How can somebody get married and realise they are gay?

Severe denial, fear of coming out and/or they thought they were straight and met someone they really cared about, only to realize that maybe they are attracted to their sex or both sexes.

 

Some people are so in denial about their attraction towards their own sex that they simply don't notice any attraction until later in life. Some may never notice the attraction.

 

I would have thought a lot of it would be due to fear and denial. They probably suppress these feelings due to not being able to accept themselves. Or fearing the consequences of coming out and/or not being able to deal with any discrimination they may have to face. Therefore they end up marrying and having kids because it is seen the appropriate option for the heterosexual they have convinced themselves to be. Or at least this might be one reason, I mean there are thousands of different reasons just as there are thousands of different types of people. It depends on the person and what they're thinking at the time.

 

It's more common in same-sex couples later in life because of how difficult it was to come out during the times when they were our age, compared to today. A lot of people were forced to live a lie because of views about homosexuality. At first, people don't always believe that their attractions to the same sex necessarily mean that they are gay.

If you read some of the stories in LGBT later in life, you'll understand what people in these situations were going through and what their thoughts and feelings were.

 

Fear and denial! They think they are "honouring" their parents by living in their footsteps. 3 kids, a nice house, job, and husband/wife...

 

I never married, but as someone coming out late in life I can certainly see how it happens.

You know that old trope about how do we know if other people see the same colors we see? We're taught the names of the colors but have no idea what other people are seeing when we talk about "red."

That's how attraction was for me. I was taught girls are attracted to boys and get "butterflies in their stomach" around them. So I learned to interpret the uncomfortable, nervous feeling I got around men as "attraction." And the feelings I had for women? I labeled THAT as discomfort and homophobia. Seriously. The idea that I could NOT be attracted to men never even registered as an option, so those feelings HAD to be crushes and attraction.

It wasn't till I hit my mid thirties and got comfortable with sexual pleasure and masturbation that I finally really unraveled the puzzle.

 

The biggest question of all! I've always been aware that I was attracted to men, since maybe the age of 4 or 5. I somehow had two selves in which knowing that I was attracted to males was not connected to the statement "I am gay" until I was in college. However, I was inhibited sexually so although I fell in love, I never had a sexual relationship. I longed for it but never acted. I was asexual. Along with this was the fact that I got along with girls and women always; my best, best friends were females. I could open up to the opposite sex but had no attraction to them, but I thought this was because I was so sexually inhibited that maybe I was repressing my heterosexuality. I could go on and on. Anyway, I always loved kids and became a teacher in my 20's. I wanted kids, "normalicy"; I wanted a mainstream life. I was very emotionally close with the woman who became my wife. We were very connected as close friends and at some point became intimate. The 10% heterosexuality in me was somehow activated and I could have sex. I even liked it at times. I have always been good at hiding my self and passing for straight. I have fooled the world. Over the years, I have become more be more depressed at what I feel was a severe moral failing, I feel like I deceived my wife and have lived a lie. But, I cherish my kids and feel like I wouldn't want them not to exist. So did it all make sense? It's a mess, very confusing, puzzling, in some ways very sad. Hope this helps answer your question.

 

Denial? I can deny deny deny it doesn't mean I'm getting hard for chicks if you are gay you are gay and as a man faking that is a weeeeee but harder (no pun intended )

 

You'd be surprised the ways the brain can adapt. It took me YEARS to figure out that in all my "straight" sexual fantasies were from the point of view of the man pleasuring a woman, rather than being the woman experiencing that pleasure. I could be aroused by my male partners touch because I was imagining being in their place touching a woman. I didn't even realize that wasn't a "normal" thing to do.

Denial is amazing.

 

Many reasons. Instilled shame, denial, close-minded philosophies, or latent attraction and sexual fluidity, money, political power, and probably even more reasons. Marriage isn't just for love.

 

Although you may not have meant to do so, your words are hurtful. There is tremendous pain associated with these situations. Sexuality is fluid; people are often confused about it. They may be bi-sexual. There is the Kinsey Scale; not everyone is completely and totally gay or straight. As people get older life decisions can get complicated. On the female side, there were generations of women who just laid there and let their husbands have sex with them, maybe with no feeling of arousel or pleasure. . It may not be as common in men, but some may be able to perform a sex act without much passion, connection , or feeling and do so because the marriage, the children the legitimacy seem really important.

 

This is such an interesting question.

The recent financial crisis is a case in point. Any rational observer, who did nothing more than look and actually see (note looking and seeing are very different animals) what was going on with subprime mortgages could have seen the financial crisis coming a mile away (some did, and profited handsomely from it). Few people ever believed that house prices would go down. Most could not believe it, and so they acted according to what they believed.

It is one thing to know, another to integrate this knowledge into a framework of belief. Seeing first requires belief! I could not, would not, absolutely could not even conceive of the idea that I am gay. Period.

It took a crisis, yes even a moral crisis arising from the divorce to come to the realization that I cannot love a woman as wholeheartedly as I can love a man. It felt like a kick in the gut, it had to circumvent my overarching brain...

 

It is surprisingly easy to live as you believe you should be living if you do not believe the alternative is an option. Some people cannot, at all, but many people can. It's not necessarily about "getting hard for chicks" but responding appropriately to a situation that is supposed to come "naturally" to everyone. Closing your eyes, "knowing" that you're "straight", and allowing physical manipulations or thoughts to do their work can do wonders for allowing someone to have a sex life with their partners even though their orientation lies elsewhere.

Judging by many stories the reason some are capable of maintaining heterosexual lives, and why some Christians can claim to be successfully cured of their orientation, is that they condition themselves to respond to what they believe they should be responding to. Even outside of this if you expect your life to follow a certain path, you often find yourself following that path regardless of little thoughts in your head telling you that perhaps this isn't the path for you. You find an opposite sex partner, enjoy their company, love them, gain feelings for them, and know that you're supposed to react to them in a certain way. Either you are unable to adapt to this situation and find yourself wondering why your sexual arousal appears dysfunctional, or your body does adapt and you can continue living the life you expected yourself to lead up until the point something snaps and you decide to start actively discovering who you are rather than living the life you expected yourself to be living.

Or something, I'm not explaining that very well.

 

I'm not sure when my aunt figured out her sexuality, but after her heterosexual marriage went down the shitter, she came out to everyone as a lesbian, and that she and her new partner were moving to Florida...with my cousin. A lot of us (myself included) were hurt by the spontaneity of the whole thing. But she was the first person I came out to.

 

I have absolutely no sense or even beginning of understanding since I'm bi. I can understand how a bi dude can grow up thinking he's straight. All throughout growing up I've had crushes on guys and fell for a couple of my classmates. And even fell for actors like Jeremy Sumpter, Devon Sawa, and Alex Pettyfer and still think that I was straight. But that was because I also really dig chicks and similarly fell for girls and chased girls and everything your straight red-blooded boy does. So I thought the attraction to guys was just a passing thing or didn't mean anything. But, majorly because the girl lust has always been dominant. I have no idea how I could deny being gay though, because the thing that tricked my mind was having the same feelings towards both and leaning towards girls.

That said, for 22 years I had convinced myself that not know my biological parents didn't matter. I didn't know them, I didn't need to know them and I could care less since I was adopted as a baby. Well, then my cousin died and suddenly the floodgates opened and I realized that I did care, that I've always cared, that you can see in the things I wrote as a kid that I was struggling with it. It was just so very deep down in my mind, hidden away, that I didn't know it was there until I was hit in the face. So far 22 years I lived in a form of denial and know that it can be a powerful thing.

By the sounds of it, gay guys have a combination of the two above just minus the chasing girls part at the same time as chasing the guys.

 

Well you are young, so I can excuse the naivety shown in that statement.

If you look at the stories about people who come out later in life, there is a common thread. There were signs all along that something they were gay. However we chose to ignore them. While they were ignored for various reasons, they were all ignored inorder to reach the same end goal. To form a lasting heterosexual relationship.

This my friend is go fever. Go fever can make people do things they would not usually do. The bad thing is it is damn near impossible to detect until it is all over.

We see this all the time even in heterosexuals. People get in a relationship with the completely wrong people and force it to work despite all the issue. This is because they are stuck on go.

 

Whatever the reason is, be it serious denial, fear or forced honoring. I will say that after thinking about heterosexual marriage at the time I'm still deep in the closet,

"How can he/she does not think about the other SO's feeling when there's the possibility that when the marriage might fail because he/she came out? Sure I've heard SO who are supporting and still loving after the process, but think of how many years that you have spent together for your own sake be it temporary happiness or safeguard and that you're SO could be spending his/her time seeking others who truly love them."

I know there are people who found out that he/she's gay and came out in later years, for that I can't really answer.

 

I don't know it happened... I wasn't looking for anyone... It just happened -as i had to explain to my husband of 25 years. I never, ever thought I would be attracted to a woman - ever. But I was unhappy, bored, unfulfilled, basically existing in life. She, completely, in every way woke me up inside..Its almost funny now that I look back on all my convos with my ex husband. He said he would be more jealous if I left him for another man, but wasn't as bothered that I left him for a woman. I thought that was kinda weird. In any event why people get married and discover an other side of themselves is different for everybody.

 

In a nutshell, Yes