4. KIDS
It’s really only been relatively recently that gay male couples have had more and more social support for having kids, either through fostering, adoption, or surrogacy. And, yet, gay men can certainly have a strong paternal instinct as adults. Gay male relationships where there is a parenting factor involved differ from straight relationships mostly in that same-sex parenting needs extra support. Locally in LA, the Pop Luck Club is an information and social/support group for actual or potential gay fathers. While straight couples are still, in this day and age, “expected” to have children (with pressure from parents, siblings, peers, etc.), gay male couples are “expected” not to. There is also no such thing as “accidental” pregnancy and parenthood in a gay male relationship. And, a discussion of “gender roles” in terms of responsibilities and chores comes into play. When I observe straight couples with children, I’m
sometimes surprised how many chores just “automatically” go to the mother, without any apparent discussion that fathers can also do some things that previously were the sole domain of mothers. For gay fathers, there are no gender stereotypes to “guide the way,” so the division of duties has to be discussed from automatically a more socially autonomous standpoint.
5. FAMILY
In gay male relationships, the role of one of the male partners in taking care of aging parents can be an issue, similar to straight couples. But in family relationships with the “in-laws” in a gay male relationship, there can sometimes (not always) be differences in how the in-laws react to “the gay thing.” While some in-laws can be hostile to the man or woman their family member marries, for all kinds of reasons (ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, nationality, etc.), the stakes are higher for gay male relationships because there just seems to be at least one serious homophobe in every family. Gay men in relationships are called upon, in general, more often to set limits and confront any overtly or subtly hostile behavior toward their partner/spouse. This puts an extra pressure on gay male relationships that straight couples can have, but it’s not as likely. Fortunately, for most of the gay couples I have worked with, there have been surprisingly few seriously hostile in-law conflicts. More often, the son-in-law is treated as a full member of the family, which is a nice thing to be able to say about the current times we live in. In counseling, any issues of family member conflict can sometimes be addressed through role-plays, role reversal/rehearsal, and even family therapy.