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Bisexual Married Men: Keith and Candice
5k Plays1 year ago
Welcome back to this special series on bisexual men who are married to women! This week I interviewed a couple, Keith and Candice Parnell, both subjects in my new oral history book, Bisexual Married Men: Stories of Relationships, Acceptance, and Authenticity – out November 30 and currently available to pre-order. Keith & Candice's story is unique and layered (and different from most in the book, since it includes both partners!), but it also features common threads that many Bi+ men and mixed-orientation couples have experienced – though we often feel like we’re alone.
There are over 35 minutes of bonus content with Keith & Candice exclusively on Patreon, as well as FULL LENGTH VIDEO of this entire interview, so you can see us as well as hear us! Subscribe below – and thanks for your support! www.Patreon.com/RobertBrooksCohen
Stay tuned for more interviews with Bi+ married men (coming back after Thanksgiving) weekly in December! Thanks for listening and supporting my work.
Preorder “Bisexual Married Men”: https://www.routledge.com/Bisexual-Married-Men-Stories-of-Relationships-Acceptance-and-Authenticity/Cohen/p/book/9781032473260
Visit Keith & Candice's support website for mixed-orientation relationships: https://www.morandmore.org/
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Transcript
Thanksgiving Break and Book Launch
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone, thanks for listening to Two Bye Guys and this series on bisexual married men, released weekly throughout November and December, except FYI, I will be off next Monday so I can take a break over the Thanksgiving weekend from editing, but new episodes will resume in December. I have a bunch more already recorded, can't wait to release them.
00:00:21
Speaker
Between now and then, my book will be released. Bisexual Married Men's Stories of Relationships, Acceptance, and Authenticity is officially available on November 30th, which is next Thursday, depending on when you're listening to this. I'm hosting a book launch party on Zoom on that day, Thursday, November 30th, 6pm Eastern, 3pm Pacific, and
00:00:43
Speaker
Also hosting an in-person event in New York City at the LGBT Center on Saturday, December 2nd, and an in-person event in Los Angeles at Book Soup on January 22nd. To get more info on those events and the link to the Zoom launch party, head to my website, robertbrookscohen.com.
00:01:00
Speaker
or check the two Buy Guys social media bios. And you can also find links to purchase my book on my website. I am so excited
Interview with Keith and Candace Parnell
00:01:08
Speaker
to share it with you all very soon, and stay tuned in just a moment for an awesome interview with one of two couples in the book. It's mostly just by men, but there are two couples featured in the book, and today you will hear from Keith and Candace Parnell. But first, a word from our sponsor.
NoCD Sponsor Message
00:01:23
Speaker
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00:01:39
Speaker
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00:01:54
Speaker
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00:02:23
Speaker
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Bisexual Journey of the Parnells
00:02:57
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome to Two Bye, guys. Welcome back to this series on bisexual married men. I'm interviewing people who I already interviewed for my book, which is coming out November 30th. And so I'm so excited to welcome back and to see my friends Keith and Candace Parnell. Welcome to Two Bye, guys.
00:03:18
Speaker
Thank you. We're so happy to be back. Thank you. We're super stoked to hear back from you. It's lovely to see you again and I love that that we get both of you. You know most of the book I interviewed just the men but there's two interviews at the end that are couples and they're just they're a different shape than some of the others and I just thought they're really interesting and a whole new layer of like
00:03:45
Speaker
hearing your perspective, Candice, and hearing you guys tell your story together and how that works. And so I am excited to chat again. If you have read the book or will be reading the book, they're keeping Candice's pseudonyms in the book are, what is it? Evan and Lindsay, Evan and Lindsay, right?
00:04:06
Speaker
How do you feel about those pseudonyms? Do you identify with them? Well, we were talking about that last night. I don't mind Evan. I was like, nice change from Keith. I'm not sure about Lindsay, but I can get with it. Okay, good. Well, now you're back to Keith and Candice, so you can be your true Candice self today. Yes.
00:04:31
Speaker
Okay, so everyone should read your story in the book. There's going to be a lot more details in there than we will get to today. But I want to let's go over it and let's talk about what's happened since then, since it's been a few years since that interview. But before we go to your story, I want to ask each of you, whoever wants to go first, why did you decide to participate in this project in the first place?
00:04:57
Speaker
Can I go first? Yeah, I can go first. Yeah, I think a lot of it had to do with hearing other stories on the podcast that were so similar to my own story. Even in the case that I'm married in a straight, presenting relationship. And I didn't hear that as much. So I thought that this was a good
00:05:28
Speaker
a good way to be that example. Yeah. Awesome.
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah, for me too. I mean, I loved your podcast, obviously, and the opportunity to get our word, you know, our side or our story out there, because I know that it's not one that's told often enough. And it was something I wished so badly for all those years ago, just to hear an example and see a story like ours. So I was very happy to do it.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yep. Awesome. I love it. And we'll get to some of the even more activist work you guys are doing in that space a little later. So let's talk about the bi journey and the journey of your relationship, which I know since you've been together, since you were pretty young, they're very intertwined.
00:06:19
Speaker
So I don't even know who to ask. I maybe, Keith, you can begin, but then you guys can tell this story. Like, tell me about your bi journey and your awareness of that and how, you know, as the timeline at the same time as your relationship, like, how did all that intersect and go?
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah.
Keith's Coming Out Story
00:06:40
Speaker
Well, I grew up in a small town. We weren't super religious, but I went to Baptist Church. It wasn't the queerest place to grow up. So I didn't really have any kind of
00:07:01
Speaker
identity or understanding about sexuality outside of binary. It just didn't exist in my plane, so I was the odd one out, but didn't know there was even an option. It wasn't even on the radar. Yeah, that's right. As far as bisexual being a term, I just didn't know
00:07:28
Speaker
didn't know what it was. So yeah, it wasn't, we were together, we got together in high school and I think we were together maybe two or three years. About two years, yeah. Before I eventually came out as bisexual.
00:07:49
Speaker
yanked I yanked you out on accident. But so so you actually realized it relatively young. I mean, two years after you met but yeah, yeah, you were about 2020 ish but he I mean, he knew but he didn't know what it was, you know, so he knew he was different and had these feelings but didn't know there was a, you know,
00:08:16
Speaker
thing for it. Yeah. Well, you mentioned you felt like the odd one out. Can you tell me what it was like in that period before you had fully understood bisexuality, but you knew something was different? What was that like? Yeah. Well, I think I always remembered having crushes on boys and girls, I think. I think we were just talking about this. You were like 12, you said? Yeah. When you first remember something, it was a movie.
00:08:46
Speaker
gosh, I don't even know. But yes, it's basically the same by stereotype. You see a lot of movie memes where it was like you can't pick which one. The mummy maybe or something like that. Yes, the mummy is a good one. But yeah, you start noticing stuff like that. I think one of the ones that comes up in some of your other interviews was the underwear aisle. That's always something that
00:09:15
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. It's like your first public. Because you don't see it in normal life. Yeah.
00:09:25
Speaker
I don't know, but for me, it wasn't anything that you ever talked about or acknowledged or even hinted at for a lot of... Or felt safe enough to even question. Yeah, absolutely. I never actually had a super negative reaction after coming out, but I don't know if that would have
00:09:51
Speaker
Been the case. Been the case. If you had come out earlier, you mean. What was the environment like that you were in?
Candace's Initial Reactions
00:10:00
Speaker
Growing up? Yeah, yeah. Oh, definitely small town, redneck. Like country, like, you know, he was always definitely, I grew up in Orlando, which was different.
00:10:18
Speaker
And I moved to our small town and so I didn't have the same experience as he did but he definitely had the very much like small town country so just never felt that safety of like even being able to question.
00:10:36
Speaker
And I, it wasn't so much that there was a super anti LGBTQ, just not a present. There just wasn't a present. Yeah. I think the first queer person I met was like a cousin of mine's girlfriend. And that was
00:10:57
Speaker
curious for me because she was very masculine. So it was kind of like a first introduction to like androgyny, first person experience. Cool, interesting. So then it was about two years into your relationship that you came out. So what led up to that? And then what happened after that?
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know what we were doing, but we were looking for something on the computer. And I think she was looking for... I was looking for something and found like downloads, porn downloads. Yeah. And it was, I certainly didn't mean to download. But I think it was when I was
00:11:49
Speaker
thinking back and actually reading back, just looking over our chapter. I like giggled at remembering that it was basically like your play button and your download button on some players would be right beside each other. So it's very easy to download. But she
00:12:09
Speaker
I found them and I was like, what is this? It was a denial at first, like a complete like, I don't know what that is, you know? And I was not letting it go. And it was just a like, just in that night, it evolved from no, it's not mine to it's mine. I was just curious to, I think I'm bi and
00:12:37
Speaker
all within a span of hours of a lot of talking and a lot of yanking it out of him. And then in retrospect, I felt bad that I kind of pulled him out of the closet with me anyway. But it was definitely an interesting situation. What was going on in your mind that night, Keith? I think it was just the
00:13:03
Speaker
almost a sense of relief, honestly. I mean, there was definitely the shock factor, a level of embarrassment for being even caught. I mean, I think it's assumed that a good chunk of people watch porn. But just being caught, it was almost like a hand in the cookie jar moment.
00:13:33
Speaker
But I think immediately afterwards, once we were able to talk a little bit more, then it starts coming into your mind. Now this is out. This is a new avenue for our relationship that we don't necessarily know how to navigate because we've never had any, it's not there. Like you just don't see it as often, especially in a straight presenting
00:14:02
Speaker
relationship unless there's a real reason to come out as bi. And neither of us really had a, I mean, I don't know, it's like looking back, I'm pretty sure we had a few friends in high school that identified as bi loosely, but like I don't even remember knowing what it really meant. I was like, okay, whatever, you know, until it became something that I had to like understand and really,
00:14:31
Speaker
get to know and that was hard. I mean, we were so young and it was a different world with the internet and there was a lot less to find. And so it was weird. And then also he didn't have a lot of answers for me because he didn't really still understand most of it himself still at that point.
00:14:52
Speaker
Um, I had so many questions, you know, but he couldn't give me answers and that was a problem for so many years because I felt like he was lying to me or he, he was just trying to not hurt my feelings or, you know, I just, all I could think of was he just won't open up to me, but he really just didn't know what to say. There wasn't anything there except for the same question marks. So it did a lot of navigating the,
00:15:20
Speaker
start in the blanks. Yeah, what was going through your mind, Candice,
Challenges and Misconceptions
00:15:25
Speaker
initially? And then how did that evolve for you as you learned more? It's very interesting because initially, I was like really shocked and just didn't even know. I didn't really even know what to think. And
00:15:41
Speaker
I actually, I think it was after he told me he was by, I left the house, like went barefoot and was just walking around the neighborhood. It was like nine o'clock at night and just went and left. And he ended up coming after me and it was just, I just didn't know, I didn't even know what to say or what to react. I didn't know what it meant because also he was also very...
00:16:06
Speaker
always took good care of himself and cared about his appearance, which was very uncommon where we were from. So people always joke that he was gay anyway. And for a long time, his parents would be like, we always assumed Keith was gay. And I was like, oh, hilarious. And then that is all I could think about. I was like, holy hell, he is.
00:16:28
Speaker
Maybe he is now. That's what it is. That's the big thing and he's gay and that's all it is and so, you know, I came back we talked for a long time and That was the first time I saw him cry and I think it was just like an insane relief It seemed like you know And I was like, I love you no matter what, you know, it's this isn't anything
00:16:52
Speaker
that we can't get through, excuse me. But of course, after that, I had more time to overthink about it. And it just got really bad after that because I just, you know, sat with my thoughts too much. I didn't, I tried to talk to him about it, but he didn't know what to tell me or how to help me because neither of us knew. I tried to talk to friends. I think I mentioned that in our chapter two and it was just nobody knew how to
00:17:22
Speaker
deal with it or what to say. All I got was, oh, I couldn't deal with that. Or I think, I would always think he was cheating or he's probably just get, even my friends would think that way because they just didn't know how to deal with it. So at first I was like, you know, I love you, it's fine. And then it just got bad after that.
00:17:43
Speaker
Well, you said you had these thoughts like what if he really is gay and that's the thing and what if he's going to leave me and stuff. How did those thoughts make you feel, Candace? And then we'll come to you, Kie. It was really hard because I think if he had had a different upbringing,
00:18:06
Speaker
It wouldn't have been so deep in my mind. I was like, he's gay. He won't ever tell his family, this is it. This is what it is. I was so convinced because I was like, of course he wouldn't come out. Of course he wouldn't tell everyone I'm his beard.
00:18:22
Speaker
And that's all I could think of. And I was like, this is terrible. But I was like, people think I'm an idiot. I'm the only one that couldn't see this, obviously. And then I was just thinking about people joking and his parents always joking. I was like, oh my God, I'm the only one that didn't know. And I just felt humiliated, which is very selfish, but also just like, how can I ever
00:18:49
Speaker
It's this pull string of the mixed orientation relationship saga, how can I ever be enough? Even if he's not gay, how can I ever be enough? And I know now that that's, it's a complicated question for many in the mixed orientation relationship, but that was just all I kept resting on was how can I ever be enough? And I didn't know.
00:19:13
Speaker
I want to come back to that thought toward the end because it's really interesting. So Keith, when you guys were in this period where you weren't quite on the same page and figuring it out, what thoughts were you having and what were you feeling?
00:19:30
Speaker
Stay close to me so that he's not... Stay in the center of the frame. But I'm just trying to get away from this story. There's no escaping. Yeah, so it was really just trying to find a balance between that sort of newly opened wound of being exposed
00:20:00
Speaker
But then, you know, trying to also answer, you know, the questions that she had, which were all like reasonable questions, I just didn't know. I had only recently come into a term to apply to my sexuality. So I think I was scared for what that would mean for our marriage, not having a blueprint of
00:20:29
Speaker
how it works. And it's just things that you don't think of until you're like there in that moment and then you don't know what to do. So I guess that was the biggest thing is I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how it would change what we had already started building together. And
00:20:56
Speaker
I didn't see that it had to change. So I think I would have happily just at that moment, just backed back into my closet and then fine. But I think that's honestly where I needed to be at the moment, just to figure things out for myself.
00:21:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think that confusion and that fear about what's gonna happen is so common for people, especially if they don't have examples or don't know anyone else in a similar situation.
Communication and Therapy in Relationships
00:21:33
Speaker
It's like, what does this look like? So how did you guys move through this and figure it out as a couple? Knowing everything I know now,
00:21:49
Speaker
I always say that I have so many regrets and he's always like, that's so stupid because it made us who we are. But it's like I wish I hadn't reacted the way I did in some ways because I felt like I put more pressure and shame on him out of my own fear and insecurities.
00:22:10
Speaker
I say I wish we would have gone to therapy, but we couldn't afford it. We were broke children. We were teenagers, living on our own, going to school and working. We were young. I don't know what we could have done differently. Also, even still, it's a problem finding therapists that understand this. I can't imagine back then.
00:22:40
Speaker
You know, there's not much we could have done differently, but you know, there was a lot of years of up and down. I mean, he I think he like he said, I think he did retreat back into the closet and tried to just like
00:22:54
Speaker
not say anything and not you know i say i say he wouldn't give me answers and i think sometimes it was he just tried to avoid because he thought that was better he thought that wouldn't send me down into a black hole of depression you know because he said the wrong thing and so you know it was a struggle between trying to get him to open up get him to look internally and learn more about himself so that he could
00:23:23
Speaker
answer those things. Some things caused a lot of issues with us.
00:23:34
Speaker
sexually because it was like it caused a performance anxiety for him because it became for me, it was like sex was a proof that he was in to me, you know, and it was like it it made it no fun for him, you know, and so it really it caused a lot of issues with that and
00:23:57
Speaker
Looking back, that sucks. I wish I could change that. But we got through it. We actually saw a sex therapist this year. That was fun. Oh, cool. Yeah. Oh.
00:24:10
Speaker
how to actually I think that's i'm gonna pause you because that I think that's like so incredibly common that part and you're not the only you're not the only story in the book that that's come up yeah is there any insight you can give us with you know whatever you're comfortable sharing like how did you get through that what did the therapy help with we were talking about that last night too um you know she it's so funny because i've been in this space for so long I feel like I
00:24:41
Speaker
I am very well versed in all the things there is to know with sex education. It's just my thing. She really didn't tell us anything we didn't know. We're great communicators. Communication is a skill. It's something you have to learn and practice. We're not born with it. Our society sucks at it as a whole.
00:25:04
Speaker
Um, that is literally the most cliche thing, but it's the biggest thing learn how to communicate and communicate your needs and um wants and don't want uh, and really just
00:25:19
Speaker
realizing that you have to make time, even outside of anything to do with mixed orientation relationships, you have to make time for your relationship together. We don't have children yet, but it's like that is so easy to happen for everybody. You let children get in the way, you let work get in the way, you let stress get in the way.
00:25:42
Speaker
It really just is such, it's the little things that matter. But on top of that, just giving each other space to have your thoughts and desires and feelings and that it's okay. And I see that a lot in the mixed orientation realm of not being enough and
00:26:08
Speaker
worrying what your partner's thinking and are they thinking about a guy during sex? It's never ending and it can just eat you alive if you let it. It's hard. I've been there, but I just want to tell people to not overthink it sometimes, but it's really hard. Keith, would you agree that the communication and the openness was what helped push through that? I think 100%. It was
00:26:38
Speaker
In the beginning, she had a ton of questions. I had a ton of questions, and neither one of us had the answers. I attribute most of the struggles in the early portion of our relationship to that. We didn't know enough about
00:26:58
Speaker
Anything. Anything to have conversations. LGBTQ, sexual, relationships, anything. The only way you're going to know things is to educate yourself on it and then have conversations with other people and start building a group and a safe space to have those conversations.
00:27:23
Speaker
I think that was it. And it's something that I always come back to with a lot of mixed orientation relationships and a lot of the blame.
00:27:36
Speaker
for the failure of their relationship is on the square peg, round hole, mixed orientation relationship. And what ends up happening in a ton of the ones that we're looking into is this could have been a gay-gay, straight-straight relationship and it would still fail because you're not
00:27:56
Speaker
you're not doing the basics and the basics. It's an open line of communication. Yeah. The underlying issues have nothing to do with sexuality the most of the time. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we've found. Yeah. Well, it's like the toll that censoring yourself takes. Even sometimes you don't realize you're doing it, but if you're not asking for what you want and what you need, it takes this toll that disconnects people.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah. And it starts building resentment and confusion. Right. And then particularly when, I mean, both of us have habits of overthinking. So, I mean, once you take a little seed like that and it starts, you know, going off in your echo chamber, it gets carried away very easily. Totally.
Exploring Non-Monogamy
00:28:57
Speaker
In all this communication as you worked through this, did non-monogamy come up at all and what were those discussions like? Yeah. I mean, that was something, and we talk about that in the book a little bit, is I struggled with that a lot because he had never had any opportunities to be with anybody else. And so I struggled a lot with, you know, well, how do you know?
00:29:24
Speaker
how do you know you're by, but also how do you know you won't need it in the future or, you know, won't be curious in the future or whatever. So that was, you know, something that I struggled with and I'm an inherently monogamous person. And I just, I knew that about myself. But from the very beginning, I always said,
00:29:48
Speaker
that if anything ever, if he ever felt like he needed that, it became a need that we could maybe try a threesome situation. But that was the only thing I was comfortable with in a committed relationship.
00:30:05
Speaker
It was a need. You know, it'd have to be something we both did and both enjoyed and someone we both enjoyed. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it was sort of more... I'm sorry, can you hear the cat?
00:30:21
Speaker
I can, but that's okay. There's a long history of dogs and cats interrupting two bad guys' interviews. I don't think I ever felt it as a need. And I think that was something that I said very early on.
00:30:43
Speaker
but it's hard to hear that on the other side and believe it. When every other story that is along the same route as ours, the man is wanting to... Every story in the open, I will say. Okay, yeah. Because that's an important differentiation because that's something I always tell people is
00:31:12
Speaker
The happy, normal, successful, boring relationships, mixed orientation relationships aren't in forums looking for support. They're not in Reddit complaining. So it's like all you see is my husband cheated on me or wife, my partner cheated on me, or my partner came out to me and in the same breath asked to have sex with somebody else.
00:31:42
Speaker
which is okay you know but that when that's all you see and then you're you're in the throes of this new fearful situation and you get online and that's all you see you're like well we'll just end it now because i can't handle this or they just feel pressured to give in to non-monogamy
00:32:04
Speaker
when they don't truly want that and non-monogamy is so hard in any circumstance, let alone one that's not starting on a good foundation. It's really hard because there's nothing wrong with it. It's just in this realm, that's all they see and it really makes it feel worse. There's not enough success stories for it to be. If you have a successful
00:32:32
Speaker
poly relationship, I applaud that. But again, with any other relationship, the amount of communication that is needed to sustain that long term. And if you're not already not communicating, it's not going to work.
00:32:49
Speaker
right. The communication is key, and it definitely won't work if both people don't want it. And if one person isn't communicating that, then it breeds the resentment we talked about. And it is interesting that people associate this so closely together, but the statistics show that
00:33:09
Speaker
bi couples are only very slightly more likely to be non-monogamous. The majority of bi people are still monogamous. And in the book, there were a few cases of infidelity, a few cases of open relationships that are consensual and working,
00:33:27
Speaker
and then a few that tried opening up briefly and went back to monogamy, and then another few that have remained monogamous the whole time. And the majority of stories in the book have landed on monogamy. And so it's just this misconception that's out there that they're identical and that's the only path forward. It is. Yeah, and it's hard because as the straight partner, they get online,
00:33:56
Speaker
online and that's all they find. They go to Reddit, which is a cesspool anyway.
00:34:03
Speaker
all they find is like the worst of humanity and people like, not just by people, but people bragging about cheating and bragging about. And it's like, it's so hard to get people to just like steer away from that and not get into a rabbit hole. And then that's all they do is associate that with their partner's sexuality and you can't separate it. No matter how much you try, you can't get them to separate it. And I understand it cause I was there, but it's just, it's like, how do we, how do we fix it? I don't understand. I don't know.
00:34:33
Speaker
Right. And certainly for some people, that happens and someone's in his cheats and then that hurts that, but yes, we shouldn't generalize it.
Building a Support Community
00:34:44
Speaker
So Candice, tell me about what you did with those feelings you're talking about. You couldn't find a good space and so you created one. What led to that and why'd you do it?
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, of course, this was over 17 years ago. The internet was a very different place. You know, because I tried to talk to a few friends that didn't work. That was all I had. I didn't know what else to do. There weren't books. I went to the internet and I found a really awful group that at the time was on Yahoo. They've been around since like the 80s. And, you know,
00:35:22
Speaker
Unfortunately, it is just full of those people that are very angry, and rightfully so. A lot of them are older. It was a different generation. The men will never likely ever come out, and they're just living with that shame and guilt, and they are hurt, and they've been hurt, and some of them, their partners are narcissists. That's another thing that gets thrown around so much.
00:35:49
Speaker
in this community, in the mixed orientation community is like not every non-straight partner is a lying, abusing, cheating narcissist just because they were afraid to be who they were. But that gets thrown around a lot in some of these really negative communities.
00:36:09
Speaker
And I mean, I got in there and they were like, your husband's already probably cheating. And you're just naive. And if he's not, he will. And he'll want to open up the relationship. They all do. And so that was what I had. That's all I had. And it almost destroyed us. And I attribute that to a lot of our problems. It was like a cancer.
00:36:34
Speaker
Once I had those ideas in my head, I couldn't get them out. I left those groups, but I actually became a resource for that group for people who wanted to make their relationships work. They would send the very few people my way and I would just communicate with them through email and try to
00:36:58
Speaker
be positive with them, even though I didn't know what I was doing myself and I was struggling, but I was like, look, you know, we can just, we have great partners and we can try to make this work. And nobody else was saying that. And then I ended up creating, I joined another group that was okay, but it was Yahoo groups also. And I hated that group, the group format. So eventually I created a Facebook group.
00:37:23
Speaker
but nobody would join. Nobody was, everyone wanted to be, they were too afraid. It wasn't anonymous. So they wouldn't join, they wouldn't, so it sat for like two years with like 10 people in it because nobody was, everyone was so afraid to be found out.
00:37:40
Speaker
You know and that's a big struggle still Reddit is my biggest I have a reddit group too that I kind of took over that someone abandoned and Reddit is the biggest one because people just want to be anonymous Which makes me sad, but I get also but just makes it hard to be personable and But yeah, I created the groups and we actually created a website that
00:38:09
Speaker
Ended up being harder than we thought to find positive resources, sadly.
00:38:15
Speaker
So we just share whatever we find, your podcast, stories we can find. I tried to be a blogger, but I got so hung up on being scared to trigger people because I knew everyone's story was so different. I felt like I was trying to preach positivity and what it could be, but it was like everything I said would trigger somebody.
00:38:40
Speaker
I have to get over that. I know I do. But I don't want to make someone's journey harder either. That's a wonderful impulse. But yeah, there's infinite opinions on the internet. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So we're trying to we're trying to reboost that. It links to our support group. So we're thankful for that at least. And people do find it.
00:39:03
Speaker
But yeah, it's hard. It's hard to find positive resources, positive studies, positive, or just any studies, I mean, about mixed orientation relationships and bisexuality. It's hard to find. Yeah. Yeah. And Keith, when you think about all those negative comments of like, he's got the wives saying, oh, he's going to cheat on me, or he's going to need to have sex with men, or he's whatever, you know, this and that, confused and going to,
00:39:31
Speaker
How does that make you feel and how did you get involved with this support group and everything?
Online Negativity vs. Positive Reinforcement
00:39:38
Speaker
I am not as active as I should be at this support group. Just to put that out there, this is that she's pushing it through. Okay, well stick with my first question. I shouldn't have asked you to it once. No, no, that's okay. How do you feel about all those comments? Yeah. I feel like
00:40:00
Speaker
I view most of those comments from the lens that the environment that they're being put into is a bunch of people who have been wronged and hurt at some point. And the things that they are saying
00:40:18
Speaker
I don't think are illegitimate for their stories, their personal stories. But the part where it does get rough is where it's not, their story isn't my story. Their story isn't necessarily
00:40:39
Speaker
you know, two usernames down story. Like it's, everyone is, is going through a different journey. But they won't, it's almost like where I've made my mission to try to prove it can be different. Their mission is like to prove that, yeah, it's really, and they talk to me.
00:40:57
Speaker
Like I'm an idiot and like I am like pushing false positivity, like toxic positivity. And like, I mean, it's just, you name it. They are just, and I understand their pain, but it's just, it's so when it, when they're going in there and telling people,
00:41:15
Speaker
get a lawyer and start divorcing your husband who just came out to you last night. It's like, that's not okay. You know, it's not okay. And it's so hurtful. These are open forums that like people, these, you know, it's just really sad. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's the biggest thing. It's sad. There's, there's,
00:41:38
Speaker
I don't like to say, but I do say you can't save them all. My goal in being vocal about my sexuality and wanting our story out there is to connect with other people who are wanting to make their relationship work, just like any other relationship despite sexuality and just providing
00:42:08
Speaker
Um, you know, about a bouncing board, if needed, just for most folks that reach out to me are just asking just general, general questions, uh, things, Instagram, his, yeah. Um, cause he uses hashtags like by guy or whatever, and people find them that way. It allows someone to come in and they'll start having a conversation. And a lot of times it'll be the same type of, um, place that we were.
00:42:37
Speaker
17 years ago. So I'm able to give them some form of hope because we didn't have that. But it's hard too because I struggle sometimes with wanting to push people to come out to their partners.
00:43:00
Speaker
And I just forget that not every partner is me, I guess. And I've struggled with that sometimes because I'm like, people will message me on Reddit and then they'll delete their account and I'll never see them again. And I'm like, God, like, did I send them into the end of their relationship? Like it's really hard. And I worry about that because I just want people to be honest, but I want them to just be able to be themselves.
00:43:25
Speaker
And they deserve that, but it's such a hard thing in this setting to navigate that. Right. I totally agree, and I get the conflict in you and that, but I also think that being your authentic self, especially in a relationship, is possibly more important than that relationship continuing forever. If it's not authentic, then
00:43:53
Speaker
Is it the right one? And that's a conversation that we run into pretty frequently as well. If it's not going to work,
00:44:05
Speaker
What can you salvage of this relationship? Maybe you're not intimate partners anymore, but where does that go, especially with couples that have children or that their family is very integrated into their relationship? That's a whole dynamic that you have to
00:44:25
Speaker
have to communicate. I can't wait for you guys to read the rest of the book because there are other stories in the book that are exactly like that. Yeah.
00:44:44
Speaker
There's a little bit more with Keith and Candice coming up, but there is even more on Patreon. There are over 35 minutes of bonus content with Keith and Candice. Yes, 35 minutes. We talked for a while because there were two of them and we had a lot to talk about.
00:44:59
Speaker
Plus, there is a full video of the entire interview exclusively at Patreon.com slash Robert Brooks Cohen. We talked about the response to Keith's coming out, including an interesting response he got from his grandmother. We talked about the backlash that Candace sometimes receives for celebrating her husband's sexuality.
00:45:17
Speaker
We talked about what's changed in their relationship over the past three years since the initial interview. The short version is that everything is better. We chatted about when they attended their first pride, something that used to terrify Candace. We circled back to the fear of not being enough for a bi partner. And we talked about what they're looking forward to in the future, which turned into a really interesting discussion.
00:45:41
Speaker
So head over to Patreon.com slash Robert Brooks Cohen for 35 more minutes with Keith and Candice, plus full videos of this entire series on By Married Men, bonus content on all future episodes, and early access to everything. Thank you for listening and supporting too. Bye guys, and now here is more with Keith and Candice.
00:46:08
Speaker
last question. How does your sexuality, Keith, and being part of a mixed orientation marriage, Candice, how does it bring you joy?
Finding Joy in Acceptance and Communication
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah. I think I do get a tremendous amount of joy in
00:46:30
Speaker
just being happy with my sexuality. I think as simply as that sounds, when it's something that's constantly in your head all the time. And I could get in dark places just putting myself back into that mindset of before I was out.
00:46:55
Speaker
as much as there was a struggle and a somewhat resistant learning curve, I'm happy in my understanding and in my sexuality. And I'm comfortable talking to and on the subject because that's what I needed. And it's
00:47:21
Speaker
It's nice to come full circle with it with a lot of the folks that I connect with to be able to fill that gap for them. Yeah. Lovely.
00:47:33
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I don't have anything else to compare it to. I mean, he's pretty banging in general and I don't know if that's attributed to his sexuality. He's a great guy. He's not like toxic masculinity. I don't have to worry about nothing to that. We always joke that that's because he's bi. We just attribute it to that. I swear that bi guys are just more well-rounded and I don't know. It just seems like they're just
00:47:58
Speaker
You know, right. I swear. Yeah, I swear. I don't know. I mean, they just is a. A lack of. Shame or not shame, just I don't know, I can't even explain it. I don't know. And you see, I see by folks, by guys talk about this a lot and in communities where they didn't they having a bottoming for someone.
00:48:26
Speaker
literally gave them a different appreciation for being a woman.
00:48:30
Speaker
And I feel like even if someone hasn't done that, I just feel like they have a different outlook on relationships and existing in the world sometimes. I mean, obviously, there's bad people of any type, but I don't know. I just feel like I don't have anything to compare it to. I know he's amazing. Maybe it's because he's bi. And I think the same way that once I started viewing sexuality on a spectrum,
00:48:57
Speaker
it's hard not to apply that same spectrum mentality to everything. And you start seeing perceptions in ways that you wouldn't otherwise have seen. And maybe that attributes to the awesomeness of bisexuals. Once you've came to a point where you can see stuff in a broader light,
00:49:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we have I feel like we have we just have so much joy together in general. I feel like it does relate to our our mixed orientation status as well. Like, you know, we're very open with each other. There's really, you know, there's nothing I wouldn't do for him if he came to me and was like, I want to try this. There's literally nothing I wouldn't do regardless of his sexuality. You know, but I feel like we've gotten to that point because we are just so you know, it's just doesn't matter.
00:49:54
Speaker
None of it matters. There's an open communication and trust built in to that asterisk that goes over, I'll do anything because we've built that. That's not something I would encourage everyone to expect from their partner without a considerable amount of communication and trust.
00:50:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, I just definitely I have so much joy in you know having the community that we have the support groups and being able to come and talk to him about everything and like bouncing each other off, you know things off of each other and I feel like it's helped us being in these groups because we're always talking about the relevant issues or you know, and it's helped us grow in that also and
00:50:52
Speaker
I definitely enjoy and look forward to being a light for somebody, even though our story is different than a lot of people's. All relationships
00:51:06
Speaker
If you just take sexuality out of it, I think so many people struggle in silence with so many things, sex very much included. And if we could just get past that in general, that would be like,
00:51:30
Speaker
I am already to have an awkward sexual conversation at any dinner party. I am here for it.
00:51:38
Speaker
They're the best. They're the best. I love everything you said, and it just makes me think about how I think bisexuality or any kind of queerness can be a gateway, a gateway to viewing things on a spectrum and looking at the world differently, a gateway to better communication because it's
00:52:00
Speaker
forces it, a gateway to overcoming shame that then you can apply to other areas of your life. And so everything you've been talking about is a clear example of that. And I'm glad that you found so much joy in this experience.
00:52:18
Speaker
Yeah, so thank you so much Keith and Candice for coming on the podcast. It's amazing to see you again and hear the updates and I'm so, so excited for everyone to read your story in the book and for you to read the others too, but mostly for everyone to read yours. Thank you again so much for being here. This has been great, Keith and Candice. Thank you so much. Thank you. We're so happy to be here.
00:52:47
Speaker
Two Bye Guys is produced and edited by me, Robert Brooks Cohen, and it was created by me and Alex Boyd. Our logo art is by Caitlin Weinman. Our music is by Ross Mincer. We are supported by the Gotham, and we are part of the Zencaster Creator Network. Visit patreon.com slash Robert Brooks Cohen for bonus content, early access, and exclusive video episodes. Thanks for listening to Two Bye Guys.