Husband holding hands with male friend.

[User3679963]

I would like a little perspective please.

My husband told me that a male friend (who he rarely sees) holds his hand when they meet up. I think this is odd, I cant imagine walking through town to see my husband holding hands with his friend. But my husband genuinely sees nothing wrong with it. When I said I thought it was odd, he stared at me blankly and just said 'Sorry I dont see what's wrong with it.' His friend is straight, as is my husband (although during his teens he apparently used to hold hands with another male friend, who he thought he had feelings for but in the end they were just very good friends. They both had hard upbringings and were like brothers).
I asked him if he thought it appropriate to hold a female friends hand, and he said if she was to reach for his hand he wouldn't have an issue with it. We are all British, so it's not a cultural thing. (I know in some cultures it's the norm for male friends to hold hands)
So as not to drop feed, my husband isn't the most affectionate person. We're intimate on average once every 4 months, sometimes 6, and he sees this as normal and has no worries about it. We rarely kiss other than a peck when one of us is going out, and hes not the type to cuddle up on the sofa in the evenings (it wasn't like this before we got married) So I can't tell if he is either genuinely detached emotionally, so something like hand holding isn't an intimate action to him, or whether there is more to this.

I'm sorry if this seems like a ridiculous thing to ask.

@User3679963 If your husband would be "less than impressed" if he saw you holding hands with someone, that changes how I feel about your husband holding hands with his friends. It is totally unreasonable for him to subject you to a different standard. If he gets to hold hands with his friends, so do you. You don't deserve less support or affection from your friends than he does from his friends.

How do you think you will feel and react if he says he is gay or bi?

He’s previously claimed to have no sex drive. He could have been watching the female porn to try to see if it got him going. Has he had other previous sexual partners?

If he’s not gay, then maybe he has little interest in sex - which might explain his insistence on the hand-holding being innocent (he’s not a sexual person and gets annoyed at everything being about sex perhaps?).

Not being very affectionate with you could be because he’s gay, but it could equally be because he’s not a very sexual person so is concerned that if he is affectionate with you, it could turn into something sexual which he’s just not that keen on.

Either way - gay or very low/zero sex drive - you need a frank discussion about things.

Sounds like he is gay.

@Ponoka7 FWIW, no, I do not. I think it might have been before but culture evolves and I wouldn't look twice if I saw anyone holding hands. The whole British stiff upper lip, no talking about emotions, quick pat on the back thing is old-fashioned these days, IMO. It's just my opinion.

I think he is gay.
And if I were in your situation after hearing that I'd definitely be convinced he was gay.

I knew a couple of fathers who married and had kids but were quite clearly bi or gay. They maintained intense male friendships alongside their marriage.

It’s hard to know whether DH is bi or gay and how he feels about this. Suffice to say holding hands is not a normal feature of heterosexual male friendship.

Having been in the situation where my exh did turn out to be gay (after having a secret 6 year affair with his BF) i'd say you H is gay, OP

And he knows social norms. Stop pretending he thinks he walks about and sees straight men going to thr shops etc all holding hands. He does not

But, as I said with my ASD ex, he literally could NOT see anything that did not reinforce his world view. I love pineapple. He hates it and so everybody hates it. Even though he could see me eating, and evidently enjoying, pineapple. It just did not compute, so he ignored it. It was like cognitive bias plus a million. It just, quite literally, could not be happening because he didn't think it should.

I wonder if OP's DH is like this? So he may not necessarily be gay, just unable to take on board social norms. But I'd leave him for the lack of sex and affection alone. Which is precisely why I left my XP.

And yes, I know a lot of ASD people are, and can be, affectionate. The form it took with my ex wasn't like that though.

he knows I'm fair, and would keep a good relationship with him and for our child sake were we to part. Other than sharing a home, he would have nothing to lose

You might be fair but he's not being fair to you...

He's setting the frequency of sex and not taking any steps to address your unhappiness about that.
He pulled out if couples counseling but you don't really know why
He's telling you that he regularly holds hands with a friend when he meets them ( sounds like an EA warning whatever gender the friend is.)

These are not the acts of a partner who is treating you fairly. He's pretending that these are normal things that you should just accept and what he's gaining by doing this is the social ease of being married, access to you for childcare, company, housekeeping, emotional labour (particularly if this is not an even split). Plus full time access to your shared child.

If he was honest with you you might decide that you only want to be married to someone who is affectionate with you and who wants to have a physical relationship with you. You might choose to leave to find that person and he would lose all of these benefits. He's decided it's better for him not to take the chance right now. If you decide to stay I suggest you make sure you are financially well protected for the future.

I wonder if OP's DH is like this? So he may not necessarily be gay

He TOLD OP he's had homosexual feelings towards his male friends before.

Why are people not getting this?

I don't consider hand-holding to be intimate. Affectionate or supportive but not intimate. And not gendered

That's how you feel. But about 99% of society doesn't feel that way. And there's the issue.

beautifulstranger101 He did mention this, but he was 14/15 and realised quickly the feelings weren't there (otherwise I assume a relationship would have progressed). They were very close and I think he got confused, as some teenagers do. Obviously I'm just going on what I've been told though.

Of course I don't know what's going on in your DH's head, OP, but my best guess is that he is gay, and he may not even be acknowledging that fact to himself yet.
Straight British men do not hold hands, they barely touch each other aside from back-slapping hugs.
Aside from this, the decreasing intimacy between you and your DH is worrying for your marriage. Some people maintain a platonic marriage by choice, but most people want physical intimacy in a marriage. Absence of real kissing, barely any sex, barely any touching - it's not heading in a good direction if you do want intimacy with a partner. Good luck OP

In the words of my wise teenager ‘it’s a bit off’.
If I saw my DO hand in hand toting about with a pal I’d assume they were drunk 🤣

*DP

Gay or bi

otherwise I assume a relationship would have progressed

Not necessarily, there could be many reasons why he felt he couldn't come out- parental pressure, societal norms, him wanting a child in the future, struggling with his identity etc

I know quite a few married men who have since come out, its not as simple as "well just come out then!". Many men struggle with it for years and many men claim to be bi first as a way of paving the way for an eventual coming out as gay. Its easy for us to say that but its not so easy when you are the one dealing with the backlash and struggling with confusion around what you really want out of life.

Either way- you need to talk to him about this and the lack of affection and sex because that is really not "normal" (I hate that word but you know what i mean) for a man in his 30s. If its twice a year now, it will likely get less and less until it diminishes completely. If you are unhappy with this you need to talk to him. Its also a bit of a red flag that he wound go to counselling with you.

but he was 14/15 and realised quickly the feelings weren't there (otherwise I assume a relationship would have progressed).

The feelings could have been there on his side, just not on his friends!

@adeline my husband turned him down, and went on to have a girlfriend, and then his friend entered a gay relationship.

Gay. Straight, Bi. Doesn't matter. The point is he's being affectionate and loving with someone who isn't you. And it should be you. Don't let him bullshit you.

I wonder if OP's DH is like this

You're being very tunnel visioned and ignoring everything past the hand holding.

He holds down a serious job where he emotionally supports people, very difficult if you do not understand social norms. No? Because the very basis of that role is to understand what's within the realms of normality,

He has admitted to homosexual feelings in the past. He has little to no sexual interest in his wife. His friend is likely gay or bi that he is holding hands with, but doesn't wish to come out.

All these things together are what is causing peoooe to say he is gay,

If the op said he held hands, but was a lean mean shagging machine, as was his friend, that he holds hands with all his male and female friends, that he is overly affectionate, that his friends all do the same, then the reaction would be different.

But people are looking at the entire context and commenting.

OP your husband is not a fan of the foof. That is why he is not affectionate and physical with you. He almost certainly has a whole other life where his gay needs are being met and that is why you are seeing what you are seeing in your marriage.

Stop listening to what he tells you. He tells you stuff to keep you in your box. YOUR needs are not being met and he doesn't give a rap because his are and if you change things his nice little set up is finished. Wake up.

You're a beard OP. His male friend is his occasional bit on the side. He has been seen in public holding his hand by someone you both know and is covering his bases.

Bluntness, if it helps, he works from home, behind a laptop all day. He rarely has to talk to people and when he does, they're all very blunt people, but they're all the same so it's normal. In person he will say things that I conceive as rude, and doesn't understand if I say he shouldnt have said it. Everything is very black and white to him and it's hard to convince him otherwise. Hes really big on being empathetic and emotional (mostly the last few years, before then his persona was pretty blunt and grumpy, but because hes also kind its what his friends and family love about him.) but it's almost as if hes programmed himself that way because he knows it's the way a human should be.