Gay Relationships: I’m “Out” - He’s Not!

[Jacqui]

( Gay Relationships: Advice Column By Dr. Brian Rzepczynski )

Dear Brian:

My partner and I have been together for 20 years and are very much in love. We are both very successful. I am out with friends and family. He is not out with his family – or at work. We have a house together. When he is on the phone i have to remain silent so as to not be heard. He often gets dragged out to events after work because nobody knows he has someone waiting for him. When his family comes to visit – I move into a hotel for a night or a few days.

I realize he is operating from a point of fear. I want to be supportive. However – I am in my 40′s now - and well I am starting to feel “invisible” – like I am choking. We have limited our friends to just a few. He hates to leave the house for fear of being seen together.

I have tried to make him see that we need to “come out ” at least a little , but he can’t take the humiliation. He has spun such a web now that to “come out” will be devastating for him and his ‘friends” that do not know.

I still love him – but I am suffocating ! How do I make him see this and “HEAR” me?

Lonely









Dear Lonely:

You are definitely in a difficult situation and your struggles are commonplace for men in your particular relationship style. Generally speaking, it has been observed that men of similar “levels of outness” tend to experience less stress and conflict and tend to report higher levels of relationship satisfaction than those couples in discordant identity arrangements.

For you being the partner with more comfort and pride in your sexual identity, it is likely that you often times feel “held back” by your partner’s lack of security with himself as you are limited in the types of things you can do in public, and even within the confines of your own support network with family and friends. As such, it can feel like you are being forced back “into the closet” after having worked so hard over time to claim a positive self-concept as a gay man. Conversely, your partner can feel pressured before he’s ready to take on situations that are risky and threatening to him and a perpetual push/pull dynamic gets set in motion in these types of relationships that can make both of you feel overwhelmed, resentful, and unsupported. Probably sounds familiar, I bet.

I wish I had better news for you, but unfortunately there’s not a whole lot you can necessarily do on your end for him. Your partner’s closeted lifestyle preference is his issue and you can’t “make” him change his ways , and it’s solely his responsibility to come out to others when and if he chooses. All you can do is communicate your needs and feelings to him and share with him your concerns that your differing levels of “outness” have on your relationship and what it means for the two of you moving forward.

You can also encourage slow, gradual, risk-taking behaviors that the two of you do together in terms of public exposure as a gay couple, but again you can only solicit these suggestions to him and he will ultimately choose whether this is something he’s willing to forego.

It will be important for you to determine for yourself how much stock you place in this particular value for your happiness. Is it a negotiable or non-negotiable deal-breaker need for you to be in a relationship with someone who is as “out” as you are? If your partner were to never “come out of the closet”, would you be able to spend the rest of your life in a relationship such as this knowing you would have to continue living with certain sacrifices? These are the types of things you and your partner would benefit talking with each other about.

While two men who are “out” and open and two men who are both closeted tend to fare better because each is living the same reality, men in your situation where one is “out” and the other isn’t can and do make their relationships work, but sacrifices are made.

You will have to decide for yourself what these specific sacrifices would be and if the investment you’ve made with your partner after all these years is more important to you than the individual growth potential you might have to give up to an extent to respect and accept your partner’s needs for privacy and anonymity. It’s also possible your partner just needs more time and you’ll have to decide if you’re willing to wait.

So while you may feel like you’re in a powerless position, you actually do have some control over your future…it’s just that they’re not very fun decisions and they have the capacity to lack guarantees and can be extremely life-changing.

So avoid being impulsive and reactive at all costs. I would recommend before doing anything else to avoid getting into power struggles over this issue because your partner can’t take those personal journeys until he’s emotionally equipped and ready.

I would also recommend you seek the services of a trained therapist who can help you dialogue further about this with each other as a couple, and this might be a good segue for your partner to find the strength to do some individual work on his own to work through his fears and build his self-esteem and confidence to promote a positive gay identity. You could also benefit if you desire help sorting through your values and clarifying them for sound decision-making and problem-solving.

My fingers are crossed for you, my friend. My hope is that you both find the courage to keep striving for your own individual and couple growth-potentials to have the greatest quality-of-life you can! You deserve it!

All my best,

© Dr. Brian Rzepczynski, The Gay Love Coach

[Bowyn Aerrow]

20+ years ago mixed status couples were far, far more common and it was like totally acceptable.

#2 wasn't out at work and he was invited to all sorts of after work activities as a 'straight man' and I accepted it because I fully understood that his coming out at work was going to be a job loss for him. Yeah I felt like shit being left at home alone with the dog and cat while he was out having drinks with buddies, or attending social functions at work - but it was just the way things were and we accepted our fate.

I think people are a little unrealistic about their partner being able to be out to everyone even today.

While social attitudes have changed, personal bias hasn't changed much. While no boss will dare say 'your fired for being LGBT, they will fire your ass for that reason and only come up with another reason to put on the pink slip.

I know of a couple of people who worked for years at a particular job without a single black mark on their record. They decided to 'come out' and suddenly their boss(es) became the typical asshole that looked for anything to put black marks on the record to get the person fired.

So it still is not a good idea to be totally out - especially at your job in most cases.

Coming out to folks still runs high risks. Granted a 40 year old man runs little risks of being kicked out on the street, but the emotional/psychological damage of the risk of having your 'old' parents disown you is severe enough to warrant staying in the closet.

I think we in the LGBT community are being a little harsh on our still in the closet Brothers and Sisters. We are deluded in thinking that this new era of tolerance and seeming acceptance means that everyone is on board and that no one is going to suffer an ill fate should they come out now.

It is a dangerous delusion - one we need to snap out of and wake up and see the realities of our world so we can continue on working on the more personal level of tolerance since the hard social work is nearly over.