into the night.


Prior to posting this, I went back to my other vacation posts - get a sense of continuity which I lost while away and I was struck by one thing I had written: (How can I) ignore that mere mention of gay sex in our bedroom puts me over the top. I have thought of that line and have a confession - a confession to myself. The fact that sexual images excite me and that images with men excite me unduly comes as no surprise. The thing is that when Carrie and I discuss my gayness in the most general terms, I find myself aroused. And that is just tough to explain away.