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Closeted people marrying opposite gender?

Discussion in 'Family, Friends, and Relationships' started by Jax12, Nov 29, 2014.

  1. Jax12

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    We're all aware of the gay individual who marries the opposite gender because it's the norm, but what is it that makes that gay individual pulled towards the opposite gender in the first place? Wouldn't the whole dating/marriage process feel wrong in the process?

    I am confused about closeted people marrying the opposite gender. If you are closeted, then how are you able to marry the opposite gender? And I'm not trying to start a heated thread here, this is something that I personally find confusing.

    I know that norms play a role in this, but if marriage itself is such a commitment, how are closeted people able to marry the opposite gender, knowing that they would be much happier with the same gender?
     
  2. OnTheHighway

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    Well, to some, they may not have yet concluded they are gay or may not have accepted what their head was telling them. Maybe they knew and were living a lie, but the alternative of being gay might have been worse given the environment they lived in. That might be hard to relate to given all the progress made with equality in today's Western societies, but in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, there are environments where being gay could destroy your life. And in the not too distant past even in Western society, the same might have been true. Factor in the social pressures, and the resulting perceived "need" to be straight, and therefore you push yourself to fall in love and find someone to marry.

    Aside from society pressures, others might have more fluid sexualities which evolve over time. Maybe they were Bi, was attracted to both sexes, and then as they got older, their sexuality evolved.

    Yet others might not have even truly recognised they were gay, and only realised it later in life. Maybe the signs were there, but they just did not understand them or know how to interpret them.

    In general, people have a desire to be social and have a companion. Finding a partner is part of human nature. Who wants to be alone if you do not need to for those that seek companionship? (Recognising many people prefer to be single as well, but then this topic would not apply in any event).

    Taking all into consideration, I think it then becomes apparent how people may decide to marry. In any case, for those that do, I believe it's important that any judgement be withheld. Life is complicated enough, and being gay in today's world, even with the progress being made, makes it that much more complicated.
     
  3. Ghost93

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    The only thing I don't get is how a closeted gay man is able to maintain a boner in order to have sex with his cover up wife.
     
  4. The SlytherPuff

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    I married a guy because I was pressured by my super religious family to "ignore my feelings". (That included going to a The marriage is ending now because I was becoming so depressed because I was hiding such a huge secret. I don't know how it is for guys, and I can't possibly imagine how tough that must be. All I can say is that I survived it, and I'm trying not to think of it as a failure so much on my part. But that I'm a people-pleaser and I need to learn to not have to rely on other people's acceptance.
     
  5. Chip

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    I think a lot of people convince themselves that they aren't really gay and getting married will "fix" them. Others are simply in denial that they're gay at all. Still others feel such a strong need to "fit in" or not disappoint family or friends that they get married for that reason.

    There are lots of reasons. None of them are good ones, or justifiable.
     
  6. OnTheHighway

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    Isn't that a bit harsh Chip? It is possible for someone to love another, even under these circumstances.
     
  7. Chromedome

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    He doesn't so the sex is really lame and full of awkward pauses.
     
  8. MCairo

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    I believe that such people think that their need to fit in or follow tradition is much more important than their sexuality and they're ready to sacrifice it in order to live away from society's prejudice.
     
  9. Jax12

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    Judging by everyone's answers, I suppose society does play a crucial role in this. Hell, society plays a crucial role in everything we do!

    Thanks for the responses guys, really appreciate it.
     
  10. Chip

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    I don't think so. If someone is gay and closeted, they are, first and foremost, being inauthentic (i.e., lying) with their spouse, because they won't be able to give their spouse what s/he deserves... which is to be fully loved. And someone who's gay simply can't love a person of the opposite sex in the same way he or she would love someone of the same sex.

    I can deeply care for and love my friends, male and female. But that isn't the same kind of love I have for someone I'm partnered with.

    In the second place, it's unfair to essentially deceive one's spouse, and there's really no other way to frame it. Yes, sometimes the spouse is complicit: the gay spouse admits that s/he has had attractions to the same sex... but the main responsibility must still fall in the hands of the person who is being less than completely authentic.

    I don't mean to judge here: People do sometimes really believe they can change, or they are so in denial that they don't know themselves. I think those situations are even more complicated. But I really can't think of a justifiable or good reason to marry an opposite sex partner if you're gay, particularly if there is less than complete and full disclosure.
     
  11. OnTheHighway

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    I do agree, if someone is closeted and knows they are gay, it is completely deceptive to marry under those circumstances. And I would agree it would not be the same type of love for the spouse under those circumstances.

    If someone has not realized or accepted that they are gay, and they do marry, whom are they deceiving? Themselves, their spouses? I would suggest both, even under those circumstances. However, can they be in love with their spouse under this circumstance? It may be the only love they have experienced, and while it may not be the same type of love if each were completely honest with themselves, I do believe it is love nonetheless. A connection forms, a bond develops, there is care and concern between each other.

    I agree 100 percent that a marriage is not completely genuine if it is based on a false foundation, regardless if it was intentional or not. That is something I personally have accepted. That said, in regard to love, I do believe it exists. To argue its may be different than other love, that's completely subjective.
     
  12. OnTheHighway

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    Chip, I slept on on this and gave it additional thought. Your right, it can not be masked behind perceived love, however weak or strong. The fact is, getting into a marriage while closeted or questioning is deceitful and wrong. No two ways about it.
     
  13. Spanner23

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    I have been married to my husband for 3 years, he has known I had feelings for women too since our engagement but over time this has developed further and I came out to him a few weeks ago. I never intended to deceive him and I love him more than anything, perhaps not in a complete sense but I do.

    But if I had known I was gay from the start, then no I would not have married him.
     
  14. Pret Allez

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    Because they are so repressed or they feel like they are under so much pressure to be straight that they do something they basically don't want to do.

    Gay and lesbian people marrying people of the opposite sex should be seen not as a character flaw, but an overwhelming testament to the evils of homophobia.

    Get rid of homophobia, and we would see such marriages precipitously decline.

    ~ Adrienne
     
  15. SmileyJ

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    If people tell a lie long enough then they start to believe it's actually true :/
     
  16. Lipstick Leuger

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    I loved my ex as a best friend and didn't realize that I was 'truly' gay until my early 20s. I married at 19. I didn't know who I was yet, and my ex was MTF, so I still married a female. By the birth of my first child, I 'knew' that I was not straight for sure, but figured that I was a mother and wife and I loved him like a friend, so I could do this. No excuses, but there it is in a nutshell.

    I refused to believe that I was gay because I was not a Butch lesbian, and being from the Midwest in the 80's, Femme lesbians were virtually unknown to me, or to my social circle, or to my area of the country. So, I stumbled and I fell and I struggled in silence and misery.
     
  17. BuyTheBook

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    It's possible that if you've been repressing all of your same-sex feelings to the extent where you're generally not consciously aware of them, you can take "the next-highest bidder" so to speak and date or marry the opposite-sex person that you feel closest to, even if you're not in love with them.
     
  18. OOC73

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    Isn't this a hotbed for debate!!!

    As someone who is both gay and still currently married, I would like to offer my perspective and I will try and keep the history brief but accurate.

    I have been married for 14 years and have three children. When I was young, I never connected my feelings for girls to being gay. I thought it was admiration, jealousy that they were prettier than me, and just wanting to be really close to them.

    I started to realise there was a little more to it than childhood curiosity as I hit the teenage years and whilst I briefly opened up about how I was feeling, I concluded that I was probably bi, but was dismissed by my peers as "attention-seeking" or "going through a phase". No-one offered me one iota of "your feelings are normal and legitimate". So I pushed them to one side and got drunk in order to sleep with men - because that is what everyone around me was doing and it let me fit in.

    At 21, I was raped. None of my relationships before my husband lasted longer than three months. Most of them were only a couple of weeks, then I would feel that there was something weird and reject them as soon as I could locate a minor flaw to focus on to justify being "put off by them". Residual effects from the rape also gave me justification for my sense that hetero sex was wrong and weird. If I felt it was odd, I blamed that.

    About a year before I met my husband, I was hit on by a woman at a party full of my workmates and friends. I was over by the stereo changing the music and she approached me and kissed me in a passionate manner. I was surprised but thrilled and responded to her instinctively. The music I was preparing for the end of, stopped at exactly that point, and all eyes in the room turned to the source of the silence. Which suddenly became a very very very prolonged silence punctuated by a sharp intake of breath and then broken only by an ignorant scream and a gaggle of people realising what they were doing and breaking out into "we need to pretend we didn't see that" conversations all over the place. People I thought I knew turned their backs on me and immediately started to treat me with suspicion. I ended up feeling so uncomfortable that I started looking for and obtained another job. I shoved my feelings for women so far down at that point - I couldn't handle being so utterly unacceptable.

    Then I met my husband. He is a deep and gentle soul and we share a great deal in common. Probably too much. At the first opportunity I alluded to having had same-sex feelings and that I defined myself as bi. We started out as friends, later became friends with benefits and it took nearly a full year before either of us would acknowledge that we were in a relationship. I instinctively didnt push the issue because I knew he was fearful of relationships, and I also knew from my own history that I had a tendency to push men away quickly over insignificant things - and he was too special to allow that to happen, so when it eventually did, I fought it and conciously pushed past it because I knew he was worth fighting for. We evolved. We married. We had kids. I remained steadfastly monogamous. I didn't attribute my reluctance around sex to being gay, I attributed it to hundreds of other factors, being overweight, feeling ugly, feeling unlovable. I suffered with depression and anxiety. I was able to achieve orgasm but most usually with external assistance. But I would always have a fight with my head for most of the time, until I got so aroused as to no longer care to listen. He encouraged me to explore my sexuality, I refused. Some deeper part of me knew that if I opened the box it could be extremely dangerous to my current situation and I resisted it with every fibre of my being. My husband is a phenomenal man. He also was fully aware that it could result in me finding out what I found out when I did get there, but he encouraged me regardless, because he could see that at some deeper more fundamental level something was missing in me - and hoped that by finding it, I could find peace.

    We had problems getting pregnant. Sex became routine and clinical. After 4 years, I did eventually, with weight loss and medical assistance, become pregnant. Sex life took a further dive. Then I lost more weight and became pregnant without help. I had a toddler and a baby. Sex life died a little more. We were tired, complacent, and just happy in each others company with our family. Sex took less of a precedence. I didnt fantasise, I didn't dare. But yet still, the idea that I might actually be gay never occured to me. There were too many other disguising factors.

    After my second daughter was born, I became severely post-natally depressed, for about 2 years.

    It slid from there and never recovered. He gave up asking, and I never felt confident asking when I felt the need. Once a month was an achievement. It became a standing post-coital joke - "That was good, why don't we do it more often?" - we never did.

    Then this year happened. I went to the docs after another bout of depression and she suggested I had lost my identity as a person and I should do some work with her on my own personal values. After I left the surgery I started to explore what she had said and concluded that the best place to start really was right in the deepest darkest recesses.

    So I joined a bi-forum. I felt comfortable there, talking about how I felt, and yet it still didnt fit quite right - I kept finding myself asking questions like "Why are you going on about how fit such and such a man is?" and "Why can I not have sex unless artificially sedated in some fashion in order to switch my head off?" and then whenever I thought about being "bi" - a little voice started saying "but you're gay". And it started to crop up over and over more and more. Until I had no choice but to listen. Within a matter of a couple of weeks, I had come out to my husband - and he said he probably already knew but knew I would have to find it out for myself in order to be able to eventually accept it.

    He has been loyal, encouraging, self-sacrificial for the sake of my happiness, and totally accepting of me as I am now. We are both grieving for our relationship - as it was, and actively planning for our relationship as it will become. There is nothing inauthentic about any of it at all. Once I knew, I couldn't unknow it and it's had irreversible effects. But all that came before, came from a mutual love, and honesty in as much as we knew or were able to cope with. Neither of us have any regrets. He is happy for me, sad for us, but can see in me that I have found what I needed to find - and that is worth more to him than what he loses now. We will coparent carefully and with mutual love and respect for one another. We will always be best friends. Our forever is simply not the forever we envisaged.

    But all of it, ALL of it, was REAL, and genuine, at the time it occured. He refuses to blame me for this - states that it is is "us" that are no longer compatible, and it is not my fault. He could not BE more supportive. We talk more than we ever have. We both cry, we both laugh, and we both want happiness for each other. How can that ever be described as inauthentic? It seems cruel to dismiss it as such.