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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Anyone being in a relationship with a man who later came out as gay?

27 replies

Upcycled · 07/01/2014 22:23

Just asking for some insight and probably "signs".
It is about my exH, there were some jokey rumours at the UNI, and I wondered a few times, even suspected he was having a affair with a guy at one point...
The relationship ended quite abruptly with no real explanation, and I still try to understand the whole thing now and then.

Oh yes and I have already moved on, got married again, one child and all that.

OP posts:
Original poster
Upcycled · 07/01/2014 22:23

oh and the title in the OP should be been shouldn't it?

OP posts:
ScoobertDoo · 07/01/2014 22:25

My very first boyfriend turned out to be gay, but we were 9 when we 'went out' so I don't think it really counts.
He's now my best friend.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 07/01/2014 22:27

You say 'no real explanation' for the relationship ending but, if the man was gay, surely that's the explanation and it's pretty easy to understand?

Original poster
Upcycled · 07/01/2014 22:31

I don't know if he is gay cogito. I don't know if he has come out of the closet, we are not in contact with each other.
He just kicked me out of his life and refused to explain.

OP posts:
Original poster
Upcycled · 07/01/2014 23:13

Once we went to this very cool night club with lots of different rooms with different decor and ambience.

In one of the rooms there was a round stage with some girls tastefully same naked dancing beautifully, I was mesmerised by it, and he even turned his back and kept dancing without watching it at all.

His favourite room was the terrace were there was a swimming pool and some very fit male dancers pretended to be life guards dancing and playing with a beach ball.

OP posts:
Lweji · 07/01/2014 23:21

Sorry, but what do you expect to gain from this thread?

Original poster
Upcycled · 07/01/2014 23:30

Not sure, really.
I was just reminded about this particular time of my past by reading another thread.

OP posts:
Lweji · 07/01/2014 23:34

What if he was?
Or what if he wasn't?

Original poster
Upcycled · 07/01/2014 23:43

If I found out he is, I would probably understand a few things that went wrong in our relationship. This would be good as I suffered a lot, went to hell and back.

If he isn't, well, I don't know.
Probably I will just have to put up with this nagging feeling on the back of my mind that I wasn't good enough for him. I know this is absolutely rubbish way of thinking and I probably need therapy.

But regardless of his sexuality, the way he treated me was not nice and he should have been more respectful. End of.

OP posts:
Lweji · 08/01/2014 01:09

But regardless of his sexuality, the way he treated me was not nice and he should have been more respectful. End of.

Quite.

He was a bastard and you're better off without.

Blushingm · 08/01/2014 02:21

My ex bil. He was married to my dsis and the whole time they were married he was having an affair with the son of his best man!!

str8tothepoint · 08/01/2014 17:48

Your married with a child???? Why bother even thinking about this.

BlueSkySunnyDay · 08/01/2014 17:53

Why bother even thinking about this.

Some of us like to mull over past relationships to understand them with the benefit of age and experience - as long as its not consuming every waking moment I dont see it as an unusual question myself.

Original poster
Upcycled · 08/01/2014 18:57

thanks blue

OP posts:
Mintyy · 08/01/2014 19:01

Its a perfectly valid and quite interesting subject for a thread. Not one that I have seen on Mumsnet before (which is refreshing in itself!). Why on earth are you trying to shut it down str8tothepoint and lweji ?

smallsheep · 08/01/2014 19:11

Yes me, we were both in our 20's when we had a relationship. I had no idea at all, there were no signs, he was a lovely boyfriend, but not strong enough for my personality unfortunately.
He took many years to come out, late 30's, I still see him now and again but he does not discuss it with me at all, it is kind of taboo between us, I don't like to ask, he feels awkward.
I am sure he was not unfaithful - we worked and lived together.
I have no idea how he came to realise he preferred men, I guess it must have always been there, he was maybe in denial back then, I know a few men who married and had children who are now gay, and they say they always knew, but were trying to be "normal" and bury it, it was not so accepted then though.

Mintyy · 08/01/2014 19:35

I know many gay people who have had long-term relationships with the opposite sex previously, including my brother and sister

I have one gay friend (male) whose first girlfriend came out as a lesbian! They are great friends now.

Twinklestein · 08/01/2014 19:49

A gay couple, good friends of mine, when they got together in their late 20s one partner had always been gay, the other had always been straight.

And I have a close male friend who was originally gay and turned straight in his mid-20s.

Very different reasons for doing so, I don't think that 'signs' exist beyond an attraction to the other sex they're currently involved with.

Lweji · 08/01/2014 19:53

I didn't try to shut it down. Hmm

It was a valid question to ask what the OP wanted from analysing what happened with this man now.
If she's still thinking about it, it must have hit a nerve, but mostly with the way he behaved and I don't think it has much to do with the possibility of him being gay or not.

It was his choice to end it, to not explain it. Nothing you did.

christine44 · 08/01/2014 19:53

I dated a man in my 20s for three years. We had a lovely relationship - best mates too. Suddenly disapeared from my life. Was devastated, had no clue . Bumped into him two years layer and then met for dinner. Gob smaked when he told me. Hsppy for him buf still think he was really selfish to screw up so many years of my twenties. For years thought there was something wrong with me for him to disappear from my life like that when in reality he had shacked up with a bloke. Happy he's happy but he was living a lie and dragging me along with him

OvertiredandConfused · 08/01/2014 20:12

I dated my male best friend for a few months almost 20 years ago. Physical spark just wasn't there and I worked out very quickly that he was gay. Took him another 5 years to come to terms and then tell me (I was the first person he told after his mum). He's been in a civil partnership with a wonderful guy for more than 5 years and he's still my best friend.

WaitingForMe · 08/01/2014 20:13

Everyone thought my first boyfriend was gay. My parents were oddly cool about letting me visit him as a teenager. DM says they assumed nothing would ever happen. Nothing happened.

BlueSkySunnyDay · 08/01/2014 20:26

I guess for some people its just that they meet one person of the same sex that they are attracted to - so the previous hetro relationships were not a lie as such.

Then there a some who do not want to admit it to themselves or other people so try to "fit in"

I think having grown up with the whole Tom Robinson "glad to be gay thing, it was a bit of a shock to watch "the naked civil servant" and realise that not everyone was comfortable with how they were (I need to watch it again saw it a long time ago and it touched me enormously) I guess most of the mainstream people you hear talk about it are the ones who are happy to be public about it and comfortable with it.

Now I think about it when I was much younger I did have a very, very camp boyfriend who everyone assumed was really gay - we have no contact now so I dont know....he certainly didnt do anything to convince me to the contrary Grin

A few years ago I worked with a very open gay man (he liked hairy dominant men) but mid 30s suddenly decided he found Irish women really attractive - I did wonder at the time if men have the equivalent of a biological clock as I know he would have liked to have children.

Droves · 08/01/2014 20:30

Bluesky mabey he thought he was gay , but was really bisexual ?

BlueSkySunnyDay · 08/01/2014 20:32

I do always think that Droves when they talk about this or that famous person who is "really gay" - its not necessarily and either or is it