I’m in a lavender marriage (DH is gay) AMA

[dontquestion]

I knew DH was gay when we agreed to get married and have children together.

Married 10 years, 4 DC and its working perfectly for us.

AMA

Not in detail, I have when necessary said I am married and my husband knows about this but it’s not always necessary.

Mostly, we both had people from before who we could have no strings sex with but we have both also met new people to have casual relationships with.

Yes, we tell each other if and when we are seeing someone else.

We both lived far away from where we now live with our children and we both travel for work.

We share finances and our home. We don’t necessarily plan to ever divorce, the agreement is just that we promise to stay together in a relationship untill youngest is at least 18, everything else is kept private and deprioritised behind each other and our family.

He was financially much better off than me but I wasn’t struggling and now earn a good amount. The security he could provide me and our children was of course an incentive though.

That's bisexuality.

Bisexuality is far more common than people think, there's far more bisexuals than gay people. Many bisexuals mistakenly believe they are just straight or gay because they think bisexuality is an even 50/50% split between the sexes but it can also be a strong preference for one sex and a small openness towards the other sex etc...
If you are willing to sleep with both sexes even if it's just circumstantial that requires a level of bisexuality to pursue.

If presented with the options of never having sex again or going against my sexuality there's no choice to be made because only one was ever an option. That's not 'super straight' or 'super gay', it's just plain old straight or gay.

Why do you continue to insist he's gay and you have a "lavender marriage"? Is it to be special and unique, and part of the modern world where everyone has an awesome label of some description?

A gay man doesn't have "fun, pleasurable sex" with women OP.

We were friends for several years. We had many joking conversations along the lines of If we don’t find anyone else by the time we’re 40 then we’ll just have to get together. We discussed what we both wanted and it was the same and we thought why wait when we could do this and it could work.

He was out to his friends including me as gay, he’d only ever had relationships with men.

My best friend is gay.
I was initially attracted to him, we went on holiday to Ibiza together and (drunk) I got on top of him naked and tried to have sex with him.
I was in my 20s and bloody gorgeous.
There was nothing from him, literally zero erection 😆
Your husband is NOT gay!

I'm totally confused by this thread!🤣

All sounds very unlikely and very unappealing, but may suit the very lonely if there's nothing else on offer.

But the same could be said for any marriage. Given the number of affairs you see on here and irl, and the divorce rate in general, maybe a more transactional marriage is less likely to break up!

When we met he was gay, he told me he was gay and that he has only ever has sex with and felt sexual attraction with men.

when we decided to get married and have children together it was on the agreement of it being a ‘lavender marriage’ and him being a gay man.

I don’t believe sexuality is a case of 100%, 50% or 0% either but believe people can define their own sexuality. He still considered himself to be a gay man and so do I.

I got nothing the first time either! ( or the second, third…)

@dontquestion did you decide on trying the sex method of getting pregnant before or after you got married?

Before

This

But was he also drunk?

So basically a gay man agreed to try the "traditional" way to make a baby.
I find that unusual. I can't imagine why he would want to as he's sexually attracted to other men.
But it worked 4 times so perhaps it was a good decision. But it all just sounds a bit fumbling and awkward to me.
I can't believe you didn't think to try the "turkey baster" way.

I'm surprised that so many people don't understand that a gay man and a straight woman can have pleasurable sex together. Prison! Many, many women find "companions" in prison. As do men. Because they are able to (somewhat?) satisfy sexual urges despite not actually being homosexual.

I have a friend who is a clinical psychologist in a prison. Sex in prison is primarily about power, not pleasure. Creating protective alliances. Ensuring loyalty. It’s primal, very much akin to the way other higher primates ensure their social groups get on.

Based on this, and putting aside the moral question, do you believe that gay conversion therapy could be effective?

Well @dontquestion it seems you're happy, he's happy, the kids are probably just fine. Seems a good life to me.
When the children are older they will probably not even care that much as they're growing up in the "anything goes" era.
I will bid you goodnight 🙂

I still don’t understand why you felt a lavender marriage was needed. Lavender marriages were a way to avert suspicion from gay men who were in very real danger of criminal charges, and horrific punishments if found guilty, for being gay. Nobody your age has faced that issue. As I said a dozen or more pages ago, you could have created children together as two single friends and happily coparented without all this subterfuge.

It was incredibly awkward at first.

We agreed to try the natural way first and consider alternatives after.

i haven’t done much research into it as we managed to without but is the ‘turkey baster’ way anywhere near as effective as the proper way?

Great stuff, but please may I ask
why you are posting. Am I missing something? Thank you.

AMA stands for Ask Me Anything.

I have a few thoughts. I think it’s an uncomfortable thought and read for me to think that as they get older that the children are being lied to. As adults they will look back and not know what was real or fake. I had similar experiences as a child, completely different reasons,I’m in my 50s I’m still not ok about any of it and never will be. That’s after therapy trying to understand it all.

another thought as far as I know with my 50plus years on the planet a gay man is not attracted at all to a female. It would be impossible for them to have sex with you. That’s why many of us females feel so safe around them and can be best friends with them. So my only assumption from that is that your husband is not gay. if he is not gay then your marriage set up is also all a lie to you as well. My next thought based upon that is that if I was in your situation is if he is not gay he can also cheat on me with other women and could be at any point as you would not know if his outside of marriage sexual partners are male or female.

I could not live like that. Far too many lies and secrets for everyone involved. I’m not sure any of you know the full truth.

Im glad it works for you but I couldn't live like this, with so much deception. It would feel like living a lie every day. Lying to your children as well. I cant imagine how living a life based on a lie could be fulfilling or authentic.