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

I’m not thinking about the babysitting practicalities, I’m thinking about how we grow into adults and develop our own psyches modelled on the behaviour and values of the parents we love and trust, which includes being honest. But don’t worry, it’s probably all a big wind up

I think you have made an unneccessarily complicated arrangement - agree with all the other posters that you dh is not gay, you could have waited to find a man who was not bi & had a stable family life with him i.e. the life that you are pretending to your dc that you currently have.

At some point, I think this house of cards you have created will fall apart - your dh will meet another man (or woman), fall in love & want to have an authentic relationship. Or you will meet a man who wants only you & you will realise that you sold yourself short by giving so much of your life up in a friend-relationship with a bi man who doesn’t really fancy you (which is why sex happens but only with a lot of effort, I am guessing the effort is mainly on your side OP).

Be prepared for the fall-out, whenever people lie & keep secrets and carefully create a world based on those lies and secrets, it hurts other people who believed & trusted in that world - particularly children - am thinking of your 4 dc here.

It's not 'more digestible' - if you'd said you'd used the turkey baster method, and lived as platonic friends without sexual contact, I'd think 'oh yes, a gay man and a straight woman, how interesting'.

But he keeps voluntarily shagging you, when he could be out shagging a man. That's pretty definitively Not Gay.

Good for you both, it sounds like a great relationship.

I'm fascinated, but very curious as to why you posted if you are as at ease with everything as you say?

Apologies if you've already explained but I don't have time to read 22 pages (or want to read the naysayers at all !)

Also OP, I saw an interesting question earlier that you answered and you were questioned further in it, but I’m not sure if you replied to it? (sorry if you did and I missed it).

But you were asked if it would bother you if he had sex with another woman and you said yes.

Why exactly would it bother you?

Would it be because it would then mean (in your eyes) that he isn’t gay like he’s been telling you he is?

But what would be wrong with him having ‘transactional sex’ with another woman in the same way he has transactional sex with you?

Or do you require faithfulness from him when it comes to sex with women but it’s okay for him to sleep with men?

Hes not gay. At all.

Hes very obviously bi and has a preference for men. And that is absolutely fine. Open marriage not for me but none of my business!

I understood you didn’t mean babysitting but honesty.

Last time I address the idea of him not being Bi because people clearly don’t understand or believe it which is fine, we have alway wanted people to be able to believe he is Bi.

He identifies as a gay man, we were close friends for several years before where he was out to me as a fully gay man, he is sexually attracted to men only.

We entered this agreement together and decided to get married and have children together as friends, knowing he was a gay man and wasn’t sexually attracted to women, that is why this is a ‘lavender marriage’. It’s not like we started dating and felt attraction despite him only previously being with men and believing he was gay, there was no sexual attraction there.

He is not sexually attracted to women, it is never the same for either of us than it is with people we are sexually attracted to. He doesn’t just get it up looking at my tits and is then able to just shove it and get me pregnant. We don’t have regular hetero sexual, we have never done that. We use other tools and our imaginations and have figured out how to on occasion feel physical pleasure with each other but again it is not the same as where there is sexual attraction.

I know a self declared vegan who eats chicken as its "white meat so isnt as bad" 🙄

We don’t have regular hetero sexual, we have never done that. We use other tools and our imaginations and have figured out how to on occasion feel physical pleasure with each other but again it is not the same as where there is sexual attraction.

That sounds horrendously depressing. What a nightmare.

Some people just enjoy sex and once they have crossed the biological gender line, maybe through same sex experimentation at school, they are open to doing it with anyone they find attractive.

We've all had drunken fumblings with the same sex after a club night when we've had to share a bed. I think experimental just comes from human curiosity... sorry, I meant when younger, as I am 58 now!

The writer Anais Nin, who wrote a great deal of erotica, actively explored her sexuality, developed an attraction to her lover (she was already married) Henry Miller's wife June (see the film, Henry & June). Ultimately, she came to the conclusion that she didn't like the physical side as she didn't like the taste of vagina. So people form their own conclusions.

According to my gay friends, very few straight men will turn down the opportunity to have their cocks sucked, which is why there is often 'activity' in men's toilets. In the post war years, the police used to catch homosexuals there.

We mustn't forget the the hippies, and the Summer of Love (1967) where sexual experimentation was at it's height. People were basically getting off their tits in more ways than one.

I think today we live in a more neo-puritanical society (like the Victorians). I have no idea how sexually active Gen Z are, as I remember reading somewhere that they liked to be in bed by 10pm and didn't drink or go out much...

Are maybe people confused as to what bi sexuality is? It is sexual attraction to both sexes, not the physical ability to have sex with both sexes. He feels no physical attraction to women, only men, as such he is gay. The fact he can physically have sex with a woman with a lot of help, doesn’t make him bi, as there is no physical attraction,

I’ve asked you this several times but you haven’t answered, so I’ll try again.

You don’t have a ‘lavender marriage’ because those were designed to take away suspicion that a man might be gay in a period when it was a crime to have sex with other men and horrendous punishments including chemical castration awaited if a man was convicted.

This is no longer an issue for gay men, so why on earth did you choose to get married and create this complicated charade, which is damaging to your children, rather than agree that he would father children with you via AI, as two single people, who then happily coparented while leading authentic lives themselves?

Op you dont have to address it if you dont want to. It seems it helps you both to think of him as gay. Thats absolutely fine. Im actually not sure if id want to explore why that is tbh, especially if its all working out and youre both happy.

I suppose, as a bi woman, I might be feeling a bit affronted why owning that hes bi feels so wrong to you both, but i fully accept thats my issue.

Omg, you’re not entitled to an answer, and she’s already answered it, many times, they chose to create a family unit together, and loved and respected each ofher.

So why would someone who can go out and have sex with someone they find attractive, keep voluntarily and unnecessarily forcing themselves to have sex with someone they aren't attracted to? It doesn't make any sense.

Again wtf. If you’re bi. Surely you know it involves sexual attraction to both sexes and not just the physical ability to do so, with a lot of help to meet an end ie conception.

But they don’t. She has been very clear, vaginal sex is very rare, he needs a lot of help and it’s to conceive.

It’s AMA, so answers are kind of the point. And I can see what they have done, but I am interested in why, given that it has made life so much more complex for them, and will no doubt have effects on the way their children view relationships when it emerges that the fundamentals of their upbringing were a lie.

Not sure which post from op the quote is from but it’s not never given the four dc.

But, crucially, it's HIS sexuality. He gets to define it any way HE wants. Everyone on here telling OP what he is, that he's wrong and he should do this or feel that is some top-level arrogance.

A person’s sexual orientation cannot be determined from their observable behaviour. How someone identifies is based on their internal experience of themselves, and this is why each person is the authority on their own sexuality - it really isn’t for anyone else to decide. Sure, you might wonder, but to tell someone that they’re not who they say they are is both extremely disrespectful and very arrogant.

But she has answered it repeatedly. Simply you don’t like what they’ve done, disapprove so refuse to accept it and keep badgering her.

It doesn't sound complex to me. You seem to have got your knickers in a real twist about it though.

That's not quite the point though @Frenchfrychic
Their relationship is in every way a traditional marriage, or rather an open marriage. He prefers to have sex with men as well, and she with men too.

They didn't just have perfunctory sex to create children.
They still have sex, years on.

If he was truly 100% gay he would not touch and caress her sexually as some kind of favour, like a friend!

He's clearly enjoying it too.

And as others have said, 'fake' marriages for gay men went out of the window years ago. Gay men can marry.