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

Ok... apologies 🙂

This is the saddest thread I’ve ever read.

Are you conventionally quite unattractive?

I may perhaps understand this if you were in your 40s, highly unattractive and desperate for children.
(I actually know someone who chose this path but they’ve never had sex because he is gay).

But I cannot wrap my head around why in your 20s you chose to commit yourself to 18+ years of being with someone who does not find you attractive, who doesn’t desire you and have years of little to no sex.

I can’t imagine not being desired.
Not having a partner who doesn’t get aroused by me and wants to touch and caress me.
I can’t imagine someone having to force themselves to give me pleasure because they can’t stand to touch me otherwise.

He’s absolutely laughing.
He claims he’s gay (even though he’s obviously bi), you blindly believe him and he gets to tell you that he will never find you attractive so is allowed to go and have sex with other men when he wants, whilst his wife and kids wait for him at home.

Of course your relationship is a happy one.
Imagine how happy men in heterosexual couples would be if their partners allowed them to sleep with other women whenever they want.

You are in an open marriage with a bi sexual man who does not want to commit to a monogamous relationship with you.
There is nothing wrong with this but you need to be honest with yourself and each other.

How can you be sure that all the children are his when you've been having sex with other men?

I’m sure. I haven’t had sex with other men while we were trying to conceive and have only ever have multi protected sex with other men.

Exactly this.

You not going to reply to which bit of your post is the lie? Did you just change the details of marriage length? Odd to question me on the 4 years and then not reply when you realise your mistake.

Love, friendship, trust, security. Four children, a home, no fear of violence or other abuse. OP has stated that she had some horrible experiences in hetero relationships so she found something that works for her. I am happy for her and hope this carries on long after their youngest turns 18.

Then it's not exactly a lavender marriage, surely. You conceived naturally. You still have sex for fun with each other. You get on well as a family unit. Sounds like a good marriage to me. Less compromise than many.

I don’t understand why people are so determined that this will damage he children. To me it seems like a real success story.

I completely agree with those who push back against the notion that a person is whatever they identify as — be that this man identifying as gay, or a man identifying as a woman, or a white person identifying as black.

I don’t have enough information to know whether OP’s husband is gay (e.g. watches gay porn to get it up and then closes his eyes and imagines that OP’s hand is a man’s hand) or bisexual (sustains erection despite being mindful that OP is a woman).

I feel as though if I found out as an adult that my dad was gay (a secret which I'm sure will eventually get out), and my parents' entire relationship was a lie that they deliberately cultivated and kept me in the dark about, it would really shake my whole worldview.

If I thought they were a normal, happily married couple up until then, I'd wonder if my whole idea of romantic love, was skewed by thinking they'd been in love. I'd wonder what else was a lie? What else are they still keeping from me? I'd go through my memories, and perhaps some things would start to make sense. I'd feel fooled, lied to, and I'd lose my trust in both my parents.

Now, I might well get past most of that feeling relatively quickly, but I do think it would leave a scar on the relationship.

OP I don’t think you are a victim. I think you must have very low self esteem and low self worth that you gave up even the hope of a real marriage /partnership /romantic love at such a young age.

Your choices are not ones of a confident or strong woman.

It wasn’t a lie, though.

What is/was your parents’ favourite sex position? I’m betting you don’t know. Why would you? Their sex life is none of your business.

There is quite a bit more to marriage than sex positions.

He’s a gay man. It’s been a while since that had to be hidden. Why should other people know but his dc be the last to find out?

I said 10 year in the OP as a rough figure, I wasn’t then going to disclose the ages of our dc or exact details like our wedding date for obvious reasons.

Elsewhere I believe I have said ‘over 10 years’. We married when are eldest was a baby, we planned to marry before that.

I was wondering if she was conventionally unattractive too. I can’t imagine anyone in their 20s doing this out of choice. Maybe if they were lesbian homosexual/bi. When I was in my 30s my best male platonic friend and I often joked that we’d marry each other if we were still single (we dated and it was a total disaster and end of the friendship).

What does a favourite sex position have to do with finding out that your father is gay? The answer is nothing. I don't need to know that, my children don't need to know. But if my DH had been gay, I'm sure they would wonder ' what the hell?' Including wondering if he was actually my biological father.

Sounds better than half the relationships posted about on here with pretty terrible DH and fathers. Of sire why everyone is so shocked. A happier home for dc than many!

Oh this is just silly.

'Sex positions' are completely different to sexual orientation and lying about that for your entire childhood.

For goodness sake.

Okay then. Is/was either of your parents at all bisexual?

How would anyone know who you were in RL simply by being honest about the age of your child or your marriage year?

You’ve disclosed more than enough to be outing really OP, I’m sure if anyone knows you in real life they’ll have had no trouble working it all out.

They will find out their father is Bi, that is what he wanted.

Considering their parents have had a long and happy marriage and conceived them all naturally they have no reason to ever question that. We’ve never actively lied to them, they’ve never asked about our sex lives with each other or with other people, they’re children.

I think a lot of parents pretend to love each other and be happy for the children but that is not what we are doing.

Ah I think it’s pretty obvious by this thread. Used to live abroad but moved back when having kids, man in creative arts, woman used to work in glamour model industry, 4 kids of those ages with a man who was openly gay for years before marrying a woman. If you knew one of them this would stand out pretty well

Agree.