Why Women Marry Men Who Have Sex With Men

Many women ask themselves after discovering their male partners have sex with other men, “How could she not have known?”

Some women, consciously or unconsciously, gravitate toward gays or MSMs. This happens for a variety of reasons—most of which are unconscious and subtle. While there are many women who marry gays or MSMs knowingly, the majority have no conscious awareness of this.

Many women who marry gays or MSMs are enablers and codependent. That is, these women allow their spouses to continue their behavior and feel unworthy and powerless to confront it after they realize it is happening.

A straight woman may be unconsciously drawn to men who might betray her. Perhaps while growing up, she experienced lies and witnessed emotional boundary violations that remained unresolved and left her traumatized. This could turn her into a co-addict who unconsciously seeks a “familiar” man who violates her trust all over again.

On the other hand, she may believe that she is attractive enough to “convert” a gay man.

Still other women marry gay men or MSMs out of unconscious codependency and an interest in controlling or micromanaging a “flawed” partner. Finally, some women are drawn to men who aren’t anything like their macho, patriarchal, abusive fathers in the hope that their partners will not sexually or otherwise overpower them.

A very common reason women marry men with sexual interest in other men is the desire for sexual and emotional distance within the relationship. Often these women have sexual issues themselves that have not been addressed and are attracted to men in similar situations.

Women are so engrained not to explore their own sexuality and to fend off the predatory nature of most heterosexual men that there is a tendency to lack awareness of their male partners’ sexuality as well.

No matter what the case, the majority of these women truly love their husbands, and their husbands love them back, while still being drawn to same-sex encounters. Despite the initial reasons for their attraction, it is important to stress that most of these marriages are built on actual love.

This blog will focus on how these men and women can understand themselves better and why to stay married—or decide to split up.

I will help these women understand their spouse’s sexuality and what they are trying to work through. Hopefully they will come away with more compassion and love for their male partners.
Likewise, these men are working through their own trauma and issues. But while women tend to withdraw and shut down sexually from their trauma, men tend to act out.

When women recover sexual abuse memories they need time and space and a lot of patience from their male partners. Straight Guise need the same from their female partners.

This blog will address how to help the women involved with these men tolerate their MSM’s recovery process, or if the man is truly gay and wants to divorce, how to tolerate that as well.
“Why would a guy who has sexual thoughts and behaviors with other men marry a woman?”

As for MSMs, it’s because they see their interest in men as purely sexual and do not have any interest in being romantic or affectionate with a man nor building a life for themselves in such a way. That is simply not their identity.

Bisexuals are part of Straight Guise too!

Mark Simpson, the man who coined the term Metrosexual talks in his blog about bisexuality. I agree with his beliefs that it is easier for straight women to admit they enjoy, have and seek sex with women. They can self-identify as bisexual and not face discrimination the same way a man would. They are not punished in the same way men are as Mark blogs below:

Straight women now have something to gain and little to lose by admitting an interest in other women. Rather than exile them to the acrylic mines of Planet Lesbo, it makes them more interesting, more adventurous, more modern… just more. For the most part, however, straight men still have nothing to gain and everything to lose by making a similar admission. It renders them considerably… less. Unlike women, men’s gender is immediately suspect if they express an interest in the same sex. What’s more, any male homosexuality still tends to be seen as an expression of impotence with women; in other words: men’s attraction to men is equivalent to and probably a product of emasculation.
A straight man admitting that he finds masculinity desirable – as so many clearly, thrillingly do – threatens to cost him the very thing he values most: not only his own manhood and his potency, his reputation with the ladies, but his lads-together homosocial intimacy with other men. It’s a nasty, vicious, bitchy trick to play on millions of red-blooded men, but this is what passes for common sense in the modern, anglo-saxon world.

Guise and Dolls

Over the years I have treated hundreds of men--gay, bisexual and straight--who tell me that they enjoy various sexual fantasies and sexual acts but would never tell their wives. They want to tell and include her in their sexual world but worry about her judgment about something they already feel ashamed about.

Some actually do tell and receive responses such as this:

"You want me to do that? I am not that kind of woman!"
"Why would you want anal sex? Are you gay?"
"I am not going to do that and you better not get that anywhere else!"
"You cheated on me because you don't love me."

The fact is that most of these men want to engage in sexual behaviors, sexual fantasies, sexual talk, and perhaps pornography--either with their female partners included or at the very least with her knowledge.

Women often judge that if their male partners do not tell her about their sexual interests that it is because they don't love her. The fact is they don't tell because they love her do not want to lose her.

Take my client George for example. He had strong interests in receiving anal sex. He enjoyed inserting dildos and his fingers into his anus and derived strong sexual pleasure from this. He worried he was gay and learned in therapy that enjoying anal sex is not an indicator of one's homosexuality. It is a sexual act and desire which is separate from one's identity.

After George put this into perspective he decided to tell his wife. He told her of his sexual interests in his anal sex where he is the received and asked her if she would be willing to use sex toys and even a strap-on to wear while penetrating him anally. She became immediately angry accusing him of being gay and telling him she never wanted to talk about it.

Feeling ashamed, he never brought it to her attention again and found himself hiding his sex toys and looking for male partners who would anally penetrate him. He was clear that if his wife was receptive to his sexual interest he would not seek out men to engage in this act.

I asked him why he sought men and other women to do this and he said he had but received the same negative judgments from them. He reported that men who enjoyed giving anal sex never judged him. He did not care about what the men looked like or what their personality was he simply enjoyed the sexual act.

I am not blaming his wife for his acting out sexually with other men. I do hold her accountable for not being more open to talking with him about his sexual interest and at least experimenting with his sexual desires.

This is not limited to women in terms of being sexually judgmental. Men can be this way as well when it comes to their partners needs and interests. However, women tend to be less sexually open than men and these men then stray from the marriage to get their sexual needs met.

This illustrates only one of many reasons why men seek out sex with other men.

Women Who Love Straight Guise

A lot of my work consists of therapy with women in love with men who have sex with men. These can be mixed-orientation marriages where their spouse or partner is a gay or bisexual man or it can be with a women who learns her male partner is fantasizing and/or wants to have sex with other men.

Learning that a man seeks, fantasizes or wants sexual contact with another man does not mean he is gay as this blog explores the numerous other possibilities that exist. It does not mean the marriage has to end.

To see me talking about these couples click below: