"Be my brother wife"!

room above the garage r its called a mother-n-law

Yeah, this will work out just swell.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Sigh.

This is going to be such a flame-out fight when it all goes South.

This cannot be his closest friend, otherwise he would never even consider this proposal. Try this, and the friendship is toast....

Yeah, prescription for a good marriage: Take an essential truth about your spouse-to-be, and tell yourself you'll change it after the wedding. How can they even be serious about marrying? If she isn't turned on by the thought of him with another guy, why are they even together?

So, another flight, and no "back of the head" picture??

Oh Friday, the drama . . . the Drama!
Nice of these two to predetermine your sex life for you.
Trust me: the fiance will be jealous. Your friend wants more than the one permissible man to go with his one permissible woman, and the woman will hold you responsible for keeping his interest limited. Good luck with that.
And your future boyfriends--how are they going to feel about this arrangement for the duration of your friend's marriage?
You're supposed to be his "release?" How sexy is that?!

This is not going to work out to everyone's satisfaction.

This isn't such a "pretty big ask": the marriage is likely to last 3 to 4 years, not 30 to 40.

@ 6 I'd stick to the "why are they even together?" part and drop the "If she isn't turned on by the thought of him with another guy"

@9 Clarify, please, dear. Do you mean it's unlikely a woman would like the idea of her BF with another guy?

Serial bi-snogamy.

Yeah, that last paragraph was what I was thinking and YES @8, this marriage ain't gonna last.

@11 pun FTW

Count me among those who think this marriage is doomed.

Still, I agree with Dan's last paragraph. Whether or not the marriage lasts isn't your problem. If you and he want to hook up, and his wife is okay with it, then go for it.

I would be clear with them that this arrangement is not a commitment on your part. You should feel free to end it at any time you feel like it, for any reason. You aren't bound by their marriage vows.

@8 not if they're French. Or Italian.

If only she wasn't with this one particular bi guy. I can easily envision this plan working out perfectly with any other bi guy because he would not have this singular need for sexual variety that this very odd duck exhibits.

Ok, when you're done with that question can I ask another.

I can completely deal with and understand gay and lesbian...because, as SLOG has reported, they don't want to flip straights.

But bi-sexuals...that's the real dilemma especially with co-workers. I mean, one minute you're discussing sports scores, and then somehow it ends up being about recipes and drapes.

How did that happen!

Please, can we all wear buttons or something?

What do you think...

Straight people, her, bi people, the boy on side, and gay people, the writer, are...

Well, at least this guy's getting a front row seat to this impending clusterfuck of a marriage.

That said, as far as clusterfucks go, I think Dan gave as good advice as is possible without it being "Get the hell out of there" over and over again.

Yeah, it sounds fun until somebody gets an eye poked out!

Who are these people who are so nonchalant about sexual identity and habits in and out of marriage? And how did they get that way? I'm guessing they didn't have the benefit of my Catholic upbringing.

Lucky them.

Why in the world do they want to get married? Why not peacefully co-habitate and let the chips, as they say, fall where they may? I just think it's funny they have a very un-traditional idea about relationships and are trying to force it into a very traditional framework.

And if she's comfortable with her partner being bisexual, surely she'd have to be comfortable with him having sex with more than one guy for the rest of his life, because no one could be that stupid to think that there would be one guy on call for him for more than, maybe, six months. And that either of the males in the situation would be happy with that forever.

@21 I think she's simply delusional, like any number of people who get married thinking they will be able to change their partner. She probably isn't comfortable with him being bisexual, maybe she thinks eventually, owing to her "completeness", he'll get over needing someone else. I'd guess the "gay friend" thing is just a concession she's made to make sure the marriage happens. I'm actually surprised Dan didn't call out this woman, because this sounds like one of those classic SL "bait and switch" tactics he usually has no patience for.

@ 10 - Why should I clarify? You got there first yourself (@ 22). My thoughts exactly.

@ 15 - That was true when divorce was a really hard and long process (if available at all) in France and Italy. Those old habits are changing fast, though!

Sounds hot. Go for it.

@5: I've never really understood the "We both want each other but we're going to not have sex because it might ruin our friendship" theory. I'm more likely to stop being friends because the person is *not* having sex with me.

@10: I'm pretty sure Ricardo meant that there's no way *this* woman would like the idea of her BF with another guy. Not all women in general.

@16: Ha!

Do not get sucked in to their bullshit bisexual drama. It won't end well for any of you.

1. He'll go ahead cuz he's hot for this guy (and yes its VERY weird to be sexing your "closest friend" with his S.O.'s permission, something is off there).

2. Of course it'll fail in some unpleasant backfire way. Anyway its extremely rare for 2 guys to keep a casual-sex thing going long-term.

3. Bonus - he'll be writing to Dan again and we'll all get the juicy details, AND the schadenfreude of being wise enough to have avoided this trainwreck ourselves :)

@ 22 Indeed, I don't think she's into the "bi" thing at all.

Maybe she thinks that by the time the LW gets tired of the arrangement, she'll have managed to change her husband.

And I can imagine that she'll be phoning the LW to check if her husband is with him every time he doesn't come home fast enough or says has a "business meeting"... She'll probably try to use the LW as a spy, whether he likes it or not.

Being a bisexual man, married forty years to a straight woman (who knew the deal), I don't think this will work. The 90% of me that is gay says that variety and peering eyes will never disappear for this dude. I know this well; today I "serviced" about six men in a video store while our car was being serviced. I don't "cheat": I just live out my bisexual fantasies. Our marriage is based on foreknowledge that I am mainly gay, but we are wed "til death do us part.". Incidentally, I feel like the lone-- and lonely-- ranger.

This sounds like a reasonably good situation: the letter writer doesn't have romantic feelings for his bisexual male friend, so they should be able to have an indefinite sexual relationship, but break it off painlessly when the gay guy finds someone he wants to be monogamous with. I think Dan's advice here is pretty good.

1) Have teh secks
2) Do not get involved in their marriage
3) DO NOT get involved in their marriage
4) DON'T DO IT
5) ackbar.gif

@23 Yes, the benefit of talking to myself all day long is that I usually manage to answer my own questions! :)
and @26, true, this particular woman doesn't seem to be into her SO's bisexuality, but I'd bet there are plenty of women out there who would be...

@28, point 2: but, but,... Brokeback Mountain!

@35 Which was written by a woman!

NYT is noticing the It Gets Better Project... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/us/19v…

There's only one other situation I've heard of that was similar to this.. It was when a gay man married a straight woman for 'marriage' and 'family', and they set up an agreement that he could get his 'fix' every once in awhile. She was head over heels for him, and decided to see this as a compromise, but he was pretty miserable despite choosing the arrangement himself.

I dunno. Just sayin.

However... Don't fool yourself, HGF. If this guy really is bisexual, he's not gonna feel all that heart broken when you get a boyfriend. You're the ass on the side - that's about it.

@22 -- I suspect Dan didn't call her out on it because the whole thing is going to be such a nightmare that he decided to just stick to the letter-writer's little corner of the clusterfuck.

I wouldn't worry about having to be his fuck-buddy forever given that this marriage is highly unlikely to last. I would worry about being inevitably dragged into the drama that is looming on the horizon. You are his "close friend" and occassional fuck-buddy already. If this is formalized into a relationship (a close friend that you regularly fuck is awfully close to a boyfriend, don't you think?) you will be effectively practicing polyandry with a promiscuous bi man and a monogamous straight woman. What could possibly go wrong? Yikes.

Fuck him if you want, but be ready to lose your friend when the going gets rough in their marriage. Oh and protection please! No way in hell you're going to be his only guy on the side.

OK reading the comments I gotta unload for a minute:

- The guy is promiscuous and bi. The issue is not that he's bi, it's that he's obviously not meant for monogamy. Let's stop assuming that because he's bi he's incapable of monogamy. This guy obviously is, but the same need not be true of others. I get where this comes from, but given that it's not very natural to be fine with one partner for the rest of your life, the additional difficulty of one gender seems the lesser issue.

- I don't get why she needs to find his bisexuality a turn-on to be with him. Granted that I would find it hot, but this is not a requirement. People marry transmen and transwomen without being turned on by the fact that they are trans. People marry folks with fetishes without being turned on by (but hopefully willing to indulge) the fetish. The issue is not that she's not turned on by his bisexuality, it's that she has the delusion that she can control his promiscuity.

Dude, these people are trying desperately to get their incompatibilities out of the way, tossed down the memory hole and incinerated before their wedding day. The woman wants monogamy and probably thinks she can eventually "convert" her husband by limiting his sleeping around to you. The man is either going along to get along and being all "yes dear" while knowing it won't go so well, or he is convinced that he needs to CHANGE HIS LIFE! RIGHT NOW! and is marrying her in the hopes that a wedding ring will be some kind of a reset button for his sexual habits. That isn't going to work, and do you really want to be a part of their icky delusions?

Comment 29 rings the truest to me here so far. Wifey is eventually going to hate you, and it will probably come sooner rather than later. In the meantime, look forward to a ton of awkward phone calls, weird rules about when you can and can't see your friend and what you two can and can't do in public, and of course the joyful scenario of your friend cheating on his wife with another man and swearing you to secrecy about it.

This is a TOTAL mess; even with Dan's suggestion that you change the deal to "being his fuckbuddy as long as you want to" it's disturbingly similar to what it would be like for you to date a closet case.

Personally I'd say, "oh you want me to be his 'release' throughout the marriage? Sounds like a pretty long-term commitment, I think we ought to announce it publicly at the wedding!" Your friend wants to use you as a sex toy, his wife wants to use you as duct tape for all the gaping holes in their relationship. RUN.

The problem is these two want to marry. They should wait. But if they were to ask me to be involved, I'd say no. Too complicated. Too messy. And from what I'm hearing, I'd bet you will fall head over heels for somebody and the marrieds will blame you for the resulting fallout.

Bi fiance is going to turn out to be completely gay.

@42 Thank you. I was going to make the same point. Being bi-sexual and not wanting to be monogamous are not the same thing. Why would being bi-sexual mean you HAVE to have other partners while being homo- or heterosexual would mean you'd somehow not have the same urge--or vice versa? It isn't logical to say that a bi-sexual person desires any more or less sexual variety than anybody else simply because of their bi-sexuality.

The most promiscuous folks I have personally met have all been married (het) men.

I was just about to make a point that 43 touched on.

Wifey supposedly want some kind of long-term commitment and for him to be a part of their marriage.

He should definitely be part of the wedding ceremony. Maybe as best man and then the husband kisses the best man after kissing the wife.

Good Morning Dan,
I just saw this in the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/us/19v…

I didn't know you were 46 y/o. You look good.

What a horrible choice.... just terrible.I say. Good thing there's a columnist to help out with such hard decisions. And the bonus is you get to see you dilemma in print!

Reading Dan's column and blog really brings out my inferiority complex big time. I'm still waiting for a simple invitation for a drink, never mind fucking and sucking any number of people day and out like shows up around here. Lives of the rich and famous---- and sexy, I guess.

Is anyone else's gaydar ringing off the charts when reading this letter?

@51 Yup. It struck me as one of those such clusterfuck questions that you either write a book in response, or answer a very narrow bit of it. And the comments seem to be supplying the book just fine ;)

Sounds like they're getting married because....

um....

@42 (point 1), 46: Um, no one is making that equation, as far as I can tell (I'm about to, but I think I'll tear into your misattribution/projection of bi-phobia first). Dan SPECIFICALLY pointed out that he is simply talking about this specific bi guy, and so, by extension are all of us. You seem to be projecting an assumption of universalization and therefore bi-phobia on comments that are EXPLICITLY about a specific individual.

@46: Now I will explain why bisexual folks are less-likely to be satisfied with a single partner than for-all-intents-and-purposes-straight or -gay folks. Let's break this down not to a matter of "identities" that are assumed to be stable, essential, and uniform; let's instead consider sexuality as a set of preferred sex acts. To use myself as an example, I enjoy (in terms of partnered sex) eating pussy, fingering pussy, getting blowjobs, and sticking my dick in pussy, (in approximately that order, though certainly not exclusively and always) in private spaces with someone (one person at a time) with whom I have intellectual compatibility and who falls within my fairly wide range of (potentially-)sexually-attractive physical attributes. My set of preferred sexual activities is one that I can satisfy with a single partner.

Now, let's say that my preferred activities are the above, except that I like doing them in public and in a leather-fetish bondage scenario in private. I can still engage in all of my preferred activities with a single partner, though it's going to be a much smaller pool of people who are going to be willing. In the event that I'm dating someone who, for example, will not have public sex, I'm SOL, and I'm not gonna be as satisfied. Given how poor many people's impulse-control seems to be with respect to sex (not saying that this is good nor bad), if I were other people I might well be driven to "cheat" in order to fulfill my public-sex desires. Obviously this isn't necessarily true, but if everyone could be happy NOT engaging in their favorite sexual activities, Savage Love wouldn't exist.

Now let's say, for argument's sake, that my preferred sexual activities were sucking dick and swallowing the resultant cum, eating pussy, fucking pussy, and getting fucked by (cisgendered male, for the sake of this example) dick. Barring an intersexed individual with normatively-formed and normatively-functional genitals that would be normatively-associated with men and women BOTH (not sure if this is possible), it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to engage in all of my preferred activities with a single partner. Sort of by-definition (bi-definition!), a bisexual person's list of favorite sexual activities includes things that are done with both men and women (of course, one identifying as bi may not have ambivalent desires but instead be indifferent to the gender of hir partner, though I would use pan-sexual to describe such a person, for the sake of clarity); this means that the bi person CANNOT satisfy the full range of hir preferred sexual activities with a single partner. So, while sie can certainly make a monogamous commitment by abstaining from some of hir favorite sexual activities, it's very much NOT the same as with a straight or gay person, as persons with a mono-gendered sexual object choice have at least the potential to find a single partner with whom they can engage in all of their favorite sexual activities. Not that they necessarily will; practically speaking, most of us have to make compromises - "settling down requires settling for" - but most of us don't have to compromise what might be up to half of our preferred forms of sexual expression. It may be worth the price of admission for some, many, or most bi folks to not indulge the other-gender side of their sexualities (especially in a culture that still assumes monogamy), but it is the case that monogamy is always asking more "settling for" from a bi person than from a straight or gay person, unless that person also has mutually-exclusive favorite sexual activities (e.g. I really like fat partners sometimes and I really like skinny partners sometimes).

@55: are you bisexual? No? Then I suggest you stop talking shit because you don't know shit.

(Hint: the (widespread) existence of non monogamous exclusively heterosexual (and for that matter non monogamous exclusively gay) people destroys your entire premise.)

While I don't disagree with the general trend that this relationship sounds like it's not ready for marriage... I have kind of the same reaction as 42 & 46.

It's not this friend's business to worry about their marriage -- unless he doesn't want to get caught up in any potential (expected) drama.

But isn't it entirely possible for a bi guy to be perfectly content with het-monogamy with one girlfriend, but just want to have some homo-sex on the side? And so therefore he needs that outlet, but would also be perfectly content to be homo-monogamous with one boyfriend on the side?

I'm seeing vague assumptions here that bi means inability to be monogamous as well. And I don't see why two places to get each of his desires met wouldn't basically fit the (bigamous?) bill.

I would avoid this mess entirely if it were me, but if HGF wants to proceed I would take Dan's excellent advice to make it clear that they are in no way committing to anything and agreeing to participate only so long as the arrangement is working out for HGF, be that 6 years from now or 6 days. I would also stress the importance of the following, particularly if a friendship with these two is desired when this is all said and done:

1. Make if clear that you don't want to be involved in any trust issues or games. He can't ask you to lie for him if (and I think in this case, when) he decides to stray from his part of the bargain, and she isn't allowed to use you to check up on him. Seriously the minute this starts happening, you should probably cut out.
2. So long as they are committed to each other (engaged or married) you'll respect either of their requests to temporarily or permanently cease all sexual arrangements.

Also, I uh, wouldn't spend too much on a wedding gift if I were you.

Some people are monogamous. Some people are not.

You can substitute whatever group you'd like for "people" above. Even bisexuals.

Human behavior studies suggest that serial monogamy is the general norm for most people. That actually fits most models here, except that the religious nuts try to make the serial a series of one, for all time, etc, etc.

#49 is correct - smashing pic, Dan!

Bi fiance is going to turn out to be completely gay.

@62 Ha ha :) Several points I guess. Lack of monogamy is hardly exclusive to any group of people -- this is my extended personal experience :-/ . And I know plenty of monogamous bisexual people. So the assumption that bisexual people are necessarily non monogamous *because* they are bisexual is just irksome.

This particular guy, regardless and independent of his (professed) orientation is just a (probably delusional) jerk.

@63: You keep missing the point: not all bi people are non-monogamous, but any individual bi person is probably more likely to be non-monogamous. The fact that there are straight non-monogamous people has nothing to do with this.

@65 You keep missing the point: the "probably more likely" is based on an incorrect interpretation of probability. Merely having fewer people automatically excluded from the group of people one finds attractive does not mean that one is more likely to act on multiple attractions.

Let's say I have a bag with ten marbles inside: one is red, and nine are blue. The common argument against the probability of a monogamous bisexual is basically this: my odds of drawing a red marble must be 50% because there are two colors of marbles and 1 out of 2 means 50%. WRONG. Just because I have more choices does not mean that the choices are equally weighted.

To be clear, I am not saying that this means that monogamous bisexuals succeed at monogamy because they 90% prefer one gender (or the sex acts that can only happen with that one gender). I am saying that the success comes from being more attracted to the *one* person they are with (or to the idea of monogamy) than to the desire for variety. That is the same source of success in monogamy for monosexuals as well.

Some people are attracted to a very limited number of people (or to no one). Some people find themselves attracted to lots of people. This is true whatever the gender ratio of the pool of attractive people. The "bi" in bisexual does not mean that bisexuals are attracted to twice as many people as monosexuals. It refers strictly to the number of genders most likely to be found in the pool. Even for those people with olympic-sized pools, the determining factor in the number of partners they choose to engage with is how many people win a medal, not how many people qualified to enter the race.

Interesting letter and article. human behavior studies is my major and I love reading things like this. It's beautiful to me. The human condition is priceless. Thanks for opening up.