Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

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

Telling a woman about her husband’s gay affairs...

225 replies

saturnaliand · 08/11/2021 10:31

First off, I don’t actually intend on telling her anything, although I could.

I guess I’d be interested in knowing if you’d want to know if this were your man?

The man I’m referring to is middle-aged and was upfront with his wife from the beginning that he’d had gay relationships and she was ok with this in a kind of ‘as long as you tell me and do not lie’ kind of way. That’s easy to agree to when you’re young, in love (with a woman you want to marry) and not intending on doing anything with anyone else, male or female.

It’s harder when you’re older, children almost grown up, sex life with the wife non-existent and you were gay to begin with. This isn’t some new thing he’s been experimenting with, he’s always been gay but he wanted the normality (apologies for the word) of being in a heterosexual relationship as he disliked the gay lifestyle and was regularly cheated on by the boyfriends he’d had when single.

Marrying a woman who was a lot less likely to cheat and he could have a family with seemed the better option.

He’s had some flings over the last few years or so and has recently started a new one as the last one was cut short because of the lockdowns and pandemic. Rather than go back to the previous boyfriend (if that’s the right term), he joined one of the popular hookup sites (Fabguys.com I think) and has met someone from there.

They meet regularly under the guise of going to the gym and often book hotels for the other workouts they enjoy. They go for meals, to the theatre and it’s a real ‘bromance’. The new boyfriend is also married to a woman and has a family.

To the outside world, this man is just a respectable married man with a family, but he has a controlling personality that he seems to reserve for his boyfriends. One of his ex-boyfriends that he’s had during his marriage needed therapy to get over his possessiveness, his jealousy, his moodiness and his constant need for attention as well as the cruel way the boyfriend was dumped and replaced with another.

Some of his behaviour to his boyfriends is borderline ‘gas-lighting’ behaviour.

His wife sees a totally different side, the nice side, as do his children and, so far, the new boyfriend.

This man hasn’t no intention of leaving his wife or nice lifestyle and presumably no intention of confirming her suspicions that’s he has a new boyfriend. She’s not known about any of them, just has suspicions.

He doesn’t see he’s doing anything wrong as he’s not getting sex at home, his wife knows he’s gay and has a new best friend. She just doesn’t know for certain that her husband and his new mate are lovers.

If you were his wife, would you want to know?

OP posts:
PermanentTemporary · 08/11/2021 23:02

I'd stay 100% clear of this. You know one person's very emotional perspective on one angle of the situation. Fair enough, let him vent to you. I think to take someone's still-hung-up-on-this-guy 's outpouring as a feasible basis for action would be a very very bad idea.

sybillalle · 08/11/2021 23:59

@AcrossthePond55

If he were to tell the wife (very unlikely) it wouldn’t be as vindictive revenge against the husband, more to somehow force the husband into making some proper choices and maybe even giving the wife the chance to find someone for herself.

Horseshit. Don't try to put a halo on your head. You can try to spin it all you like, but the motive is still revenge. Just what 'proper choices' would this man 'be forced' to make that wouldn't potentially negatively impact his wife and possibly force her into making choices she doesn't want to make. She has found peace with this, perhaps an uneasy peace, but still peace.

Perhaps it would be different if she had no idea he was leading a double life and/or if you knew that he was engaging in unsafe sex practices and so endangering her health. But that's not what you're saying, you're just saying that perhaps she should be told that he's cheating. She already knows that.

Indeed - he didn't care too much about the wife when he was sneaking around with her husband, did he? Now that he's been dumped, he just wants to use her as a tool to punish his ex-fling. He should examine his own intentions and conscience, and stick to single men in future.
AcrossthePond55 · 09/11/2021 00:29

@sybillalle

Spot on! Op's post absolutely reeks of sour grapes.

user1481840227 · 09/11/2021 00:48

I'd want to know.

If he's abusive to the boyfriends then I would assume he's just as abusive to his wife.

lousanne · 09/11/2021 06:19

I take it you are the ex bf of this man.
The ex bf who got gas lighted

Ritasueandbobtoo9 · 09/11/2021 06:27

@PlausibleSuit

I'd want to know why you know so much about it, and why you're happy to splaff fairly specific details of their personal lives on the internet.

As an out gay man myself I would say that in my experience, men who remain partially or entirely closeted and entangle themselves in these longstanding faux-heterosexual arrangements are like hand grenades pinned to catherine wheels; damaging everyone around them as well as themselves.

This. It’s 2021. Be honest in life.
Hetyanni · 09/11/2021 06:44

[quote AcrossthePond55]@sybillalle

Spot on! Op's post absolutely reeks of sour grapes.[/quote]
Also reeks of homophobia.

Branleuse · 09/11/2021 06:50

Not your circus not your monkeys

spotcheck · 09/11/2021 06:52

@GoodnightGrandma

I’d suggest that she’s happy to have his money and security, and turn a blind eye.
For heaven's sake. Is this 1922?
user367862167 · 09/11/2021 07:01

Yes, OP please tell the wife. So much internalised misogyny on this thread. Of course she has a right to know and lead the life she deserves. She is being cheated on by her partner and she doesn’t deserve that.

saturnaliand · 09/11/2021 07:40

It what what is it homophobic?

OP posts:
saturnaliand · 09/11/2021 07:42

@ Hetyanni

In what way is it homophobic?

OP posts:
Porfre · 09/11/2021 07:47

How do you know the wife knows that her husband used to be gay?

Unless the wife herself has confirmed this we only have the husbands word for this.

If you're relying on the husbands word for part of the story you've painted then its unreliable. Hes basically saying what he will to manipulate people into sex, the same as any man cheating on their wife.

If my husband was cheating I'd want to know.

Straighttalking1 · 09/11/2021 08:25

Wifey knows already. She has accepted this marriage, she knows full well. Sounds as though you want to rock his boat but I don't think it will achieve anything.

baroqueandblue · 09/11/2021 12:10

"She is being cheated on by her partner and she doesn’t deserve that."

The problem is, the OP/'friend of OP' had no qualms about that particular detail while colluding in the cheating. And I'd bet a house that, had Mr Wrong not dumped him, he'd still be happy to keep everything on the downlow. That's why OP/whoever hasn't a moral right to light the blue touchpaper under the marriage now, no matter how scorned he feels Hmm

EvenMoreFuriousVexation · 09/11/2021 14:34

I have a feeling op expected a green light from mn.

AcrossthePond55 · 09/11/2021 14:39

@EvenMoreFuriousVexation

I have a feeling op expected a green light from mn.
I think you're right. And if the post had been that the man is having affairs (gay or straight) and the wife didn't know the answers would probably have been very different. I know mine would have been to tell her.

But she does know and has known apparently their entire marriage. She's built her life around that knowledge and made her peace with it. In this case there's nothing in the least to be gained by telling. And it's pretty obvious the OP's motives are not at all altruistic.

Mediocrates · 09/11/2021 14:42

Weird how your friend has a sudden attack of morality now he's the one who's been hurt...

Sakurami · 09/11/2021 14:44

Well he's certainly cheating and probably also living a lie which means that his wife hasn't had a proper relationship with him, felt desired by him etc and the kids won't have had a good example of a relationship either.

I would tell the wife because I have been cheated on and would have wanted to be told. If I had been told I would have made different decisions because not knowing impacted my life for many years past the time I split up with that person. Knowing gives you choices.

Monabitmoore · 09/11/2021 14:50

@Lightswitch123

I'd be worried about STDs
It's not all STDs and unprotected sex in the gay world you know Wink
Terribleluck · 09/11/2021 15:00

Please don't. This happened to somebody very close to me and it wrecked the whole family.

PinkiOcelot · 09/11/2021 15:13

How do you know all of this? Down to the website he used to meet people to the boyfriend needing therapy?

Blue4YOU · 09/11/2021 15:29

Obviously this is the ex boyfriend.
Whether the husband is gay or bisexual or actively having sex with his wife or “just” using her for her own ends, as you’ve suggested OP (this makes no sense btw: woman married gay man for children and money and a future of no sex but would be hurt by finding out said arrangement was “open” and husband was supposed to have sacrificed his freedom/money/honesty/integrity/life/potential to have his own husband just to give a woman he’s not even sexually attracted to his money and children….??? Really??)
It’s irrelevant what happened or happens now or in the past for closeted gay men who chose to marry women. In most cases the woman marrying wouldn’t have known he was gay…

I suspect that the real issue is that the OP wants to know if his ex is actually gay or bisexual or was he just a bit of fun ie not a person with feelings as OP says

Thymeout · 09/11/2021 15:44

It really isn't as simple as 'tell her. I'd want to know.'

I don't think anyone who hasn't been in this or a similar situation can possibly appreciate the nuances of relationships between closeted gay married men and their wives, whether they know or not, and their gay sexual partners, who may be many and fleeting.

I have a close friend now in his 70's whom I've known since he was a teenager. He got married in the middle of the AIDS epidemic because friends were dying all round him and he wanted a straight lifestyle and children. He was totally upfront with his girlfriend before they married, but whether she thought she had turned him or accepted his sexuality is moot. She had issues of her own.

Despite this, they had a three dcs and a long marriage until she became terminally ill and left him for another man. To justify her actions, she blew his cover. He had had no extra-marital relationships, just the occasional purely physical one-off encounter with other closeted gay men. She was his prime adult emotional connection and he was v hurt when she tried to sabotage his relationship with their children, now young adults.

See? It's complicated and I don't think anyone has the right to set themselves up as Judge Judy.

Stay out of it. None of your business.

Plantstrees · 09/11/2021 17:09

Surely his sexual preferences are irrelevant. He is having affairs without her knowledge. If I was the wife, I would want to know and it wouldn't matter who told me but I would suggest OP should remain anonymous if he does otherwise it just looks like revenge.

My only reservation is that she went into the marriage knowing about his previous relationships which makes me wonder what she expected in the longer term. Perhaps she is aware and doesn't care, and if so, then presumably it wont make any difference if she is told providing it is done discreetly.