Plausible reasons an openly gay male might have a wife and child

My story has some holes and I am flexible in how to fill them to make it work.. what is important is that at a point later in the story his friend encounters a woman who introduces herself as his wife and the other character is completely taken aback by this. He needs to have a daughter, this character has always had a daughter and it is she who drives the whole start of the story (which starts in the future and flashes back). The friend never knew about either and only learns of the daughter many years later. C1 is the main character and C2 is the gay character as you may recognize from my other recent posts. C1 also has kids and I struggle a lot with the timeline for this, too, for theoretical reasons.

I have entertained tonight the option of changing the while timeline to return to what it used ot be, that C2 marries this female much later in the story only after he knows he is dying. That would give me the chance to give them the blown out fancy cathedral wedding I wrote that they had (basically a sham marriage arranged just so that he has someone to leave his shit to when he dies). It doesn't give me the opportunity it did though to, prior to that point, have the whole show down between the two characters- C1 and wife because they would not have been married yet at that point.

I altered the story at some point to make C2's daughter way way younger so that I could incorporate a specific scene where both she (C2's daughter) and C1's daughter of similar very young age spend a day together when C2 babysit's C1's little girl for him. C1 has NO idea C2's daughter even exists and is concerned when his little girl comes home excited and happy telling all about her exciting day and her new friend Julia- thinking she's got a make believe friend. His guilt kicks in that shiz at home, like having to send her off for a couple days because stuff is going on at home- is starting to effect her emotional stability. Unknowingly, many many years later C1's daughter has a vague hazy splotchy recollection of that time she spent with that person and going to the park and all... and until that happens C1 never knew about the fact that C2 secretly brought his own secret daughter along to help him entertain his friend's girl (he isn't very experienced with kids).

My boyfriend trashed the idea of both characters having accidentally having children and being in relationships by default because sticking around to parent the oops baby was the right thing to do. When he put it this way it made me question where I have gone with the story and the plausibility, but getting back into my plot as I know it, he makes a lot of assumptions. I planned to omit why C2 ever had a wife and child of his own, particularly since the premise of his life is that he runs away from home at 15 as a gay youth. He does, however, come from a wealthy family and as the only child he knows he is going to inherit everything (and it is a lot) so I actually drafted the scene idea where he tells his best female friend of his business proposal. It is plausible that he may have experimented enough early on to have fathered a child, but it seems kinda wishy washy. I have a hard time abandoning the wife and daughter thing, though. Especially since the large part about the story is answering a lot of questions from earlier, later, and C1 learning a lot of stuff he never knew.

C2's wife is a very independent, career-oriented modern feminist-ish woman of the 70s. She, too, comes from a prominent family of self-made wealth and for me this character could easily be the type who would want a kid but not the entanglement of marriage and, as it were, in the end it'd be a sweet deal because she knows she'll get some substantial shit out of it from his inheritance that he could care less about, but cares enough to be sure it stays in the family as it has for several hundreds of years. They each get to live their own life. The other side to this is that he and the wife are friends, C1 only encounters her briefly early in their friendship as they live kinda different lives. But anyway, C2 and she share a lot of other interests, they are both incredibly musically inclined, that is what cements his affection to her, is that he is a countertenor and spent his childhood in the choir, etc. She is vocally trained and a soprano and wanted to be a singer but was motivated into the direction of a more practical choice and goes to Vassar and gets into business and begins working for the family's very large company. In their special girl/gay boy world there are lots of duets together performing favourite arias because they sing so well together, with piano playing and going to events where they do vintage dancing (19th century dancing, etc). She kinda is the outlet for who he is quietly inside his mind, this estranged highly cultured English boy from the country who was forced to abandon the life he grew up in because of his sexuality. So with her he gets to tap into all that like he cannot with other friends in NYC- not even his best best most intimate friend who knows everything about him (mostly) who would not understand or relate to any of this other stuff. So there could be a part of C2 who maybe was in love or very fond of his lady friend but just not in a sexual way. And maybe for her her family expected stuff of her she did not want? Maybe she is a lesbian. She is definitely uppity and upper crust, very fashionable and wearing high fashion when she encounters C1 for the second time. She looks down on him and there is an element of competition or jealousy in their encounter almost as if she is in love with C2 and knows C2 is in love with him and hates him for it. They don't say any of it but it is implied, they meet at the hospital where C2 is and basically when he is refusing to go home she informs him she is his friends wife and like--- go scratch, I have more of a right to be here than you and tell you to leave.

What can I do with this mess? Mind you C2 returns to his ancestral home for the first time since running away, with she and the daughter after this. I have not even begun on C1's mess with his kids.

I like that at the beginning or end of the story the two daughter's who once met and spent the day together when they were so little reunite as adults. If I could draw a sketch to illustrate the intricate dynamic of this story and characters it would make more sense. C1 and C2 are very similar and in the end their daughters are just like each of them and very close to their fathers and become fast friends. A lot of backstory about C2 is told through his daughter through sharing memories and stories and personal artifacts that belonged to her father, things C1 never knew about him or saw.

 

I've got to admit that reading your post was a bit like drinking from a firehose, so I'll just go with the original question and a couple of details I picked out. First, sexuality isn't binary. I don't know if it's still considered accurate, but the Kinsey scale posits varying levels of same-sex attraction, with a zero being someone who is utterly and strictly heterosexual, no interest at all in the same sex, and a 7 being someone who is utterly and strictly homosexual.


Do people at 1 and 5 consider themselves bisexual? Probably not, but there's at least a glimmering of a lack of revulsion. So if you put your character slightly towards the middle he might consider himself gay but not so gay that he couldn't play a role if need be. You also mention C2's wife as being a "feminist woman of the 1970s." I'm not sure when the story is set, but if he's of an age with her that puts his birth in the late 1940s-1950s. It was a lot harder to be openly gay for people of that generation. I'm thinking of the character Sal Romano from Mad Men, who had a faithful wife waiting at home for him every night but at least once tried to take advantage of the anonymity of a business trip to enjoy his true sexuality. Might someone like that have fathered a child and later, perhaps as mores changed, felt comfortable enough to come out at a level where his past was forgotten? Much easier without those old Facebook and Instagram posts to haunt you.

Anyway, my 2 yen.

 

I'm not going to read this, I'm just going to answer the question: He wasn't always openly gay and wasn't always out of the closet.

 

I don't quite follow the entire plot, but how would you define 'openly gay'? Being openly gay in the 70s and early 80s was not as common as it was today and depending on the community, could have consequences (I'm speaking mainly of the U.S.). So there were many 'closeted' gay men who had quasi-marriages/relationships due to the social pressures and difficulty networking with a local gay community. I hesitate to say 'sham' marriages because that implies the whole thing was fake. Such marriages may have been romantic, but whether they were 'sexual' is a different and private story.

I'm talking about individuals like Freddie Mercury and George Michael who had long term relationships with women, which are more complex than I thought. Most people knew or suspected they were gay or bi, but it wasn't until much later in life that it was openly acknowledged. I would think even non-celebrities would face similar issues during this period, just on a less public scale.

You could maybe see if there is any information from GAMMA, the gay and married men's association www .gammasupport.org (I learned about it on a Lifetime movie). Maybe something might help with your brainstorming. Maybe that's a little interesting research, but it's the second thing I thought of after reading your post (the first being Freddie Mercury and George Michael).

 

My uncle had been married for years. He has 2 daughters. Once his daughters were adults did he come out as gay. He is in his 70s now and has been with his partner since he was in his 30s or 40s.

I have another uncle who was married and had 2 kids before he divorced and came out.

In these 2 cases, they were closetted because it was "wrong" during their generation.

But there are stories of openly LGBTQ individuals forced (by their parents/religion/culture) to marry and have children.
I read a non-fiction about a woman who was raised as a boy, who was forced into marriage with a man and had children and everything, but could not identify with being a wife or a mother because she was raised to be a man.

 

Can you direct me to that book? The subject matter would be perfect for my writing!

 

The Underground Girls of Kabul
(hers was only one of many stories in the book. the author interviewed these girls who really see themselves as a third gender since they are not boys, but then were not raised as girls either)

 

So... I had drafted a reply while I was at the nail salon and didn't get a chance to finish and alas it is gone, now so I'll start over! Thank you all for the replies thus far. Of the suggestions provided so far, I have to say the closest I can get to matching is going with the "wasn't always out of the closet" route but not in quite the same way. My story has changed ovr time and I have made the decision to make radical changes that I at first was opposed to to better suit a newer plot concept but some things cannot change because they are what the story is all about. However, I have only very recently decided to make C2 a bit older than I always wanted him to be. It is important that he runs away from home very young at 15. I always said (inspired by a dream) he runs away from school on foot for London where he gets taken in by someone. So long as he is old enough to have been a part of the party scene in london in the 60s I'm good and a little older is actually better.

How do you explain meeting and marrying his American wife who would (presumably) be the same age, maybe older, while he is still living in England AND she is from a wealthy family.. "Hey mom, hey dad, I know you sent me abroad to attend college but I met this guy and we eloped??" I can deal with his maybe spending the first few years in self exploration and coming to terms with what he is first... it's how I make her end of things work.

Without going into too much detail because there is SO MUCH to unpack with this character and the timeline of the story- I made him older but decided to make it such that in the earlier parts of the story he is thought to be much younger, like 20... but it is a shocker that and makes sense to discover years later just how old he really was.

A few points: He is gay- like gay and proud marching in the pride parade gay. Amongst the pioneers and revolutionaries of the times where the seed for the gay rights movement was sown in 1969. Amongst those who are gay and proud and accepted the risk in being openly gay in public. This is a large part of who this character is and as such also a detriment to him since, for him, unfortunately his sexuality and identity are one and the same and thinks himself merely a decorative plaything with little else of value as a person. He comes to NYC to be gay and lives in the heart of the gay community in the West Village. He is deep into the life, I wont go into too much detail here but C2 is out of control, he's very dynamic and vivacious and lives a very colourful complicated hedonistic promiscuous life of never ending parties, disco, bath houses, drugs, jet set, socialites, etc. The deeper into the 70s it gets the more unhinged he gets. he is simultaneously a deeply sensitive and highly cultured gentleman in alignment with this upbringing and a reckless force of nature- this is C1's fascination. And the wife.

That being said, I have been reflecting on this idea all day that maybe he doesn't become aware of and explore his sexuality until after he's run away from home and experiences some self exploration first. I wondered if the whole marrying for citizenship thing is true, also, because he becomes an American citizen at some unspecified point, preferably by the time he meets C1, or shortly thereafter, in 1973.

Things that need to remain in fact in my story and non-negotiable:

Leaves home at 15
is in his early 20s and living in NYC in 1973
He is from England and his wife is an American girl, also from a wealthy family
He is openly gay and deeply immersed in the gay lifestyle

 

In that case, I don’t know if it could work. Other gays would disown him from that community if he were in a relationship with a woman, let alone married to one.

 

This story involves a very complex layer of emotions and romantic entanglement. I cannot begin to fully explain it here. It is a story about life and love and loss- no one wins. It's a very sad and tragic story for all but bittersweet, too. I can see C2 and his lady friend absolutely having one of those romances that are not necessarily sexual. As a female he has nothing but adoration for her and she brings out whatever does exist of this character's masculinity but in a very refined and old fashioned nothing about male and female roles that he was brought up on- she is a lady and he is the gentlemen. Again, they sing together, dance. Even a gay man can crush on a woman and he is very smitten with her for all the wonderful talents and grace she possesses. I invasion them, even after he's openly gay and they do not live together at 19th century dance events- he in full regalia bowing properly as she courtesies, leading she and other ladies well through a waltz as a the very strong dancer he is and charming the heck out of them after over champagne discussing fashion and art, you know. When he is with her they lunch out and shop at Bergdorf's go to the spa (which was not as common a thing back then like it is today) or go antiquing in New England or go to the opera (their fav opera is The Magic Flute) These are NOT things he would be doing with C1 (who is secretly the love of his life).

I wrote a bunch just now in a separate comment but when I mean openly gay, I mean the whole shebang. West Village NYC, has a tattoo depicting the Flight of Ganymede on his back, an earring as a gay youth in the late 60s, he's a majorette in the marching band in he pride parade and known member of the local community, he's a regular at the bath houses, his apartment in the village is like a community center with a never ending flow of friends dropping by to listen to music and get high and other things, everyone knows he's kept by a prestigious older Frenchman. It was the ultimate sugar daddy/sugar baby job opening coveted by many a kept bottom and their introduction was made at a party by a very dedicated friend who knew he was the ultimate qualified candidate for the opportunity. His obligation to Alain is ony to make himself available a handful of times a year, when he is in NYC and when he flies him to Paris a few times a year on the Concorde where he spends a week or a weekend with him between the city and at his beach home in Biarritz. He spends the majority of his summer out on the island (Fire Island), it's a well-known within his circle that he is reputed to have dabbled in the porn business, he is arrested multiple times on account of his public sex-capades. Some people work for a living- he goes to discos. He punched his timeclock somewhere between 10-midnight, when his night out at the clubs around the city started and ended anywhere from 4am to 7am- until Studio 54 opens and that becomes his second home. He cruises the bath houses, the piers (much to C1's horror when he learns that C2 carries a piece of paper with his information on it in his pocket-- that way should anything happen to him the police can ID his body)... there are scenes when he is wondering through the city with C1 and/or his entourage and disappears without any warning from the group because he got sidetracked/cruised by someone in a doorway as they were passing down the street and catches up with them after. There is a reason C2's fate is not a good one. He lives real hard and fast.

I struggle on how to get it across accurately when C2's wife has a faceoff with C1, without saying it, that suggests she knows who he is although she acts like she doesn't because he is of someone of no consequence to her just by looking at him and how he is dressed- but that she does in fact know and because she was once in love with C2 and still is deep down, is jealous and resentful towards him like 1: you lucky son of a bitch, I love him but set him free because he is gay and envy you for holding the key to his heart 2: how dare you, you son of a bitch for hurting him.

 

He is not openly married to her, you see. They are merely friends at the point, no one knows about it. There is very little anyone in his life at that point knows about his past before moving to NYC, where he comes from, who his family is, etc.
While he has a large collection of fair-weather casual friends, he is also kind of a loner because he is not particularly close to anyone. However, his circle is very eclectic. Gay men, women, models, artists, musicians, he is very into "people" and being a part of everything and experience and knowing a broad variety of people hence his fascination with C1 when they meet he is "real New Yorker" and flattered to have a conversation with a local at a bar. That kind of social intermingling was not something he could experience in London where the social classes were very segregated. When he treks across the US hitching rides with truckers to get from place to place it is his charisma and super polite social graces that get him by without any problems despite being such an outsider. He just has that sort of likeable personality and knows people from all walks of life. it is part of the benefit of being well bred. Princess Diana could go anywhere and have a perfectly wonderful chat with whomever, because she was good with people. No one knew her internal pain or suffering and that was something she kept to herself. This is how C2 goes through life until he can't keep up the charade- and no longer cares to. He is on a first name basis with socialites and celebrities yet the best times of his life are spent together with C1, he poor guy from Brooklyn. He also is very careful to not talk about any of those experiences with C1 because he is very sensitive to his being poor. Just because he can get along fine with one person and that person- that does not mean they will get along with one another. Does that make sense? C1 only meets a few of his "closest" friends and in that close means only one of them is astute enough to see something is going on between C1 and C2 and be the one he talks to about it. C1 never goes with him to parties nor do they ever come with C2 to Brooklyn with him. C1 only meets the wife once very early on when he hosts his first Thanksgiving as an American citizen. She attends the dinner as a friend only and it is scary experience for C1 as this is his first interaction with anyone like the people there and C2 is even scared of how it might go after he invites him... but it goes surprisingly well even though they are quietly confused by who this guy (and his girlfriend) are and accept him into the circle.

The bigger question for me right now is how C2's wife handles the whole married young to him thing and the child they have. Maybe her family knows who his family is and that they have money that she'll one day get and leave it at that- maybe they don't even know about him being gay. Maybe she announces one day she is a feminist and explains that that is why she decided to separate and live alone? In the 70s this does not seem unrealistic for a woman of self sufficiency.

She and him live separate lives and remain as friends, only. He lives in his own apartment, at least at first, downtown and she lives on the Upper West Side in a brownstone. He is also not a a conformist, either. Part of his success is in maintaining an element of mystery and balancing on the very fringes of any one scene. Which is why he is so content in his time with C1, because it is the only time he gets to be completely free and let down his guard, free from any social pressures or fear of judgement. He does not have to impress anyone, or say the right things, or look perfect. He can be vulnerable around him and cry when he's upset- all these things he typically has to conceal in order maintain face anywhere else. It catches up to him though as he spirals down from partying so much.

 

I don't know where you are getting your information, but this just isn't true. AT ALL!

 

From a gay friend who had a lot of run-ins with that community. Maybe it varies from place to place.

 

I know!!! I do apologize, I overwrite everywhere, even in texts. My thought process here though is like... only I know the story like I do and I guess I am trying to offer as much explanation or detail as possible to help others understand because the less they know of context to answer on the less helpful a suggestion I might get, does that make sense? Just trying to understand how to accurately describe what the scenario(s) is and help fill in any blanks by giving as much info as possible.

The more I think on it the more I am coming to accept the idea of having my character not immediately out of the closet but that then forces me to throw away the whole initial idea that he runs away from home at 15... and gets taken in by a man twice as old who "grooms" him and breaks him in to the life (in this case like 1964ish) in London, when it was still very much an underground culture. Would that lend itself to maybe he was exploring at the same time as when he meets aforementioned wife?

I am seeking suggestions or ideas I guess based on what I've got so far. I don't necessarily have or know all the answers. I have been wishy washy stumbling around with the timeline and details of his and her relationship and child for years, exploring multiple options.

The next questions I really need help with is, and i don't necessarily plan to explain all this in thr story but need to understand for purposes of further developing plot and timeline and characters:

1: How does C2 meet the girl he marries? (he's 15 when he runs away in 1964 and at some point by 1973 he's in NYC and out of the closet)
2: Why is she in London that they meet and get involved? In school abroad? Military family?
3: How would a young rich girl from America really work the whole situation out with her parents? "Hey mom and dad, I have something to tell you!" I don't think I can really use the whole shotgun wedding because she gets pregnant thing since C1's girlfriend later in the story also gets pregnant without planning, unless I go with that C2 is perhaps partly drawn in by C1 because he sees a bit of himself in this younger guy, a lot of overlapping similarities maybe?
4: How does C2 end up in NYC with the wife (other than for the culture of the city)
5: What would be a realistic timeline in the process of him becoming a US citizen back then? Would being married to her be enough? How long would that take?
and lastly...
6: Is she the same age as C2 when they meet- which would mean she is in high school-- or maybe a bit older and in college at the time which would be weird since he's a teenager?

Some points I have considered and am curious to hear thoughts on:

Her family may be more agreeable to the marriage to him if they know this guy she is in love with comes from a very old, wealthy family in England with a lot of land that presumably one day will be hers, too (which is does) even if they aren't necessarily happy about getting married so young.

Her *out* in the relationship, at least for justifying becoming a single mother to her parents, is that it's the late 60s/early 70s and becomes a feminist, deciding to abandon the institution of marriage. They don't divorce but she decides to be an independent woman, or at least that is what she tells her family.

 

The gay community is very open and accepting, and I don't think it matters where they are.

 

I was just basing it on what my friend told me. Not being gay, I don’t know that community much.

 

It is like any group of people, it depends on the person and imagine it does vary a lot, depending on when, where and with whom. Heterophobia does exist as well as misogyny among gay men just as that and homophobia exists among some straight men.

If C2's circle consisted of your stereotypical militant "Tom of Finland" crowd, maybe. His tendency is less towards conformity and more towards the avante garde and artistic set. He is openly gay and very much an activist for rights and all but he also does not conform easily. Especially at that time very militant gays, among their battles, were fighting to obliterate age-old stereotypes about homosexuals being effeminate, lispy with limp wrists, etc. Hence the development of the whole Tom of Finland scene which embraced exaggerated male masculinity underscored by misogynistic heterophobic attitudes, and would similarly at times encompass a rejection of gay men who embody the negative stereotypes they want to erase. In the words of Harvey Fierstein though who said he always felt "it's better to be talked bad about than not talked about at all" in regards to how homosexuals have been portrayed throughout the history of Hollywood.

C2 is in and of himself in many ways plenty masculine, despite his femininity, gentility and flamboyance, he is old fashioned and does believe in assigned roles which is a paradox he suffers through as a man who finds himself wanting all those things found in a traditional husband and wife relationship but resigns himself to the fact that that is a dream off limits to him. It is the reason why he and C1 have such a strong relationship, because they are both very traditional in their ideas about relationships and within theirs, the roles (more assumed than assigned) are clearly defined. They both have this idea about what they want and have it with each other. C2 sees himself barefoot in the kitchen preparing a hot meal for his man who is the patriarch and provider and C1 in turn dreams of having that nurturing partner to whom he can come home and be taken care of and who he can protect. He's outside working on a project with power tools while the other one is working in his garden... they both have the fantasy. C2 realizes early on in life that that is what he wants but just not with a woman. He wants to be the wife. Instead he is perpetually nothing more than a plaything among men who don't believe in marriage as an institution or want a settled life. He finds it with C1 and vice versa but there's one problem, C1 is tied down by his family and is obligated to them. Let long miserable spiraling down of C2 ensue as their feelings only deepen with time and the dream becomes more a devastating and painful tease.

 

At the risk of sounding like I'm making an anti-gay joke (which I am not), that is a rather unfortunate turn of phrase.

 

All are very good points and I *think* I nailed it pretty good in my much wordier break-down about how the gay community is not, in fact, one large monolith (to borrow a term from above) with all within it the same. Assholes are everywhere. So are stereotypes. The complexities of one's life and social pressure can be just as great as in any other social group.

That being said, before this evolves into a heated debate and someone gets offended or angry (as I feel like that is where the direction is heading) I am hoping we might redirect the topic back to the original topic of helping me work out some of my story's plot nuances. It would be greatly appreciated to get some helpful feedback/suggestions/thoughts on the ideas outlined above while my creative brain gears are working. Id like to "strike while the iron is hot" as they say, and wanting to hash out some plotting for this part of the story while the inspiration is very high but am at a standstill until I answer some of these questions.

 

I couldn't help but put my forehead in my palm and snicker over this lolol.