I’m not sure I’ve ever been truly in love, but I know I love my children. I’ve lied to countless people about my past with the rationale, “They don’t need to know all about me. It wouldn’t add to the relationship.” I’ve never really believed it myself. The one thing I’ve never kept a secret from anyone is that I do have children, who they are, and how much they mean to me. I’ve been married three times and engaged numerous times to various women. When people ask me how long I was married, I ask them if they want to know just the last time or the cumulative total. I laugh, but I still cringe inside. I tell people that I don’t have girlfriends, I just have wives; or, I’m not single, I’m just between marriages. I’ve fathered nine children. Five of them are still alive. Two of them have been aborted. Two were miscarriages. I could either be a poster child for Planned Parenthood or a guest on the Jerry Springer show. Laugh outside, cringe inside.

I’ve lied, cheated, and manipulated my way through sex with over 250 partners. Women have made up the lion’s share, but I’ve been with a fair number of men, too. I’ve gone through cycles where I think I’m gay and find men more attractive sexually than women. I know what triggers these impulses and responses. Wanting men usually comes during times of stress, or if I’m in a place where I don’t feel centered emotionally. These feelings come when I want to be used and debased by a man once again.

At times I’ve thought that I’m just avoiding commitment to anyone, including myself. That way I can keep the self-beatings coming for not being able to make a choice. Sometimes I’ve thought I want sex with men because of the experiences I had growing up, but I’ve always come back to women. Having sex with men was easier than picking up women for that purpose, but sex with men still left me feeling bitter over the fact that I was so afraid of being loved by a woman. For much of my life sex has been reactive and unemotional without much thought for the consequences or the psychological aftershocks. Most of all, I haven’t given much thought to how it might affect someone else. It’s been just another way to run away from myself, a way to fill a void with something on the outside. It’s been a self-destructive way to use myself. It’s never worked.