To want to marry a man even though I am gay

[strawberryplants]

I just want to be normal so much.

A date! Not a fate!

It absolutely is about what a straight spouse - of yours - would feel. Marriage isn't a theoretical entity in which only one person has a stake. There are two people fully involved, two lives impacted forever. Two lives that will never come round again. This is it for both of you. Don't ruin someone else's one and only life.

You are considering dragging a real, live other person into this. You marrying a straight man is what you posted about.

I really urge you to get some help with both accepting your sexual orientation and your approach to other people's reality.

Other people's reality matters. You need to acknowledge that. You need to tread very cautiously around that. Other people have an absolute right not to be used.

You don't want to hear that. But it's true all the same. If you decide to plough ahead regardless of the impact on other people, then maybe that is an indication that being gay is not your problem here when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Maybe it's a personality problem.

Fwiw, the gay and lesbian couples I know (two gay couples and one lesbian couple) are people who are secure in their sexual orientation. They have had their struggles but have embraced it. They are living lives of integrity, baggage ditched, nehative people ditched, committed to being the best individual people they can be. Their integrity results in happiness.

My advice to you is to get help accepting your sexual orientation. From that foundation a new and more whole and more attractive potential partner can emerge. You cannot possibly hope to attract a genuine, loving person to yourself when you are so negative about who you are.

Well I sincerely hope in sorting out ideas in her own head she will factor in the concept of other people possibly being horribly hurt.

I don't get the impression from her posts that this matters to her.

OP, as a few PPs have mentioned, I think the mistake you made was posting this in AIBU as opposed to in chat or LGBT (although I'd recommend chat for the traffic).

Instead of people seeing this as your putting one of your private musings that you don't feel you can talk about IRL out there and having a frank and heartening conversation about how to find a meaningful gay relationship, how to deal with loneliness and feeling like everyone is sorted when there's that nagging doubt that you might never feel that way, some people have taken it to be your literally planning to marry a man despite being gay.

A lot of people are projecting their own experiences and hurt into a conversation that was clearly intended to have a different tone, but that's what you risk when you post in AIBU, unfortunately.

I would post again in chat, but maybe on the basis of wanting tips on finding your people or dealing with loneliness rather than mentioning the extreme of marrying a dude.

Op, I married a woman.

I'm now with a guy & have a DS.

You do whatever you want, it's your life.

I don't label myself as bisexual because I don't find people attractive because of their sex, I find them attractive because of their personalities. I can fall in love with anyone!

Difficult to seriously focus on a man's potential feelings when he doesn't exist, and she is fully aware she didn't end up with a bloke back when she still thought she was straight...

I feel rather unkind saying this, but what the hell, you've really laid into the OP. Math, you are quick to say that bisexual women are different from men when bisexual MNers take offence to your opinions on bisexual men. Should your experiences with men be projected onto the female OP?

I wouldn't be wholly surprised if gay men and women acted very differently in regards to considering and pursuing opposite-sex relationships. More to the point, nor should you be, considering I was left with the impression that you think bisexual women can be faithful and bisexual men can't.

In fact actually, dang being nice.

If I'd posted last night, "AIBU to want to kill my MIL*. I'm so fed up", I would never get pages of people explaining the psychological impact murder has on the victim's family.

Everyone would get that I was upset and throwing extreme language out there. No-one, absolutely no-one, would think it was evidence I was seriously planning it. Even though there would be zero evidence in my posts that I understood the impact murdering my MIL would have on the rest of the family.

The title is "to want to marry a man even though I am gay" and the OP posted a one line post. She expected and wanted reassurance that lots of people wish they could just be straight too.

Of course she's not invested any prose into analysing the cons for this hypothetical man. Because he was never going to exist and she never thought he would.

*I like my MIL and no MILs will be harmed as a consequence of this post.

I've read this being completely at math's posts as well.

What the hell.

JamieVardy, YWNBU to murder your MIL if she spawned a gay male woman-marrier, obvs. She deserves it, the bitch.

math is upset, though. That's pretty obvious. She misunderstood the OP and related it to her own situation, which people do.

I do think the OP is being a bit defeatist. I can understand that too. But there's one surefire way to make sure your life is lonely and boring, and that's to reject any possibility of meeting people.

Jamie, I am SO grateful for your posts. Thank you.

I have not RTFT, although I saw your comment about people commenting must be straight. Yes I am straight and married to a man, with 2 kids, so yes isnthat dynamic we are perseved as "normal" but what is normal. I was into heavy metal music when I was younger and horror film (still am) and was preserved as weird, I am also a geek, I have never been perseved as normal, even my mother made comment that she was disappointed because I wasn't like other girls because I liked black and horror films.
I know it is a far cry from being gay, but I am still not this "normal" and I hate the word. If you marry a man just to be "normal" it isn't fair on you or him, you will both be unhappy. Forget everyone else be you, work on what makes you happy and if you aren't comfortable with your love life side, due to the gender in which you fancy, concentrate on something else to make you happy, a job you love or a hobby that makes you happy, your friends, everything else will fall into place and you will be much happier in the long run.

I have not RTFT, although I saw your comment about people commenting must be straight. Yes I am straight and married to a man, with 2 kids, so yes isnthat dynamic we are perseved as "normal" but what is normal. I was into heavy metal music when I was younger and horror film (still am) and was preserved as weird, I am also a geek, I have never been perseved as normal, even my mother made comment that she was disappointed because I wasn't like other girls because I liked black and horror films.
I know it is a far cry from being gay, but I am still not this "normal" and I hate the word. If you marry a man just to be "normal" it isn't fair on you or him, you will both be unhappy. Forget everyone else be you, work on what makes you happy and if you aren't comfortable with your love life side, due to the gender in which you fancy, concentrate on something else to make you happy, a job you love or a hobby that makes you happy, your friends, everything else will fall into place and you will be much happier in the long run.

It really is a far cry from being gay.

I saw this thread as just a process, running thoughts around a circuit, seeing if anything becomes clearer.

Yes, yes that is a far cry from being gay.

Like PP I haven't RTFT, but I saw something earlier that said "Being gay is like being left-handed. Some are, most aren't, and there's nothing to be done that can change it." Just putting it out there.

And just to get one thing straight... I'm not.

I’m straight and haven’t rtft. But get the feeling I have a different view to most, sorry if this has been said already.

Personally I think YANBU with the caveat that your dh should know and accept your situation. There are men around with low/no sex drive. If you really want to be married to a man and have children together maybe there is someone out there that can meet your needs, who knows?

I think it’s so sad that it’s still so hard to feel normal as a gay person. I am friends with two lesbian couples, one of them have two children. They are very accepted in our community. Maybe there’s a more open, welcoming place that might help you find another answer to your discomfort.

I’m so sorry you feel this way. Ultimately, your life, your choice.

I tried to be ‘normal’ until I was 27. It wasn’t a phase, I didn’t grow out of it, and it didn’t change.
Now I had a choice- still deny it and be lonely/miserable/ bitter for years or accept it, with all accompanying difficulties.

I would suggest maybe having some counselling to help you accept who you are. If you’re not happy with yourself, getting into a relationship- any relationship-and hoping the partner will make you happy and less lonely, is not the best starting place.

JamieVardys
Math, you are quick to say that bisexual women are different from men when bisexual MNers take offence to your opinions on bisexual men. Should your experiences with men be projected onto the female OP?

Really?

I have said this?

Where have I said this?

Every comment I have made on the topic focuses on the effects of being deceived and used.

I am telling the OP how it feels to be used and deceived. This is what she is contemplating doing to some random man she hasn't even met yet. The OP asked very bluntly 'AIBU To marry a man even though I am gay'.

And I have given my forthright answer. It's based on my own experience on the receiving end of this cruelty. It's also based on my observation of hundreds of posts on a forum for deceived and used people trying to regain a sense of dignity and ownership of their own lives on forums for people who have had their own bruising experiences with terminally self absorbed and selfish people who think this is a reasonable way to treat other people, men and women alike. So let's stop with the 'projecting' bit - it's a cheap shot whose aim is to silence.

I am 99.999% sure that a man who is deceived and used would feel exactly the same way that I do about the person doing the deceit and the using once the truth is revealed, about the years wasted, the feeling that you have been run over emotionally and psychologically by a juggernaut. I have seen the posts of men on straight spouse fora. There are lots of them, and they are devastated.

Comprehensive deceit, and using people for your own ends are equal opportunity destroyers of lives.

There is nothing about lesbians doing it that makes it excusable, or understandable, or mitigated in any way.

As to me 'misunderstanding' the OP's post - thanks for the patronising, to those who have patronised.

There is nothing ambiguous about the OP's self pity and self loathing, or the idea that another person can be cast in the role of beard.
There is not one single acknowledgement by the OP of the suggestions to find counselling to help her embrace her sexual orientation.
Suggestions on how to find a nice woman and forge a relationship have been shot down.

Above all, there is no hint of empathy for the hypothetical man - just anger at those who have dared remind her that others have feelings too, and a right not to be deceived and used.
I have seen this void where there should be empathy. It has affected my life and it has affected the lives of many others.

So forgive me for assuming that this idea of an empty, meaningless relationship of convenience with a man is one that she prefers to all of the above, at this point in her life.

no hint of empathy for ... the man

Because he doesn’t fucking exist

OP, you should go see Fun Home at the Young Vic, because:

1. it's on this very topic

2. it's awesome

3. lesbians EVERYWHERE!!!

Math, you might get something from it too, although I can see why you might want to steer clear.

Well, yeah ... it's a bit of a waste of time to empathise with a hypothetical man who doesn't exist!

math, I get that you have suffered in a horrible situation. But you persist in reading the OP as saying she's literally about to marry a man who knows nothing about her sexuality. She isn't doing that! She never said she was! She is talking about wanting to marry a man, even though she's gay, because she wants to feel 'normal' and for her, that can't currently be separated from the idea of heterosexual marriage.

She doesn't mention a boyfriend, a fiance, or even a casual shag buddy. She isn't asking for people to condone her actually doing this thing. She's asking if it is wrong that she wishes she could do this.

Because he doesn’t fucking exist**

Think about the men! The poor hypothetical men!

They don't even need to bloody exist to be above this woman clearly screaming out for help.

Ah, come on, math's not doing that. I don't think this is a sexism thing. It's about how it might feel.

To be boring and read into it from my own situation - when I was married to my ex, and before I figured out I was gay, I borrowed his computer and happened on pictures of him cross-dressing. And, you know, I was gutted. Properly gutted. I was in shock and I walked all round our house wondering how on earth he could do this and not tell me. I felt completely at sea.

I can very much relate to math, and I'm only relating to a tiny part of what she experienced - I'd had a short marriage, and I knew deep down something wasn't right anyway, and we didn't have children.

So, I don't think it's fair to pretend this is a black and white issue. It's not as simple as math is making out, but not as simple as others disagreeing with her would like it to be, either.