It’s a Schofield question - don’t click if you’re fed up with it!

[Schofe99]

I know there are lots of other threads. I haven’t found anyone asking/thinking what I am.

I watched the interview. The way he softened when mentioning the young man and emphasised several times that he’s the one he’s most concerned about.

Was it just me thinking WHAT ABOUT YOUR WIFE??? When Amol asked why it was wrong/what he regretted, I assumed he’d say “well, mainly I was unfaithful to my wife. That was wrong. Im so sorry about that.”

And when he was asked about other gay experiences/relationships he shut that down. Which left me thinking, again, WHAT ABOUT BEING UNFAITHFUL TO YOUR WIFE!!!

He’s talked about “us four” before and mentioned it again in the interview. But it’s not ok for him to have all the cosiness and support of a family unit when he’s being unfaithful, surely?

So my AIBU is am I the only one who is seeing this mainly through the eyes of his wife who is watching her husbands infidelity playing out in public? Maybe they’re not sexually intimate and haven’t been for years. But they’re clearly emotionally intimate, spend a lot of time together etc. How UTTERLY GRIM if she didn’t know that her husband was shagging young men. (I really don’t think she did know - I believe him when he says he lied to her).

This.

Not intentionally defending him in the slightest, but didn’t he separate from his wife in 2020? I have no doubt that was horrendous for her at the time, dealing with such betrayal, but she will have known all these details for a while and has had at least three years to process it. I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong that the young guy being caught up in it and splashed all over the media is the main concern at this current moment.

@littlehoops I’m so sorry you had that experience. X

@User57632678372 That’s true. But did she know about the others (implied from the interview?) And the man in question was pre 2020….

This. I am not surprised at all, this is what you expect from a narc. Its always all about them, they are always the victim and its always everyone else's fault.

Text book narc behaviour.

I have a gay male friend, the amount of "happily married" men who contact him are unbelievable.

He was very smart with the NDA comment. He basically said he has not put an NDA on MM but no comments on whether ITV did (which I 100% believe they did). I don't know why the interviewer didn't ask if ITV did, but then he works for the BBC and maybe they are worried more will come out about the time he worked there........

What’s the point of speculation? Just that really.

Well she's known for years so presumably was happy with the arrangement and stayed somewhat together for the family/house/lifestyle whatever.

Why do you find it hard? It comes down to being faithful in a relationship. And I would argue that she didn’t think he was gay, but bisexual. Being bisexual doesn’t mean you can’t be faithful (with whichever sex you settle down with).

Spitting Image did about Philip Schofield staying in the closet for the sake of his career back in the early 1990s, before he was married. I find it impossible to believe that his wife didn't know from the beginning or shortly afterwards, and maybe they just transitioned to friendship / amicable co-parenting and she tried to protect him from homophobia. Who knows.

I can't imagine how someone maintains such a huge public lie for so many years. Who does it serve? They must have had their own arrangements because nobody is realistically going to be celibate for 3 decades - and surely those arrangements would have led to falling in love with other people eventually? It just seems pointless and bizarre to me. It was a sham, they live apart and you can't call whatever it is now a 'marriage'.

Some people don’t ever get divorced. Maybe their romantic relationship ended a long time a go (it had to have ended surely when he came out as gay if not a long time before that) but they still consider each other family?
Plus for tax reasons, maybe he wants her to inherit from him and vice versa? They don’t want to legally split assets, they’ll just mostly live separately?

I know a couple of people who have split but no intention of divorcing - mostly older people and often because of dementia or complex problems where the relationship has basically ended but they want to continue to support each other. If you don’t want to re-marry and you want to financially support each other (and avoid inheritance tax), why would you necessarily divorce?

I can kind of see it that way.

She’s a saint for not putting out her side of the story though. It would be hard to keep that private and having the country speculate about you.

Same here. One of my gay friends was always really shocked by the number of married men who were into teenage boys and who also refused to wear condoms.

Oh God.

He's a narcissist..and the story about the runner is the tip of the iceberg of his behaviour.

His wife always knew, even before they were married. The marriage suited both of them. The children probably knew too when they got older, otherwise I am baffled at why they are being so supportive of someone who has just admitted to cheating on their mum with a young man.

He has clearly had other gay encounters otherwise the answer would have been no. I wonder if these other people will do kiss and tells.

The interview made me despise him even more. When he said that the runner only came to his flat once and he can't recall if he stayed the night - of course you can remember if someone stayed the night if they came over once. Also him saying that the "encounters" happened 4 or 5 times and then it changed to 6 times.

Some women are happy to be beards.
And yes all my gay friends have had loads of married sexual partners.

That interview was so fake and a pile of lies. Did this creep think people would believe the crap he was coming out with?

I agree with this. I thought that the interviewer gave him an easy time in general. But perhaps that was part of the deal.

Several jobs ago I worked in a specialist law firm who sometimes provided beard or merkin (or both) employment contracts. What I noticed was they changed over the years from just the standard 2/3/5 year marriage to including at least one or two children.

I think it’s unclear but it is possible. It may be their relationship was good in other ways and not about sex. Maybe they did have a great life as a family together. Until he had a need to explore things with men, which we don’t know when that started. They separated in 2020 didn’t they?

Why does no one on MN understand his wife knew about his sexuality for decades? He was completely open with her.

This needs to STOP now.

Is that what you tell yourself when your are screwing married men, or is that what you call your 'happy' wife? 'Beard' is a horrible disgusting term and tells you all you need to know about the misogyny of many gay men.

My marriage ended when my ex came out as gay. It is always the wives I think of in these situations.

I'm not sure that the current public hounding is likely to encourage any closeted person in a straight-passing relationship to come out. But PS's very public coming out three years ago did.

If anyone finds out that their partner is actually lesbian or gay when they believed them to be straight, support is available in the UK from Straight Partners Anonymous (see attached poster).

US-based organisation Our Path can help with support elsewhere in the world.

Personally, I found it much easier to accept my ex was gay than that he'd lied to me for the best part of twenty years. Other people I've met in similar situations tend to say the same. It's the lies, deceit, and being taken for stupid (and often, but not in my case, the cheating) that hurt most.

I hope Stephanie has good support around her.