The Best Part About Being Married to a Gay Man

Learning the True Meaning of the Word “Love”

All too often, we hear the word love thrown around. As in “Oh my god, I love these shoes. I need to have them”. Or, “Don’t you just love my new jeans?’ It’s become associated with material things, something you can touch, something you can see, something you can make your friends jealous with. But in reality, love is nothing you can see, touch, feel, taste, smell or really even define. Until the night your husband tells you he’s gay.

It was Friday March 13, 2009. Friday the 13^th, I shoulda known. Sitting on the couch, he poured me another glass of wine. I foolishly thought he was trying to get me drunk to take advantage of me. And then the words I will never forget came flying out of his mouth… “I like men”. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, and put my stomach back down where it belonged, I started to cry. As any one in my situation would do. My marriage, my perfect marriage, was over. Or so I thought. Straight people marry straight people and gay people marry gay people. Right? No mixing! You can’t get a marriage “swirl”.

After a LONG night of talking, crying, yelling, probably some hitting on my part, and no sleep, the next day I did what any other person in this day and age would do, I turned to the internet. Surely there had to be an answer. Surely there had to be a book, or a pamphlet, or a thesis, or a song, or a poem, or anything written by anyone who could breathe who we could turn to to help us through this time. We had no desire to separate or divorce. We wanted to make this kind of marriage work. But what was this kind of marriage even called.

It took no time at all for us to find loads of information on what this kind of marriage was called. It’s what people in the “know” called a MOM, a mixed orientation marriage. It’s just what it sounds like…a marriage where one person is of one orientation and the other person is of another (gay/straight, gay/bi, straight/bi, etc). OK. Now that we had the label, then we KNEW it was going to be ok. I mean, if there was a group for us to fit into, then it will work, right? There are national conferences attended by people in MOMs, there are on-line and face to face support groups for people in MOMs, so surely we were going to make it. Surely.

Well, we quickly found out that it wasn’t as easy as we thought. It wasn’t as easy as finding an on-line support group or even face to face support group. There was no book that could guide us through this, there was no therapist we could turn to to tell us what to do. There is no written rule book for marriage and there surely is no written rule book for a mixed orientation marriage. It’s a “figure it out as you go” kinda marriage. What works for one does not work for another. And we never knew how true those words were until we actually tried starting to live as a mixed orientation couple.

I started to realize that “in theory” and “in reality” are two totally different things. Very different. As we started to test the waters of my husband opening up his side of the marriage, conflict set in. In theory, I was fine with the idea. I whole heartedly believe that there is not just one person for everybody. People can have many loves of their lives. And maybe, just maybe, it’s possible that someone finds more than one love of their life at the same time. The problem with this theory is that that is not how we have been conditioned to think, right? We’re a “one person at a time” kind of society. Anything more is being greedy and selfish. So, in reality, when he did finally find someone to start exploring his same sex feelings with, I could not handle it. The thought of him being with someone else, and it did not even matter that it was a man, it just wasn’t me, killed me. Absolutely killed me. How could he do that to me? How could he be with someone else and not think of me? How could he snuggle, and kiss and pillow talk with someone else that was not me? And didn’t being married mean that I was the only one who got to experience those things with him?

But, I have come to realize several things. First of all, nothing about him being with a man is about me. Nothing. There is nothing that I am doing wrong. There is nothing that I could do better, or more, or less or anything. I am not a man. I am a woman. Simple as that. So, as much happiness as I give him and as much pleasure he gets from being with me, I am not enough. It’s not personal.

Second of all, when you are married to a man who also likes men, and is dating someone, then no, you are NOT the only person who is going to experience those “married” type things that couples experience (kisses, snuggles, dates, pillow talk and yes, even sex). As harsh as it was, I realized that I am not the only person in his life that gets to experience those things with him. And that brought out a whole mess of insecurities on my part. Am I strong enough to stay with him? Is it right that I stay with him? Is it fair to me? Is it fair to him? Is it fair to the other man? Is it fair to our kids? (Yes, we have two kids, one even conceived after disclosure and no, he was not a “let’s try to save our marriage” baby. We always knew we wanted two).

And this is where the love part comes in.

Never, in more than a million years, would I have thought that this is where my life was going to end up. And never, in more than a billion years, would I have thought that after knowing what I know about my husband, that I would want to stay with him. Pre-disclosure, I think it’s safe to say that you could have described me as one of the more judgmental people I knew. I never shied away from expressing my opinion, to your face or behind your face. Post-disclosure, I can honestly say that “to each is own” has taken on a whole new meaning to me. Because literally, to each is own. I never knew what I could handle, or what I would be willing to put up with, or what I would want to put up with, until faced with this situation. And why do I do it? Because of love.

This man is more than gay. Being gay does not define him any more than his brown hair, blue eyes or the fact that he’s white describes him. It’s not something he chose (believe me it’s not something he chose. Who would purposely choose to be gay but fall in love with a woman?) It’s a part of who he is and if it helps make him the man that he is, then how can I do anything other than love it? I love the fact that he is patient, I love the fact that he is caring, I love the fact that he can fix and build anything, I love the fact that he is the most amazing father I have ever seen even though he had never changed a diaper before our daughter was born and I thought I was going to SMOKE him in the parenting department. And I love the fact that he is gay. I love the pain that it has caused me because it has helped me become the person I am today and helps me continue to become a better, more patient, less judgmental, more open minded, less restricted person. I love that he has been able to finally experience all the things with men that he was so scared to experience for 34 years of his life. I love the fact that he does not back down to the pressures I have put on him and the pressures society puts on him to “just be normal”. I love the fact that it is with him, that I feel like we can be pioneers in changing the stigma that comes along with this type of marriage. I would do it for no one else. I would do it with no one else. And I will continue to do it with him for as long as I can.