okay so we agree your religious beliefs have an impact on how you view your marriage.

and we also agree that in straight terms it is the man who is naturally dominant -  that's all I am saying.  The hen picks herself up after the rooster has jumped her and fluffs her feathers and waddles off, still full of her own importance.

The marital dynamic in a MOM where the dominant/submissive element is matched is going to be very different to where it doesn't match, isn't it.

 

funnily enough, I am trying to be polite and respectful by using the phrase religious beliefs - but if you want me to be particular, it's not a church that you grew up in is it, it's a modern highly evangelical church that you joined isn't it?

And yes, with both of you in the same group yes it must be influencing the outcome of your marriage. 

I think you misunderstand me a bit Dutchman - I'm not a simplifier or generaliser - I agree, it's a myriad of complexity.

where I am a bit unusual is in acknowledging it's a massive complexity of binary options - like the computers we built are based on - yes or no, on or off, 1 or 0.

Much as role play and all sorts of checks and balances play into it, the outcomes that are possible are going to be very different married to a butch lesbian rather than a femme, don't you think?

 

Hi Dutchman, I just finished this long post which I did in two goes, so I didn't realise I wasn't logged in and pressed send and so now I lost the post and run out of time, will get back to you soon.

all the best, Lily

I wrote that "evangelical" in the Netherlands encompasses a diverse range of churches. I also wrote it's useless to draw some meaning about myself or my wife based on the name of a church, the more so because we attend an independent church, meaning it's not affiliated to some larger group of churches.
In 2019 I already gave an impression about what we believe, and a bit about our church.
https://straightspouse.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=22482#p22482

But it doesn't make any difference to you, does it? Because you, on the other side of the planet, have your dictionary...
Once again you give me the impression you have a strong urge to put labels on people and feel uneasy if you can't classify and generalize. And it wouldn't actually bother me that much, if it wasn't that your sticky labels seem to be meant to imply characteristics that are not accurate or true.

I think that when you join a church rather than just growing up in it then you are more invested in the beliefs - it's a deep-seated choice you've made.   so whether it's the evangelism or your passionate faith in Christianity, you have a sort of forward feeling, free ranging, anything goes way of talking.

Being a believer has little meaning when it's no more than the place/culture one grew up in. That's the difference between religion and faith. (btw. my faith is in Christ, not "in christianity" as you wrote). 
Faith has a lot to do with trust in the unconditional love of God. So it's between a person and God, it's not an institutional thing. And thus also not limited to a certain kind of church. (to be more precise: that's totally irrelevant)
My wife came from a christian background. But she was in her late thirties when she finally would trust in Gods love. Two years later she discovered to be lesbian. But she wasn't in denial about it, the most important reason being she was convinced God loved her no matter what. I think that illustrates how faith works in freedom of being and freedom of thinking.

I do think that anything goes, or at least very much is possible within the reasonable. And indeed, it's connected to the inner freedom of a person. Faith can be a source of this freedom, and it's very powerful. But it's not the same as religion, on the contrary, religion can have the opposite effect and limit a persons freedom of thinking.
Maybe this is not that clear and seems confusing, especially if one thinks that faith and religion are more or less the same. Anyway I think most religious motivated attempts to deal with homosexuality are doomed and will only make things worse (for example the so called conversion therapy).
People's misconception of faith plays a role. The "pray the gay away", with all fervor and good intentions may look like a strong expression of faith, but it's not. Because faith is about unconditional love, you're accepted how you are no matter what. The "Pray away" is the very opposite, it's actually about assumed rejection by God and resistance against acceptance. So it's an exponent of religion and has nothing to do with faith.

Faith is also about learning. Like my wife learned a most important step when she was in her thirties to trust Gods unconditional love, I learned to step into faith when I felt like Job and decided to follow Gods example of love, my wife learned when she let go of her being lesbian as central aspect she thought she had to keep a grip on. Focus on her husband according to love and it opened up feelings.
For us this was learning path, in faith but also evermore freedom of thinking as well. Discovering and expanding all the freedom there actually is.

We saw so much recognition in what we ourselves learned through the years and what Edith Eger (she's Jewish btw) writes in her book "The Choice". 
(another author I would recommend is Victor Frankl)

In a MOM there are two persons involved. If both spouses (learn to) find their way to freedom of thinking, and the will and love is there from both sides, a good outcome will be found. 
But you cannot control the other, so if one spouse decides different it's simply not possible, sad as it is. But to quote Edith Eger: “We cannot choose to have a life free of hurt. But we can choose to be free, to escape the past, no matter what befalls us, and to embrace the possible.”

I don't agree with your black-white binary particles representation. That only exist when someone thinks to be limited in freedom and feels compelled to follow up to these rules. Probably a lot of people think they are, and an important reason for that is due to culture and all the signals one gets from the outside world. One can believe it, but that's a choice as well.

PS. I don't reply to the continuation of your hypothetical butch story. For I don't appreciate the way you caricature what I wrote ("fun challenge").

If a butch lesbian is in a MOM, I suppose the husband felt attracted to a more masculine woman, and she had her reasons to marry a (and specifically that) man. 
So if they want to stay married, they probably have their reason for it. So I don't see a fundamental difference because the woman is of the "butch type". But I do think it takes certain (somewhat uncommon) personalities to match and to make that choice.

You want to say that the criteria for a successful MOM is that you should both be willing to put the effort in, which from the stories we read here is not often the case.  But the further point I want to make is that with the best will in the world, it is not necessarily as achievable as you believe from your own experience - other factors come into play. 

Both willing to put effort in is the mere basic prerequisite. Both have to want to go for the MOM, otherwise it's pointless. That should be obvious.
Also relations where a spouse is a narcissist or other mental issues, or where there is abuse, or persistent lack of love from one (or both) sides. Maybe there is no communication in the relation, no openness etc. etc. There are many reasons a MOM can (and maybe should) fail, but this also applies to straight marriages.
There are many other factors, and added up to the sexual orientation mismatch may prove too much. An extra factor that's specific to MOM's is cultural pressure: The gay spouse should be liberated from "the yoke", and should divorce to be able to live authentic. Which is a counter reaction to (religious) rejection of homosexuality, and the direct or indirectly forcing gay people into a MOM.

But lets suppose a couple's MOM has survived this initial (chaotic) phase. They have their common goal they want to achieve and agreed on how the relation should look like. They learned to communicate, and have some sort of support in place. 
However, there is still this mismatch in sexual orientation. It limits the sexual relation to pleasant touch and physical release. There's nothing wrong with that, it's voluntary and on itself with good intentions towards each other.
It's okay as a temporary measure, to bridge the time to something better, without losing intimacy in the relation. That makes sense, because it's worse if the relation gets to just roommates. It devaluates it to something that's not that valuable to put committed effort in.
Because at that point you don't know whether things will, or even could, change. Feeling to be locked forever in a sterile relation is depressing. So keeping intimacy going is a reminder that there is another goal even when things aren't what it should be. 
We got stuck for years in that place, we didn't really knew what options there were, and didn't understand the problems deeply enough to solve it either.
The sexual expression from my wife's side felt mechanical to me. This wasn't just my subjective impression, for it really was just that: mechanical. It lacked emotional content.
Over the years this translated to me as feeling to be rejected and not wanted as a man, it deteriorated me at a fundamental level. This is serious stuff, it's unhealthy and I mean that!
So this should not (!) be the endpoint of development in a (straight - gay) MOM. 

I think several MOM's that realy try, both willing to go for it, get stranded in this situation. Some decide to open up the relation as a work-arround, some divorce because they assume there is no way out.
And I do understand this reaction. For if we hadn't found our way out of it, it would have become our unavoidable moment of exit too. Open relations are not an option to us, so I think we would probably have opted for divorce. A very sad thing, after all that years trying to find a way and in spite the many difficulties we did overcome. But whatever we would have decided, it would have been better than grinding down our souls for who knows how many additional years.

But I'm convinced there is a solution, a pathway that gets the MOM out of this pit. 
First of all it's important that people are aware that this option exists. (we were blindly stumbling forward, in hope of something of a solution, but unsure if we would find it or whether it existed at all). 
And next, the key that potentially can unlock the door to this path.

I write "potentially", because it not just pushing some buttons. It's personal development, and learning to change your thinking and perspectives. 
So one comes out of it changed, the relation has changed and the sexual relation has changed. 
It's like coming out of a prison of thought and into a wide space of freedom. Not by a snap of a finger, but this grows and it gets it's own momentum. Once into that motion, the chances of some kind of failure diminish very fast. 

You get to the point: We make the rules!
Sexual orientation is something, yep... it is something. We don't deny it and accept it without any reproach. We embrace it as an aspect of our being, my wife being lesbian, and I being straight. We enjoy our sexual orientation, it's color in life. 
But we decide what we do with it. We don't let anybody describe us how to behave, it's totally up to us. We're free, and why shouldn't we?

We love each other, man and wife. Our decisions are directed towards that love we celebrate. That is why and how we choose our actions. And our feelings confirm this back to us, and it feels so very, very good! 

So having some kind of sexual orientation, doesn't imply someone has to live that out (just because, or doing so would be "authentic"). That's BS. Because that's a choice, if there's "has to" in it, it denies having choice and thus denies freedom.
So it begs the question of what motivates it, is it aboslute need or lack of freedom of thinking. I think most times it's the latter.
There are basic needs, to love and to be loved. These can be met in a MOM for both spouses. If someone wants more... It's not about the limitations of a MOM, it's about something else. I think it's no different than straight relations, where someone still wants more.
It's also accepting that life is not about getting all you want in every aspect. This is not the purpose of life. But if someone thinks different... feel free, and it's certainly not my problem you're creating.

My personal feeling is that I would never want to have a sexual relationship with someone who wasn't physically attracted to me the same as I am to him.  

What encompasses physical attraction is not the same for a man and a woman. I would not like to be with a woman who somehow tried to find me physical attractive in the same way I find women attractive.
For I want to be attractive to my wife being a man, that's what I am. It's about what makes me a man and what that stands for. 
So I definatly want to be physically attracted by a woman in a very different way than how I feel physically attracted to a woman.

For instance, for the lesbian spouse that's something to discover. She only has her lesbian sexual orientation to work with. Well that doesn't match with a man. So she's in the blue, no sexual orientation to guide her automatically.
The best achievable is a (mechanical) impression. Something she thinks and hopes that resembles the sexual attraction a straight woman would feel/express. That won't do, the straight feels the missing components in the expression.
That's what I wrote above. This will NOT do in an MOM in the long run.

Most people, (including myself) rightfully need to be loved, with genuine feelings going along with it. But a homosexual orientation will not provide this (bisexual probably could). 
So there has to emerge another line of sexuality, next to the gay orientation. It's the gay+1 phenomena. It's often refered to as "sexual fluidity", but I think this term is too general. Next to that, sometimes people assume the gay+1, but it's not actually so.
Anyway, the sexual attraction that (should) results is totally genuine and from the heart, but it has a different origin than the "sexual orientation". And it doesn't replace it, but rather lives next to it (hence the "+1"). 
But it's certainly not inferior, actually it originates from, and is composed of, more meaningful components than the "standard sexual orientation".
For the straight spouse experience it's very fulfilling, it meets all aspects that are important and needed. I certainly feel desired and loved as I am and how I want to be loved. No complaining there!
But it's somewhat different, noticeable, but not that much different either. It's like a dish where some of the spice are replaced by a different spice. But the resulting dish tastes great and is all you want.

I'll ask my wife if she wants to repond also, add her viewpoint.