Thanks friend. For those who don't know me, I'm a gay ex-husband: together/married to a woman for 20 years; came out to her in 2012; tried (and failed at) a mixed orientation marriage for two years; separated in 2014; and divorced in 2015. I haven't used Grindr since 2017 so please gage my opinions accordingly. 

You wrote: 

1. Husband's Tinder profile: ​In a transparent ENM relationship. New to the app. I'm caring and respectful. Looking for someone who enjoys a healthy lifestyle and takes care of themselves. Catch up over a drink/coffee and see where the vibe takes us.

While I'd review this with your MOM friends/community, to a gay man like me this profile screams "RUN!" Clearly this was written by/with his wife. Some other personal interpretations: 

Transparent ENM (ethical non-monogamy) = my wife wrote this 
Lifestyle = internalized homophobia or religious upbringing
Healthy lifestyle = sluts need not apply 
New to the app = baby gay 

That's four (4) red flags in less than a paragraph. Question: has he received any responses? If your husband wants uncomplicated sex with other men, then perhaps he should write that on an appropriate app (like Grindr or Sniffies) without all of the heavy undertones in my opinion. So what now? Perhaps your husband should contact a fellow bisexual husband who has successfully navigated similar waters and now has what your husband wants. Then he should copy/cut/paste that man's profile. 

2. ​Half of gay couples are open, so I doubt that it's his relationship status that's holding people back. Some even say it's hot he's married to a woman. Until they hear he's transparent with me. Then they tend to run.  No idea why. Men I've spoken to behave the same, so while I can't explain it, I'm not surprised.

I reckon it's more like 80% of gay couples are open. (I myself am in a "monogamish" long-term relationship.) First, I'd like to stress that men can easily have sex without any emotional connection. In my experience, this is rare among women. Second, I too would block your husband if during our exchanges he mentioned that his wife would know everything. And why? Because I don't want to run the risk of his wife texting me at 3 a.m. "What the f*ck are you doing with my husband!?" And there is the very real risk that she'll creep my social media profile or, worse, contact my long-term partner with "Do you know what your boyfriend is doing with my husband!?" Husbands with wives are often too risky whereas other (discreet) men are not. We gays also know the statistics that most MOMs unfortunately fail in the first 2-3 years and none of us want to cause a break up or nor have a front-row seat. I reckon it comes down to how fundamentally different men and women see sex. For men, it's mechanical. For women, it's more emotional.  

Using myself as an example, my boyfriend and I plan to marry next year. We'll likely have the ceremony at my best friend's chateau in France. My boyfriend and my best friend have hooked up in the past...and I have zero issue with that. Since coming out in 2012, I've attended countless gay dinner parties where most of the men around the table have had sex with each other. And it's never an issue. Another example: I met another very close friend via a Grindr hook up years ago. Both of our partners know we've had sex and it's never caused tension as we all see each other regularly. This would probably never happen with heterosexual couples...outside of the swinging community of course. 

Men, regardless of their sexual orientations, are exceedingly good at having detached and emotionless sex. Gay men are sublimely capable of having guilt-free sex with other men in places like saunas and cruising parks. (Lesbians don't have similar spaces.) While this may be seen as a moral failing or existential threat among heterosexual women (and by proxy their husbands/partners), open relationships and anonymous sex are normal and healthy among the majority of gay couples. We've long accepted that gay men are terrible at monogamy so we've successfully incorporated this reality into our long-term relationships. And most of those relationships work because we adopt a "don't ask don't tell" stance. Why? Because we've learned over the past 60 years that less is better in these situations. So what's my point? While your husband's openness and transparency are seen as strengths in the heterosexual world, gay men and gay couples better understand the long-term risk...particularly among newer MOMs. This is probably why most flee. I would. 

So what now? Perhaps it's time to stop square pegging a round hole. If your husband wants to be sexually active in the gay community, he'll probably have to adapt to our community's norms...without holding his nose or virtue signaling. And those norms mean: accept that (in his current situation) dating is virtually impossible whereas sex will be easier; stop talking about his wife; and agree to our community's norm of "don't ask don't tell." If your husband just wants to have sex with other men, then you two need to fully and unconditionally accept that. To continue to deny and/or attempt to reverse engineer a heteronormative relationship with (mostly) gay men will continue to frustrate everyone or, worse, lead to cheating. Sorry if that stings. Given your current situation, I reckon a monthly trip to the local gay sauna is much more realistic than the emotional minefield, risk and daily disappointment of trying to date when hooking up is perhaps the safer option. It's highly unlikely your husband will fall in love with some random guy in a sauna, whereas he'll much more likely fall in love if you continue to explore the dating route. Just my opinions friend. 

All shared with love and respect my friend. I look forward to your reply. Be well!  

Last edited by Sean01 (June 16, 2025 11:30 pm)

Thanks for the wedding congrats my friend. Turning now to your post, these are all very fair points and I apologise if I offended in any way. I'm happy to respond in my next post if I have your permission. Let me know.

I think my longish response was rather clunky so I've distilled it down to the following questions to perhaps clarify where I'm coming from. So here goes...

From your perspective (that of the wife of a bisexual husband), which of these options would be best for your relationship: 

Option 1: Your husband continues to pursue the dating option, meaning (I think) a long-term, meaningful, physical, and emotional monogamous relationship with another man (or men)? 
Option 2: Your husband opts for the "getting my needs met with other dudes" route: meaning he gets to have sex with men but without trying to develop a lasting relationship. 
Option 3: You both choose mongamy by closing your relationship to outside partners and your husband satisfies his attraction to men via pornography. 

I'm struggling to understand what exactly he's looking for which might explain why I'm all over the map with my replies. I look forward to your answers/clarifications.    

Turning now to my position, I think you and your husband are trying to order chateaubriand (meaning that perfect unicorn of a man who can have a committed, monogamous relationship with your husband without threatening your marriage) in the McDonald's drive thru (Grindr/Tinder). Rather than define the "gay lifestyle" I perhaps unsuccessfully tried to urge you two to manage your expectations given where he's searching (apps) and who he's chatting with (mostly gay men looking for down-low sex). Let the fireworks begin!  

Again very sorry if I've offended or overstepped any boundaries. Thanks for your replies Alex as I always enjoy our exchanges. Be well!

Last edited by Sean01 (June 17, 2025 1:54 pm)

I always enjoy our exchanges friend. Thank you. Given your situation, I have a suggestion: your husband might consider joining an LGBTQ-friendly sports team or association to dip his toe into the rainbow waters rather than go via the dating route. I joined a gay rugby team shortly after coming out and it was a game changer for me to be around gay men, but without the pressure to have sex/hook up. Food for thought! Wishing you and your husband much love and happiness. Be well.  

Last edited by Sean01 (June 17, 2025 11:49 pm)

Hi everyone.

This is Alex's husband. After many weeks of subtle (and not so subtle) hints that I should post my own thoughts, I decided to make an appearance on the forum.

It has been an interesting and difficult 18 months for both of us. I do know however that Alex has found this forum simultaneously challenging and enlightening, and her interactions have been the genesis of some deep and meaningful conversations between us.

I won't presume to reflect on her journey, even though it is both an individual and shared experience, as above all, I have learned that someone else's perception of our day to day discoveries is often very different to the realities that we experience. In many ways, this forum is a tangible example of this.

Coming to terms with my sexuality isn't something that happened over night, and the time it takes to reach even the vaguest level of certainty will undoubtedly create challenges in any relationship.

One of my early realizations was that sharing my feelings in "real time" (in an effort to bring more certainty to both of us), ironically made me feel both lighter and heavier at the same time. While opening up and revealing every emotion and thought can be therapeutic, it can also create unnecessary stress in the relationship and can ironically shut down the process of discovery. Let me explain.

From the outset of my discovery, I agreed to be open and to coin a phrase "radically honest". I was desperate to try to get to the punchline of what it all meant as quickly as possible as I could see just how traumatic the lack of certainty was for Alex.

Theory says that one's initial response to a question is typically the most revealing, and I don't disagree. The big qualification however is that in my experience at least, the process of coming out is not always congruent with logical thought. It is an emotion filled time for both partners, which sometimes creates a tornado of challenging and often confusing revelations followed by an attempted decode by the straight partner. I know that at times I must have looked like the most confused, indecisive 50 something the world has ever seen.

A key insight was that I was so emotionally challenged by the whole process that I often lacked the basic ability to formulate a response to questions that were designed to help us to both understand what was unfolding. While responding in the moment should have been the secret to fast progress, rushing to provide a response sometimes bordered on the catastrophic. Hesitation was sometimes interpreted as engineering a palatable response when in fact it was mental exhaustion and indecision that was hijacking me.

Every response to every question ever asked is ultimately impacted by context. Asking a partner if they long to be with another man may seem like it is a question deserving of a binary "yes" or "no" response. In the moment however, from the partner's point of view "it depends" probably feels like the most authentic answer. During the process of discovery, every day is a constant mix of compare and contrast- an iteration to the ultimate truth.

I should qualify the above by saying that "it depends" doesn't really hold water if there is deliberate deception and an unwillingness to pursue open discovery.

Jump forward 12 months and with the benefit of reflection and "testing the waters" on the same sex relationship scene, supported by an amazing wife who was prepared to let the universe guide us both, I came to realise that a stable state can be reached. The "it depends" is more often replaced by a more definitive response informed the knowledge and acceptance gained over time, and bolstered by a greater sense of confidence.

At the beginning it feels like you have a new toy to play with. Many years of confusion and denial are suddenly replaced with openness and discovery. This is both liberating and terrifying at the same time. For me however, the novelty began to wear off. Am I still attracted to guys as well as women? Yes, but the fact that I am able to openly talk about my attraction has somehow knocked many of the sharp edges off the intrigue.

Today, if I'm asked whether I long to be with another man, my answer would be "yes" I am generally starved of male interactions, but "no" I don't want to live with a man, spend weekends with a man or have romantic getaways with a man. However, I sometimes experience a rush of feelings when I see an attractive guy, or an attractive woman for that matter, and I do fantasize (and even dream) about some forms of sexual play with both.

I realise that this narrative will likely be a hard read by those embarking on the journey. None of us like the feeling of living with uncertainty, but it is unfortunately one of the necessary evils in the process of individual and mutual discovery. It can't be rushed.

I have many experiences and thoughts that I am happy to share, but I won't offer categoric advice. There is however one exception. If you are unable to live with the inevitable and sometimes protracted uncertainty of what the future holds, then a mixed orientation relationship is probably not for you. Those willing to make the investment of time and trust may ultimately emerge from the journey with a closer and potentually more enduring relationship borne out of openness and acceptance.

Finally, my experience over the past 18 months has taught me that everyone's situation is  unique, and although I consider myself to be a tolerant person, if you want to grind my gears, then state with authority that based in your experience x+y must equal z. It is quite possible that nothing could be further from the truth.