Mixed Marriages

Can a marriage between a straight woman and a gay man ever work? Anon.

Well, that depends on what you mean by "work" but in general the answer is no.

First of all, there is little point in a marriage between a gay person and a straight one, especially now that we're slowly but surely heading in the direction of full marriage equality.

Mixed gay-straight marriages can last for decades, if you call that "working," but I know of a lot of straight-straight marriages that last for decades with both of the spouses being miserable. So what's the point of a mixed marriage where you're already starting out with one very major strike against you?

Mixed marriages are often marriages of convenience, opportunity, and so on, but most often they are about a gay person's not being able to accept himself fully. By now we should be way past the days where some women married gay men in the hopes that they would "change" -- it just doesn't work that way. Many gay men in these kind of phony marriages are only technically bisexual -- they sleep with women (with varying degrees of success and interest), but their true passion is for men, whom they generally fantasize about during the sex act with their wives. It's a life of denial and/or sneaking around for the homosexual hubby, and who would wish that on anybody? In the meantime the wife has a husband who can never fully be hers -- and that's not a healthy situation, either.

The straight spouse sometimes senses something is ...missing... but she's not certain what it is until afterward when the truth comes out and it all seems clear. The straight spouse is often left alone and devastated while the newly out of the closet gay spouse goes off with the new boyfriend.

Sometimes the two parties in a mixed marriage can become best friends, and support one another emotionally, but always there's that secret part that is not shared. Even when it becomes an open secret, there's still a wide gap between these two individuals -- the gay spouse has never found himself or allowed himself (or been allowed) to fully bloom.

Heterosexual couples also can fall back on friendship when the romance is over and passion is spent (presuming it was there to begin with). But why settle for friendship when one could have a relationship that offers everything, including true passion and romance?

In other words, our spouses should become our best friends (and a lot more) but that doesn't mean that you should marry your best friend if he's gay and you're straight.

Mixed marriages may last for decades, but that doesn't mean that they are "working" in any real sense of the word. Gay relationships are not inferior to straight ones, and a gay person who is fully accepting of himself can only be truly happy with a member of his own sex. Self-hating, ashamed homosexuals may at first feel secure and happy in a "heterosexual" relationship, but this doesn't last long as they realize their homosexual feelings will not just disappear, and especially if they come to recognize that they have an aching need to be with a member of their own sex.

So my answer is: to all intents and purposes, gay-straight marriages do not work.