I know a couple of C&Fers are going through this or have gone through it in the past, so I thought I would share this article, which deals with the situation where one person in a heterosexual marriage reveals that she or he is homosexual, and where the marriage goes from there.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/02/15/gay.spouse/index.html
Divorce can always be a horrible thing, but sometimes so can staying married.
It seems to me most heterosexual men are capable of
being bi-sexual. So many of the devoutly heterosexual
men I know had homosexual relations during adolescence.
Also I think it’s plain enough that many heterosexual
women are capable of being bisexual too.
Conversely wouldn’t homosexual men be capable of
bisexuality–so that they can have sexual relations
with a woman? Is homosexuality in men more constrained
than heterosexuality?
And wouldn’t most lesbian women–unless they harbor
a good deal of anger and injury–be capable of the
same bisexuality?
I figure it’s common enough for heterosexual men to be
attracted to men and also for heterosexual women to
be attracted to women. Is homosexuality different?
if not why end a marriage over this? Why not
keep up the marriage and keep up the sexual relationship?
I mean it may not be as satisfying as what one most wants,
but sexual relations in marriage often aren’t as satisfying
as what one most wants.
What am I missing? I figure that the love in the marriage
is something that ultimately doesn’t depend on a sexual
relationship. Where there’s a lot of love, these other
issues seem workable.
I’ve never been married (it’s illegal) but I think that the kind of love is often different. I mean, the love you feel for your wife is different than the kind of love you feel for your sister (I hope). I think that’s why and how it’s different. You can love your wife but if it’s not the right kind of love, it’s just not, you know?
I’ve seen many
heterosexual men with male lovers.
This is rampant in Asia.
I remember buying a ticket for a bus in Afghanistan.
Two young men were selling tickets. One asked me:
‘Do you have a missus?’
‘Yes,’ I answered.
‘He’s my missus!’ he answered, and they smiled.
They preferred women but they couldn’t get them,
because they couldn’t meet them and they couldn’t
afford a dowry. So they loved men.
The point/question then is that if heterosexual men can love
men sexually–and there’s quite a lot of it in
the world–why can’t gay men love women sexually?
So if you realize you’re gay and you’re ALREADY married
to a woman, why not love her sexually? OK you prefer
men…so? One day, if you’re hetero, you will probably
prefer a younger woman…so?
Unless gay men are more constrained sexually than heterosexuals
men. But that’s not so easy to believe. As Lenny Bruce
put it… Well, maybe I won’t say that here.
I can’t answer all your questions, Jim. I wish I could.
I just posted the article because I know it will help some C&Fers.
Jim I guess the question is why settle? And why harm another person with your settling?
People should be happy. If you can pull off happiness while not being entirely yourself, then more power to you. But if you can’t, it’s not fair to yourself and it’s not really fair to the other person.
I’m not suggesting you marry somebody of the opposite
sex to BEGIN with if you’re gay.
The question is about people already married, often
for a long time, often with children.
Why shouldn’t a homosexual person in such a relationship be entirely herself?
The idea is that mostly we’re bi-sexual by nature,
with a decided preference one way or the other.
Suppose that’s so for gays too–don’t see why not.
I’m definitely hetero, but there have been some occasions
in my life when I was attracted to a man, on the
verge of falling in love, and sat down and thought the
thing through and decided not to go with it.
I take this to be pretty common among heterosexual men.
My homosexual counterpart would be a man who is sometimes
attracted to women, might actually fall in love with one.
And certainly there are plenty of women who prefer women
but are also attracted to men.
So why can’t one of these people in a heterosexual relationship
be entirely herself?
Is the idea that sex is what matters most in marriage?
It isn’t. That marriage requires you’ve got to have what you want most
sexually? Few get it.
Jim, I can’t speak from experience, but I would think that a man who is gay and married to a woman oftentimes wouldn’t much have married for love in the first place. I would imagine, for the gay man, these marriages are typically out of fear and convenience and self-deception and a twisted sense of what one should do. So then, when they finally are able (or forced) to come out, they would be inclined to take that opportunity to break off a relationship that wasn’t satisfying emotionally or sexually.
But, again, I don’t know. It could be that when a gay man who has been married all his life to a woman comes out, he’s very interested in actually being gay and all the “lifestyle” elements that typically go along with it. I’ve actually met a guy who broke off a ten-year marriage for exactly this reason, but he specifically said he hadn’t married his wife because he loved her, as above.
So again, I would say that the issue isn’t that sex is what matters most in marriage (I wouldn’t begin to think that true), but rather that the circumstances that would lead a gay man to marry a straight woman don’t typically produce healthy relationships on either the emotional or the sexual front.
Appreciate these responses. Permit to take this a little deeper.
Most people on this planet do not marry for love.
In India marriages are pre-arranged by parents. I had a colleague
in Calcutta who first set eyes on her husband at
the wedding. That’s common. These days boys and girls
in a pre-arranged marriage are sometimes permitted
an interview before the ceremony, to see if it’s OK with them.
These are sometimes held in ice cream parlors. So I would
sometimes see in an ice cream parlor a young man and
young lady talking awkwardly. He would say, shyly blurting
it out: ‘I collect stamps!’
These marriages work better than ours do. People fall in love
after a couple of years. The divorce rate is low and not just
because it’s frowned upon. Marrying for love is not a good
way to end up in love with your spouse. Better to marry
for convenience–someone from your background and
education, more or less. In our marriages people fall out
of love; in India it goes the other way.
Marrying for love is not a circumstance that tends to produce
healthy and lasting marriages.
So gay marriages, if they were for convenience or self-deception
or the desire for children or a sense that it’s what
one should do, not for
love, would appear to have a pretty good chance of
being emotionally satisfying. Perhaps more than many who marry
for love.
Again, I am as heterosexual as anyone I know, and I could
have a satisfying sexual and romantic relation with a man.
As I’ve said, scores of millions of hetero-sexual men
do it. In the UK, large numbers of heterosexual men
have homosexual lovers at school–at least this is how
it used to be. Even if people aren’t getting what they prefer,
probably the sex is often good enough, and love isn’t
usually a matter of sex anyway, so why wouldn’t
they love each other?
If I was in a society where men married men only,
and I (heterosexual as I am) was married to a man,
I would adapt and love him every which way I could.
I don’t see why I couldn’t do it. Of course there are
plenty of men I couldn’t love, but there are plenty
of women too. And suppose one day
it dawned on me that I really most wanted to make
love to women. Well, I certainly wouldn’t break up
the marriage over it.
I sure wouldn’t break up a marriage so I could live
a certain life-style! Good lord! Marriage was never
a long date, where you say,
I’m tired, I’m going now, or I want to try something
else now. It does sound self-indulgent.
I mean if it was an intractably unhappy relationship I’d go, but
being gay wouldn’t be the chief reason.
See I don’t think there’s a gulf between heteros and gays.
Just as most male heteros can make love to men (and
many do), male gays can make love to women. And I’m
convinced that male heteros can deeply and passionately
love men (which is one of the reasons for the taboo
on homosexuality–it was NEEDED to prevent it because
hetero men can form passionate relationships).
So I don’t see why gay men can’t passionately love
women.
I wonder if sexual identity is all its cracked up to be.
Sure it matters, but maybe we’ve made too much of it.
I see your point, Jim.
I think the answer is cultural. Right now, in America, gay people are expected to have relationships with people of the same sex. It seems to me that, when a dude, even a married dude, comes out in America, it’s generally expected that he go off and do “that gay thing,” because that’s what gay people do. It would be interesting to me to see how many of the wives of gay men would even be interested in continuing a relationship once he’s come out.
I agree entirely that a gay man could feasibly love a woman, and that a straight man could feasibly love a man. I am a firm believer in sexuality as a continuum. But, again, Americans have an obsession with a duality of sexual orientation, and the idea of an openly gay man married to a straight woman is just… weird. For most people, anyway. Maybe one day, people will just marry whatever person they fall in love with, regardless of sex or race or height or what-have-you, but now we’re lucky that the populace at large even acknowledges that a dude can love another dude.
And I find it fairly uplifting that the couple in the article dealt with the matter in the way that they did. They’re going day by day, and really thinking about what they want to do.
Makes sense, all of your post.
“If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with” Cue the music, please, maestro. 
When I am not close to
The kiss that I cling to
I cling to the kiss
That’s close
I love that. Who wrote it?
As sung by the leprechaun (played by Tommy Steele) in the musical Finian’s Rainbow starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clarke…written by…(brb)
okay…this part I had to look up:
(Wiki link)
lyrics by E.Y.Harburg
1968
Now I have that entire musical stuck in my head.
…as I’m more and more a mortal,
I am more and more a case,
When I’m not facing the face that I fancy
I fancy the face I face…
For Sharon I’m carin’
But Susan I’m chooOOOOsin’…
I’m faithful to whomever’s here…
When I’m not with the girl I love,
I love the girl I’m near..
Reminds me of
“Love The One You’re With”
If you’re down, and confused
And you don’t remember, who you’re talkin’ to
Concentration slips away
'Cause your baby is so far awayChorus
And there’s a rose, in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies, with the dove
And if you can’t be, with the one you love
Love the one you’re withDon’t be angry, don’t be sad
Don’t sit cryin’ over good times you had
There’s a girl, right next to you
And she’s just waitin’, for something to do[Chorus]
Turn your heartache right into joy
She’s a girl, and you’re a boy
So get it together, make it nice
You ain’t gonna need, any more advice
Never liked that song.
Thassit. On the other hand, if your spouse threatens to come out of the closet, you could always nail it shut. 
Over the years I’ve known two couples whose marriage broke up in sort of a twist of this topic. It wasn’t so much that the guy decided he was Gay. In these cases it was that the guy decided he wanted a sex change to become physically a woman. Curiously, in both cases they started publically going through the process within a few months of the wife having given birth to a child.
Before the wife became pregnant I had no idea the guys felt they were born in the wrong body. They seemed as macho as any guy.
When their wife became pregnant it seemed like they (the guy) sort of fell apart and expected the Mrs. to take over and be the strong one.
Just the same, I was still shocked when they (neither guy knew each other and it happened a couple years apart) announced they were getting the sex change.
I felt pretty bad for the Mrs. in both instances because it was clear they were being dumped (were fighting it even though they seemed to be taking their husband getting the sex change pretty well), and were going to have to raise their child by themself.
I also knew a couple years back where the guy had a sex change and the relationship had no external changes that I could detect. (They didn’t have a child either.)
There was one really weird thing though. The guy in the relationship who had the sex change seemed to keep his really macho behaviors (they were both lawyers) even after the hormones and surgery.
C’est la vie!
They’re women, not “guys who’ve had sex changes.”
It’s an issue of terminology, and a very easy one to step on toes with, so I won’t go any further. Just call them “women.”
The word ‘guy’ in the post is referring to the man in the marriage
who decided to have the sex change operation.
It isn’t claiming the individual is still a man.
Substitute ‘woman’ and it’s no longer is clear who got the
sex change.
‘Also knew a couple years back where the guy had a sex change and the relationship had no external changes that I could detect. (They didn’t have a child either.)
There was one really weird thing though. The guy in the relationship who had the sex change seemed to keep his really macho behaviors (they were both lawyers) even after the hormones and surgery.’
Compare.
'Also knew a couple years back where the woman had a sex
change …
The woman in the relationship who had the sex change operation…’
This no longer makes sense. Sounds like the wife had it.