Gay Men in Heterosexual Marriages

I’d just point out that plenty of people are unsure about their sexuality and plenty more are gay, lesbian or bisexual and take a long time to figure out where they stand. It also doesn’t necessarily mean they’re somehow hiding anything. It’s just not a very simple thing to figure out for some people.

I don’t think most people who get married and then realise they’re actually gay or lesbian do so out of some kind of some bad motive or to hide. They may have been deeply connected to someone and not even understood what was going on with their sexuality. Not everyone is all that sexually experienced and particularly going back even a couple of decades ago there was far less openness about LGBT issues and sexuality in general.

Unfortunately, a significant % of marriages do end in divorce and people can be incompatible for a whole variety of reasons and only find these things out after the fact. That’s just part of the messiness of life.

It’s impossible to know what was going on in someone’s thought process or how they defined their own sexuality at the time they got married and if you go back to almost any time before the 2010s there was huge cultural baggage around being gay. There still is for many people or we wouldn’t even need to “come out” at all. It would be like announcing your eye colour. However that’s not where we are and it remains a relatively big deal for a lot of people, even if much less controversial that it once was.

However, I don’t think anyone can really be judgemental about someone who didn’t come out or didn’t really comprehend their own sexual orientation. It’s more of a reflection on the legacy of Irish and broader western culture that made this a subject that was controversial and hardly discussed.

I’m bi and have always been open about it but I’ve definitely encountered a lot of issues when I’ve broken up and someone has attributed that to me being not into women or not quite gay enough. So I have a sense of understanding of the complications that arise out of not being able to be put neatly into one box or the other.

To the previous poster all I would say is that marriages break up and it’s very unfortunate when they do, but it’s unacceptable to walk away from your children and responsibilities. That’s absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation. Whether you’re straight, gay or bi and regardless of how your relationship is defined, if you’ve kids, you look after them! That’s just about being a responsible parent.

My view of it is that marriages can and do go wrong and the blame and even where reasons may all be on one side but in any situation like that, whatever they are, you ensure your children are looked after and that the outcome is as good as it can be for all involved.

Personally, I’d find someone not taking responsibility for their kids, when they have the ability and the resources to do so, to be abysmal behaviour, no matter what the circumstances of the breakup are.

I know at several people who’ve divorced parents, one of whom has a gay dad and all of those people have taken huge roles in their kids lives, despite awkward situations with interacting with their exs and so on. One has to shoulder responsibilities to be grown up!

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

Disaster, but it kinda fell in line with what I've seen elsewhere on social media about the topic. To be fair, the vast majority of people are kind, or at least polite, and almost everybody knows a gay person in real life and would probably never dare say to their face what they say online, it's sad what that anonymity does when it exposes people's real feelings about certain topics.

Isn’t their a certain amount of tact that we all use when conversing with our fellow man irrespective of the subject matter.
The other point here is whether Schofield is actually Bi as opposed to simply gay?

They’re also not usually lifestyle choice. It’s just how your are.

So it’s more like going behind someone’s back and discussing some intrinsic aspect of them that people find entertaining as gossip.

JJayoo wrote: »

On the Phillip Schofield thing.

Did his wife and kids only find out shortly before he made this announcement? By that I mean was he living as a married faithful couple, or did the wife know and they were essentially just really good friends both living seperate romantic lives.

From Reading a few articles it would seem she has known for a while, but she's reported as being shattered by fact he doesn't love her the same way as she does him. I would say he does love her very much....it's just he's not sexually attracted to her, obviously.

It's very likely the tabloids were driving it.

However, the guy's simply TV presenter. It's a job. It may be a high profile job, but it's a still just job. I really fail to see the public interest.
How his marriage operates is frankly none of anyone's business other than his and his wife's.

It's great he opened up a topic of discussion, but the reasons for that are likely that a voyeuristic media outlet wanted to sell a salacious story to give gossipy readers a giddy thrill. That's ultimately what it comes down to.

What I find odd about this is we're all supposedly living in this rather progressive, liberal, open minded society but when something like this happens it's straight back to 1950s conservative social mores.

@IAMAMORON:

That's why I maintain that present-day societies are only progressive to a point and then things suddenly snap back when it suits a morally outraged tabloid readership, who in reality just want to get a giddy thrill out of someone 'doing the dirt,' and suddenly we're back in the curtain twitching, tongue tutting days of the 1950s.

People's relationships and marriages can be extremely complicated and don't always follow the 'and they all lived happily ever after' storyline of some Hollywood movie. People marry for all sorts of reasons and divorce for all sorts of reasons and may or may not maintain all sorts of complicated relationships that don't quite fit those traditions.

I know several divorced couple show are still quite definitely still very close friends after divorces and all sorts of complicated scenarios like that.

Life's complicated and I think if we spend all our lives going around seeking to be outraged, it makes for a rather dismal and miserable society. Ireland in particular was absolutely full of judgemental conservatives who liked nothing better than to wag their fingers at and even shun anyone who dared to fall outside their narrow world view.

for those who can't get their heads around how someone can not understand their sexual orientation in their 20s (or later) then count yourself very lucky. For a lot of people it's way more complicated than that.

Puts a whole other slant on the Schofield story when he followed that kid on twitter when he was 15,think its time he done a Barrymore at this point.

Is it possible that gay men simply want to have the traditional family life? That they like being fathers etc.