Lavender marriage: How do such unions work psychologically? A psychologist explains

“Лавандовый брак” — союз между геем и женщиной, заключаемый не по любви, а по договоренности — со стороны кажется удобным способом защититься от гомофобии, давления родственников или построить карьеру. Однако психологи предупреждают: попытка построить «фасад нормальности» не избавляет от страха, а лишь создает лавину лжи, из которой почти невозможно выбраться без потерь.

Can marriage make a person lonely? Yes, if it’s a lavender marriage.
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The term “lavender marriage” originated in the Golden Age of Hollywood in the last century. Actors’ contracts at the time explicitly included morality clauses: being openly gay meant the immediate destruction of one’s reputation and career. To keep their jobs and status, gay actors entered into sham marriages.

Today, men are driven to enter such unions by similar external pressures:

• Family pressure: relatives’ constant demands to “bring home a wife” and have children.
• Career requirements: the need to meet the expectations of a boss or a conservative team.
• The desire to have children: when marriage to a woman seems like the only viable way to become a parent under the current circumstances.

As a result, the man and his partner become “undercover spies”: they take on the double burden of maintaining the facade of a traditional family for the outside world.

Five Reasons Why Men Choose to Stay in the Closet

Psychologists identify several internal mechanisms that push men toward a sham marriage:

1. Deep-rooted shame. Becoming aware of his identity at the age of 12–13 and finding no information about it around him, a child concludes that he is “the only person like this in the entire world.” As he grows up, he tries to suppress this shame in the only way he understands—by becoming “like everyone else” and finding a wife.
2. Avoidant attachment style. For such people, any emotional vulnerability and intimacy provoke fear. In a lavender marriage, the spouses move in “parallel orbits”: formally, they are together, but no deep self-disclosure is required.
3. High anxiety and catastrophizing. Fear of coming out causes the mind to play out worst-case scenarios before they even happen: “My father will kick me out, my mother will curse me, I'll be fired from my job.” A sham marriage is perceived as a temporary “safe haven.”
4. A need for stability and routine. After unsuccessful attempts to build relationships with men, a person tired of uncertainty chooses a clear and predictable domestic life with a woman.

The pitfalls of secrecy: endless lies and loss of control

The main illusion of a lavender marriage is that it supposedly solves problems. In practice, the union quickly turns into a vicious cycle:

• Fear does not disappear; it merely changes form. Whereas the man once feared having his sexual orientation exposed, he now panics that others will discover his marriage is a sham, or that his wife will tell her friends the truth during an argument.
• The illusion of control collapses. The attempt to make an agreement “in advance” falls apart the moment the man genuinely falls in love with someone else. He has to choose: give up love or go through a divorce and risk losing his child.
• An avalanche of lies. To keep up the cover story with loved ones, more and more excuses have to be invented—from “we’re focusing on our careers” to pretending to undergo infertility treatment, complete with fake doctor’s appointments. The constant need to remember what was said and to whom leads to nervous breakdowns.

Double loneliness and the risk of blackmail

The most severe psychological and emotional consequence is complete alienation. A person finds themselves in a situation where they cannot be themselves anywhere: at work, they have to laugh at their colleagues’ homophobic jokes to stay in their good graces; at home, a stranger awaits them; and at some point, their secret beloved partner refuses to remain a “backup option in the closet” and leaves. The person is left in utter emptiness and an emotional vacuum.

Moreover, agreements within the marriage can easily be broken. When he tries to get divorced, the sham wife may use the secret as a weapon—for example, demand that their shared apartment be transferred to her under threat of showing private messages to his father or employer.

Before choosing such a “shield,” psychologists advise thoroughly exploring your inner fears with a professional: you cannot quickly change the society around you, but you can learn to see yourself without shame or fear.