Tinderview #10 — Connor
Connor, 55, is a gay man in an open relationship.
The day before we were supposed to meet, Connor messaged me and said that he wasn’t sure he could go through with things. After calming his fears by assuring him that I would protect his identity, he agreed to move forward.
I’m glad he did.
As you can see from his profile, Connor didn’t reveal a lot about himself. Based on his lack of a profile and his hesitation in meeting me, I didn’t think I’d get much out of him.
Let me go ahead and get this out of the way because it really sets up everything else you’re about to read:
Connor is a married gay man in an open relationship.
There’s way more to the story, but the moment he said that, which was about two minutes into our conversation, I was ready to steer the conversation in that direction.
Being in an open relationship, Connor’s partner knows that he’s out and about with other guys. However, the two have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to who they’re sleeping with.
I wondered how he found himself in an open relationship. He told me that he and his partner have been together for 15 years.
“We both had gained tons of weight. He’s a bottom and I’m a top. It got to the point where, physically, it wasn’t working. There was too much weight in between us. We just decided to open it up so we both could have sex.”
Since that time, both Connor and his partner have lost weight and he thinks things may change as far as being in an open relationship. For now, the window has not shut. Connor went on to say that the two are still strong emotionally, they just weren’t sexually compatible for many years.
I wanted to know how that discussion came about. I’v seen open relationships on television, but have never spoken to someone in an open relationship. Being married, I couldn’t imagine saying to my wife, “I still love you. I want you to still love me. But I also want to sleep with other people.” She’s probably reading this right now, ready to kill me if I ever thought of bringing up the possibility of an open relationship.
Connor told me that things are just different in the gay community.
“We don’t have boundaries or rules. We just sort of make them up as we go. We still talk intimately. We just decided that we still want sex, but we’re both now a bottom, and if we can’t find it with each other, let’s find with other people who can.”
I asked if Connor tells his partners that he’s a married man in an open relationship, and he told me that he does and that no one has ever had an issue with it.
To me, Connor didn’t look very overweight. When I mentioned that, he told me that was due to him undergoing bariatric weight loss surgery. He said that he ballooned up to over 300 pounds due to his diabetes becoming an issue and that he knew something had to change. He opted for the bariatric surgery and continues to shed pounds by eating healthier and going to the gym.
With his weight getting back to normal, I wondered if his open relationship would change.
“I don’t know. We haven’t really discussed that. It’s a possibility.”
Following that conversation, Connor told me how he met his husband.
“gay.com, the site isn’t very big right now. He lived Wilmington, I lived in Raleigh, we started chatting, and one thing led to another. We met and fell in love. We chatted for probably two months, then we met, and six months later he moved in with me.
We got married two years ago once gay marriage became legal. It was a quick wedding. We went downtown to the county courthouse and got married with friends and family around.”
Connor’s husband is 41-years-old. With Connor being 55, I asked if he preferred younger guys. He said that he doesn’t have a preference, as long as they aren’t immature or have a lot of baggage.
“Friends with benefits are fine. I’ve had a couple of friends with benefits situations for a few years where I’ve only hook up with one guy.”
Since Connor is the oldest gentleman that I had talked to, I wanted to get his coming-out story. Thus far, everyone who has shared their coming-out story with me has had a relatively easy time with things. Being older, I worried that Connor, who was 30 when he came out, had a more difficult experience.
“I thought it was going to be hard. My family is really close. We’re not very religious, we’re just very tight. Since my job at the time was closing, I moved an hour away from them to move in with my partner. I had to come out to them to explain why I was moving an hour away instead of moving back home after losing my job.
When I come out to them, they said, ‘We know.’”
Connor went on to say that it was his sister who helped get his parents comfortable with the idea of their son being gay. His sister had worked with a lesbian and told her co-worker that she thought her brother might be gay. The co-worker said that it doesn’t matter who he likes, as long as you love him. Connor’s sister passed along those words of wisdom to their parents.
While Connor didn’t have a difficult time coming out, he talked about the expectation of how he was supposed to live growing up. This is when he revealed he had been previously married, to a woman, and that the two share a now 30-year-old son.
“I thought it was the right thing to do. Try to change my life and be straight.”
He said that he married his wife right out of college and that they were married for five years.
I thought listening to him talk about his open relationship would be the most fascinating thing. Now, he drops on me that he is a gay man that was married to a woman and they had a son together. This really was straight out of a movie.
“I tried to be straight. The inklings and urges were always there, as far as looking at men. I would go to bookstores, not to buy anything, just to read articles about gay sex. That’s how I got my relief. But I never cheated on my wife.”
He explained that his wife found one of those gay magazines, the two had a talk, and that’s when they decided that a divorce was best for the both of them.
Given the situation, Connor made it sound like the divorce went about as well as it could. She was a private person who didn’t want to make a big deal out of her husband being gay, especially given the fact that they both attended church. Thus, the divorce was handled quietly.
When they talked, Connor just wanted to make two things clear.
“I told her, I have not and will not ever touch our son. In a sexual way. And that I won’t give up rights to our son.”
He said that he remains friends with his ex-wife, who is now re-married.
I wanted to know how the divorce and finding out his father was gay affected their son. Surprisingly, his son seemed pretty nonchalant about the situation when he found out.
“He was three (when we divorced). I didn’t come out to him until he was 16 because I wanted to make sure he understood. When I came out to him he said, ‘Ok.’ He didn’t have any questions. To this day, he doesn’t have a problem with it or my husband. He just doesn’t care. He just goes with the flow.”
Connor did say that the divorce was a bit tougher on his son given his age.
“He started having behavioral issues. My wife took him to psychologists and sociologists to figure out what might be wrong with him. They put him on medicines that never worked. When he hit his teens, he just changed into being a teenager and he’s been fine ever since.”
According to Connor, the divorce proceedings didn’t play a part in his son’s behavioral issues as the divorce and custody battle wasn’t really a battle at all. Connor didn’t want to disrupt his son’s life, so he gave rights to her as long as he could see him at least two weekends a month. She agreed, and that was that. But there was one instance where his wife was fed up.
“There was one time where my wife had reached a breaking point,” said Connor. He described that their son, who was now 11, would tear panelling off the wall, urinate on things, and destroy the house. His ex-wife dropped him off with Connor and told him, “You need to take care of him.”
Connor obliged, under one condition. “I wanted her to sign legal custody over. She could be in his life, but I wanted full custody. I had him for a week, while I was on vacation. After that, she called me and said, ‘I think I’ve changed my mind. I want to keep trying with him.’ I said, ‘That’s fine, it’s your decision.’”
Connor’s reasoning was that he didn’t want to play a back-and-forth game with his ex-wife. One would have him full-time and the other would be able to visit whenever they wanted, but he wanted his son to be in one place under one set of rules.
In the end, Connor’s son remained with his ex-wife.
I admired that Connor didn’t want to make things messy in that situation. Part of me believes he may have felt a bit of guilt for lying to his wife all those years, but I have to assume he’s a good guy and just wanted to make things as easy as possible for his wife and their son.
