#81: Relationship Status: Unfiltered – No. 02
‘Mr. EFG’, a 45-year-old married man who’s has been with his husband for 17 years in total and married for seven
Please do ‘like’ this post via the heart icon (❤️) that appears at the very top and bottom of this post, as it’s the best way to help others find my work, which brings in new subscribers.
If this project is something that you value, and want it to continue, readers are encouraged to upgrade to paid. With a paid subscription you’ll gain access to the content beyond the paywall and unrestricted access to the full archive of this newsletter.
Paid subscriptions are either billed monthly at £3.79 (less than a coffee ☕️) or annually at £34.99.
If you would prefer to make a one-off donation, feel free to send a contribution via PayPal.
You can also show your enjoyment without spending £££, by liking, commenting, restacking via Notes, or by just generally sharing 😃
[Image description: Text ‘Relationship Status Unfiltered No. 02’ on a lilac background]
‘Relationship Status: Unfiltered’ is bold, yet gentle interview series speaking to people across the spectrum of romantic and sexual experience, from high school sweethearts and solo polyamorists, to swingers, co-parents, serial monogamists and asexual folk. Each conversation follows the same of questions, revealing what people really think about love, commitment, dating and desire; from the inside of these relationships themselves.
These ‘Relationship Status: Unfiltered’ take place as informal chats over videocall, and I record the audio so that I can pull the responses together for the Q&A format below.
‘Mr. EFG’
Describe your current relationship status (be specific e.g. married for [x] years / co-habiting with partner(s) for [x] years / single and dating for [x] months).
‘Mr. EFG’: My current relationship status is married. I’ve been married to my partner for seven years, and we’ve been together for seventeen in total. So a long stretch of time that’s seen us grow and evolve in all sorts of ways.
It was actually me who instigated the idea of getting married. There wasn’t a big proposal or any grand romantic gesture; after so many years together, it felt more natural to talk about it rather than stage something cinematic. It began as a conversation, me saying I thought we should get married, that it would be a good and meaningful next step for us. From there, we started looking at venues, and I suppose I was the one pushing the “marriage plan,” as much as it amuses me to call it that. Once our parents became involved, the plans gathered momentum. It might not have had the excitement of a young couple at the start of their story, but it was definitely rooted in commitment. We both felt it was the right time.
I’m terrible at maths, but I’m 45 now, we’ve been married for seven years, and we met back in around 2006. I must have been around 28 when we first got together, give or take.
Seventeen years is a long time, and naturally, the relationship has shifted and changed along the way.
Are there any labels (e.g., monogamous, polyamorous, queer, traditional) you identify with in terms of relationships? How do you relate to those labels?
‘Mr. EFG’: When it comes to labels, I’d say I’m definitely monogamous, and I mean that in the sense of loyalty and commitment. That’s how I’ve always understood the word. Whether that’s the “correct” definition or not, I’m not entirely sure, but that’s what it means to me.
I’m also queer. I’ve only ever had one girlfriend, when I was about fifteen, and even then I already knew I was queer. Honestly, I knew I was gay from preschool. I’m not bi, and I’m definitely not straight! So queer feels accurate, and it’s a label I’m comfortable with.
The monogamy part is more layered. I have friends who are polyamorous or in open relationships, and I don’t see those dynamics as any less valid than mine. I just think they require a particular mindset, the right headspace, really, and a lot of communication. Opening up a relationship seems like something that hinges on the strength and honesty of those conversations, and I can see how challenging that could be.
Where my relationship is right now, those ideas feel… possible, maybe, but not essential. I’m not unhappy being monogamous, it’s just that in a long-term relationship, there can be room to explore different aspects of sex. For me, if the relationship were ever to open up, it wouldn’t be about romance or companionship or building another emotional bond. It would be about sex and play, something clearly defined and distinctly separate from my marriage.
What’s the story behind your current situation (e.g. please describe how you got together with your partner(s) / decided to open things up / start dating again after a big break-up)?
‘Mr. EFG: Okay, so we both have similar fetishes. We actually met through a shared fetish, you know, ‘sportswear’, ‘lads’, that whole aesthetic, on Gaydar, which was basically the precursor to Grindr. It wasn’t some romantic courtship; we met online, messaged, and it was very much about fetish play.
There was a location element, yes, but really it was convenience. He was based in Manchester, and I was working there a lot at the time, staying in hotels during the week. So you could call it convenience or laziness, probably both, but geography played a big part. I certainly wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, and it definitely wasn’t speed dating. It was about meeting up for fetish sex, plain and simple.
For the first few months, that’s all it was. But when you’re seeing someone a few times a week, speaking on the phone every day, and the chemistry is there, the play naturally turns into a relationship.
As for how it became serious… honestly, after seventeen years it’s hard to pinpoint clear cut-off moments. Things blurred and evolved. But for me, until you move in together, there’s no commitment. You can walk away. I think when you move into a house or a flat, it becomes serious. So I would say that was maybe two years into the relationship, maybe three. And at that point in time, we knew that we wanted to be together. We had fun together, and we, kind of, clicked, and the sexual interests we have kind of aligned to that, if that makes sense.
Have cultural, familial, or societal expectations shaped your relationship choices in any way? How?
‘Mr. EFG’: Society has definitely shaped my relationship choices. In the fetish world, a lot of people have play partners outside their relationships, but I’m not in that headspace at the moment. Sometimes I wonder whether that’s because society has instilled ideas of loyalty and commitment so deeply in me. These are values I hold very close, but I do think that if I hadn’t been shaped by those norms, that I would feel freer to play with other people while still being married, like how some of my friends in Berlin do, who have that dynamic?
I’m not uncomfortable with that more open model, but it just isn’t how I’m wired right now. Maybe this mindset is a “straight thing,” or maybe it’s historical conditioning.
I sometimes imagine if I came down from space now as a new person to Earth, would I have a different outlook on play and relationship? Society puts so much emphasis on stability, and I find myself wondering why. Is it tied to things like money and pensions, and stuff. And is that why I’ve been shaped the way I have, versus my friends in Berlin who are a lot freer. But I do think it’s good to have that consistency, and that stability.
In terms of family, there was never an expectation that I would get married. I came out at sixteen, and I think my parents always knew I was gay anyway, think my parents always knew I was gay, so marriage was not something that we really talked about.
But once I was in a stable relationship, they engaged with it. There’s also a generational element, as a gay or queer person, there’s sometimes a fear of introducing partners to your parents because you worry the relationship won’t last. So for me, deciding to introduce my partner meant commitment. It meant not wanting to disappoint them and wanting to show that I was in something stable and serious. Maybe that’s societal pressure, too, I’m not sure, but that’s the main way I think my parents have influenced my relationship choices.
Looking back, are there patterns in how you typically form romantic and/or sexual relationships?
‘Mr. EFG’: The pattern is purely looking for people with the same fetish as me. Well, hold on, that’s not entirely true. When I was younger, in my teenage years, it was more about any boy who was local, because there was no Grindr back then. If I was attracted to someone in a club, that’s how things would start. That was the only real way.
The internet changed everything. It plays such a massive part in fetish, and once it became a thing, it completely shaped how I found boys or relationships or boys. Before the internet, if you wanted a relationship, or play, or sex, apart from cruising or cottaging, which I don’t do, the only options were clubs and bars. And in the 90s, it was pretty hard to find someone in a club or bar who shared a specific fetish.
Back then, you’d go out, see a fit boy, and pull them. That was that.
Now, it’s completely different. You can dial in to exactly what you want. You can use Grindr or Instagram or whatever to find people with the same specific interests and meet specific people who are turned on by the same things as you.
After how long did your current relationship become sexual?
’Mr. EFG’: It “became sexual” on day one. There wasn’t really a date involved, we were basically hooking up for sex.
How do your friends or family view your current relationship, and how does that affect you?
‘Mr. EFG’: I think we’ve touched on this already. My family see us as being in a stable relationship, and that puts an expectation on me to keep delivering that consistency. I do think they’d be disappointed if we split up or got divorced, though thinking about it, that might be more about the expectations I put on myself than anything they’ve actually said.
In terms of friends, we really don’t hang out with a lot of other married gay couples. We have different friend groups. We both have online friends, this is quite a big presence for each of us separately. And then we have our friends in other ‘boxes’. As a gay person, you do end up with different boxes of friends; your work friends, the friends you’ve known a long time, like from school and or college or university, your online friends you might have met through play, and then your gay friends from going out partying.
But it’s hard to mix those groups, because there are parts of your life you don’t necessarily want to expose to everyone. Like, I wouldn’t want my work friends meeting my fetish friends, for example!
What does commitment mean to you in the context of your current relationship(s)?
‘Mr. EFG’: Commitment, for me, means that I’d let my husband ‘play’ with other people, but I wouldn’t want him to ‘have sex’ with other people. Sex, to me, is commitment. I wouldn’t fuck anyone else, and I’d probably feel jealous and upset if he fucked someone else.
That’s not to say that different elements of play aren’t possible. I don’t want to use the word “acceptable,” because that feels wrong, but they wouldn’t affect the commitment level in the same way.
So commitment for me is really about having a stable relationship and being committed to the long term together.
In terms of how I view commitment compared to my party friends or fetish friends, I think the friends of mine who are polyamorous, these are gay friends, people who are married but also have other boyfriends, actually have a similar dynamic to myself and my husband. They’re very loving with each other and very supportive. I still think we all have the same levels of love and commitment in our relationships. It’s just that the way my polyamorous friends engage with their relationships isn’t more complicated necessarily, but there’s definitely a lot more to think about.
How many significant relationships have you been in (if particular casual sexual arrangements were significant to you in some way, please do include those types of relationships here!)?
‘Mr. EFG’: In my whole life I’ve probably only had three significant relationships, I’d say, because I’ve been in my current relationship for 17 years. So, one when I was, like, 15 for a few years, one a few years later, and then my current one. In between those times when I was in a relationship, there was obviously a lot of ‘meets’ or ‘dates’ or whatever, but I think the significant ones I would reference would be those ones I just said.
Previous posts in the ‘Relationship Status: Unfiltered’ series:
‘Mr.XYZ’ revealed how the impact of media portrayals, particularly romcoms and lads mags influenced how he saw the cultural expectations of being in a relationship as an adolescent. We also chatted about the role of labels and the balance between personal freedom and relationship stability.
I share some more content from the interview with ‘Mr. XYZ’ as verbatim audio clips and more transcript text where he answers the question: ‘Anything else that you’d like to add, please do share!’. ‘Mr. XYZ’ and I talk about the influence of romcom tropes on how he views relationships. We also touch on how the current ubiquity of smartphones means that people look at their screens while on the street, rather than looking around them, or at other people. Paywalled: To gain access to this post upgrade to paid.
[Image description: Text ‘POSTSCRIPT’]
The ‘POSTSCRIPT’ segment for paid subscribers will drop on Wednesday 26 November and will feature extra verbatim text and an audio extract where ‘Mr. XYZ’ answers the final question, ‘Anything else that you’d like to add, please do share!’ and
To receive this extra mailout you’ll need to upgrade to a paid subscription, which is either billed monthly at £3.79, or annually at £34.99.
[Image description: Text ‘PRODUCED BY’]
I’m Almaz Ohene, a Creative Copywriter, Freelance Journalist and Accidental Sexpert.
Follow me on Instagram: @almazohene
I run 4x workshops (in-person and/or online) about sex and intimacy. Whether you’re looking to boost your sensual confidence, explore your sexual expression, or deepen your intimate connections, these workshops are here to help you do it both playfully and powerfully. Perfect for hen parties, baby showers, birthdays… or just because.
Please do ‘like’ this post via the heart icon (❤️) that appears at the very top and bottom of this post, as it’s the best way to help others find my work.
If this project is something that you value, and want it to continue, readers are encouraged to upgrade to paid. With a paid subscription you’ll gain access to the content beyond the paywall and unrestricted access to the full archive of this newsletter.
Paid subscriptions are either billed monthly at £3.79 (less than a coffee ☕️) or annually at £34.99.
If you would prefer to make a one-off donation, feel free to send a contribution via PayPal.
You can also show your enjoyment without spending £££, by liking, commenting, restacking via Notes, or by just generally sharing 😃