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I asked several leaders in ex-gay ministry to name for me the five or six homosexual overcomers who were in their view the "most healed." They could be either people in their own ministries or people they have known nationally through the Exodus network. Almost every person named was a married man.

On a purely statistical basis this should not be so. The majority of people to whom we minister are single. What does this mean? An obvious answer would be that most men, after their healing had progressed to a certain point, do get married. This is probably true, but I want to suggest a correlation between healing and marriage that could be a good bit more significant for our ministries. These men are not married because they are more healed, but that they are more healed because they got married. In other words, marriage is a part of the healing process.

I see the red flags going up. You mean that you cannot be healed if you don't get married? Are you saying that marriage proves that you are healed? Is this the old statement that marriage will take care of your homosexuality? No, no, no; none of the above. I certainly know from personal experience that marriage does not heal homosexuality. I was secretly homosexual when I married, and I was homosexually active for ten years in the marriage and almost destroyed several lives in the process. The married men who come to our ministry for help -- probably about one-third of our clients -- are proof that marriage does not equal healthy heterosexuality.

Let me explain what I do mean. First, however let me mention that what follows deals with men only. Sadly, our ministry has not had a great deal of experience with women who marry when coming out of lesbianism. I believe that one reason for this is demographic; women coming to us are typically in their thirties or forties and in that age group available Christian men are few and far between. Also, where the lesbianism has been rooted in abuse by men, a very high degree of healing may be necessary before marriage can be considered.

In what follows, I am assuming that both the overcomer and his wife are committed Christians. I can identify three things that happen in marriage that can be powerful forces in the healing process -- elements that are not available or are less likely to be present in the single life. Let's look at them and then take a larger look at marriage and the homosexual overcomer.

First, to a great extent our manhood develops as we live out our lives as men; we do the things that men do. What most homosexual men lack is an inner sense of their own manhood. In many ways, they may not have actually developed the masculine side of their being. Living as a married man; loving a woman, caring for her and protecting her -- even opening the stuck pickle jar and putting out the trash -- nurture a sense of manhood in us. Fathering a child and then facing and living up to the challenges of fatherhood enhances one's identity as a man. I can remember the Saturday mornings, a few years after I came out of homosexuality, when our little boy would come and climb in bed with us. With one arm around my wife and the other around little Steve, I never felt more complete as a man.

Second, in marriage we have a chance for our sexuality to become reprogrammed. Most of us spent years programming our homosexual responses. Years of fantasizing, masturbation, acting out with other men, all etched into our being; patterns of stimulus and response that, barring a miracle, powerfully resist change. In the delight of heterosexual intercourse -- men and women do fit together -- the old patterns of response can die out. Assuming that a degree of emotional healing has taken place and the old non-sexual urges that fueled the homosexual drive have diminished, sex with a man becomes a more and more remote consideration. Then achieving a degree of abstinence from homosexual images, the joys and pleasures of the one-flesh union according to God's plan keep furthering our sexual reorientation.

Finally, healing can progress as marriage and fatherhood help bring us out of the narcissism to which single men, and especially gay men, are so prone. In marriage there is another party who must be considered in every decision. In marriage we have an opportunity to learn to love someone as Christ loved the Church; we learn to die to our selves. This is totally incompatible with the self-centered homosexual neuroses. Marriage and fatherhood further our healing by helping to set us free from ourselves.

So, every male homosexual overcomer should rush right out and get married, right? Well, not quite. I do believe that almost every one of you should get married, but as Ecclesiastes says, there is a time for everything. The leader of a sister ministry said to me the other day, "You know, I can't say this publicly, but I believe that every one of our guys should get married." I come close to agreeing with him. Christians today look on marriage as an option. I don't believe that this is God's clear message. He said that, "It is not good the man be alone." (Gen. 2:18). In all of Scripture, this statement is qualified in only two ways. Paul, in I Cor. 7:32-35, describes how our Christian service might be carried out better if we are single. But he assumes marriage for most Christian leaders -- as he tells how elders and deacons should be husbands of one wife. He also encourages the single to stay single because of the "impending distress." (I Cor. 7:25-27) This could mean either the coming persecutions of Christians or what he thought was the imminent return of Christ. In either case, one can hardly believe that this was intended for the entire church in all times.

Taken on the whole, it appears to be God's intention that every man marry unless he is called to a special ministry in which singleness is definitely preferable. God's plans always prove to be totally practical. Many sociologists recognize today that marriage is a great civilizer of unruly men. The married man is far less likely to engage in violence, to be in prison, or to be an alcoholic than the married man. He also lives considerably longer. Almost every man coming out of homosexuality who considers marriage confronts the question: When am I ready? This question is especially perplexing because we sense that we do not have to wait until we are "totally healed." In fact, if the thoughts I offer here are true, it is normal to expect certain parts of the healing to take place in the marriage.

Obviously eventual marriage is dependent on when God brings the right woman along. However, many men in our ministrles may not be recognizing this woman because they are not open to the possibility of imminent marriage. I believe that many more of our men are ready to marry, but are holding back, than are trying to rush into marriage too quickly or for the wrong reasons. Are you ready to consider marriage? Clearly, this is a subjective question, but let me offer some thoughts to be considered as you look at your own circumstances.

1. Behavior -- No man should consider marriage until he has been free from acting out homosexually with another person for at least a year; hopefully a good bit longer. You should be free from regular use or pornography or any other addictive forms of behavior. For most single men (and many others) some struggles with masturbation continue on for a long while, but even this should not be totally out of control.

2. Dealing with the underlying issues -- You should have gained a fairly good understanding of the common underlying issues in homosexuality, have acknowledged your own emotional, sexual identity and "woman" issues and be well along in dealing with them. Acknowledging your issues is critical, especially if there are unresolved mother issues that could be transferred to your wife.

When are you far enough along in dealing with these things so as to consider marriage? No one can answer this question with absolute certainty. Knowing how deceitful the human heart is, we can't fully trust our own judgment. The best assurance is to seek out the counsel of mature Christians who know you well; your pastor, counselor, or if you are in an ex-gay ministry, the ministry leaders. In this situation there is certainly much wisdom in many counselors.

In Regeneration, where we have gotten to know both the man and the woman, we have had a fairly good record in offering counsel in this area. Most of the marriages that we have encouraged have worked out; most of those who married after our warning not to have not lasted.

3. Sexual attractions -- At the point at which you marry, it is most likely that your primary general sexual attractions will be to the same sex rather than to the opposite sex. Receive this in the context of what was said earlier about our need to be reprogrammed in our sexuality, a reprogramming that, for the Christian, can hardly take place outside of marriage. Receive it also in the context of what follows about "the woman."

A positive factor to be considered here is that, as we meet the underlying needs that drove us into homosexual behavior, and as the wounds that we carry are healed, much of the power goes out of the homosexual drive. Habits, or programmed patterns of stimulus and response, become what we are dealing with rather than a craving to fill an enormous emotional void.

4. "The Woman" -- How do we know she is the one? There is a lot of truth in the old saying that it is more important to love the woman you married than to marry the woman you love, but God did not make us feeling creatures for no reason. Adam's delight in the one who was bone of his bone was obvious. For most men who have always been heterosexual, sexual desire for the special woman fuels the passion he may feel for her. Many of us will not have such powerful feelings (which for obvious reasons can be either an advantage or a disadvantage).

For people who are in Christian traditions where holding hands, kissing, and other expressions of romance are discouraged, this can be a special problem. There is no opportunity to nurture the feelings that say, "This is the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with." However, even absent such nurturing, there can be a delight in being with her, a desire to be close to her, and out of these feelings sexual desire can flow. The thought of sexual intimacy with her must be a very positive thing, or this is not the woman for you. This has nothing to do with your own fears that you might not be able to "perform" on the wedding night. Is the thought of your naked bodies touching, the thought of sexual intercourse positive? These are the questions to ask yourself Delight, admiration and respect, the feeling that she is someone very special, a desire to take care of her; these are the manly feelings to look for.

5. Absolute honesty -- The marriage should be entered into only with absolute honesty. When a man who is in the process of healing from homosexuality asks a woman to marry him, he is asking her to take on risks not present in other marriages. He is asking her to walk with him through the healing process. To ask her to do such a thing without fully informing her as to what she is getting into would seem unconscionable. Yet many Christian men do marry dishonestly minimizing the depth of their homosexual struggle. "Yes, he told me he had been involved with homosexuality, but I thought it was all behind him." We have heard this message too many times. It is not always only the man who is in denial; sometimes the woman doesn't want to know anything that might cause her to have to reconsider whether or not she should marry. Any deception going into the marriage is almost sure to breed further deception, and this can be deadly for a marriage.

Marriage is always a step of faith. It is not unlike conversion. When we place our life in the Lord's hands we don't really know what He is going to do with it. When we, "we plight our troth," or pledge our trust to another, we truly step out in faith; trusting the one to whom we pledge our life, but even more importantly, trusting the One who designed marriage, and who will always be with us to help work it out.

Marriage should be thought of as a gift -- a wonderful gift from God. One morning I received a call from a man in Northem Virginia, a retired army of ficer who had had no personal involvement with homosexuality but has been a great friend of Regeneration. He was prompted to call by something that had given him an overwhelming feeling of love for his wife, and his heart went immediately to the men and women in Regeneration who might never experience such joy. He wanted to encourage me, and urge us to somehow share with our people what wonderful things could await them in marriage. My wife, Willa, and I just celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary -- 20 of those years involved in building a marriage based on truth and healing. Marriage is truly a gift which our Father wants his children to enjoy.

Published by Regeneration, Inc., a non-profit, tax exempt Christian ministry associated with Exodus International -- North America. We seek to bring God's healing to homosexuals and to help the Body of Christ in reaching out to those caught in homosexuality. Please request permission to reprint portions of this newsletter. Copyright © Regeneration. All rights reserved. Posted on the web with permission.