Two men talk about what it is like to be gay and married in 'holy Catholic Ireland'

The difference between sex with his wife and with his gay lover is "like the difference between a dry cream cracker and a cream bun", says Clive Broue, a gay married man and the author of a column in the Gay Community News.

Clive Broue is a nom de plume that protects Clive and his family from the scrutiny of friends and neighbours in the small rural town where they live, and where Clive is perceived as a straight, married man. Clive insists that he isn't using marriage as a "veneer of respectability" and that he truly loves and feels a deep spiritual connection with his wife of 20 years, whom he sees as his best friend.

Clive still shares a bed and physical closeness with his wife, although the couple's sex life died when he "came out". Clive's wife is so loyal and understanding that when Clive fell in love with a gay man, she drove him to the station to take the train to Dublin for his first weekend with his new lover. Clive's love affair ended after six months when he was unable to leave his marriage and children and commit himself fully to his gay partner, although he now sometimes feels "frustrated and lonely".

Clive had relationships with men before he was married, but was so "very frightened" that he convinced himself he could push away his gayness, marry and get on with a straight life.

James, too, entered marriage full of doubt, but stuck with it for 25 years. Three years ago, James's marriage ended amid "anger, sadness and confusion" when he came out to his wife. He found refuge in the "gay married men's group", a confidential organisation which operates by word of mouth. James estimates that when he was in the group, about 80 per cent of the members - aged 24 to 70 - were still in active marriages. In the group, he met a man 20 years younger who gave him the strength to carry on. Over the next couple of years, the two men fell in love. James has since moved out of the family home and lives in his own apartment. He spends 60 per cent of his time with his lover, who he has already introduced to his teenage children.

James blames "holy Catholic Ireland" for his life of secrecy. "A lot of gay married men have attempted suicide. I was lucky in that I was strong enough to rise above it," he says. "When I married in my mid-20s, I was very naïve and a virgin. A week before I got married I knew it was a mistake, but I tried my best. I saw my wife as my partner for life. Over the years, I increasingly sensed I was different. My marriage went downhill and we had no sexual relationship for 12 years, but separation was not an option; I was incapable of leaving my young children."

The marriage had become "a business environment. The kids hated it. When I told the children that their mother and I were separating, they were almost relieved and even said: 'It's about time - you have no idea what it was like for us living in that home'."

James's advice to other gay married men is: "If you love your wife so much, then tell her. She will understand."

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