Tom’s Story

Tom tells his powerful story of self-discovery and redemption. From his struggle with same-sex attraction, self-worth, overcoming sexual addiction, contracting HIV, his excommunication, and, ultimately, his regained faith and marriage to his wife—it’s an inspiring read!

I’ve never publicly done this before, so I hope it doesn’t bite me in the butt, but I feel the need to share my journey with SSA (same-sex attraction) in it’s entirety. I’ve shared pieces, but I’ve always held back on parts that I’ve felt embarrassed about. But, I think doing so now can help some of you. 

There are two reasons why: First is to discuss staying in the Church, even when things get really hard and mistakes have been made. This first reason is applicable to anyone, no matter where you are at or what your covenant path looks like. The second part of my story won’t apply to some of you, but hopefully it will help you to understand some of us who have chosen to marry. 

In regards to this second point: Over the years interacting in the LDS SSA/LGBT community, there has always seemed to be some tension between some single and openly gay, covenant-keeping men and those who who chose to marry women. Occasionally, things are said like, “You’re living a lie,” or “You’re not being true to yourself,”  or “I feel sorry for your wife; she must be suffering so much,” etc. These kinds of comments indicate to me that others really do not understand why these marriages occur. It’s not because we want to pretend to be something we aren’t—speaking for myself at least. As I am one of those men who is married to a woman (not as long as many other guys). I want to explain my story, and why I chose to do this, so that some of you can understand better. I’m not intending to be graphic in any way, and I hope my story doesn’t trigger anyone; but, I admit that there are many elements of my story that are depressing, and I’m trying to minimize that as much as possible. Also, there may be parts where you think, “Why is he talking about this? How is it related to his experience with SSA and marriage?” but I promise it all ties together.

I was born into a Latter-day Saint family; and I am the oldest of four children. While my family is from California, we moved to Utah when I was three, almost four years old. And, I’ll be honest, living in Utah created a lot of struggles for me. I didn’t recognize that I had SSA until my early teenage years, but there were definitely signs from the ages of about 10-12 years old. 

I struggled making friends when I was kid. I didn’t really start to develop friendships until I was in the 4th Grade; and even then, much of those relationships were only superficial. I had a bad time with bullying as well, up through 9th Grade. The bullying got so bad in 8th Grade, including death threats, that my mom had to pull me out of school. I definitely felt out of place all the time and was depressed. Some things in my home life, including a poor relationship with my dad, didn’t help with this either. It also  didn’t help that, in some ways, I was kind of a weird kid. 

Church wasn’t much better for me in regards to the social aspect. The other boys in my quorums were all about a year younger than me. They invited me to do stuff that was contrary to what I was taught was right, and when I refused it kind of turned me into their enemy. So, instead of having a unified quorum—for the one year each time I was with these boys—there were fights and bullying. Not trying to paint any of these guys as bad people.  My limited interactions with them many years later as adults, has shown me they’ve become decent men; but, when I was a kid, all of these negative interactions with other boys really left me craving real, deep friendships.

By the time I was around thirteen, I was exposed to written gay pornography online. My dad did I.T. for a living, so I never got away with viewing stuff. I don’t know how, but even if I cleared the history, etc, he always figured it out. I don’t know how prevalent video porn was online at that time, but I don’t think it was much, because streaming really wasn’t a thing yet. I don’t remember watching any videos that young. The issue of reading this stuff online went away for a while, and it was during this time, when I was 14 or 15, that a pivotal moment in my life occurred. 

I took the sacrament one Sunday, and had this powerful feeling come over me that struck me from head to toe. The feeling also came with a thought to my mind, and another to my heart. I don’t know how to explain it better than that; but, they were two different messages. The one provided to my mind said that I was forgiven of my sins. The thought/feeling given to my heart told me that the church was unequivocally true. I say “thought,” but that isn’t entirely accurate. It wasn’t words exactly; it was just this undeniable feeling that had a message included. It spoke to the deepest depth of my soul. This was the moment when I knew that the Church was true, and the experience was so powerful that I couldn’t deny it. Looking back, I know that the Lord gave me this experience at that time for a reason. In the coming months and years, I would start to spiral down a path that I shouldn’t have; and, if it wasn’t for the testimony I had received, I probably would have left the Church and never returned.

It was probably only a few months after this that I started reading pornographic stories again, and discovered masturbation. I remember feeling terrible after it happened. I only bring this up because of what happened afterward. I thought I was literally going to Outer Darkness, because I had that powerful spiritual experience a few months prior. I thought that I had denied the Holy Ghost by doing something that I knew was wrong, and that I was a Son of Perdition. This thought process had a terrible impact on me. I can’t explain the way I felt, but the closest words are empty and hopeless. I also didn’t mention this to a soul, so I just bore the hopelessness alone. This feeling/worry eventually went away, but it wasn’t until a long time after. (I came to realize what a Son of Perdition actually entails, and that I hadn’t done that; but, it still subsisted somewhat in the back of my mind.)

The summer before I turned 16, I started messaging a guy online who was in his mid-20s. From what I recall, I believe that I originally lied and told him that I was 18, but then later lied and said I was 16. He didn’t care and he wanted to meet me, so we did. He drove down all the way from Park City, but we didn’t really end up doing anything because I was too scared and asked to leave. I am lucky that I was able to just walk away from that situation. I didn’t comprehend how stupid I had been, and that I could have been seriously hurt or killed. The next day, my parents found the chat messages that I had with him, and they were furious. I remember my dad yelling at me that I wasn’t even 16 yet, but that I was already going to be excommunicated. They forced me to see the bishop. He told me that I hadn’t done enough to be formally disciplined, but that I wouldn’t be able to take the sacrament. I would then spend basically the next few years meeting with him every Sunday. 

I grew to have a serious addiction to masturbation and pornography. I know that there was a three-month period where I was able to stop, and, during that time, I was ordained a priest and received my patriarchal blessing. But, the addiction did eventually start up again, and would continue up through graduating high school.

My patriarchal blessing was interesting and very needed. By the time I had it, I had this weird experience in seminary that made me doubt my eternal worth. Long story short, because of a story I heard, I started to wonder if I wasn’t very valiant in the pre-existence, and at the last minute, I switched sides from following Lucifer to Christ—see this common theme of me believing that I am this fallen and terrible person? My patriarchal blessing addressed that, and told me that I had valiantly supported Christ, and it was why I was assigned to come down in the last days. So, that finally, fully, put to rest this terrible notion that I was somehow predisposed to want to follow Satan. 

The second thing mentioned in my patriarchal blessing said, “When the time is right, you are going to meet a special lady who will become your wife.” It then proceeded to describe some elements of my future family, which description made it clear that it would happen in this life (depending on my obedience, obviously). I don’t remember being shocked by hearing that, because I had never been “disgusted” at the idea of marrying a woman; but, I don’t know how much I believed that it would happen either. After this however, I really started to believe that it was possible.

The third relevant thing mentioned in my blessing was that the Holy Ghost would warn me whenever Satan, the Father of Lies, tries to entrap me with the pleasures of the world. I was warned that if I would ignore the Spirit on these things and hearken unto the Adversary, “Great sorrow and misery will come upon you.” And man, was that dark promise fulfilled to every last bit.

As I mentioned before, I began to struggle with pornography again after this, and it continued basically on-and-off for a long time. By the time I graduated high school, I was chatting with all kinds of guys online as well. 

At 19, I didn’t even have a thought at this point about serving a mission; I mean, I didn’t hold the Melchizedek Priesthood. I hadn’t been worthy in three years, and nobody really talked to me about serving a mission either, except for my mom one time, but it was a conservation that was had much too late. The Church had also “raised the bar” on worthiness standards a couple years before I started high school, so I, in a way, thought there wasn’t a chance that I could ever be ready to serve, so I didn’t.

At some point after I turned 19, I met up with a guy at BYU and took things too far. I remember thinking to myself, “Well, I’ve already done too much, so might as well go all the way.” Afterward, I drove 45 minutes back from Provo to Salt Lake just crying the whole way. I don’t remember what time it was, but it was dark, and I stopped at my bishop’s house and confessed everything right there. He told me that they would hold a bishop’s council the next week, and that I would probably be disfellowshipped; which I was. I was then excommunicated the next year at 20 years old, because I had continued the same behaviors. 

Most of the period I describe next was a pretty dark time for me overall, not a lot of good things happened in it. In fact, I spent a lot of time wishing I was dead. I prayed many times asking that God would just take me in my sleep. However, I was never willing to try to kill myself. I had already seen the devastation suicide, or attempted suicide, caused on my family.

Shortly after my excommunication, I moved to Orem where I met a guy who would be my best friend for the next seven years. He also experienced SSA, but wanted to figure out how to make it work keeping his covenants in the Church. He was one of the bright spots in my life during this dark time—he kept me sane I think. At this point, I wanted to figure out how to stop the behaviors I’d been acting on and get rebaptized. I had no desire to separate myself from the Church; I was just engrossed in addictive behaviors. 

While living in Orem my life imploded. I lost my job and I flunked out of school, because I was so depressed and could barely get out of bed half of the time. I then got evicted and moved in with my Aunt in Las Vegas, whose lifestyle didn’t help me at all in trying to get back to worthiness for rebaptism. So, I moved again to Arizona, where the rest of my family had recently gone. 

From the time that I left Utah, the following four years were basically much of the same. So, I still went to Church, but I couldn’t get myself worthy. I struggled so badly with one-night stands and the like. I even tried seriously dating guys a few times, but it would only last a few months before I felt like I had to stop, because I knew that it was wrong. 

I think that North Star created a Facebook presence during this time, so I started to interact with some people there. This was reassuring, because for the first time, I found out there were more than just me and my friend that actually wanted to make it work in the Church. During all of this, I was often one of the most active members in my ward or branch. My YSA branch president told me, more than once, that he could rely on me, an excommunicated member, to help when it was needed; more than anyone else.

It was during this time that a couple more pivotal events occurred. The first was that I was diagnosed with HIV at the age of 25. This was a moment of utter devastation for me. I thought at that moment that I would never get married, never have children, and I would spend the rest of my life alone. I completely broke down bawling my eyes out in the doctor’s office when he told me. I was in such a state that he ended up calling me after I left to make sure that I was okay to drive home. I believe that I got HIV because the Lord was trying to give me a wake-up call, and it helped for a while; but then it didn’t. Even if I stopped having sex, there was still pornography, and I couldn’t get myself to stop. The thing is though, I would eventually find out that being HIV positive doesn’t mean what it used to. 

Modern medicine allows the virus to be suppressed, so that I can live a normal, long life (which is also something my dad promised me in a blessing before we knew this). Medicine is also now shown to prevent the transmission to other people during sex or through blood contact, as long as you have been on the medicine for at least six months and the viral load is undetectable. This last one wasn’t confirmed until I had been on the medicine for a year or two, though, which was the first time that my mind entertained the idea of marriage; though, I doubted that anyone would want to marry me.

I also chose to drop out of school shortly after that, because I hated it. I had been getting a degree in a field that I hated, because my parents had said it was practical. I had decided I was done, and that I didn’t need a degree for what I wanted to do. However, a few months later, while sitting in an institute class, I received a very powerful feeling of inspiration—similar to the one that had given me a testimony—telling me that I was to re-enroll in school immediately the next semester, and that I was to get a degree in religion. So, I did as the prompting told me. I should note that this was one of the very few moments of inspiration that I received during the time that I was excommunicated, as those moments always seemed to happen when I was in an already-dedicated spiritual place.

So, I went back to school and started to work my way towards a bachelor’s degree in religion. I thought, because of this, that it was likely that I needed to attend BYU. I didn’t know anywhere else that I could get a degree on such a topic that could also be Church-focused. However, being excommunicated, and having poor grades from my flunking out of UVU when I lived in Orem, made that unlikely.

I talked to someone at BYU who said, even if they could make an exception based off of my membership status—which was still a long shot—I had to fix my GPA, and that meant re-taking the classes I had flunked at UVU. So, after a couple semesters, I decided that I was moving back to Utah to retake those classes, and then see if I could either finally get myself in check to be rebaptized or get an exception so I could attend BYU. However, another pivotal moment happened. 

While at a fireside at the Church building next to the Phoenix Temple, where the temple president was speaking to the young single adults, I had another moment of revelation come: “You are not to move out of the State of Arizona until you have found your wife!” It was said to me with a lot of emphasis and seriousness. This was the first moment in a very long time, since my patriarchal blessing, that I knew the Lord still intended for me to marry a woman. I still didn’t know how that would work, but, in that moment, I realized very clearly that my past mistakes had not changed that expectation from the Lord in regards to my life’s plan. So, after this I switched plans, stayed in Arizona and enrolled online at a non-denominational Christian university to get a degree in religion. From the point of this prompting, it would still be years before I met my wife, and I figured if I had to stay in Arizona, then she must live there too. Although, I eventually would find out that was incorrect.

During the coming years I still continued to struggle with the same things that I always had. I just didn’t understand how I could possibly ever overcome any of this. Surely I had to be rebaptized before I’d meet Cherry. The Lord had told me something, and while I didn’t doubt it could happen, I just didn’t see any possible way that could open up.

Interestingly, I had repeated a few thoughts over the years to myself: “No girl date will date me if I have SSA”; then it was, “No girl will date me because I’ve acted on it”; then, “No girl will date me because I’m excommunicated”; and then it was, “No girl will date me because I have HIV.” But, every one of these narratives ended up being false. Now, I’m sure that there are plenty of girls who wouldn’t have, but the girls I took an interest in were never the kind to do so. Of course, I was told things like, “If we get married, it needs to be in a temple, so you need to get rebaptized.” Of course, every woman has a right to those standards. But, as long as I was working towards those goals, they were still willing to date me. 

I have to admit, what surprised me the most was that there were women I dated who didn’t mind my HIV status. I’d hear things like, “Oh I have friends who have HIV. I know how it works. I’m not worried about it.” That was something I never considered possible. Eventually, with all of these girls, the same things would happen: Either I didn’t find myself interested/attracted to them long term or they moved away to other States, so things died off. And in the bouts between dating, I’d fall back into my bad habits—the cycle kept repeating.

Then when I was 29, one of the most difficult things in my life happened. My best friend, who had been married for a few years to a nice girl, and had three or four kids together with her—I don’t remember—he had ghosted me for a while, and then messaged me to tell me that he had been suicidal and depressed over his life. He told me, that God had told him, that there is nothing wrong with being gay and the prophets are leading us astray. He then told me that he felt nothing for me—not love, not hate; nothing—and that he never wanted to speak to me again. He then proceeded to divorce his wife shortly after that. I was heartbroken, for a few reasons: because (1) he was my best friend and he hadn’t told me how he had been suffering until after the fact; (2) he decided he wasn’t going to stay on the covenant path anymore; and (3) he wanted nothing to do with me. I can’t explain the level of heartache that I felt from this. It hurt so bad, and it took a good year for that pain to start to go numb.

However, a couple months after this event, I started to use the Mutual LDS dating app. In the course of using that app, I had this thought come to me a couple times that said, “You need to set the parameters to talk with women all over the world”; so that’s what I did. Through this, I eventually met my wife-to-be. 

It was interesting, because she was the only one that I talked to long-term on the app. With everyone else, the conversation would just die at some point and never pick up again. With Cherry, we just kept talking day after day. At first, it wasn’t that either of us had this romantic feeling or connection; we were just talking; we were friends. However, there came a point where I was like, “You know, I think I really like her.” So, a couple months into talking I told her everything. I told her about my SSA, that I was excommunicated, that I had HIV—everything. And every time I told her something new, her response to me was, “I love you now more than I did before.” After we had been video chatting and messaging for about 7-8 months, I eventually went to visit her and I spent a couple weeks with her;  visiting her family and friends in the Philippines, etc. We then got engaged outside the Manilla Temple.

During all this time that we had dated, I had somehow found the self-control to not act out sexually anymore. I think this really came down to feeling committed and loyal to her; so I wasn’t going to betray her trust having sex with some random guy. 

A couple months after I returned home from my trip to see Cherry, I was finally rebaptized. I then had a prompting that I needed to make another trip to see her. So, I went in February of the following year. After which, when I came home the world closed down due to COVID-19. We would spend a little over two years apart because of the pandemic. Her visa to come to the United States for marriage was on hold as the embassy was closed. I will admit that there were a couple times where I thought to myself, “Maybe this is the Universe telling us that we aren’t meant to be.” But then, I would receive a spiritual slap in the face saying, “You’ve seen so many miracles, even just to be able to afford meeting her, and afford the visa, etc. You know that you are supposed to marry her.”

Finally, after two years, her visa was approved and she came to the United States. We got married the following month. And basically that’s where the story is currently as not much more has happened. There is a lot more to be written in the future, but one thing that I can say with certainty is that I am happier now than I have been in a very long time. My wife makes me happy; being a member of this Church makes me happy; being worthy to enter the temple makes me happy. Because I lived outside of those covenants before, I can tell everyone that living the gospel of Jesus Christ is what brings lasting peace and joy. You cannot find it sexually acting on homosexual attraction. No. For me, it was definitely where my greatest sorrows came from (and fulfilled that warning from my patriarchal blessing). I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and His atoning power that exists. I am grateful that even someone like me, who messed up more times than I can count, can be forgiven of their sins. I know that staying in this Church is the right choice, and that even when things are terribly hard, terribly low, or depressing, that the Lord can guide us and pull us out of the darkness; even if it takes eleven years for it to happen, like it did for me. You just can’t give up.

— Authored by Tom