Happy holidays everyone!

If you struggling, please know you're not alone. Holidays are tricky, lots of emotional stuff bubbles out. Therapists are by far the busiest over the holidays. Things absolutely 💯 get better!

My husband came out as bi two years ago. If you follow my posts, being open about our experience has been critical for my wellbeing. It helped me process the events and I am proud of the intentional, deep romantic connection we have cultivated in the last two years. We both opened up and learn a lot about ourselves and each other.

Just when you start feeling like the world is your oyster again, somebody swoops in to clip your wings.

My husband came out to his family a year ago.. Early on remarks were made that this "should have been left in the family". His relatives also questioned our marriage and how I could ever stay with him after this confession. I appreciated the concerns, but was hoping those were just the early signs of processing. Things seemed to have settled, but this Christmas we weren't invited to the family dinner.. His sexuality is never attacked directly, but he is criticized for changing too much and (here's a kicker) I'm blamed for changing him... trust me, he hasn't changed much at all. He grew a beard and became a little more intentional about his relationships, including his relationship with his farther, who now passed away.

His family isn't even religious, it's just inconvenient for them and they don't like "what people might say". My mother (who turned radically religious 10 years ago) is a little better, she just wrote it off and pretends the coming out never happened. She is still very amicable and loving towards him, but is also comfortable making homophobic remarks in front of us, using words like "abnormal", "unnatural" and "disgusting".

We are monogamous and heteronormative - what is their issue?? Just the audacity of a man being open about who he likes and a woman choosing to love and live with whomever she wants seem to get on some people's nerves.

I keep hearing about how accepting families are of the LGBTQ spouses.. I guess we weren't that lucky... 😢

I frankly don't know what to write. Our life is peaceful, so here are my musings on our culture in general.

A couple of months ago I watched The Manosphere, and since then I’ve been actively studying patriarchy - its roots, history, structure, and the mechanisms that sustain it.I’ve never really been one of those women who openly complained about patriarchy. In hindsight, I think that’s partly because I learned how to function (and even thrive) within it. Probably better than many women do.

When I was younger, I fit comfortably within conventional beauty standards, and I’m sure that made parts of life easier. I also came from a very humble (read: poor) background, so I developed the mindset that you make the best of whatever hand you’re dealt, including gender.

In many ways, I adapted well. I had relationships with men who could provide financial security, while also building a career and some independence of my own. When I spent about five years as a single parent, I stood firmly on my own two feet. Yet even then, I still believed I needed a man to lean on — or perhaps more accurately, believed I was supposed to lean on one.

Because of that, I didn’t spend much time questioning patriarchy. If anything, I probably quietly defended it. I enjoy certain power dynamics, and in some contexts (mostly playful or sexual ones) I genuinely enjoy submission. For a long time, I conflated personal preference with broader social structure.

What has changed for me is watching the current cultural shift among younger men. The radicalisation happening online is deeply concerning. I have four daughters, and I worry deeply about the state of modern dating culture: the rise of manosphere rhetoric, pick-up artist culture, escalating hostility toward women, and the normalisation of coercive or abusive behaviour.

Patriarchy is built to first and foremost control men, not women, as we are often taught to think. It functions like a hierarchy where a relatively small number of men at the top hold most of the power, status and influence, while the rest compete for validation, belonging and rank. To make that hierarchy more tolerable for the men lower down, women were historically placed beneath them - expected to provide service, physical labour, sex, and emotional care.

Patriarchy is deeply homosocial (google it). In this structure, male approval becomes critically important. Men are taught (often unconsciously) that their value comes primarily from the respect, validation and recognition of other men. And that validation has to be earned over and over again throughout their lives. Once you start looking through that lens, a lot of straight male behaviour suddenly makes more sense: the performative masculinity, the obsession with status, conquest and dominance, the “locker room” culture, the compartmentalisation, and the hypersexuality.

With that lens on, the rise of "gay" sex and sexual/gender fluidity raises some interesting questions... Is it, for some people, a way of stepping outside rigid patriarchal scripts altogether? For some men, does sex and intimacy with other men remove the performance required in heterosexual masculinity? Does it shift male validation from competition and hierarchy into something erotic, emotional or relational instead - and makes it less grotesque?

Interestingly, gay spaces - once you look deeper - are also often highly hierarchical, and while many gay men are looking for love and acceptance from other men, instead they are finding a relationship marketplace, where youth and attractiveness is traded for status and money.

My beau and I were talking about this the other week. He was never heavily invested in “bro code” culture, but even less so after coming out. He’s the first to call bullshit on performative straight male behaviour - especially the kind that alienates women in favour of male bonding or status. You’ll never hear him saying things like “bros before hoes,” or “domination is just male nature,” or any of that sh*t. And he'd be the first to roll his eyes on the loud "locker room" talk between guys at the gym, or suggestive music, big cars, and other traditional "straight" men attributes. Likewise he has never been enticed by the gay culture, and it always felt too transactional to him.
 

Last edited by Alex1984 (May 20, 2026 7:50 pm)