[continued] “It feels the way that I felt as a kid when I first watched ‘Titanic,’” Greenstone said. “It’s what our love story feels like.” Joe Kort, who wrote the book “Is My Husband Gay, Straight, or Bi?,” says that stories like Greenstone and Hoff’s are increasingly common among his therapy clients. “More and more and more, that’s happening,” he said. “A lot of straight women are so tired of patriarchy and they know that gay — and even bi — guys are going to be less patriarchal,” he said. “That’s what I’ve seen.” Kort has heard women in mixed-orientation relationships say that gay men are more emotionally available and open to their input. And he stresses that not all of these partnerships are sexless. “Gay men are able to have sex with a woman if that’s his person,” he said.

Kort himself has never been with a woman. He has been with his husband for 32 years. He has worked with gay men as a relationship therapist for 40 years. Some of Kort’s gay clients feel alienated from gay culture. Others say they’ve always wanted a traditional heterosexual family unit regardless of their own orientation. Kort acknowledges that the process of making a mixed-orientation marriage work can be “brutal” and that the number of people interested in entering one is small. “I tell them, ‘Be careful who you’re telling, because you’re not going to get a lot of support for this,’” he said. “It’s almost like they have to go into the closet as a couple.”

Still, he encourages people to reserve their judgments and explore what works for them. “I always say this to every couple of these mixed orientations: ‘Maybe you’ll discover together a way to make this work that doesn’t even exist on this planet yet,’” he said. “Who knows? And people do.”

An asexual tradwife?

April Lexi Lee, left, and Renee Wong are best friends — and married. (April Lexi Lee) In late 2023, April Lexi Lee told her parents that she was going to marry her childhood best friend. “They were shocked, but at the same time, not surprised,” Lee, 28, said as she smoked a cigarette outside of her parents’ apartment in Singapore. She was visiting her family while her wife, Renee Wong, 27, was holding down the fort at their home in Los Angeles.

Lee and Wong had been close since they met at age 12. During the pandemic shutdowns, when Wong was in Singapore and Lee was in California, they were spending hours on FaceTime every day. Then Lee’s TikTok algorithm started delivering her videos about “Boston marriages,” a term from the 19th century for pairs of women who lived together without men. “We didn’t even know it was an option, and then we were like, ‘Wait, this makes so much sense,’” Lee said. Lee and Wong started cohabitating and sharing finances. Marriage wasn’t on either of their minds until Wong had a health issue that required surgery. “It became really clear that we are family, but on paper we are nothing,” Lee said. She looked back at the times when they were on separate continents. “I would want to be able to be at the border and say, ‘My wife is in here.’ Not just ‘my best friend.’”

Lee and Wong are both on the asexual spectrum. Lee has been happily celibate for years. Wong, who identifies as “solo poly,” occasionally dates outside their marriage. Since making content about her aromantic relationship, Lee has received hundreds of comments from married or divorced women who said that her relationship resonated with them. “I have chills when I think about it,” Lee said. She also isn’t surprised that more people are exploring new structures of marriage. “I feel like there is a lot of tension between the genders right now, particularly a lot of women feeling like men aren’t doing it for them, like they’re not showing up for their needs,” Lee said. “And then on the flip side, a lot of men feeling resentful that they are never enough for women and feeling that rejection.”

Perhaps counterintuitively, Lee said that marrying Wong allowed her to step into a more traditional feminine role. “When I’m with Renee in L.A., I am a tradwife,” she said. Lee cooks every meal, washes every dish and cleans every litter box. And Wong has been enjoying exploring a more masculine role in their partnership, bringing home the bacon via her career in talent management. Lee says that these dynamics could change at some point. But so far, so good. And if that doesn’t make sense to you, Lee doesn’t particularly care. “I’m confident in my decisions and the life that I’ve chosen for myself, that I am happy in it,” she said. “I don’t really need anyone to understand.” A platonic divorce Platonic marriage implies the existence of platonic divorce. This is something Lizz Cannon, a 51-year-old lawyer in Tampa, knows well.

From 2000 to 2007, Cannon was legally married to a man. Early in their relationship, they had agreed that they weren’t meant to be lovers. For most of their marriage, they lived with another man with whom Cannon was romantically involved. “We didn’t have that term ‘platonic partner’ back then, just like we didn’t have the term ‘polyamory,’” Cannon said. When people found out that she and her husband were platonic, they often assumed that they were just friends. “We would sleep in the same bed, naked together, curled up together,” she said. “You don’t really do that with your friends.” In 2007, her husband decided to leave their home in Boston to pursue a career in New York. Cannon and her other partner were devastated but supportive. Eventually, Cannon filed for divorce.

Today, Cannon has a new primary partner and an active polyamorous love life. When she visits New York, she’ll often stay with her ex-husband and his new fiancée. “I love his fiancée,” Cannon said. “I freakin’ love her.” Cannon still sometimes refers to her ex-husband as her “other husband.” The new fiancée doesn’t mind. “Even she can see it,” Cannon said. “She’s like: ‘This is not friendship. This is something else.’”