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

Even if he's not 100% gay he could get off in easier ways.

People are usually not good at excepting or imagining that others mind and bodies work differently their own. More so when its about sexuality.

I agree with you in general but what I find incomprehensible is choosing this unsatisfactory sexual relationship. Why do the OP and her husband persist with it?

OP, your marriage sounds happy and stable and good for the children. I think you made a sensible decision, marrying someone you liked who was trustworthy and shared your vision for family life. Much better for all than

Problems may arise when you start seeing other people, if a relationship becomes more then casual, so I’m hoping that won’t happen till the children are older.

I do not agree with this. Kids needs stability and consistency. Who you fancy doesn't really come into it much. The perfect romantic fulfilling marriage is gifted to few people. Kids can still be ok .

"We've all had drunken fumbling with the same sex"

No we haven't. You sound bisexual too, a lot of bisexuals have trouble understanding that straight and gay people do not do this no matter how much they like sex.
You sound like the type of person I described in earlier comments, a bisexual who has grown up believing themselves to be straight and therefore assumes their own experiences are typical of straight people.

Yes, it’s the same. I was responding to the claim that OP’s husband couldn’t have become aroused enough to have sex with her if he was “really” gay, so that’s why I mentioned men in particular.

Your examples also prove another comment I made, that bisexuality is quite common.
Your gay friends weren't sleeping with straight men, they were sleeping with repressed Bisexual men...

He’s not Bi though. He’s gay. From your description, it’s pretty clear he is not sexually aroused by women.

I had a woman coming on to me in a nightclub - hugging me trying to kiss me after I smiled at her. There was no "drunken fumbling", I removed myself from there as fast as I could despite being pissed and despite girl being young and pretty. It just felt wrong and weird.

Yes but those details aren’t going to be delved in to. Dc don’t tend to have in depth conversations with parents about sexual arousal. Just the basics are ok here

just to lighten up the mood - I can't get this out of my head...

You think it's weird that my parents who were married for decades were 100% straight?

I had conversations with my late Dad about gay men. He had no issue with them but wasn't that was inclined.

it wouldn’t change a thing about my relationship with them, because who they were sexually attracted to had no impact on the way they related to their children.

But you have not had that experience so you don't know how it would have impacted on you.

I think if they have any sons, it will be very unnerving for them to find out their dad is gay/ bi and it's been years and years of pretence.

I’m getting to the stage here where I am starting to work out the OP’s potential motivations for some of this. It’s taken me a while though because as a straight woman, arrived over 20 years, whose best friend is a gay man, also married to another man, I could not envisage why either party here would do this. So:

Early on, we get a throwaway admission that he was much better off than her. Marriage would have been a good option here as when they split she’d benefit from the wealth he brought in to the marriage.

She clearly wanted children, and even discussed the method by which they’d be conceived, i.e. conventional PIV sex, so she knew this was on the cards.

Therefore she feels very special as a woman who has ‘turned’ a gay man - she admits she wouldn’t be happy if he slept with another woman.

She enjoys the thrill of feeling she’s a cool spicy straight who looks conventional on the outside but has a secretly kinky home life.

None of this would be necessary to give children a stable, secure home life so it must all be fulfilling some psychological need in her, and probably him too - maybe he is one of the number of gay men who are internally conflicted and actually homophobic? Any way round it all feels like a quite sad and unnecessary scenario into which four children have been brought, with not enough thought to the long-term implications.

‘Never actively lied to them’. This is the sort of language you use, that a pp picked up on. Previously you said H ‘never told the children he’s not gay’ and therefore is not lying to them.

You and your husband have created a deliberately false narrative of you being a normal, happy, life long marriage.

Its not. It’s a transactional arrangement with a pre agreed end date when the eldest children leave home.

You are lying to your children every day, and they live the lie every day.

I once had a relationship with a man who lied to me like that. He created a false narrative. Like you, he never ‘actively lied’ but presented a front that he knew I would interpret one way. His defence, like yours, was that he never lied.

Let me tell you OP, it is devastating to realise you have been deliberately deceived like this. You can no longer believe anything you were told. The person who deceived you, can no longer be the person you believed them to be. And that was only a guy I was in short/medium term relationship with. Not my bloody Mother and Father.

You are fooling yourself if you think what you are doing to your kids is harmless.

A lot of this doesn't add up.

You've said your husband is gay and not bi. You've also said you've not lied to your children and don't intend to.

And now you're saying that when they're old enough they'll be told that their father is bi.

So you ARE going to lie to your children?

The sexuality thing is a red herring.

If both my parents were straight but led me to believe they had a normal, happy loving marriage and family, and when I left home at 18 I found out they were only together as a transactional arrangement to conceive and raise me, and had now split up, as pre agreed before I was even conceived, now that function was completed, would be devastated that they had lied to me throughout my whole life about what our family really was.

Exactly.

Our own families and past experiences meant we both wanted our children to grow up in one house with their parents together.

We both also wanting companionship and enjoyed living together, we are best friends. We wanted the same house, same decor, same pets etc. we enjoyed each others company, didn’t annoy each other, easily shared household chores and supported each others careers.

I don’t feel my happiness comes after my husbands, we are equal.

If this is real I’d imagine them both to be very attractive, unlike some suggestions here. Op worked in glamour modelling? I think she got cynical and impatient at a young age and didn’t want to see her attractive, wealthy bestie try this surface-hetero arrangement with a different woman. So she’s settled for being his only woman, with the security of a cash-rich marriage.

What strikes me is him nipping off a few times a week to meet his bf while she’s pregnant or looking after their kids and loads saying “it’s a better marriage than most”. She doubtless won’t have the energy after four kids, even with nannies to pursues a relationship with someone who fancies her. And the transactional sex - does she know what she’s missing out on?

OP if your daughter asked you if she should settle for a man who was a good friend but didn’t want to sleep with her and wanted to sleep with men for maybe 18 years or so would you support that?

This is the case for thousands of families up and down the country. Staying in shit relationships ‘for the sake of the kids’. At least this is a happy one. The transactional details don’t need gone in to. It’s the truth that they love each other too

Let me tell you OP, it is devastating to realise you have been deliberately deceived like this. You can no longer believe anything you were told. The person who deceived you, can no longer be the person you believed them to be. And that was only a guy I was in short/medium term relationship with. Not my bloody Mother and Father.

This. There was no need for this fake relationship to happen and certainly not for the children to be unwittingly forced to play along.

You could have co-parented, maybe even married in order to have legal security and protection, but lived your own lives honestly.

Kids can be happy growing up in all kinds of unconventional families, and would have been able to understand and cope with 'mummy and daddy are best friends and they both love us and look after us.'

But instead you've created a false world and false story for them to grow up in. You're deliberately lying to them and it's going to be very difficult for them to understand why you would do that. I don't understand why you did it - it's weird and unnecessary.

So make sure your children grow up knowing this. That mummy and daddy aren’t in a relationship but are friends who co parent in the same house, and will probably live In separate houses when the youngest reaches 18.

Why the lie OP? Why the pretence?

Yep. This is what I don't understand.

Can you answer this, OP?

Gosh this is horrible, utterly shameful. They are raising heir kids in a happy family home.

now I don’t understand at all why rhe op agreed to this, unless it was financial and a lifestyle, but I fully understand why he has, many gay men sadly, even a decade ago wanted a beard, even today many will pick that, a semblance of the stereotypical family unit, for many differing reasons, career, shame of their sexuality, fear of being judged, cultural, religion, family etc, and I’ve no doubt he is gay, but I don’t judge their ability to raise a family in a happy home, or decide I know rhe situation better than they do. The fact there are four kids tells me there is something behind him wanting a beard and not to live life openly as a gay man,

I would like to understand her motivations better, and I really don’t beleive for one moment she agreed to this in her 20s as he was her best friend, so I do think op there is something unsaid here in terms of why you agreed to be this man’s beard, and I suspect you have this odd sex to make it feel more like a marriage to you, and he’s committed to do that, it was the deal you made.

But are your kids protected , I’ve no doubt, and I don’t see any reason they should ever find out the transactional deal you both made or that you were always his beard,