My friend has had a boyfriend off and on for 5 years. When I first met my friend, they were ‘off’. At the moment they are ‘on’. I asked him point blank if he loves his boyfriend. He answered me that he has “deep affection” for him. I asked him why does he feel the way he does about his boyfriend. He told me that “they have no expectations” about each other. His boyfriend allows my friend total freedom to have as many hookups, flings, and tricks as he wants, so long as he has no other boyfriend. I have been sidelined because, as it was explained to me, my friend’s feelings for me are deeper, he has “fond affection” for me, and to have sex with me would be “cheating” on his boyfriend. He views his activities with other guys as “diversions”. We still see each other regularly. We are still friends. Because our relationship was not just about the sex. That’s about as succinct as I can make this situation, I welcome your perspectives. Thank you. P.S. The words in quotes are the exact terms my friend has used.
Just a total guess here. I think your friend might not want to be the reason you break up with your wife. Think about his situation here. He has become good, intimate, friends with a married man. You have expressed your feelings to him. He is making a smart decision to let you work this out on your own...which you must do. You cannot chose to commit to a gay life because of him. You have to do it because of you.
Nick is correct you have to make your decision on whats best for you. Yes he does love the other man but just cant admitt it. The other man treats him as he does you.
It sounds like your friend and his boyfriend have sort of a long-term "fuck buddy" relationship and they don't want to move to a more exclusive/committed level or end the relationship altogether. They've also decided that neither can have sex with someone that involves affection outside of their relationship, and it sounds like your friend has affectionate feelings for you so he can't have sex with you under the rules he and his boyfriend have agreed to. To my mind this situation presents a red flag if your goal is to have some sort of exclusive/committed sexual relationship with your friend in the future, since I would think that he's actually more comfortable being in an open relationship.
@justaguyinsf - I think you are definitely on to something in your reply. In the couple hours since you wrote your reply to my post here, my plans for tomorrow have changed twice because my friend’s plans have changed twice because first his boyfriend wasn’t going to see him but then his boyfriend changed his plans and now he is. As for me, an exclusive committed sexual relationship has never been my goal or my expectation from my friend. I have known from the start he is not interested in that. Doesn’t mean I don’t love him, though.
I have had a chance to let yesterday’s events sink in a bit. As you may or may not know, my wife had been asking me to meet my friend since the beginning of this year. He had been reluctant, but finally agreed because he had no other plans for Thanksgiving dinner and he would have an opportunity to see the work being done on my house (he has been considering hiring the same company for work on his house). I was thinking that having the two of them meet each other would be a good idea for the long term but I got very nervous as Thanksgiving approached. So, they met. From what I observed, it went well. Actually very well. They got along just fine, chatting about all kinds of things from cooking to travel to mutual acquaintances. After 3 hours, it was time to say goodbye, and I walked him out to his truck. We agreed to meet this morning and go walking. He said he had a good time. I felt good too. Late in the evening I got a text from him, again thanking me, saying he “had a really nice time.” But he had to cancel our walk because his boyfriend had just called and he wanted to cover over and spend the night. I texted back, saying if I had known, I would have prepared enough extra food for my friend to take home for the two of them. My friend replied that the boyfriend had brought the leftovers from his own dinner party so there was plenty for them. So I’m baffled. Here is this boyfriend, having his own dinner party, and not including my friend. This is not the first time this has happened. My friend has told me about at least four other occasions when he has been left out from his boyfriend’s activities when I would have expected him to be included. When I have asked my friend why, well, it seems that the boyfriend, although single and gay and a professional, he is closeted and has been for over 30 years. On top of that, the boyfriend has had his own boyfriend living in his house for 20 of those years. He has never publicly acknowledged this long term relationship, and tells my friend that the relationship is over, and he calls this guy, still living in his house (“but in a separate part of the house”) as his “ex”. At one point, my friend’s boyfriend floated the idea that my friend should move in with him, with the boyfriend’s ex still living in the house. My friend declined. By the way, the boyfriend has explained publicly that the guy living in his house the past 20 years is a renter. So, as I said earlier in this post, I’m baffled. In a very real sense, I am more “out” publicly with my friend than his boyfriend. I walk with him in his neighborhood where everyone knows he is gay, I go on errands with him, (shopping, meeting former friends and coworkers who also know he’s gay), help him around his house, etc. And yet, the boyfriend enjoys a level of intimacy while hidden in my friend’s house, conveniently remaining closeted even though clearly he’s gay. An online pen pal told me that the boyfriend must be a great lover and that’s what attracts my friend, but no, that’s not it. Without me even asking, my friend told me his boyfriend has ED, and that’s why the boyfriend is ok with allowing my friend to see other guys, but apparently not me, because my friend has feelings for me (and I guess I somehow pose some kind of threat to the boyfriend). So here I am, I’m going to go walking. But alone today. I know I have to walk myself through all this, but I wouldn’t mind getting some perspectives from you who have had more experience with these kind of relationship issues. Like I titled my thread here, ‘Walk me through this’.
I don't think it's baffling if you simply accept it as it's being presented to you. In terms of its effect on you, it sounds like you should be careful about being emotionally attached to your friend or counting on him to follow through on plans you've made, regardless of what he says or the stories he tells.
@old tacoma The issue isn’t about your friend’s relationships. He isn’t on this forum discussing his situation. So, we can only guess. What I think is more important is YOUR reaction to your friend’s situation and how it might affect you. Or, how your friend feels about you. Namely, does he continue to be attracted to you? We can guess. But, you can also ask him to clarify everything you have asked on this forum. If your friendship is a close as you indicate, it should, easily, tolerate this sort of frank discussion.
Hey this is a difficult situation. I feel like on some level you want to be ok with the situation and you definitely want your friend to be your friend and be in your life but then your feelings towards him make you sad about the way that his boyfriend treats him and I also get the feeling that when you do spend time with him it just leaves your wanting more from him/the situation.
From your last post. As the situation stands now. Your are both in a situation of some kind of “unavailability” to each other since you are both in other relationships. This can create according to a psychologist and an expert on relationships that i watched on you tube. This unavailability whether emotional or sexual creates the attraction maybe you speak of between the two of you. Just be careful not to fall prey to toxic relationships. This is just something to consider. And I say this because maybe both of you and him and your actual committed partners deserve better than this. Am not saying this out of judgment or anything like that.
I think I may have inadvertently stumbled upon my friend’s boyfriend on a gay dating site. Last Friday evening, I was on the site and was looking at the new member profiles, and noticed a new member who is the same age as me, and is located on the same island as me. No other information. I sent him a short message to say hi and welcome. We chatted briefly, and I thought to myself he seems like a nice guy. Told him to have fun browsing around the site. I didn’t think much of it. Monday evening I logged in to the site and noticed that the new guy was online and he had just looked at my profile a few minutes before I logged in. So I sent him a message, asking him how he was liking the site. We chatted briefly again. He mentioned that he didn’t think he would meet my expectations and I probably wasn’t exactly who is looking for, but he would like to chat and maybe be friends. He talked about how hard it is to find nice guys on the sites. All good, I thought to myself. It was late, so we logged out. Tuesday evening again I logged in, the site showed he was online and he had checked my profile again. I said hi, asked him how his day went. I was on the site, chatting with other guys for about an hour or so, and then logged out and went to bed. No response from him. I got up early Wednesday morning to walk with my friend, and had an email notice that he had sent me a message. I checked the site, and he basically apologized for not getting back to me the previous evening. I told him no problem, have a good day (he was getting ready for work). I walked with my friend yesterday morning. It’s been good seeing him, and I told him so. Since the repainting of my house is finally done, we decided to walk from his neighborhood, through town and several nearby neighborhoods, and end up at my house, so he could see the completed work. I told my friend if his boyfriend decided not to come over for the weekend, let me know and we could walk in the morning Saturday or Sunday. It was all good. Last night, kind of late, I got a message from the guy from the site. He was still at work, and was taking a break, and noticed I was on the site. We had a good long chat, and he really opened up to me. Told me about his current ‘bud’ and their relationship. It was sounding very familiar, as if I’m hearing what my friend has told me about his boyfriend, but from the boyfriend’s perspective. He was telling me details about his bud that I have experienced myself with my friend. Our chat got cut short when he left work to drive home, but he messaged me again from his house, apologizing for cutting me off. I told him no problem, now that he was home, I should take care of his bud. He clarified that he doesn’t live with his bud, but he would be seeing him tonight (Friday) and spending the weekend - the highlight of his week - at his bud’s house in _______. His bud apparently lives in my town. This is not a big community. We said good night, and I logged out. Yikes! I thought, what are the chances that he is not the boyfriend, what are the chances that the guy he’s describing is not my friend? I’m not upset about this at all. I find it kind of amazing, in fact. Because it’s not the first time that I inadvertently stumbled upon someone connected with my friend. Without realizing my own connection to my friend, another guy on the site previously invited me to join him for a three way hookup at my friend’s house. I declined because I’m not interested in that. As I say, I’m not upset about any of this. It is what it is. As I have said before on EC, although I love my friend like no one else, I have never expected an exclusive relationship with him. But I didn’t want to just hold this inside. It feels good to get this out to someone else. Thank you for reading.
@old tacoma I think you will find that the gay community, in a lot of places, at our age, is pretty connected. It is not all that uncommon for partnered gay men to have active sex lives outside their primary relationship with full permission and knowledge. By no means does every gay couple have an open relationship. But, it seems like the ones that do run into the same other guys pretty often. I know that when I came out and started to hang out with the gay “crowd”, they all knew each other and many had/have things going on with others in the group. Since your friend likes to get around, and so does his boyfriend, it is not surprising you run into common men. BUT. You claim this does not upset you. However, you bring this up in this forum as you try and figure out what is going on with your friend and his boyfriend. This seems to me that you are having a bit of difficulty in accepting your current situation and are a bit jealous of your friend’s boyfriend? Ask yourself why you care so much about this situation. Again, why not just ask your friend about this? He can always say it is not your business. That’s fair. Do you have the sort of friendship that you can talk openly about this? Carrying on some sort of dialogue with your friends boyfriend (if you truly believe he is) may be viewed by your friend as an invasion of his privacy if you are aware of who he is. This could be hard on your friendship when your friend compares notes with this boyfriend. One thing I learned from keeping my sexuality from my wife is that honesty and openness is, usually, the best policy with those close to you.
I guess I’m looking at these relationships through a hetero lens. I don’t have enough personal experience to understand the mindset of many gay men. My wife has a gay coworker who, at the beginning of this year, married his boyfriend of five years. In the years that I have known the two of them, I have seen the kind of relationship that I would want for myself. It is quite remarkable to me. Their example is better than any hetero couple I have ever met. And being who I am inside, something that I want. But I doubt I will ever achieve.
I know what you mean about not understanding the mindset of many gay men, as I don't understand a lot of it either. But open relationships are pretty common I think, and there is sometimes disdain voiced about "heteronormativity". To each his own. I think that having experience being involved with women does affect a man's viewpoint, even if he later comes out as gay. I've dated and talked with gay guys who were formerly married and they've often said the same thing. Heck7, there are even "gold star" gay men who prefer to date formerly hetero-identifying men, some probably because it's a turn-on and some because they feel it gives their partners a "solidity" that is sometimes hard to find in the gay-male community. These distinctions might change over time with the younger generations growing up in a society where gay marriage is an option.
