Showbiz

Unpacking Married Gay Men and Their Wives

Every woman needs a gay best friend - and every woman who doesn't have one secretly wishes she did.I have a couple of gay besties who cook for me, look after me...

Bintano News

May 26, 2026

Every woman needs a gay best friend - and every woman who doesn't have one secretly wishes she did.

I have a couple of gay besties who cook for me, look after me, look sexy, smell divine, tell me when I need or to lose five kilos or ditch the emotionally constipated loser I'm dating. And yet they're also my biggest cheerleaders.

The gay men in my life are brutally honest, deeply loyal, hilariously bitchy - and, in my experience, far more emotionally available than most straight men I've encountered.

So before anyone starts sharpening their pitchforks and accuses me of homophobia, let me be clear: I'm absolutely not.

But saying that - and there's always a but with me - that doesn't mean I am blindly going to cheer on someone just because they're friends of Dorothy.

No one gets a free pass with me because of their gender, pronouns (don't get me started) or sexuality. Absolutely no one.

One word in Caleb Shomo's coming-out post stopped columnist Amanda Goff in her tracks

Caleb and Fleur Shomo were married for 14 years before he came out as 'proudly gay'

And this week my focus is on Caleb Shomo, frontman of American rock band Beartooth, who has just .

It's hardly shocking these days - nor should it be. But here's the twist: Caleb has a wife of 14 years, Fleur Shomo.

And yet, not once - not even in passing - did he mention his wife in his big coming-out post. Instead, he told fans he was 'proudly gay' and explained that he had spent a decade burying his feelings with alcohol, while making music about his religious upbringing, depression, self-hatred, self-loathing and hopelessness.

Before anyone waves a rainbow flag at me, let me be clear: I'm not criticising anyone for being gay. I couldn't care less. I'm certainly in no position to judge who a person goes to bed with. And yes, for what it's worth, I am genuinely happy that Caleb has found peace in owning who he is - and probably always was.

As a recovering alcoholic, I've been to enough meetings to know secrets don't just make us sick - they can destroy us. So I'm not criticising anyone for wanting to live authentically; I'm the first to say, 'Own who you are.'

What I'm calling out is this modern urge to instantly crown someone 'brave' or 'courageous' - while conveniently ignoring the collateral damage - in this case, Caleb's wife - because we're too afraid to offend.

This is not just a coming-out story - it's about his wife being completely erased.

Fleur is devastated - shattered. She must know she has to play the part of the supportive wife in public, but if you read her statement on Instagram, you'll feel just how heartbroken she is: 'You can love and support your person through the hardest time in their life, whilst also be completely demolished and lose yourself at the same time.'

For a wife, hearing that there is 'speculation' about your husband's sexuality can mean something else entirely. (Pictured: Fleur and Caleb Shomo in October 2022 in Los Angeles)

Caleb, 33, came out on Saturday in a lengthy Instagram post addressing the 'speculation surrounding [his] personal life'. He made no mention of his wife, who issued her own statement

Fleur Shomo said: 'You can love and support your person through the hardest time in their life, whilst also be completely demolished and lose yourself at the same time'

It can mean years of confidence-crippling doubt, of questions that never quite get answered, of sensing something isn't right but never being able to name it.

Half-truths, silences, the feeling that something fundamental is just out of reach - even inside your own marriage.

It can mean looking back on a marriage that meant everything to you and wondering if it was even real.

My heart goes out to any woman - or man - who has known that kind of trauma.

Saying 'we support you' when a married man comes out of the closet is easy. And I'm always the first person to say, 'Give me a painful truth over a comfortable lie.'

But right now, my sympathy lies solely with Fleur, and with anyone suddenly cast out of a marriage they believed was true.

I have a friend whose husband of 20 years left her for a man he met in a gay nightclub. On the surface, they had it all - three happy children, a dog and a house in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

But he'd been living a secret life.

For the sake of the kids and to save face, she puts on a brave front and 'supports' him and his new partner.

Behind closed doors, she's absolutely shattered.

Not because her husband was gay, but because she feels her whole marriage was a lie, that she never really knew the man she shared a bed with for two decades.

The betrayal, quite simply, is unfathomable.

And perhaps somewhere deep down, many women do sense something isn't right long before they consciously admit it to themselves. One of my gay friends said to me once: 'Often the wife knows. Not logically, but somewhere in her body she knows.'

Love makes it easy to overlook the things that don't quite add up - we've all done it, me included.

But we've become so afraid of causing offence these days that we forget that two things can be true at once.

A man deserves compassion for finally being himself, and the wife beside him is just as entitled to her grief, heartbreak and anger.

Unpacking Married Gay Men and Their Wives

More Entertainment Buzz