Relationships between in-laws can be complicated, and are often fraught with extreme personality differences, clashes in religious or political beliefs, generational gaps, deep-seeded jealousies, rivalries or resentments, and, occasionally, unexpected sexual tension.
Such is the case between one man, who recently wrote to advice columnist Coleen Nolan for help about the lustful feelings he’s developed for his brother-in-law.
“Dear Coleen,” the man’s letter begins. “I’m in my 30s and I’ve been married for three years now but I need to get something off my chest — I can’t stop thinking about my wife’s older brother in a romantic way.”
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The man continues: “I’ve never believed myself to be bi, and certainly not gay, and I love my wife. But her brother is driving me loco!”
According to the man, his brother-in-law is “rich, successful and funny,” as well as “good looking and cool, a sharp dresser and a really nice guy.”
“I don’t understand why I’m feeling this because it’s not me,” the man laments.
Oh, but it gets better.
“Last week, my wife woke up to me calling his name,” the man writes. “Panicked and embarrassed, I said it was a colleague at work. When he stayed over, I found a pair of his boxers in the bathroom and sat holding them for ages.”
“I wouldn’t act on my feelings,” the man adds, “unless by some miracle he made a move on me. I have too much to lose and don’t fancy being single again. I’m hope you can help.”
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Coleen’s diagnosis: A man crush.
“It sounds more like adoration to me,” she writes in her response, “a huge man crush on someone who’s everything you want to be.”
But just in case it’s more than that, she warns: “You know you can’t go anywhere near him in a romantic way and realize how much you have to lose if you did. Even if you decide you are bisexual or gay, your brother-in-law would not be the right person to go for.”
Coleen then brings the infatuated husband down to reality: “Ultimately, however wonderful this guy is, he’s just human like the rest of us, with the same problems and annoying habits that would, over time, get on your nerves.”
She continues: “Get him off this pedestal you’ve put him on. I would also put a bit of distance between you and him for a while so you can think clearly about whether you’re really happy in your marriage.”
“And,” she concludes, “don’t mention how you feel to him–or your wife.”
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Peter Jonsson
wtf… maybe he should masturbate more on his own to get over his lustful thoughts and feelings
Amaurys Arias
This is not a man crush.
Nathaniel McManus
A little man time is needed. Go to a bar, play tennis, invite the family over for a weenie roast.
tdh1980
If he’s spending quality time smelling his brother-in-law’s underwear, then this is definitely much more than a man crush, though that behavior wouldn’t even be acceptable if he were admittedly gay.
avesraggiana
Jesus, again?!
1EqualityUSA
Sometimes admiration of another’s traits is confused with sexual attraction.
D Kevin Keel
Omg. I’m his brother in law. My sister will be pissed.
Joel Gabel-Cimino
I haven’t even read the article but if this guy is wondering if he’s gay come on now you’re stealing the dude’s underwear of course you’re gay
JoJo Phukhaotong
this is a porn plot ! come on !!
DCguy
See, THIS right here is why LGBTs had zero visibility for decades. Because people would use any excuse to explain it away.
Isn’t it a shame that Richard Simmons and Kevin Spacey just haven’t met the right girl yet? Oh, how nice, Clay Aiken and Tim Tebow are such gentlemen, they are still virgins because they are so moral.
Oh, poor Rosie O’Donnell, all that success and she hasn’t got a husband, oh, that’s probably because men are jerks and her success intimidates them!
And here, this guy, the columnist says that he simply admires the brother in law? Really? If he was sitting there holding his SISTER In Laws panties would she have said the same thing? Of course not, she would have attacked him for wanting to cheat on his wife.
The guy is obviously bi or gay, and instead of helping him deal with it, she explains it away, then says “Don’t tell anybody”. Gee, what great advice, instead of telling the guy to deal with it, figure himself out, she says “It’s nothing, and keep hiding it.”
We’ve all seen how this ends, the crush on the brother in law is just the first sign, the one that opened the gates, this guy will have more and more pressure build up and will end up leaving the wife in a decade or so, or will get caught sleeping with some guy and blow up the entire marriage.
Again, it always amazes me the lengths people, media, etc… will go to to pretend that LGBTs don’t exist.
Billy Budd
Of course he is bisexual. He should explore his sexuality and fuck as many beautiful men as possible.
Dave Downunder
Another made up Dear Abbey letter, please spare us.
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
@DCguy: Perfectly said.
sanfranca1
To Graham Gremore: The term is deep-seated, not deep-seeded. Your headline says he stole the underwear, but the story says he just held the underwear for a long time. So which is it?!
sanfranca1
@tdh1980: The story doesn’t say anything about him smelling the underwear.
tdh1980
@sanfranca1: Believe you me, he sniffed them.
Idunno
Your not bi….your gay. Deal with it as best you can. Most of all, tell your wife. She deserves to be told. She’s been living a life of lies told to her by you. Oh, and FYI… Bi = if I’m buying…you are trying. Tell your wife before someone else does……
Eddie Hernandez
Is this for real?
Steven Burr
Bi hell, you’re a fucking Homo!
schlukitz
Talk about being in denial?
This guy seriously needs to get honest with himself and come out of the closet.
Matthew Thompson
That’s just weird !
Masc Pride
None of his reasons for interest are physical attractions. Man crush was an accurate diagnosis. I wonder if the bro-in-law is a bit older. The BIL might simply be the guy this guy wants to become one day. Only straight guys flip out over non-sexual interests like this.
Masc Pride
*wonder if the bro-in-law is much older.
Bob Ashworth
I wonder if the brother-in-law is gay. Article didn’t say. Many gay guys crush on straight friends from time to time. It usually passes. Relatives are so out of bounds.
Tobi
@tdh1980: It doesn’t count, as long as he didn’t inhale.
Brent Labee
ok Google “gayface underwear”
Bauhaus
“a huge man crush on someone who’s everything you want to be.”
Sure. Same crap all of the dopes in denial told me when I was a teenager. Never entered their wee minds that getting a boner thinking about a guy is not the same as admiring him.
Mark Klein
Wonders if he’s bi?
TampaZeke
The latest edition in Queerty’s daily obsession with closeted married men.
robho3
And why is this a news story?
D P
This is just too telling:
“I wouldn’t act on my feelings,” the man adds, “unless by some miracle he made a move on me. I have too much to lose and don’t fancy being single again. ” –
So he’s already, in his mind, established an exception as to what situation he would act on his feelings. And is being single the most prominent thing that he can see as the reason why he should not act on those feelings?
Soap opera in the making. He’s waiting in the wings.
DCguy
@Masc Pride:
What a shock, the self hater supports some guy staying closeted.
Sand Nierenberg
Steven don’t call name like that cause we can call you names have you looked at yourself lmao begone now
Gerald Mosley
No he is not BI – that is all out faggery.
Invert
Blah blah false gay blah blah no need to identify as gay or straight blah blah women are controlling.
There ya go, Brian, no need for you to chime in.
Robert Guillermo Hernandez
I STOLE JOCKSTRAPS out of GYM LOCKERS, in HIGH SCHOOL …
Sam Oropeza
Chris
And why wasn’t this letter sent to Dan Savage? Because he knows the answer he’d get from Savage Love.
Whatever he is, I recommend some therapy.
Masc Pride
@DCguy: This guy isn’t gay. How can I support a closet that doesn’t exist? Self-hate probably isn’t the happiest existence, but I’ve also noticed the main ones throwing the self-hate accusations around (non-stop) seem pretty angry and miserable too…
Darryl Moir
Well lets fucken well hope so.
DCguy
@Masc Pride:
And there you are supporting the closet ad usual. I love how you think just by saying “There us ni closet here”, that makes it true.
Let’s see, the guy us in lust with a man, but no, of course he isn’t in the closet because he says he isn’t bi or gay……just like every other closeted married guy.
You’re no different than the delusional folks that thought Rosie ‘O’donell’s was really in love with Tom Cruise.
Billy Budd
He is certainly bisexual. he enjoys fucking his wife but he feels attracted to men. That makes him BI.
Masc Pride
@DCguy: You claim to be so much happier than the “closet cases” you detest, so why do you seem so bitter and angry all the time? I know closeted guys that are way more happy and easy-going than you. Interesting.
lust: strong sexual desire.
Everything about this hypothetical husband’s attraction to his BIL is non-physical. Try reading more than a misleading headline next time.
JamJewel
“…unless by some miracle he made a move on me.” Nuff said.
DCguy
@Masc Pride:
Actually I stated nothing about detesting them, I called you out for being a self hating person desperate to defend the closet because of your own self hate.
You will have to explain to me in what context long term fondling of somebody’s underwear and saying that he wants to act on the attraction but is afraid of the repercussions isn’t physical.
If the guy was crusing through his SISTER in law’s panty drawer you wouldn’t be sitting here trying to claim that this wasn’t physical.
Masc Pride
@DCguy: That’s right, backpedal! It might work if you weren’t on here complaining about “closet cases” ALL THE TIME! You know nothing about my personal life. You don’t even know my name. If this guy had the same exact situation with a sister in law, I would say his non-sexual admiration isn’t indicative of anything serious, which is just more proof that your angry predictions aren’t very accurate.
Invert
@DCguy: oh no, keeping another man’s underwear is just totally a sign of heterosexual respect. He just looks up to the guy and expresses that through fondling his underwear. No homo there!
i43neile
A husband can lust after a sister-in-law.
The problem is if the husband is already in a relationship. So the advice in the post seems decent enough. If you value your marriage, stay away and find a way for your marriage to work.
If you feel as if the marriage is not working because you are really attracted to another person and you think a lifetime living in a lie is not worth it? A divorce might be good. However, it’s a gamble because you’ll be letting go of someone and try to shack up with another who might have no feelings for you. Be it sister in law or brother in law.
trell
Dear QUEEERTY
I am an openly gay man who has been visiting a Gay-related news website for a few years now, and while we hit it off well at the start, things have gone downhill, and I’m wondering if something needs to change.
At the start, things were great. This site would offer real gay interest news stories from around the world. There would be some serious articles, and some more light hearted, as well as the occasional guy-candy posts. It was perfect.
i guess I started noticing things were wrong when this site started showing an interest in a guy called Gus. I was a bit jealous, but I just assumed that there wasn’t much else gong on in the LGBT world, so I put it down to a slow news day. Then I noticed that a new guy called Donald was taking over almost every post. The thing is that this guy Donald has virtually nothing to do with LGBT issues, but he is a bit of an attention seeker.
I decided to try to avoid Donald and look to other articles. But I was dismayed to find that things had gotten stale. There were click-bait articles of made up stuff, like the article about a politician rumoured to be at a 90’s pool party on the basis of a few grainy photos. There were a bunch of fantasy-based articles based around celebrities, that had very little to do with actual news. Even the posts based on getting some guy candy, all seemed to be of the same 8 z-list ‘celebs, whose only claim to fame was posting near-naked photos of themselves to get attention.
Things got to a head when I discovered that one contributor trawled through all the thousands of agony aunt columns on the internet to make an article about a sexually confused guy. I wondered about the purpose of doing such a thing. It just seemed mean.
I just feel that the love I hd for the website is waning, and I find myself looking for a site which still does have an interest for LGBT-related news, and that isn’t a sounding board for the same 6 or 7 individuals. I want fun, I want spice, I want seriousness and I want humor. I don’t want mean salacious gossip, or click-bait articles about crap.
What should I do? I worry that just leaving the site will improve things for me, but the site will carry on becoming a flaky shadow of what it once was
Yours sincerely
Trell x