question to gay/lesbians with desire to have kids in hetero-relationship

Gay>Marriage>Gay here. I think the desire to have children can exist in all of us, gay or not. It's part of being human and the primal need to procreate is a real thing. Some of it is culturally learned, but I think there is an inherent human need as well. However, the "script" pointing towards a heterosexual marriage in order to achieve this is purely driven by societal norms. It's the way in which our society developed to procreate, but it didn't have to be that way. I could easily imagine an alternate reality where humans developed a "raised by a village" method of procreation rather than a "family unit" method.

There has been a huge increase in recent years in gay people adopting or using surrogates (or sperm donors) in order to have children. I would rather see this as the way that gay people have kids, rather than in heterosexual marriages. And no, I don't think gay/lesbian people experience newfound crushes towards opposite-sex people as they age in order have children, but perhaps they convince themselves that they do. Given the right motivation, our minds can be convinced of almost anything - that doesn't make it real.

 

I was gay>marriage>gay as well, to the point where I seriously considered coming out in my 20's. I am also the oldest grandchild in a very large extended family and was always in the middle of kids {and adults as well), plus I have a lot of social anxiety/awkwardness and always felt that having a family was the only way I could guarantee not ending up completely alone. I had set a goal in my head that if I wasn't married by 30, I would look into adopting a child or fathering one via surrogate, but several years before that I became involved with the woman I eventually married. She was in an abusive relationship and we were good friends who talked a lot; the combination of being her rescuer and the danger of her husband finding out added enough of a thrill to the situation that sex wasn't a problem at all, and the added hope of being a dad one day kept things going for years.

I did not have a crush on her, though, not in the way I had crushes on guys. I DID feel far more for her than I did for any other woman I had dated, partly because of the thrill factor but also absolutely because she was very clearly interested in ME and I could see a realistic future in our relationship. As I said, I had considered coming out, watched gay porn exclusively, and convinced myself I was "maybe bisexual" only because of wanting a family with kids (and to be honest, I always imagined having kids, but never a wife), and definitely NOT based on any real attraction to women. Our marriage deteriorated for a variety of reasons--she's got emotional problems and was abusive herself, and I came out more as the trump card that said "We can't stay together because....drum roll....I'M GAY!!" Otherwise I would have stayed with her forever or at least for far longer than I did. But having the kids didn't make me straight, it just made it more worthwhile to TRY to be. And I always had hopes of finding some guy in similar circumstances who would be a sort of best friend, whom I could have occasional long weekends with (on "fishing trips" or whatever) and have non-stop sex. And I'd be lying if I told you that I really, truly considered myself "straight" - just married.

 

These are interesting answers. This thread was inspired by this post
https://forum.emptyclosets.com/index.php?threads/obstacles-towards-self-acceptance.468908/

Basically, as @mpw94 said, I wondered if it's possible as a gay person to dream of a heterosexual life because I had gone through this and it made me think I like men for quite a while. Not to say anyone can answer this but me, but maybe some experiences of said mixed orientation relationships can shed some light.

 

On the road to self acceptance gay men and women will go through an emotional back and forth as they wrestle with all sorts of push and pull factors. Some of the push and pull factors will be very apparent, including social, cultural and religious issues... the need to conform, but many of the push/pull factors are deeply embedded within our minds and stretch back to our formative years. They are far from apparent and may only come to the surface during therapy. So if we meet a member of the opposite sex who might offer an illusion of happiness and the potential to conform while we are in this conflicted and questioning state, we're more likely to go with it and make the best of it, for as long as we can, until the truth eventually outs.

The potential for intimacy, procreation (and a kind of love) may exist within these arrangements and provide a greater illusion of happiness and conformity, but in many cases the gay man or woman is having to perform mental gymnastics to go through the sexual mechanics and motions and that's just not healthy. The body is doing one thing, while the mind is (and always has been) in a totally different place. Furthermore, it becomes incredibly difficult to sustain a relationship that is on unsound foundations.

The discussions and arguments about fluidity can be incredibly vexatious and damaging to the community. In many cases fundamentalists latch on to these ideas, to support their assertion that sexuality is malleable and can be easily changed with their crackpot versions of therapy. We need to be very careful what we think and say about fluidity, because it can lead us (and others) down a blind alley.

 

Lots of questions!

1) How was I not repulsed.... I don't think that it's a given that you have to be repulsed by the opposite orientation, although I know some are. I am very turned on by touch and physical closeness, and what I had with her, I had never had with anyone else, so it was exciting and new and wonderful. Plus, as I mentioned, there was a hint of danger, and I also truly believed this was the thing I had waited for, and it would being an end to being alone, and I would have children and love. Let's be honest, sex feels good, and I liked sharing that, even if I was always conscious of how much I wanted to know what a guy would feel like. I'll admit I started losing interest rather quickly, because she was often not very interested herself, and if I initiated things, I was likely to be shot down anyone. It was just easier not to bother after awhile, and the less we had sex, the less I wanted it, and the less comfortable I was with it.

2) Platonic vs. romantic, etc. I truly did love her in a special way, and in many ways I still do. It's not the kind of deep, warm, conjoined-souls kind of feeling that I have with my male partner, but at the time I didn't know what I felt, or SHOULD feel. She was the closest I had ever been to another person, and we shared many years together. And I felt responsible for her (still do), even though I was incredibly frustrated by much of her behavior. As far as pain goes, I felt pain many times. Whenever she insulted me or lashed out; all of the subtle ways that she set me aside, knowingly zeroed in on the things I was insecure about, that hurt, because I was fully committed to making her happy, even at the expense of a relationship with a guy, or having more kids. In the end when I moved out, I felt horrible leaving the kids behind, but not her. The distance has healed some of the resentment and I've stopped being a doormat, so there is some hint of a possible, but odd and awkward, friendship.

3) Fluidity vs. being in the closet. I've considered that possibility, but always end up thinking no, I was definitely gay. My relationship with my wife was based very much on the situation and the desire for kids and an unremarkable standard kind of life. I'm avoiding saying "normal" because I was still aware that I felt something very different than other guys felt, and what I experienced with her was still kind of abnormal based on that. Had she not come on to me to the degree that she did, I would probably never have known what the hell to do, and in fact she still laughs about how dense I was about picking up on her cues. I do not remember ever once looking at a woman and feeling the same feelings of attraction that I felt looking at guys. Never. It was always the sense of "could she be the one?" but nothing in my brain or anywhere else gave me any indication. When she came on to me and my body responded, I thought, OK, this is it. I crushed on guys and knew gay men (all of whom were rather condescending towards me and clearly showed no interest), but being out and gay was not a situation I wanted to be in, because I felt like I would lose more (current and future family, friends at church, general security and any sense of knowing what to do in life and situations) than I had to gain. When I finally came out, I felt secure enough that I was willing to take the risk.

 

First, PatrickUK's comment is spot-on and fits me perfectly. Now, to your questions:
1. I think you are making a huge assumption that all gay men should be repulsed by the idea of romance or sex with the opposite sex. Some are, some aren't. That doesn't make me bisexual or hetero. In the same way that some people will faint at the sight of blood or an injury while others aren't bothered, the same was true of me having sex with my wife. It's also complicated by a couple of other factors. Prior to my relationship with my wife, I had sex with a number of guys in my teens and up to 21 years old. Nearly all of those experiences were pretty awful, and I didn't get any sense of feeling that this was right or good. What I didn't understand then was that the secrecy, shame and fear tainted those experiences. When I first had sex with my wife, it felt "right" simply because I didn't feel ashamed of it. What I've come to understand much later in life is that when I was in my 20s and a bit in the 30s, I was able to be aroused very easily. Plus, what's not to feel good when you put your penis into a warm and wet place. One critical note: even though I was able to perform with her early in our marriage, I did always feel like I was putting on a performance. The only real revulsion I felt was performing oral sex on her.

When it comes to the romantic part what exactly is "romantic?" I was able to go through the physical motions of romance, but I never really felt any of it. But having never really been in love before, I didn't know what it was supposed to feel like, so I had nothing to compare it to.

2. I thought it was romantic love, but I realize now I just convinced myself that I was in love with her. We were best friends in high school and it was easy to transfer that platonic love into a fake romantic love.

3. I think you are mis-remembering that post. Here was my comment on your earlier post:

I never felt attraction to women in general. I've never been a guy who ogles women or looks at their breasts. Of course it didn't register in my mind that I WAS checking out guys' bulges and was frequently caught staring at a guy.

At the time I dated and married her, I would have said that I was attracted to her and was perhaps bisexual. Now, as I am able to look back on it without shame and denial, I can readily see that I was never really attracted to her. I didn't actually feel bisexual, I just convinced myself that I must be bisexual to explain why I still had attraction to men. It's a terrible place to be, realizing that you are in a heterosexual marriage but knowing full well that you are gay. To avoid the obvious chaos in my mind, I was able to convince myself that I'm really bisexual (and I can just ignore the gay part of that!). I am not sexually fluid and never was. You should never confuse living a false life in denial while being able to have hetero sex with actually being bisexual and truly being aroused by both men and women.

 

That all sounds so familiar. With me, I really wanted to be out at like 19-21, but I always worked and never reallt socialized. Got married to a woman when I was 22 (what a train wreck) which we split 6 times within a year then called it quits. I met my childrens' mother when I was 23. I invited her to say with me (after a month together) because she had an undesirable home situation. Anyway, 4 months after we began seeing each other, we got custody of one of her nieces. We were raising her as our own. 2 years later, we got another of her sister's kids. Then we had two of our own over the next couple years.
For us, things moved so quickly, and we were thrust into this parental role before we really even knew each other that well.
Everything became so focused on doing right by the kids, we never really nurtured the bond between us.
Sex was never a problem because, as said before, it was sex and sex just feels good. That said, I definitely knew there was a disconnect in the relationship. Growing up, all I wanted was just to have a family and be a good man. I figured the gay feelings would go away in time. They got buried for a while, but never truly went away. it's funny that looking back I can see how those feelings crept in more and more over time, just little things here and rhere, til it reached a point that staying together was no longer possible.

 

I really wanted to be a father and become one the "old-fashioned way" ... that part worked out well but the marriage not so much. I was comfortable enough with hetero sex and had no experience with guys, although I had very strong attractions to them, that I decided the sacrifice was worth it in the long run. This was when the AIDS crisis was really becoming terrible (no HAART drugs yet) so it also seemed like a safe and sane thing to do as well. Live and learn.