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4 Difficulties with hyper-closeted partners

Cheska Robles says that being in the closet is difficult, but being in a relationship with someone who’s in the closet is even harder, especially if only one is out. “Despite your love for each other, there are challenges and difficulties faced by the couple.”

Being “in the closet” is difficult, but being in a relationship with someone who’s “in the closet” is even harder, especially if only one is out. Despite your love for each other, there are challenges and difficulties faced by the couple.

I can say that I am not all out yet, but we know that there are stages in coming out. It’s actually a never ending process because most of the time, whenever you meet people who do not know you’re gay, you sort of “come out” to them and I think that’s one of the difficulties of being gay, having to constantly come out to people you meet. To be honest, I am not completely out because only some of my cousins and friends know I’m gay, but my parents, aunts and uncles don’t.

In every relationship, there are difficulties. It’s perfectly normal to have fights and to argue. But in gay relationships, things might be a little different compared to heterosexual relationships. I made a list of the difficulties I face (being in a homosexual relationship) everyday being with someone who’s not “all out”. These may or may not be experienced by some, but these I believe may be the common problems homosexual couples experience. This is also based on my own experience.

  1. You can’t seem to meet half way.

One of the difficulties is meeting half way. Why do I think this is a difficulty gay couples have? Because you both have to compromise where you can express your love and how you should express it. When one of you is still closetted, you have to arrange things in a way that when you are in a public place, people will not view you as a couple. Especially if you are somewhere your family or people you know frequent often. Sometimes you just want to give her a hug or kiss her in the cheek, but you can’t because someone you know or someone she knows might see you. And word may get out.

  1. One wants to be expressive while the other is afraid.

While one wants to show or express her love in every possible way, the other is afraid that people might find out. You can’t post pictures of you together or being sweet with each other. You have to control how you say things over social media. Sometimes you have to be careful on a picture you’ll post and the caption you put because it may cause some people to think that you are a couple. You also have to make sure that you don’t post pictures of the two of you too often because people will assume you are together. People will assume you are together just by the frequency of the pictures because people don’t post pictures with a friend every single day. That’s usually done by couples.

  1. Expressing love for each other is limited.

You don’t get to share with the world your love for someone because of the judgement you will get by people. I think this is somehow the same as the previous problem. You become so limited in expressing your love for someone. You control everything on social media, how you express love in public and everything will seem too private. Yes you don’t have to show everything to the world, but sometimes you just want to share your happiness, but you can’t because of reasons.

  1. Both of you get hurt.

Because of the difficulties faced, both of you will get hurt. One will feel that things are not enough while the other will feel pressured to come out just for the other. The one who feel things are not enough will never be satisfied until her partner express love the same way she does while the other will feel pressured to come out to save the relationship. Both parties will get hurt. In the end, because you can’t see eye to eye, you break-up and cause more pain for each other. Yes the love is still there, but there’s too much pain felt and the solution is to break-up to prevent more pain and heartaches.

These are some of the difficulties I face in my relationship, and I know there are other couples who feel this way. I think one of the solutions for this is acceptance by the vast majority of society. Love is love.

Anna Franchesca Robles (you may call her Cheska) is currently taking up Bachelor’s Degree in Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. She has this passion to make changes by inspiring people with her experiences. She is an LGBT advocate and staunchly supports gender equality.

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