Onward into Faithful Rest: A Married Guy Attends the YOB Retreat for the First Time

Return to your rest, O my soul,

For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

– Psalm 116:7 (NKJV)

One evening at the YOB retreat, I shared with an other brother I did not know well that I was married. He inquired, “Does your wife know you’re here?”

My resounding, “Yes,” was met with a pause.

“...Does she know what this retreat is about?”

There’s a special tension for a married guy who isn’t straight hanging out with a bunch of mostly unmarried guys who also aren’t straight for an entire weekend. My wife’s and my kids already function like rabid squirrels who overdosed on energy drinks, so my departure anywhere overnight puts double the strain on my wife. Stress compiles all the more from a sense of wondering whether I would be attracted to any men attending over the weekend.

Questions swirl over how to demonstrate faithfulness to my wife and our kids – would it even be worth it for me to attend a YOB retreat?

I will not pretend that going on a retreat like this is not laden with multidimensional stress for a family. I cannot promise that attending is going to be the best decision for every guy in a mixed-orientation marriage like mine. What I can tell you is why I went, how my wife and I prepared, and the call I found to press onward into finding faithful rest for our stories.

I sought to enter this YOB retreat with hopes that friendship and brotherhood would continue to find their place in my journey. The last two years have felt jam-packed with unpacking the story of my sexuality, entering higher and higher levels of self-understanding while hitting missed adolescent milestones at a dizzying pace.

My family had seen me shed tears upon tears – angry, joyful, sorrowful – and I felt like I needed a moment to breathe among those other brothers whom I was coming to know as friends.

In recognizing this desire, my wife and I unpacked how we would prepare, primarily focusing on bodily boundaries, local support for my family, and mental preparation for attractive guys. On boundaries, my wife and I have continued to communicate openly about proper physical touch shared among brothers.

We know my love language is touch (and that hers is not!), and we want to foster that connection with friends in a manner that also brings us together in marriage. In light of that, I continued to repeat my intention to adhere to the “body boundary list of doom” we had co-written – almost to the point of annoying her.

To support our home, we sought out friends to ensure our kids would not rend the house from its foundations during my time away. We ended up connecting with a gay family friend who, while affirming, actively wanted to support our marriage by staying over with my family while I was gone. The blessing of his presence coupled with support from extended family ensured that my wife would not face as much strain from solo parenting while I was away this weekend.

Then there was the matter of good-looking guys at the YOB retreat. Of course, I knew I would be attracted to dudes there – God creates beauty everywhere! Having that foresight remains important in any circumstance, but especially among brothers who share this experience of same-sex attraction.

However, that does not mean I cannot have friends with similar patterns.

Rather, I have to ask: what do I do with the beauty I can see in other men? God willing, I am to venerate His image in my brother, pressing into healthy relationship, rather than steering away toward lust.

As I entered among these brothers for the weekend, I found that I was finding that space to slow down and venerate well. I felt safe knowing I was walking alongside men who were striving toward faithfulness to Christ and friendship with each other. Conversation after conversation reflected men of all different life stages and occupations endeavoring to walk a similar path.

Shared times for bonding felt settling, whether in working with one brother to organize a surprisingly challenging cardio routine, or in sharing with another brother how God had allowed me to see beauty in my story as I held his arm close and leaned against his shoulder.

As we sought how to embody this retreat’s theme of “onward,” both personally and communally, I found God calling my sexuality into finding its rest – a recognition that the supercharged processing I’d endured over the last couple years could slow down in a way that knew my desires both for brotherhood and marriage could coexist.

While getting to know my other brothers, I knew my wife was present with me. I felt her warmth as I wore the sweater she’d hand-knitted alongside my exuberant rainbow socks. I knew her close to me as I shared the intricacies of my experience with another brother, after which we texted each other our nightly call and response: “Please forgive me, I forgive you, I love.”

The little sleep I did receive amid all the conversations was spent with my head beside the icon of her patron saint.

By the end of this YOB retreat, the winners were revealed for three unique candles in our community. To my surprise as a first-time attendee, I found the Faith candle in my hands. When asked to speak on my win as “Mr. Faith,” I could only point to recognition of Christ’s mercy journeying with us wherever we would go as we departed.

Perhaps God saw in this moment a knowledge of His faithfulness to my wife and me, an affirmation that we would press onward together with faith in Him.

Returning home, I could tell how much good had been received from my other brothers. My prior experiences with receiving gentle physical affection continued to be affirmed as I played with my kids. Even as I write this blog weeks after the YOB retreat, I still see how I have become more patient with my kids by God’s grace, as known through my other brothers.

My wife and I ended up processing the YOB retreat over a date, the day following my return. As we enjoyed a delightfully fancy lunch, we recognized how our thoughts and feelings impacted us over the weekend, and how we pressed in toward each other amid them. She expressed how fear had crept in over the course of the weekend, including fears of my not coming back, even if she intellectually knew otherwise amid my texting.

I also unpacked how, yes, I did find some guys there attractive, but that I remained committed to her and to processing any feelings tied to these attractions in a way that would foster friendship well.

What struck me over the course of our date was how normalized it felt by the end of the afternoon. We had reached a point of recognizing the common challenges of a mixed-orientation marriage, but let them rest with a shrug and a smile rather than let them damper our fancy lunch and subsequent library adventure. That we could keep living the Christian life in a way that would be faithful to God, to each other, and to our friends.

Into that faithful rest we desire to continue entering. I have found friendship with my other brothers and learned from them how to keep entering into connection.

I have known the depth of my wife’s care and union with her, even amid logistical and psychological stressors. I have seen how God is faithful and can grant normalcy to our experiences, however off-kilter they can feel.

As the Faith candle now lights my wife’s and my home beyond the YOB retreat, we pray and press onward toward continued rest.

And may this rest be granted to each of our stories in faithfulness to Christ and to one another.

For other married guys, how do you press onward into healthy brotherhood with other men, non-straight and otherwise, while also pressing onward into a stronger marriage with your wife?