Outback Jack's Journey

My wife and I have each answered the question, "Why are we separating, and not continuing to pursue reconciliation?" Here's my updated statement: I have done some things that unintentionally hurt your Mum and led her to not trust me. Why I did those things is not because I don’t love your Mum. I do love her and you. I still have a some trauma in my life that isn’t fully healed, but which I’m continuing to seek to heal. Trauma is complex; it has made me do things I don’t want to do, I don’t really understand why I’ve done them, and I don’t have all the answers, but I do have to take responsibility for them. Mum has also done things that have hurt me, and am willing to keep working at reconciling and repairing. I continue to love her, I will always be your Dad, and I will always love you. My wife's statement: I have worked hard through our marriage to understand and support Dad with the issues around his trauma. Trust has been broken many times over a number of years an...

Two random stories of showering in a beach public toilet/shower block - one from the 80s, one from a few years ago. I've shared in an earlier post that a pedophile sexually abused me when I was 7 and 8. Perhaps when I was 10 I was showering in a beach toilet block with my Mum waiting outside. My Dad didn't come on Summer holidays. I was in my cubicle showering and jerking off. In the next cubicle was a tall man showering. He was tall enough he could look over the wall and saw me with my boner in my hand. A minute later he was at my cubicle door and had unlocked it from the outside and was opening the door inwards. I realised what was happening and what would happen if I let him come in, so I pushed the door hard closed and re-locked the door! I quickly finished showering and drying and ran out to my Mum crying. The man was nowhere to be seen once I got outside. Story 2 Maybe 3-4 years ago I had swum at a beach in Queensland and walked off the beach to the public toilets and sho...

Here’s my answer the question, Why we’re separating, and why we’re not continuing to pursue reconciliation: I have unintentionally done some things that hurt your Mum and led her to not trust me. Why I did those things is not because I don’t love your Mum. I do love her and you. I still have a lot of trauma in my life that isn’t healed, but which I’m continuing to seek to heal. Trauma is complex; it has made me do things I don’t want to do, I don’t really understand why I’ve done them, and I don’t have all the answers, but I do have to take responsibility for them. Mum can’t go any further with me and I need to respect that. We both feel very sad about this. I will always love her, I will always be your Dad, and I will always love you.

If I am completely honest and uncensored, part of my wants to see and be seen naked, touch, and be touched by other men, and be sexual because: I want to be desired by someone, desperately, eagerly desired, worshipped by someone. I want to know someone loves me and loves my penis, and desires to be close and touch me. I want to feel pleasure, delight, and orgasm. I want to know who I am, see and compare myself to other men. I want to be curious, know the different variations of penises. I want to be the object of someone's lust. I want to hear them cry my name out because they WANT me BAD. I want to matter to someone. I want to be wanted, pursued, I want someone to thirst for me, to be completely transfixed, mesmerised, captivated. I want them to no notice anything in the world, BUT ME!  I want to be valued, seen, appreciated, that I matter, I am important to someone. I want someone to want and value me - all of me! I want someone to love my penis like I do. I want them to pleasure...

I did not grow up going to church with my parents and my parents are not Christians. As a kid, I tried to be good and to everyone around (my parents and my teachers) I appeared to be very good, yet privately knowing I was bad.  I knew that I would only get in trouble for getting caught for doing wrong things.  If I was able to keep things hidden, then I could get away with doing things that I should not do.  This actually just made me confused. Now I thought Christians were brainwashed idiots.  My sister became a Christian and invited me along to a Youth Group.  There I thought I would watch the leaders brainwash the youth and then expose them.  Instead they studied from the bible and I was able to see from reading the bible for myself that they were not making it up.  At this point I really didn’t know if it was all real – I just hoped that God was real.  By calling myself a Christian I was really just hedging my bets.  I did not know the tr...

In mid-September I went to Oklahoma to staff a The Crucible Project (TCP) weekend. It was my first time staffing.  It was a privilege and powerful for the men attending and awesome to see them process something that was blocking them with physically/bodily acted out Internal Family Systems (IFS). It helped them be vulnerable and then trust other men.  It was powerful for me even as a staff man, particularly because as we prepared as a staff team, I was told, "We see your 'shadows' and accept you as you are." then asked, "Do you commit to hold your shadows as you lead this weekend?"  This is in contrast with the Christianity that I find most other places, where our "shadows" (unacceptable or sinful thoughts/actions) are to be hidden behind a "nice" mask of "we've got it all together". I don't see that as real love, or real authentic Christianity. I love the “no BS” attitude. It’s authentic, honest, open, real, genuine. My...