We are willing to do a lot in our lives for our beliefs. They are powerful feelings that can lead us to joy or distress.
Skyler Sorensen and his wife Amanda are Mormons who believe that marriage between a man and a woman is the best thing for their god. And so they have made their marriage work.
This is despite the fact that Skyler is a gay man.
Skyler and Amanda are both members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, and believe marriage should be between a man and a woman. They've pushed through and stayed together, even though Skyler experiences attraction to men.
As he told the New York Post:
"We have our struggles of course, like every marriage, but me being gay hasn't been ... the biggest issue in our marriage. It's been communication, normal marriage things."
The couple came to prominence after a tweet from Skyler went viral earlier in the year.
After this, Skyler has spent some time having to defend his marriage from detractors.
The couple live in Utah and met through the church. They spent about six months as friends before trying to date.
It was early in the relationship when Amanda realized Skyler was attracted to men.
"Amanda is very … in tune with other people's emotions"
This led into a confrontation over Skyler's sexuality. Despite his attractions, he hoped to spend his life with a woman.
Amanda told the Post:
"He grew up always knowing that he was never going to be with a guy. That was always his conviction and his belief and his desire."
The couple have made the marriage work, and even found a level of attraction. Skyler has said that there might be a better term to describe himself other than gay.
He might be demisexual.
Someone who is demisexual only experiences a sexual attraction after developing a deep, emotional connection with someone. Which if that's the case, people online might have had an easier time suggesting that if the couple didn't seem to exclusively refer to Skyler as gay.
Whatever the case, they really wanted to make this relationship work and so they sought out a counselor who specialized in "mixed-orientation relationships" or MORs. As it turns out, they aren't the first couple to try this.
Josh and Lolly Weed were another such couple that rose to prominence after a blog post about their MOR went viral. Josh, a gay man, held up his marriage as proof that such a thing could work.
The couple divorced in 2018, with the couple apologizing to the LGBTQ+ community.
That's not to say these relationships are guaranteed to end inf divorce. Survey results on MORs show that 80% of respondents are satisfied with their status. This is compared to around 40% for respondents who were single.
However, the same survey showed that homosexual respondents who were in same-sex relationships had a 95% satisfaction rate.
Whatever the case, the couple seem happy to work through whatever comes in their marriage. They struggle with communication like many other relationships, and have even weathered the horror of losing a child together.
Through all this, their marriage is still strong.
Amanda said:
"Do I wish that Skylar wasn't gay? Yeah, sometimes. But I wouldn't want to be with anyone else other than him."
The internet can't quite seem to wrap their head around this, but then the internet is always going to share their opinion no matter what.
The Sorensens seem intent on insisting that their relationship, while unconventional, is un-extraordinary. The internet is insistent on disagreeing.
But whatever the case, people love who they love. It's just usually thought to be better if people try to be with who they love.
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