Mixed-Orientation Marriages and Mormon Truth Claims
August 31, 2021
A Facebook friend of mine recently reposted a post by Nicholas Applegate. Nicholas is LDS and in a mixed-orientation marriage (MOM). After reading Nicholas' post, I felt I needed to respond.
First, I want to defend Nicholas' right to choose his own life path—even the unpopular path he writes about in his post. He and his wife, Jordan, deserve respectful treatment for their courage to speak their minds. No one deserves to be attacked for following their conscience. And shame on those who have attacked them.
Nevertheless, a few points in his post require comment for the sake of uninformed people who might read it. My comments are in no way intended as a criticism of Nicholas and Jordan. But I feel protective of people who might read it and make incorrect assumptions about their own possibilities.
First, we need to be conscious about the specifics of orientation. Nicholas says he is "a gay man married to a wonderful wife." Sometimes men in MOMs label themselves as gay when in fact they are bisexual. The difference here is extremely important. Gay men (6 on the Kinsey scale) lacks the ability to feel sexual or romantic love for a woman and would have difficulty engaging in sex with a woman. Bisexual men (< 6 on Kinsey) would have at least some sexual and/or romantic interest in at least one woman and may be capable of having sex with a woman. The more heterosexual a bisexual person is (i.e., the lower they are on the Kinsey scale), the greater their ability would be to make a MOM work. Even so, MOMs are, by their very nature, inherently less stable than heterosexual marriages. For purely gay men (Kinsey 6), the risks from mixed-orientation marriages are tremendous to themselves, their wives, and their children.
Second, one should be cautious about certitude in young people. Nicholas has been married for less than one year. Life is vicissitudinous; people and circumstances change; needs intensify when left unmet. What works very well now may not work at all in 5, 10 or 30 years. I'm not presuming to foretell Nicholas' future, but I am cautioning others who may be considering pursuing an inherently unstable lifestyle to carefully consider how long they think they can actually maintain it. I would express this same concern to young gays and lesbians considering a single mormonism's false claims single celibate life celibate life, which is also extremely unstable.
Third, Nicholas asserts that "the only source of true joy in life is Jesus Christ, and that the only way I could fully experience that joy was to live the gospel as I had been taught it in the restored Church of Jesus Christ… and to have a celestial marriage with a worthy daughter of God." I acknowledge that such a path can be a joyous one—it was mostly joyous for me for five decades, 34 years of which I was also in a MOM. But the claim that it is the ONLY way to fully experience joy—a common claim among Mormons—is one of Mormonism’s false claims. It's just not true. Having spent decades as a psychotherapist watching many people, both in and out of the LDS Church, I've observed some very miserable Mormons and some very joyful non-Mormons. Having personally lived both in and outside the Church, I have personally experienced joy in both places.
Fourth, he states that "as difficult as it might be to be a gay man not living a gay lifestyle, it would be more difficult to live a gay life that didn't include active and worthy membership in Christ's church." I can't presume to know whether this is true for Nicholas. I simply wish to provide a contrasting view. During the decades when my orientation was a 2 or 3 on the Kinsey scale, it was somewhat difficult for me to remain faithful to my wife and stay within the boundaries of the Church. When my orientation shifted three years ago to a Kinsey 6, it became utterly impossible to stay in either my marriage or the Church. There was no peace for me in those places; the pain was excruciating. Since leaving the Church and living in harmony with my gay sexuality I've felt tremendous peace and psychoemotional simplicity unlike anything I experienced before. I know MANY others would attest to the same thing.
Now, the part where I wholeheartedly agree with Nicholas: I too "love my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ so much and I am so grateful for all the blessings they have given me" and continue to give me. But now I must again present a contrasting viewpoint: divine guidance through personal revelation is not accessed only through the LDS Church as Nicholas seems to suggest. The LDS Church teaches that personal revelation is dependent on being a worthy member of that Church. This is another untruth. Since I left the Church 2+ years ago I have not experienced any diminishing of spiritual action in my life. I continue to feel God loving and leading me. I attest that God can be found wherever there is love, humility, and a genuine desire to experience the Divine.
Having said all of that, let me conclude with support for Nicholas and Jordan. MOMs can work. No, I would never recommend it. Yes, they are inherently unstable and many do indeed fail. But some do work. Among the MOMs I've seen that seem to be working, I've noticed three factors: 1) the partners' are very compatible—they are true best friends, 2) the non-heterosexual partner is bisexual rather than exclusively gay, and 3) the bisexual partner has a very strong romantic love for the spouse. I'm supportive of individuals in such relationships who want to make it work.