Part 3 of 3

The next day (Sunday), we were on the beach and about to take a walk up the beach. I suggested that she take her sandals so that we could walk on up to the next beach. She said no, she wasn’t interested. I asked her if she minded if I went on by myself. She said she didn’t, but she said it in such a way that I could tell she didn’t like the idea. As we walked together, there was little talking between us and what there was was instigated by me. When we got up to the sticks near the trail, I asked her again if she’d like to come with me. She declined and told me to go on. I told her I’d see her in a little while and took off as she headed back down the beach. 

I had mixed emotions about going on without her. I very much wanted to have her with me – in all the things I do, but especially for this. I wanted her to experience the new found sense of freedom, peace, and satisfaction that I had experienced but I also didn’t want her thinking that I was doing something that I didn’t want her to know about. I now had a very strong desire to end all secrecy and be totally out in the open with her about my feelings and thoughts. I also felt that she could benefit a great deal from learning to disassociate nudity and sex and that she could also learn to break free from some of society’s wrong thinking and expectations about the human body – especially women’s bodies. She would often put herself down and express dissatisfaction with nearly everything about herself when in fact, she is a very beautiful woman  - by anyone’s standards; not just mine. I knew that if she would only go with me and spend just a little while in the midst of these nudists, she’d have to see that everyone is unique, that no one is perfect, and that everyone has value just by virtue of being human. And she’d see others – especially women – of every age, size, and shape setting a better example of how we all should think of ourselves and each other. But on this day it was not to be.

The trail was much easier to follow now that I knew where I was going and soon I was at the beach again. As I proceeded through the gay section, I noticed there were more people today and when out in the open I saw that likewise there were more people along the open area of the beach, too – both in groups and spread out in couples and singles all along the way. There were also several boats tied close in just off the beach. There was much more activity today and like yesterday, it seemed to be a very friendly atmosphere.

Feeling far braver today than yesterday, I slipped off my trunks as I soon as I was out on the open part of the beach and carried them along with my sandals as I walked up the beach. Today, I felt like I belonged – a nudist among nudists. When I was just past the boats, I put down my stuff in about the same place as before. I then went in for a swim and observed from the water all that was going on. There were a few others in the water and a few on the boats, but most were on the beach lounging, sunning and talking. One man had a kayak that he was preparing to go out in and there was a couple playing paddle ball. 

I discovered that I could observe the people around me – both men and women equally – without focusing on the details of their body. This was a welcome realization because it meant that I was accepting the nudity of others as completely normal and innocent. I was also noticing less and less the fact that I was nude – aware of it, yes, but not constantly noticing it. These thoughts and observations were doing wonders for my self-confidence and my self-esteem by confirming that my motivations for simple nudity were definitely for the right reasons and definitely not sexually motivated. But before long, I was faced with yet another unexpected test of my character and motivation.

Feeling more confident now than on the previous day, I was walking farther up and down the beach having left my stuff where I originally dropped it, now about 100 yards away. I felt a little vulnerability at having not only nothing on but also nothing anywhere within reach, but mostly I felt confident and free. As I was walking along the water line, I glanced up on the sand and noticed a couple lounging there on short beach chairs. They both had their chair backs fully reclined as they lay in the sun. The unexpected thing that inadvertently grabbed my attention for a second was that in lying back with the chair in that position and with their legs in a normal bent relaxed position, the woman’s vagina was in clear view to me and anyone else passing by. Taken by surprise, I have to confess that after a few more steps I glanced up again and now being even more aligned with them, there in plain sight between her casually parted legs I could see the vertical line where her vaginal folds met - top-to-bottom – barely obscured by her light pubic hair.

I dealt with my surprise by continuing to walk down the beach and making sure not to look again. Then I briefly went into a panic about having seen what I’d seen and not having anything at all to cover up with if I started to get an erection. Fear of major embarrassment. Finally I slowed down my thinking enough to realize that just like with the two women I had seen first thing the day before and hadn’t reacted with sexual thoughts, neither was I thinking sexual thoughts as a result of this situation either. I realized that this woman was there minding her own business in exactly the same way she would have been if on another beach wearing a swimsuit (under those circumstances I would have taken no notice at all). She wasn’t being the least bit provocative; in fact, it was completely innocent. For all I knew she may have been sound asleep. It also occurred to me that her position there in her chair was no different than that of the man she was with and it would certainly never enter my mind to think that merely seeing his genitals was anything out of the ordinary on a nude beach. The conclusion I reached was that it really wasn’t fair or reasonable to expect a difference in propriety between men and women in a simple nonsexual nude setting like this. Both genders are equal – also wonderfully different – but equal in worth. This gave me another little sense of victory for thinking practically and rationally and it wasn’t until later when I was back near my things again that I realized I hadn’t even thought about glancing up at that couple again on my return trip up the beach.

Up until this incident, I had noticed in myself an underlying tendency for my vision to be drawn toward that area of the female body if in the regular course of activity any part of it became even slightly visible. It wasn’t an obsession by any means, but just a curiosity, I guess you’d say. These little glimpses might present themselves when a woman was in a position such as lying on a towel sunbathing or getting up from a lying position or bending over to pick something up – all innocent activities with no intention on their part of attracting attention. No, the curiosity factor was all on me, but soon after this last incident, I realized that this was no longer a curiosity to me. There was no special allure anymore. The experience that I described previously and my resulting thought processes had changed my outlook. A woman’s body was a whole body – not a collection of parts of which some were of more interest than others. And a woman’s body contained a person, a person that had worth and was worthy of respect. In that regard, a person who happened to be a woman was no different than a person who happened to be a man. I had knowledge of all these things before, but now I really knew them and could actualize them. Again, I think it required my actually having the experience for this to really sink in; no amount of thinking about it or reading about it could have gotten me there.

With more people on the beach this day, I found myself saying hello to people more often as we walked past each other. I hadn’t stopped to engage in any conversations – I just offered a simple greeting. This is typical of the way I am at any other time, but here I found that my thinking was casually along the lines of, ‘they’re nude and I’m nude – we may be very much alike since we have that in common.’ 

Along with all of the nude people there on the beach, there were a few who were clothed that came walking through the area. I’m sure most of them were there just for the novelty of seeing a bunch of naked people. I found that their presence didn’t bother me in the least and I said hello to a few of them, too, just as readily as I had to anybody else. One fully clothed couple (not even swimsuits) came through walking their small dog on a long leash. As they came near, the little dog pulled at his leash to come over to me. As I reached down to pat its head, the woman stopped and allowed the dog to come closer. I patted the dog briefly; then said hi to them and they returned my greeting in a friendly way just as though nothing was out of the ordinary, but I would imagine they had a few comments about it to themselves later on up the beach. 

The sense of freedom that I felt there on the beach was nothing short of amazing. One of the greatest freedoms that I experienced was just to walk out into the ocean to swim. The feeling of nothing between me and the water was so liberating and then coming out of the water without the nuisance of a heavy wet swimsuit pulling at me and bunching around me just made so much more sense. The water just drips down your skin and away and then you’re completely dry before you know it – all over. I now loathe wearing a swimsuit. 

And not only was I experiencing this freedom for myself, I could readily see it and sense it in others, too.  Thinking back to our first trip to this island and how when we had seen the nude man on the beach and I had admired the freedom he had of being out on the beach unencumbered by clothing, I had the same admiration for many of these people here, too, as they went about their normal recreational activities with clothing not even in the picture. I mentioned the guy with the kayak; he headed way out into the open water with absolutely nothing on. I noticed a woman get up and with nothing on but a large hat she strolled way out into the water to about shoulder deep to talk to some people. Later she returned to the beach the same way – casually and gracefully strolling out of the water and up the sand as the water streamed down off of her. I don’t know how she kept the hat dry.

Here is another example. Two young couples came down the beach together along with their large dog and carrying a small cooler and a blanket – a minimal amount of stuff compared to what most people on regular beaches drag along. They spread out their blanket near my things and then they simply slipped out of their street clothes and they were nude. They had nothing on underneath and it struck me how simple going to a nude beach can be and how little extraneous stuff it requires. A bit later, the two women got up and started walking down the beach – nothing on, carrying nothing – just the two of them talking as they slowly walked along the waters edge. I noticed them again a few minutes later much farther down the beach starting to maneuver their way through the trees. I was still taken with the freedom and simplicity of just walking away from everything with no burden of any kind. 

Before much longer, it was time for me to head back and rejoin my wife. I picked up my things, but didn’t dress yet. I wanted to prolong this experience as long as possible. When I had walked back about half way between the main group of people and the trees, I met a couple walking along the water. They were completely nude and were carrying nothing with them. I said my usual hi and so did they. Then I decided to be brave and say something more so I stopped just as we passed and asked them if they came here often. They stopped and said they did and told me more about the area and some other places like this beach. They asked me where I was from and we talked about that. I mentioned that I wished my wife would join me here and the woman told me about how her partner had “broke her in slowly” as she put it and suggested that my wife and I come during the week when there would be fewer people around. She explained how she had started coming here and staying dressed and then over time trying topless and finally getting to where she was now. I found it simply amazing that here I was talking face to face to two complete strangers and all three of us were completely nude and yet nothing seemed crazy about it. In fact, it seemed easier to talk to them this way. I was aware that I and they were nude but I think I would not even remember anything about what either of them looked like had she not had jewelry in her nipples. There was one point that I noticed her glance down at me and although that surprised me, it didn’t strike me as being of wrong intentions. We visited only a minute or two before continuing our separate ways. 

A little farther on, I saw the two women again that I mentioned just previously now coming back up the beach from the sticks. I was still amazed at the freedom and peaceful serenity they portrayed as they casually walked up the beach side by side lost in conversation. Even though I was still nude, it still made me feel overdressed even just carrying my things. As we met, I said hi and they each returned a greeting and then returned to their conversation as we passed by each other.

When I reached the point where I knew I had to get dressed, I paused and put down my stuff. I wanted to take a moment to think and reflect on my experiences here of the last two days. What kept coming to mind was the sense of freedom, peacefulness, and serenity that was so evident here. But why was that? Was it because of the people? Was it because of the nudity? Yes, freedom, peacefulness, and serenity was evident in many of the people here along with a certain openness and friendliness, but more significant was the fact that I had these feelings so strongly myself. And it went far beyond just the feeling of sun, air, and water on my entire body. It was like all my cares, responsibilities, and worries were somehow lifted from me and set aside temporarily and I was free to simply be – to truly relax – unencumbered by anything. Having others around certainly wasn’t an absolute necessity for this, but I guess it helped in that they had served as examples and had provoked in me some self-examination and personal reflection and thinking. I knew I had caught on to it and had made great strides on figuring out why I desired simple nudity and that it was the right thing for me.  

I looked out across the big ocean to the horizon as I stood there on the sand in the afternoon sun reveling in this newfound knowledge. I had no idea what to call it or even how to describe it very well, but I knew I didn’t want to lose it and I knew I wanted to be able to return to it whenever I needed a brief escape from times when my worries and concerns came closing in. And to this day, whenever I need a mental break from the pressures of the moment, I think back to what I felt and thought during these moments of gazing out to sea with absolutely nothing separating me from the natural world around me and it instantly has a very calming and relaxing effect on me. 

Another realization that came to me during these moments was that there was no way I could be having these feelings of freedom, peace, and serenity and still associate simple nudity with sex or guilt or shame – neither consciously nor subconsciously. That in itself freed me from my old thought patterns and gave me a personal victory and confidence that I could never have achieved without actually immersing myself in the experience. I could have read about it and thought about it for the rest of my life, but that alone would never have completely broken the link in my mind between simple nudity and sex. It was the actual experience itself of practicing simple social nudity that provided the means for permanent change that I so desperately needed and wanted. 

When I met up with my wife again, I attempted to discuss my experiences and said (gently) that I’d really like her to join me there. Her response was rather cold and noncommittal. The next day we went to the public access beach that was up on the other side of the nude beach. We walked down the beach far enough to get away from most of the people before putting up our umbrella. I pointed out where the nude beach area was in the distance, but with this being a Monday, much was different. For one thing, there was some noisy construction going on from sand-moving equipment where most of us nudists had been yesterday, but it looked like there were a few people farther on down just at the edge of where the dead trees began, but not as far as the gay section. After a while she agreed to go down there with me, but only for a little while. She was adamant about that and I readily agreed because I wanted to be sensitive to her feelings. We took only our towels with us to stretch out on.  

Having the loud noise of construction machinery nearby wasn’t the most conducive thing for relaxation, but at least it was out of sight once we were in the trees. We walked past a handful of other nude people and found a small area big enough for the two of us among the trees and spread out our towels.  This spot had a little bit of seclusion to it even though we could still see the other people through the trees if we looked as they could us, but we had open access to the sunshine and water. I immediately slipped out of my trunks to set the example and then sat down on my towel. She sat down first and then she too took off her swimsuit and lay back.  I asked her if she wanted me to put some more sunscreen on her, but she curtly said, “No, we’re not going to be here that long.” Okay.

After a little while, I said I was going into the water and asked her if she wanted to join me. She said no and turned over. I don’t believe this had anything to do with her being nude or being embarrassed since she usually didn’t go into the water with me anyway because she was somewhat fearful of the ocean. A few people had walked past us on the beach and she did not have any reaction to anyone (male or female) seeing her. I went into the water for awhile – a few others were going in and out of the water, too – and then came back to join her. I tried to engage her in a little conversation, but she was cold towards my efforts. 

Just as a point of perspective, I should mention here that my wife is a very fit and very beautiful woman. She has always taken care of herself by exercising regularly and eating wisely. I’m grateful that she is so disciplined because it inspires me to try to do the same. But although she has no reason to have any body image issues, she still does.  She compares herself to all of the generally accepted but virtually unattainable expectations portrayed by all the media and glamour models and can list item after item about her body that she hates. This is really sad. She is truly beautiful – I’m not just saying that – but her ability to accept herself as she is has somehow been conditioned out of her.

We were there probably no more than twenty minutes when she decided it was time to go. I didn’t object. I was grateful that she was willing to try it with me even for a short time. We got dressed, picked up our towels, and headed back up the beach. Once we were back up the beach and away from the noise enough that we could talk, I said something about how great I thought it was and asked her what she thought. She first of all expressed her disgust at the other people that were there saying that they were not the type of people that should ever be seen naked. She even went so far as talk about body parts and age and general physical fitness level. Then she switched the focus to me and asked how I could do something like that and yet not be comfortable talking to our children about sex. The disappointing realization was that she clearly associated nudity – all nudity – only with sex and society’s shallow views of body image. I tried to address that with her, but as soon as she was done ranting, she wanted no further discussion. What a sad situation. I knew I had some educating to do, but had no idea how to go about it. I didn’t press it any further for fear of making matters worse. 

Back home, I continued to put off talking about it to avoid stirring up trouble again. I continued keeping my thoughts and actions to myself even though I was now so acutely aware it was wrong. The few times that I did start to mention it, I did so only casually and passively and therefore nothing was accomplished. She either ignored me or expressed various levels of disagreement. That hurt and I pushed my thoughts and actions even deeper into secrecy. Worse yet, I secretly rented a post office box and ordered the newest edition of the World Guide and subscribed to the magazine of the Naturist Society. Instead of bringing everything out into the open like I now knew it should be, in many ways I was now even more secretive than ever.

On another beach vacation we visited another nude beach. Again, based on information that I had gathered from the World Guide and from N magazine, I steered us (without her knowledge or consent, of course) to a nude beach one day. It was not an official nude beach, but I’d read that nude use was common and generally accepted. We arrived early before many people were there which was good because I’m sure my wife would have been overwhelmed had we arrived later, because after a while there were a lot of people there and they were almost all nude.

As it was, we grabbed a spot on the beach and laid out our stuff. Then as we went down to the water to go for a walk along the beach, I mentioned that it didn’t look like I needed a swimsuit and asked her if she minded if I took it off. She said she didn’t care so off it came. Then surprisingly, within a couple of minutes she took hers off, too. We walked the length of the beach and back carrying our suits and taking turns carrying the small bag we used to keep our valuables in. When we got back to our spot, we sat on our beach towels and both remained nude. As more and more people came and filled in around us, my wife showed no signs of being uncomfortable. She did however make a few snide comments about physical attributes of various people around us and pointed out one man that had shaved his pubic hair; making it clear to me in no uncertain terms what she thought about that. I used it as a chance to talk about how people shouldn’t be judged for what they look like and they should be free to choose how they adorn and groom their bodies. She listened, but I could tell that she was sticking with her set biases and prejudices.

As for myself, I was pleased with how things were going and was completely comfortable with the whole situation. We’d been there quite a while before it occurred to me that right in line with my previous experiences on a nude beach, I was not thinking sexually in reaction to the many women around me – including my wife. I wasn’t staring at or analyzing bodies - they were just there much the same as if we were all dressed and at a shopping center or some other public place like that. The fear of getting an erection was completely gone from my mind. I was no more fearful here than I would have been changing or showering in a locker room somewhere. Also, I was encouraged that maybe my wife was beginning to accept all this as something mostly positive. I was hopeful that we would surely be able to reach an understanding and be able to move forward from here together and that I could educate her away from her sexual outlook on it. We took another walk down the beach later. As we were getting up to go, I picked up my trunks just to carry them; I figured she would be carrying her suit, too, but to my surprise, she had no intention of taking her suit. So our swimsuits stayed on the towels as we took off down the beach with nothing except the small bag. What a great time that was – enjoying the beach as it should be enjoyed with the woman I love. Perfect. I was so hopeful that we were coming together on this.

After we got home, I tried to talk with her about simple nonsexual nudity and about how I hoped we could do more of that together, but her response was that she didn’t know whether it was right or not and she said it in such a way that told me she was leaning more toward it being wrong. She said her feelings were from a Biblical perspective. I asked her why, but she said she didn’t know and didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t press the issue because I didn’t want to push her, but it was disappointing to realize that I’d probably gotten my hopes up too soon.

As I was biding my time, I did a lot of reading and pulling together of information to establish for her (and myself) that this was a good thing and a right thing along with all the reasons why. I learned a lot by reading N magazine and I also began using the Internet to find information. I was pleased to find a number of Christian web sites that approached the subject from a Biblical perspective. There were writers that spelled it out very clearly that simple nudity was not wrong if one’s motives were right. I collected some of these things with the intention of showing them to her so that she could see for herself that it was right. I was so hopeful.

But then the bottom fell out. All the secrecy that I had been hiding and had buried deep down inside finally caught up with me. My wife found out about the post office box and the nudist materials that I had received. This led her to realize how much about myself that I had been keeping from her. She was deeply hurt, angry, and felt betrayed; and I felt terrible for having caused it. I was wrong in my secrecy. I always had been. I knew it and I accepted full responsibility for it. She felt very much betrayed. I had already closed out the post office box long ago, but I readily gave up the nudist literature that I had in my possession. During the following weeks and months, I was very much afraid for my marriage over this. I felt she was over-reacting to what I had done, but I was in no position to argue. I had gotten myself into a very critical situation.

In an effort to try to recover from the problem, we decided to see a marriage counselor. I made the arrangements based on what our insurance would cover and that proved to be a big mistake. The counselor we were assigned was pretty much incompetent - even my wife would agree on that. He said he was a Christian counselor and while that should have been a good thing, in actuality he did almost all the talking and did very little listening to either of us. He immediately attacked me accusing me of having an addiction to sexually-explicit material and would listen to no explanation to the contrary from me. I gave up trying pretty quickly and now I feel very much ashamed for doing that. I should have pushed back – a lot. He portrayed me in a terrible light which my wife readily picked up on even though she knew this guy was completely incompetent as a marriage counselor. He was saying what she wanted to hear. I just sat there and took it thinking that I had to endure this as punishment because of the hurt I had caused her. I truly was sorry and I was prepared to take the punishment, but that should not have been the purpose of our counseling. I knew all that and yet I felt powerless to do anything about it.

We attended several sessions with him and came out of it with very little useful information or action items. In fact, she and I made much more progress on our own after we stopped seeing him. At my wife’s insistence, I agreed to the following stipulations:

-She would have nothing more to do with nudity; to her, it was sin and it was wrong under every conceivable circumstance.

-I would never be nude with others because she didn’t want to share me with anyone else and she hoped that I would not want to share her with anyone else either (there was the nudity equals sex link again).

-I was not to ever read nudist material or go to nudist websites.

-This was her position and it was final and I was not to ever bring it up again. Period. The end. Forever.

Even though these stipulations were completely one-sided and based entirely on reactionary emotions and pure error, I agreed to them in order to keep us on speaking terms and to help appease her anger. On the one hand it was easy to make these concessions in an effort to repair the problems I had caused but on the other it was hard to allow her misunderstandings about me to continue unchallenged and uncorrected. It meant she was continuing unchecked down a path of wrong thinking and attitude. Not only had I hurt her by doing things the wrong way, I had also caused her to continue even farther down a wrong path of thinking with even more determination and conviction than ever. I had set a horrible example and that had then reinforced her wrong beliefs. And this went beyond just mere nudity. It really got into the wrong way to view the human body from a Biblical perspective as well as how one should see others the way that God sees them. I had inadvertently led my wife into sin because of the wrong beliefs she held that were now reinforced in reaction to what I had done. It would appear that I had severely compounded the problem.

That is, unless I was wrong about nudity. Was that possible? She thought so. The counselor thought so. Society as a whole seemed to think so. But I needed to know for sure. I needed to find out the truth on the matter, but I knew I was pretty much on my own to do it. There were no other Christians that I could talk to or go to for help. The Christian counselor proved that. No, this was going to have to be done on my own, but with God’s help I knew I could find the truth – His truth. I prayed about it and began to study my Bible in earnest. I approached it based on what I remembered from the nudist information I’d read in the past. Over time, the understanding began to come. I learned; I applied; I scrutinized my motivations. It took time, but the more I prayed, studied, and thought critically about it, the more firm became my conviction that I was right in my beliefs on simple nonsexual nudity. I felt much better about myself and my attitude and my motivations even though I still had to deal with the fall out of all my secrecy and other wrongful tactics.

But the biggest benefit by far was that my faith grew much stronger during this process. I started into this with a focus on finding the truth about nudity, but I learned and experienced a lot more about God’s plan and my relationship to Him and others as a result of spending more focused time in God’s word and in prayer. But I felt worse and worse about my wife’s beliefs and attitudes. Although her Christian faith was strong, her beliefs on how the human body should be viewed and how we should relate to each other were ensnared in sin and I was not in a good position to lead her to the truth.

I wanted so desperately to talk to her about it and gently tried to approach the subject on several occasions, but without success. The times that I tried to talk to her were months apart and although her anger had subsided somewhat over time, she would still remind me that we had an agreement and it was permanent. It was not to be discussed. How ironic. All those years I had kept it secret because I was afraid to discuss it, and now that it was out in the open and I wanted to discuss it, she refused. She was now as closed to hearing my thoughts and beliefs as I had been closed to sharing them in the past. I was reaping the consequences of my bad decisions and actions. How different things would be now if simple nonsexual nudity had been something that we had discussed early in our relationship. I continued to bide my time and continued to grow in my own faith, knowledge and confidence, but my frustration level also continued to grow regarding how to reach my wife on this issue. 

During all of this time, it was still acceptable for me to sleep nude and when on vacation it was still acceptable for me to be nude on the beach as long as others weren’t around. (She of course remained fully clothed in her swimsuit even if no one was anywhere in sight.) I was grateful for this concession on her part not only because it was my preferred state of being, but also because I counted it as an opportunity to set a right example for her. As time went by, it proved to be acceptable for me to be nude even if there happened to be a few other nude men on the beach where we occasioned to be, but the sight of their presence even in the distance disgusted her. But as long as there weren’t more than two or three and they were not close to us and did not associate with us in any way, she would tolerate us being there in the same general area. It’s important to note that I was not trying to steer us toward places where there was nudity; we typically seek out places away from the crowds whether it be the beach or a park and whether on vacation or not. These places tend to be somewhat remote and secluded and so others who prefer to enjoy nature naturally tend to gravitate to similar places. Thus, it was not uncommon for us to occasionally come upon one or a few nudists - or they upon us as was more often the case since we tend to arrive early and stay late. 

Another time we were on a secluded stretch of beach where along with several nude men there was also a nude couple. As we were walking down the beach past where they were, I was nude but had my trunks with me. I didn’t know if my wife would insist that I get dressed or not as we walked by them. Regardless, I hoped they wouldn’t try to talk to us – we were going to have to pass close to them. My wife didn’t say anything and as we passed by, the man said hi but the woman continued looking at the small shells along the waterline and didn’t pay any attention to us. My wife didn’t react to the situation at all and we continued on our way down the beach without comment. As we passed by them again coming back it was pretty much the same thing. After we were past them and returning to our spot, my wife said that it looked like that guy “half-way” had an erection. I’m sure she was exaggerating because even though I had made a point to focus my attention elsewhere rather than on them as we passed by, I think I would have noticed that. I tried to dismiss her comment to smooth over the perceived incident. Then she said, “It looked like the gal had shaved her area.” After this second comment and in an effort to set an example of accepting others without judging them, I tried to explain that I hadn’t really paid them much attention as we passed by. Her rather icy response was, “I didn’t either. I just saw that she shaved her area and had big boobs.” It was sad to realize that nothing had changed with her underlying attitudes and views toward others.

At another time during that same trip, I again tried to talk to my wife about what I think and believe about nudity but she would have no part of it. Late one afternoon when there was absolutely no one left on the beach, I was nude and I asked her if she would like to join me. She said coldly, “You know my position on that.” And that was that. It was during the moments of sadness and frustration just after that that the idea first came to mind to write my wife a letter explaining myself. I think this idea was an answered prayer since I had been praying for months about how I could reach out to her and completely explain all my thoughts. That trip was early in the summer and over the next couple of months, I put my thoughts and beliefs on nudity and the reasons behind them into the form of a very personal letter to my wife. I worked on it often, usually only a few minutes at a time, but I tried to be organized, thorough, and clear. I not only poured out my heart, I cited scripture and other resources on which I base my beliefs. Although my goal was to keep it brief and concise, it became rather lengthy, but I felt that it really explained my beliefs and ideas and presented them in a kind, loving, gentle, and respectful way. And it was written from the perspective of me wanting her to understand me and to know all about me completely; not to argue with her or try to persuade her to change her beliefs. That would have to come by her own change of heart.

As I researched and wrote, I discovered that through the Holy Spirit, God could really communicate to me what His will is for me as I passionately dug into His word and prayed over it and wrote down the things that came to me. It came alive! And what’s more, I learned that this approach applies not just to finding the truth about the right or wrong of nudity, but to anything about which I may desire or require wisdom and knowledge of God’s will. I now have an even deeper desire to know God and to know His will. I’ve also developed a deep desire to be known; to share my thoughts and ideas and beliefs with others – especially with my wife. I don’t want to cram anything down her throat, but I do want her to know me - even the things that we may not agree on. I want very much to have everything out in the open – not to force her into anything – but just to get it out there in the open to be discussed in a kind and loving way. I’m tired of secrets. Secrecy is wrong. Secrecy in a close relationship is a barrier to intimacy. It’s got to stop. It’s going to stop. By the time anyone reads this, I will have presented my letter to my wife. I’m praying about this and seeking God’s guidance. I would appreciate your prayers for us, as well. I have faith that my wife and I will eliminate this barrier of misunderstanding and conflict that divides us and that we will grow closer and develop a level of intimacy like we have never known before. That is my prayer.

This is my story thus far. I’ve journeyed a long way and still have a long way to go. Most of my troubles were unnecessary and were the result of my own mistakes that I’ve made along the way. You don’t have to repeat them. It doesn’t need to be difficult. If you can gain anything from what I’ve done, whether it be what to do or what not to do, take what you can and use it to navigate your own true course. Start now. Sooner is better than later, but it’s never too late. Be open. Be honest. Be true – to yourself and to those close to you. I wish you well.

END - Part 3 of 3

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