When Two Ideas Get Married

One evening I sat talking with some men I know. As we talked, I had an interesting insight. The insight was that sometimes, in our minds, we get two or more ideas married together that really don't belong together. This certainly is not an exclusive tendency among men who struggle with SSA. I think that everyone does it.

As an example, I can remember that when I was a child, my mother would call us to lunch. When Mother said that lunch was ready, that meant it was time to sit down, pray, and begin eating. After I had been married for a long time (far longer than I should admit), I realized that when my wife said that we should have lunch, it meant that I should come and help her decide what to fix. For years I had assumed that when she said "let's have lunch" it meant that lunch was ready. For years she had assumed that "let's have lunch" meant "come and help me decide what to fix." I had married the idea that my wife's role was to fix lunch and call me when it was ready to her request that I come and help her decide what to fix. The two did not necessarily belong together.

In the realm of the struggle with SSA, the basic components are actually positive parts of life. In my simple analysis, it appears that there are two basics:

1. Every person has divinely inspired desires to marry and have children. Elder Packer, in an address years ago, made it very clear that these feelings come from our Father in Heaven. (Why Stay Morally Clean, Ensign, July 1972, 111; available at the Church Website)

2. Every person needs to have friends of the same gender, and needs the emotional support that comes from those relationships.

Both of these desires are good. Only when they are tied up together into one package do the SSA type problems arise. For example, I am lonely (a manifestion of #2 above); therefore, I need to act out my feelings of SSA (a distorted view of #1 above). Broken into their component parts, neither is, in and of itself, bad. Giving expression to feelings of sexual attraction within the bonds of marriage is not bad. Having male friends is not bad. Both are very positive parts of our experience and growth.

To my friends I suggested that they ought to look at what ideas they had married together in their minds. If the ideas are good but don't belong together, separating them can have a long-term positive effect.