Wednesday, October 17, 2012

"My Parents' Open Marriage"

A few months ago I had a fascinating email exchange with a 30-something woman, Helen, about her parents' mixed orientation open marriage.  It was an amazing conversation; no one writes about this stuff!

Helen is now old enough, and experienced enough, to understand her parents as real and imperfect individuals.  And, as a wife and mother herself, she's sympathetic to the stresses and responsibilities her parents faced.  Yet she's still able to be balanced and critical about her parents.  I've never read a story like hers before.

I feel honored that she shared it with me and I couldn't be more pleased that she has given me permission to share it with you.  Here is that story, in her own words: 
My father was gay or bisexual (depending on who you asked).  He and my mother were very close, best friends even.  And my mother says the sex was good (I suspect though that she doesn't have the highest sex drive).  My dad knew he was gay from an early age, and actually confessed to my mother that he was bisexual prior to their getting married at age 23 in the late 60s.  She was shocked, but he assured her that he'd never cheat on her and that he loved her, and so they went ahead with the wedding.  Fast-forwarding to just before my birth in the late 70s, my dad became very ill while my mother was pregnant with me, and while in the hospital was diagnosed with Hepatitis B (which I still carry in my liver cells, via my mom).  It became clear that he had been cheating on her for some time, but despite a lot of fighting, neither of them wanted a divorce.  My mother instead agreed to have a secretly open relationship, where my father could sleep with other men as long as he was discreet and did not endanger the family in any way.  I know this sounds like a pie-in-the-sky sane solution, so let me add that my mother tears up when talking about her agreeing to my father's extramarital affairs to this day.  She was not really okay with the situation, but with a newborn and a partner who was a good husband and father, she felt that it was a deal with the devil that she had to make.

Throughout my childhood I was surrounded by wonderful gay men, but I had no idea about their sexual orientation.  I was given Disney collectible items, taken to musicals, and was just in general very well treated and loved.  Then just before my brother was born, the HIV test was invented, and my father discovered he was infected.  Miraculously, neither my mother nor brother were infected.  My mother was very upset, since her agreement on extramarital affairs was contingent on safe sex, and while it's possible that my father had become infected long before, it seems unlikely given my mother's negative status.  My father became quite sick, then received a liver transplant when I was 12 (they didn't know whether HIV would re-infect the liver at that time), then slowly became sick again.  While I obviously knew he was ill, I knew nothing of the cause while I was a child.  When I was 15 I studied abroad for a school-year, and prior to my leaving, my dad sat me down and told me he was infected with HIV; he and I were close and he was afraid that he would die while I was gone and would find out from another source.  I was shocked.  When I asked my mother how it could have happened, she yelled at me, telling me that I was being purposefully stupid and that I shouldn't need it spelled out for me that my father was gay.  I had been raised to believe, through church, that being gay was wrong and that was a very difficult year for me, grappling with these issues in a foreign country.  I decided at the end of it that if my beloved dad was gay, it couldn't be so bad and I "forgave" him for his orientation.  But to this day I haven't been able to forgive him for the callous way he treated my mother, his willful ignorance of the pain he caused her.  He died when I was 20.  We attended one queer event together, a documentary on how to approach families with same-sex parents in the school system.  I always wonder how our relationship and my feelings toward my father would have been different had we had time to really be honest about this part if his life.

There are three main points I'd like to convey.  #1 is that a closeted parent puts the whole family in the closet.  To this day I can't speak openly, because my grandparents and father's sisters are deeply hurt and offended if I do.  We are so closed off that my poor brother didn't learn my father was gay until he was 21, seven years after my father's death.  This is not a fair burden to require your children to carry.  #2 is that open-marriages can work, but only in the true absence of any kind of coercion.  If your children are grown and you and your wife are in good health, then yes, perhaps she could give you her honest opinion about what would be acceptable to her.  Otherwise you have to assume that she will feel undue pressure to keep her family together and might agree to something that she's not genuinely okay with.  #3 This one is harder to describe, but I'll try.  I feel that by not having an example in my parents, I was cheated of a model of a healthy sexual love and instead I inherited negative views about sex that I've worked hard to overcome.  I remember as a child watching my uncle affectionately pat my aunt on her bottom and feeling completely confused by it.  I now strongly believe that it is optimal for parents to have a healthy sexual relationship with each other.  It gives the children a sense of security and greatly helps when it's time for the children to navigate their own dating lives.  I'm happily married, but as a teenager I was a mess - I had no clue how men felt about women, or what to do with my feelings for men.  The underlying message of my parents' relationship was that sex isn't important between people who love each other, but is very important to have fun amongst strangers.  I hope my children see sex as something that can bind two loving people together.

Therefore I strongly support same-sex marriage and romantic relationships for gay and lesbian people.  It is healthier for them, and it is healthier for their kids.  I understand how my parents came to the place that they did - my father would have been disowned had he come out as a young man, if not worse - and I think they both did their best in a difficult situation.  But I have much less sympathy for couples embarking on mixed-orientation unions now.  I have yet to see one that was loving, honest, fulfilling for both parties, and instilled a healthy sense of sexual worth in their kids. 
For those of you who are in an open marriage (whether your spouse knows it or not) I wonder how you would respond to Helen if she was your grown daughter?  Specifically, how would your reply to her three main points?

15 comments:

  1. Showed this article to my wife. Unfortuanately not much there that I can we resonate with. Still the woman is entitled to her judgements.

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    1. I expected a well-argued rebuttal from you, Rob. But perhaps you had better things to do!

      For any readers who are interested in learning more about a full-disclosure open marriage that works, please check out Bi_Gentleman's blog The Bi Married Mafia.

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  2. Had she been born into my family, with two straight parents, the outcome might have been the same. My parents fought every day. They showed very little physical affection for each other. They never modeled a sexually loving relationship. My mother was probably frigid. She had a bad attitude about sexuality in general. I suspect that my father was seeing women on the side. They stayed married supposedly for my sake. At age 13, I told my father that he did not need to stay in the marriage for my sake. A month later he told me that they were divorcing.

    Don't absorb your mother's bitterness. Remember the good things about your relationship with your father rather than the pain of your parent's relationship. He seems from your description to be a man torn between two worlds but clearly, he cared for you.

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    1. I'm not sure that Helen will ever read this. My feeling is that she misses her father terribly but her grief is complicated by her own and her mother's hurt.

      You might like to know that Helen had what she called "a revelation" in the course of our email conversation: she believes that her parents' families wanted her father to stay in the closet just as much as he wanted to be there. By complying with their wishes, Helen now sees some merit in her father's decision to hide. I believe this realization has provided her with some measure of peace.

      You make a great point that the cheating scenario not only applies to men who cheat with men, but to any spouse who cheats. Lies and betrayal, of any kind, lead to pain, disappointment and anger.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  3. I'm in a Mixed Orientation Marriage. There are thousands of women out there who are, many who don't even know it yet. Once they do find out, some are OK with it and some aren't. I love spouse dearly, he knows that. I'm just not sure how I stand on having sex with a bi/gay man anymore, so until I figure that out, sex is off the table, and believe it or not, in our case, it's provided somewhat of a relief.

    In the beginning when he was trying to figure out who he was and how all this was going to affect our sex life, he asked me if I would be willing to stop having other partners in our open marriage and concentrate on us. So when I did take a break (due to health reasons which have since been resolved since having a total hysterectomy) and we did have a sex with each other, was the one who still wanted to have sex a man! I think that was a turning point for us. He is who is he, I accept him. And he now respects and understands where I stand.

    I know we are unique in that we still love each other, we have fun IN our marriage, perhaps not in the bedroom, but our children see that we love and respect each other. Our teenager knows about her father, the younger two do not. We still hold hands, hug, kiss...isn't that a show of intimacy that children see? None of them need to know about our sex life, with each other or with other partners.

    We have met some wonderful people in our open marriage, but none has ever torn us apart, no matter how great the sex was. We are committed to each other, we are best friends. Soul mates? Perhaps..but not in the traditional way. I know that we aren't meant to be together though.

    Best of luck to all.. Remember, any relationship is what two people make it. No matter what the challenges are, and there will be many, if you both work together toward the same goal..it can work.

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    1. Thank you very much for sharing your story. It's the kind of situation that many people come here to read about. Is it possible to have a successful mixed orientation open marriage? Yes, it is. You're living proof. But they're not for everyone. It takes a very special kind of commitment.

      If you see this message and would be willing to share more of your story, please contact me by email. Thanks for reading and commenting.

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  4. CORRECTION:
    I meant to say that "WE ARE meant to be together" Had I not been there, he was seriously contemplating suicide because of how painful it was to go from being traditional to untraditional. We have a "new normal"..It's not the picket fence fantasy, but like another commenter said, even straight marriages have problems.

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  5. You didn't really expect hordes of men explaining how their open marriages were good for the children, did you?

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    1. No, I expected that one or two intelligent, thoughtful men would provide robust counter-arguments. That way readers could hear both sides of the story.

      Many people have told me that they were thankful when their parents divorced. Based on that feedback, it would not surprise me if there are some people who see their parents' open relationship as a positive, perhaps because they could see that their parents were happier and the household functioned better. Isn't that what happy polygamists say?

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    2. I think the completely consensual open marriage that is "good for the kids" is a fantasy worth of www.nifty.org. It's hard to know if you're serious when you start talking about "happy polygamists." I hope you're being a wiseass again, but if you're not, then you reolly should read up on the toll that polygamy among Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints takes on the children, especially the boys who are expelled for being superflouus and the girls who are forced into marriages at an extremely young age (or simply raped).

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  6. open marriage...why don't you simply admit that you don't have the guts to move on with your life?stand on your own feet. and using the most pathetic excuse...i have kids..????.
    yes ,transferring your unhappiness and misery to them its better than to take a divorce and be truly happy with someone else for the rest of your life(being happy makes the other people around you happy too).
    do you think kids dont see that you are unhappy or miserable? do you think they dont consider themselves the fault for that? do you think its better to play this theater for the so called normal life??

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    1. I expect there are thousands of different ways someone in an open marriage could answer those questions. What I can attest to is that love, sex, responsibility, fear and stability are all very complicated subjects.

      You bring up a critical point, however, which are the kids. Would a couple stay together in an open marriage if they had no kids? If not, then what does that say about their decision to remain coupled? If so, then where exactly does a lack of guts come to play?

      Whether to stay for the sake of the kids is a very complex question. I should go back and reread the blog entry I wrote about that subject about two years ago. I wonder if my recent experiences have changed my opinions at all. Hmm...an interesting idea for a future post! Thanks for reading and commenting!!

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    2. Would a couple stay together in an open marriage if they had no kids? If not, then what does that say about their decision to remain coupled? If so, then where exactly does a lack of guts come to play?

      People who are staying coupled in an open marriage with or without kids are just people who have no self respect and dignity for themselves.

      People who have those things they want to be the ONE for their lover(sexually and emotionally) and that's why they are in a relationship or a marriage after all and they would NEVER ACCEPT being in a standby mode for their lover's life in the way he wants to live it. (mainly emotionally to provide the security and the stability they think they wont find with someone else).

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  7. Cameron why don't you tell us your opinion, about Helen's three main points since you were in her dads place for years?a gay closet man in a marriage with a str8 woman?

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    1. Maybe I will. I'll have to think about that. Thanks for the thought-provoking question!

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