Email from a gay guy with long-term relationship issues

Just over a week ago, a reader sent me the following email:

Dear GB,

First, I would just like to say that I've been reading your blog for quite some time, and I appreciate your honesty and openness about how your life has transpired with Boyfriend S, and others.

I suspect I particularly relate to your situation, as I am in a very similar situation, and am doing my best to cope with what is right and ethical for both of us.

I met my partner 25 years ago, when I was 23 and he was 41. Today I am 48 and he is 66. We have not had a physical relationship for years.

Years ago, he had physically rejected my advances, and my needs for sexual satisfaction, and I vowed to never approach him again in a sexual way. Now he feels very guilty about that, but that definitely had to change our relationship. But that led to years of solitude, self-esteem issues, weight gain and frustration before I ventured out to others.

About 5 years ago I did begin to meet others, usually at saunas. During this time, I met a married man. He is like your Boyfriend P - I get to see him every morning for coffee, and we manage at least once per week an evening together. It has been a very intense emotional and physical time with him these past 4 years, and I would have to say I love him very much, but I know that he will never intentionally leave his wife.

Lately I have also met someone that was in a very similar situation as myself, and he has had the courage to venture out on his own, 2 years ago, after ending his 18 year relationship. We seem to be bonding very well, and also enjoying each others company.

I suppose I feel guilt and failure regarding my Boyfriend S (who also has had a Boyfriend P for 4 years - also a married man - and he went through a massive depression last year when he thought that that relationship was ending) in that I loved him, and still do, but I know it is not like it was. Also, I suppose I am like your Boyfriend S, in that I am not as financially stable as my partner, and I fear the reality of losing out in a break-up. But both of us have fears of being alone - he due to getting older and more infirm, me because I basically have been with him most of my adult life...

I suppose my question is, after all of this, what is the ethical and moral thing to do - stay together with someone that has been a pillar of your life, and both of you try to live things out, each trying to be happy in your own ways with other partners on the side, or are we not doing either of ourselves justice by not dealing with the reality that things are not what they were, and get on with it?

Thanks.

The reader who set this email clearly feels as though he's at a crossroads in his life, no doubt as a result of the recent meeting with this new guy who was in a similar situation and then ventured out on his own. Since the two of them are 'bonding very well' perhaps there are even relationship possibiliites there.

In any case, the fact that this reader has had a relationship with another guy for 25 years is a significant achievement. I do reckon gay relationships can be more fickle, so when comparing with heterosexual relationships I think a gay year is worth more than a straight one! But people do gradually change, and in a relationship if people change in different ways, it's possible that a compatibility can slowly change into an incompatibility. Relationships change too, again not necessarily for the better. In the case of this reader it sounds as though the change that happened in connection with their sex lives caused him a lot of problems.

As the reader says, he's been with his partner for most of adult life. However, the worst reason to stay together is just because it's comfortable. Equally, 'the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence' so change for the sake of change can also be a mistake. What he doesn't mention in his email is the quality of companionship that the relationship provides. Do they still socialise a lot together, and still enjoy each other's company? Since they both seem comfortable having other partners on the side, if the rest of the relationship is still good I see no reason to finish it. But if they mostly get on each other's nerves all the time, then a separation would be better. From the reader's email I can't judge where he is along that spectrum of possibilities.

In my case, at present it seems likely that my relationship with boyfriend S will end up being downgraded to a close friendship. I don't want to lose contact with him because we've shared to much together, and I think he feels the same way. Perhaps this reader could also downgrade his relationship with this guy to a friendship and still keep some of the benefits of the relationship? Maybe there's some way of doing that so that he doesn't lose out financially in a more absolute separation?

A couple of times, the reader mentions the ethical and moral dimension to this. When I try to think of ethics and morals in relation to this situation, I start wondering what these two guys owe each other, not in a monetary sense but in terms of the lives that they've led together. Did one of them support the other one for a long period, through a difficult time in their lives? What sacrifices have been made for the relationship? Only the guys involved know the details. But maybe the reader is referring to the fact that his partner is within striking distance of his 70th birthday and might find it hard to find a new partner if they separate. My feeling is that there's no debt in connection with that fact alone, because the older guy didn’t have to start a relationship with the reader. The older guy should have been fully aware of the age difference and what it's implications might be in later life. Furthermore, the fact that he rejected the reader's sexual advances years ago makes me think that he could have been playing around for a lot more than the 4 years that the reader mentions in his email. So the available evidence suggests a debt to the reader, rather than the other way round. The reader also shouldn't feel 'guilt and failure' in connection with his relationship problems, because making a relationship work is a joint responsibility.

Do any other readers have any other thoughts on this situation?