Although all the signs were there from the very start, Yu He lived in complete denial for almost 40 years.
Despite being abandoned physically and emotionally for decades, Yu didn't put the pieces together until she discussed her plight with a gay rights group in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.
"I almost collapsed after my worries were proved correct," said Yu. "I committed my happiness to a man that I should have never met."
Yu is one of an estimated 20 million people in China living in sham marriages involving straight spouses who have unwittingly married gay men.
Now 67 years old, Yu still can't find a way out of her sham marriage. Her husband who is eight years older is seriously ill.
"I have been tortured for so many years in this marriage, and now I have to take care of him," she told the Global Times, her voice dripping in anger.
"This is my destiny," sighed Yu, describing her life as a failure, and void of love, tenderness and compassion.
Yu met her husband eight years before they married in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76)， when deviance from the norm on many issues could bring disastrous repercussions.
She was a 20-year-old news editor and he must have been desperate for a safe haven. Yu's nightmare began on their wedding night.
"I went to bed first and he took off his clothes after the light was turned off," Yu recalled. "He started a conversation about how his male roommate Xiao Zhang was jealous and then fell asleep."
A wasted love life
Yu says there was no physical intimacy with her husband in the days that followed, which she took as a sign that he didn't want to use her for sexual gratification. "I felt proud that my husband seemed to care about me. I didn't think it was abnormal."
A few days after they were married young men began showing at their apartment under various pretexts and Yu was asked to return to her parents' home.
Despite her husband's apparent lusty love life, it was also a time of innocence in China in which people never discussed sex and certainly not homosexuality, which was viewed as something that was exclusive to decadent Western cultures.
"I was so na?ve then," said Yu. "I told myself that he had some sort of physical defect and avoided touching me because he didn't want to disappoint me."
Homosexuality in China was listed as a psychological illness until 2001 and homosexuals could be prosecuted or sent to mental institutions if they were discovered.
Yu remained innocent of the truth even as her husband continued to bring male colleagues home. She says he was entertaining them the day she gave birth to their daughter.
"Married gay men are intentionally distant from their wives, because they worry that intimacy may result in more demands which they are unwilling or unable to satisfy," said Aqiang, executive director of PFLAG, a grass-roots organization that represents parents and friends of lesbians and gays which has recently reached out to women who are married to gay men. Aqiang is his often used pseudonym.
Aqiang says many women who have unwittingly married gay men face serious emotional abuse that can flare into violence if the man insists his wife become his accomplice and continue to live the lie.
Zhang Beichuan, a professor at Qingdao University in Shandong Province, says sham marriages between gay men and straight women are far more common than many people realize.
"There are about 10 million wives of gay husbands in China, including the wives of bisexual men," said Zhang who has been refused funding from his university to study the issue of gay men who marry heterosexual women.
Zhang has also studied the spread of HIV among the gay population and says some promiscuous gay men are putting their unsuspecting straight wives at risk.
"Married gay men have become a bridge for HIV to be transmitted to women," Zhang told the Global Times. Recent statistics show heterosexual sex is the leading cause HIV infection, with homosexual sex and intravenous drug use the second and third most common way of spreading the virus.
Zhang says straight women who are trapped in gay marriages are as disadvantaged and vulnerable as homosexuals. He says the phenomena reflexes widespread gender discrimination that puts the interests of women below those of men.
Complying with societal norms
Today's more enlightened attitude toward homosexuality in China is giving gay men more options than living a lie. Many are coming out to their parents, staying single or living openly with their same-sex partners.
Yet experts say too many gay men and women are still being pushed into marrying the opposite sex for fear of the stigma of breaking traditional conventions.
Marriages of convenience between consenting gay men and gay women are now seen as a less hurtful way of dealing with societal and parental expectations.
"I am thinking of dating a few women in preparation for marriage," said a 25-year-old gay man in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, who asked to be identified as Huzi.
Huzi told the Global Times that he has dated a number of gay, married men and he's considering following suit even though he knows he would be cheating his spouse and living a fraud.
Prepared to live a lie
"My parents are pressing me, colleagues keep asking me why I don't have a girlfriend, and even my neighbors have offered to set me up on blind dates. All these pressures are bearing down on me," he told the Global Times, adding that like most gay men his parents are pushing him to produce a male heir.
Huzi says he isn't considering marrying a lesbian as there could be unforeseen legal consequences.
"I can't imagine what it will be like when I am 60 or older and there's nobody beside me," Huzi said, without explaining why he thought a non-consensual, sham marriage might have a happier outcome.
"It's a homosexual's absolute bottom line to avoid cheating and hurting a heterosexual spouse," said Aqiang, who doesn't support fake marriages between gays and lesbians but says they are better than cheating a spouse who is unaware of their wife's or husband's sexual orientation.
Aqiang says society's pressures to conform to traditional values are only partially to blame for fake marriages. He blames homosexuals for continuing the deception. "In the final analysis, the root cause is a lack of courage and a problem with self-identification."
Sexologist Li Yinhe with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences suggests gay men need to be more respectful of themselves, their families and their partners. "Of course, it would be better if society would allow same sex marriage," she said, adding that legislation legalizing same sex marriage has been submitted to annual assembly of the National People's Congress, the past few years but it has never been dealt with.
"Only when homosexual rights can be safeguarded by law or policy, can this problem be properly solved," Professor Zhang said, adding that marriages of convenience between gay men and lesbians "are not in their mutual interests and contrary to human instinct."
Gay men like Huzi aren't likely to wait for the laws to change.
"I realize that no matter which path I choose someone will get hurt," said Huzi, suggesting that his parents would be devastated if he didn't marry a woman.
"What we need is for the legislation to be worked out to protect our legal rights, which is the key to rescuing the wives and husbands of homosexuals," said Huzi.
The victimized wives of gay men are now actively seeking help and speaking out via the Internet.
A website Tongqi Jiayuan, which roughly translates as "wives of gay husbands," provides a platform for victims to share their experiences, along with legal information and AIDS prevention awareness.
"I hope I can help those in the same bind I was in, and give others a deeper understanding of the issue," said Xiaoyao, the website's founder and ex-wife of a gay man who also asked that her pseudonym be used in print. She has also opened a hotline to provide psychological counseling to survivors of sham marriage and women who finally discover the truth.
"First they need to calm down and negotiate with their husband," said Xiaoyao. "It's really a complicated problem and each wife has her own unique experience."
Professor Zhang tells women who have the means to support themselves to abandon their sham marriages and seek one with love. "But many feel they can't leave their husbands if they and their children are financially dependent."
Not anti-gay
Despite their sexual incompatibility some husbands and wives develop emotional bonds. A woman from Urumqi in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region told the Global Times that even though she discovered her husband is gay, just four months after they married, she's not about to leave him. "He treats me really nice," she said, asking not be identified in this article.
Perhaps surprisingly many of the long suffering women who have been scammed and cheated on by gay husbands have come to understand that homosexuality is a natural human phenomena.
"I totally understand and tolerate gay men, but I totally oppose their choice for marriage!" said the long suffering Yu He.
