Straight but dating other guys

Four months ago, while working away from home on a contract, I hooked up with a guy on a dating site. It was an incredible experience. I am thirty-nine and can honestly say it was the best sex I’ve ever had. He said he was straight though, and that he had never been with a guy before, apart from messing around in his teens and was just curious.

Within minutes of our rendezvous, he messaged me to say how fantastic the sex was and that he wanted to see me again. However, he is living with his partner of fifteen years and their twelve-year-old child.

I was also in a four-year relationship, so was being unfaithful too.

We used to meet several times a week. His commitment to me seemed very strong and over the weeks, our love towards each other grew. He didn’t like to think I was sleeping with my partner though, sometimes being quite possessive even if I were to look at another guy on the street. He also promised me he was no longer having sex with his partner. The relationship blossomed and eventually, we were spending entire weekends together, with him telling his family he was working away.

He was very keen for us to leave our respective partners so we could move in together and start a new life as a couple.

This new man in my life made me incredibly happy. So I ended my four-year relationship and a few days later, he told his partner he wanted to break up, but he that would stay in the family home for the sake of their teenage son.

My work contract ended and I moved back to my hometown just before Christmas. I moved into a new house and he drove down to visit each weekend.

Then bang, just two days before Christmas, he messaged me to say his ex was five weeks’ pregnant - they’d had break up sex on the very same night he finished with her.

He begged her to have an abortion and says that he even told her he was gay, but she is insisting on having the baby.

He is a good father and insists he wants to stick by her and support their child and baby, which, of course, I respect him for. So our plans to move in together have come to nothing and I just can’t see him having much time for me in the future.

I’ve never felt so upset and hurt but I still love him. I’m thinking about holding out in case we can have the future together we always wanted. Do you think I am best walking away or sticking by the man I love? I just feel that if I do try and stick by his side I will always resent the baby because it will be from the night he cheated on me.

And in the meantime, my ex is begging me to go back to him. I’m so hurt and confused.

Ammanda says:

Yes, sex and relationships are complicated sometimes aren’t they? I’m not surprised you’re confused and very upset by what’s happened. You and this man both had long-term partners and a chance meeting clearly led to earth-shattering excitement and what seemed like an emerging relationship. But an apparent and sudden change of mind has broken your heart. I get the sense from your letter that you may be trying to show him in a very positive light but actually, you feel angry and betrayed by his decision to stay with his long-term partner and baby.

You ask me if you should live in hope of resurrecting what you had with this man or walk away. I’ll come to that shortly. But I was particularly curious about the line in your letter that refers to his having cheated on you and how that has resulted in the birth of the child that now apparently prevents him from being with you. But I see this differently. He didn’t cheat on you, rather he’s been cheating on his partner, as indeed have you. This may sound harsh (and of course, people are doing this all the time) but it seems to me that your new love probably always saw his long-term partnership as the primary one.

From what you say, he was also actually quite prescriptive with you, sometimes behaving as if he owned you. He made it clear he was unhappy with you continuing to have sex with your partner and encouraged you to give that relationship up and yet, ultimately, he was clearly not prepared to take the same steps for himself that he advocated for you.

Yes, of course, life is more complicated when there are children involved but this doesn’t stop people from leaving a relationship. But even if he hadn’t, would you really have been happy with him staying in the family home? Would you not always have been confused about what that really meant? Even if this had felt OK in the first instance, I doubt that such an arrangement would have worked long term.

And this leads me to something else. Although your letter doesn’t give me quite enough information – I found myself wondering about how honest your new man is with himself, his long-term partner and with you. Now, all relationships are complex. For example, occasionally gay men get together with straight women. Sometimes that’s due to family pressures, sometimes it’s about fear of coming out, sometimes it’s just being unsure. I don’t know if his long-term partner had any idea he was bi-curious but I’m betting that it’s unlikely she knew. Because at the risk of making a sweeping generalisation, in my experience as a therapist, that’s usually how it works.

The point here is that however people define themselves – in a relationship, being honest with a partner is more likely to make for a rich and rewarding experience. But the main issue is that regardless of how he might have defined himself sexually, he has found it very difficult to put his relationship with you first. Yes, it was fabulous sex, exciting and looked like a life changer, but ultimately I’m not sure he had quite the same thoughts about where it all might lead as you did. Perhaps, ultimately, he wasn’t able to acknowledge who he really is as a person. As I’ve said, that can be for all sorts of entirely understandable reasons. That’s why it’s not really fair to blame this baby for the fact he’s chosen to stay with his partner. The notion of break up sex is all very well, but he chose to go ahead with it presumably knowing that one outcome might be a baby. In addition to this – he did the very thing he hadn’t wanted you to do which was have sex with the original partner.

It is, of course, up to you to decide to wait or not for a life with this man. But unfortunately, if you do want to keep the door open for him, I think you may be waiting for quite some time. If you did get together again, at best, it sounds like you would always feel you’re having to share him with others to whom he has a strong allegiance. I know from working with many people in similar situations, that’s a really difficult thing to manage emotionally. Most of all, and this is tough to say and to hear, I don’t think he’s been honest with you, his partner or himself – like I say, sexual identity, sex and relationships are complex things.  

Maybe the best option would be to grieve for what you feel you have lost and perhaps get some counselling to decide what you really want – you ex back in your life or something different. Most of all – don’t make the baby responsible for the failure of your new relationship. He or she doesn’t deserve this, but perhaps the man you thought you’d be with does. Feel sad, feel angry and then move on. Don’t waste time on the ‘what if’s’. They can be a real time waster and keep you stuck where you are now. Get out there and find someone who can truly be yours, perhaps your ex or someone different, because that seems to me to be what you’re saying you really want.

Ammanda Major is a Relationship Counsellor and Sex Therapist and Head of Clinical Practice at Relate.

If you have a relationship worry you would like some help with, please send it to askammanda@relate.org.uk* All communications will maintain anonymity and confidentiality.

*Ammanda is not able to reply individually to every email we receive, so please see our relationship help pages for further support.