Hi Isa,

mostly heterosexual?  

when I was young I knew there were gay men, I knew there were lesbians but I thought they were the ones you could see - London in the 70's had a thriving gay scene, I had no idea that people might hide their sexuality.let alone lie about it.

As I understand it, Alfred Kinsey was gay, a married man with children.  So I expect it was very brave of him to publish that scale of his and no doubt it was a genuine depiction of himself - but it is not the experience of straights.

I met someone who told me that when he was in his 40's he went to bed one evening, with his straight hair and good eyesight but when he woke up in the morning he had curly hair and needing glasses.  Unusual things like that do happen but he didn't wake up with female parts, or a sixth finger.   

Ageing and those hormonal surges change things - at 6 years old I remember a vibey sort of thing going on between me and one of the boys but neither of us were in any way thinking of having sex with the other.  That sort of vibey only started to happen after puberty was well underway. and even then it was only mild compared to what I have experienced since falling in love with a straight man.  So yes more elements than orientation involved in forming a sexual bond.

As surely as I know I won't wake up with a sixth finger, I know my orientation is stable.  Not visible, but a basic.  

I'm not going to wake up one day and want to get physical with a woman.  ever.  ew.  much as I love some women I don't want to or feel any sexual attraction, I'm straight, I'm oriented towards men.  I'm that basic family type, monogamous, want to form a lifelong bond so I am ideal material for a closeted gay man - will fall in love, be giving and trusting, easy to fool and utterly loyal.

My personal feeling is that knowing the truth of myself, and that includes my parents as well as my spouse, has only  been helpful even though it's been so painful and difficult to take on board at times.

 

I remember decades ago someone telling me that his gay friend really wanted to sleep with him and he thought he ought to give it a try and he went ahead and tried, getting into bed with him but when the friend kissed him he just had to say er no sorry, can't do this.

That ew factor is quite strong, sexual orientation is magnetic - attract or repulse.  A gay man having sex with a woman is I assume able to do it because he is able to override or bypass that magnetic repulsion in some way or another.  Clearly it's much easier to do when he's younger so possibly something to do with being prime reproductive age.  But he is still feeling it, that is my observation and once I saw it it made sense of the deep down confusion I experienced in my own marriage.  What does it take to be a good wife for a man with same sex attraction - being amendable, caring and very undemanding.

One last go at saying how I see it - the dna determining your over all formation is like a bag of marbles, some big ones among all the small ones.   There are numbers of factors involved in determining your mating behaviour, in itself it's like a bag of marbles, some big ones among all the small ones.  One of the big ones is the direction that magnetic pull takes.  It's not the thing that's changing when a bisexual switches between a man and a woman, it's other factors in his mating behaviours coming into play.

Thanks for acknowledging the pain we experience, it helps so much.

all the best, Lily





 

ok so if you and I have differences in how we view the nature of sexuality then one of us is wrong don't you think?  we might both have a bit of wrong and a bit of right but determining what is wrong or right is how you can learn better isn't it?

but agreed, conversation over we've both done our best.  

I think we both agree there is a mass of subtle differences - and they make such a difference.  

two bisexuals in a MOM is so different in outcome to a MOM where there is a straight involved - it is no longer a level playing field.

Last edited by lily (October 10, 2025 7:26 pm)

Hello freedmyself,

That is a great question! And I don't think I necessarily have the only or best answer to it, but I can provide some of my thoughts: 

I'm not entirely sure where the term "mixed-orientation marriage" originally came from. I learned it many years ago when I first became interested in studying these types of relationships. Growing up, I would just say that my parents were divorced and my dad is gay, and that was the extent of how I described it before learning that term.

In both academic and social spaces, I have always understood MOMs to be defined as a relationship between a man and a woman, where either one of them (or sometimes both) experience same-sex attraction, or identify as  gay, lesbian, or bisexual. In other words, if you are in a relationship with someone with a different sexual orientation than you, then I would probably count that as a MOM. 

Whether that relationship is open and acknowledged by the straight partner or not, I believe, is a part of the developmental trajectory of these relationships. What I mean by that is that, in my observations, every mixed-orientation couple goes through a moment when the same-sex attraction of the LGBTQ partner is disclosed or discovered. There is a great variety of when and how that can happen. I've known couples where the gay partner disclosed that attraction on the second date, way before marriage, and couples where the gay partner disclosed 30 years into marriage, and everything in between. Sometimes this disclosure can be vulnerable and tender and a bonding, and many times it can be painful and betraying and blindsiding. 

As far as having different terminology to differentiate between the two, I think that is a great idea, and would love to brainstorm options for that that would aid in more clarity for people and the research. I also think it is not always so clean cut and binary. Yes, there are healthy mixed-orientation relationships with consent and transparency, and there are mixed-orientation relationships that are toxic and characterized by deceit or even abuse, and some that probably fall somewhere in between. I would probably have described these still as MOMs, but just combined with the descriptive identifier of either "resilient" or "dysfunctional" or something like that. 

You have described the awareness of the queer partners' orientation, or a consensual MOM, as perhaps the main factor that determines whether that relationship can last or be sustained or is healthy or not. Though I agree that that is a very important factor, I don't know if it is the only important one. 

For example: I know a couple where the gay husband came out to his wife 30 years into their marriage. They were in their 70's when I interviewed them. This husband had always suspected he had an attraction for men, but due to general homophobia in his cultural and religious environment, he never viewed gay relationships as something he could pursue. He was friends with his wife for a few years before getting married. He described to me that he developed a romantic attraction for his wife after having had an emotional connection with her for years, which to me suggests he may have some demi-sexuality as well. Anyway, they were married for 30 years before his disclosure, during which time they had a generally lovely relationship, but he was always weighed down by this secret that he also had attraction for men. I don't believe he ever acted on that attraction. When he finally disclosed to his wife, he did so because the secret had deteriorated his mental health. He had severely low self-esteem for feeling like he was an abomination for having gay feelings. When he came out to his wife, it was more about just being able to reveal this truth about himself to her, but he still had no intentions of leaving her or pursuing a gay relationship. They are still married today, and generally healthy as far as I know. 

Of course, this example is very different than the hurt and abuse that you are describing and have experienced, but I just share this example because, according to the criteria of whether this relationship was "consensual" or not, it was not for 30 years, but also was not characterized by the degree of betrayal and hurt that many more people experience. Therefore, this sort of diversity of experience makes establishing more specific labels as a tricky, though still important, endeavor. 

It is questions like yours that motivate my further research. I want to better understand what this experience is like for people from all angles. 

Also, I've more recently learned the term "lavender marriage", which technically fits the definition of a mixed-orientation marriage. However, to my understanding, it is different because lavender marriages are typically between gay men and straight women who are just friends, and marry for social protection, civil benefits, convenience, or companionship, as opposed to mixed-orientation couples where there is an expectation of a requieted romantic and sexual relationship. (Please correct me if I am misunderstand this term). 

Anyway, this was a long response, but I hope that makes sense. Please feel free to disagree with me or let me know if I need to clarify any of my points. 

That is a great question. 

I wouldn't say I have a definitive or exhaustive list of what could be considered abusive in a MOM, but we can start with including anything that would be considered abusive in any relationship: domestic violence, belittling, coercion (sexual or otherwise), weaponized incompetence, etc. 

Ultimately, I think whether a MOM is abusive or not comes down to how partners treat each other. Even if there hasn't been disclosure in the relationship, I wouldn't necessarily call that abusive if the gay spouse endeavors to be a good partner and is kind.

I think it depends a lot on the intent and motivation behind the delayed disclosure. If a gay husband is not disclosing due to protecting his social image, wanting to cheat on their spouse with impunity, or otherwise treating her poorly, blaming their relational or sexual problems on her, then yes, I could categorize that as abusive. 
If, however, the gay husband is generally a good partner, kind and emotionally available, but perhaps hasn't disclosed out of fear of stigma, of hurting their partner, of social or religious consequences, etc. I wouldn't call that abusive, but I would say that the couple is not thriving either because there has not been full transparency between them.