Life Transitions of Lesbian and Gay Filipinos in Mixed-Orientation Marriages

Mixed-orientation marriages (MOMs)—unions in which one partner is heterosexual and the other identifies as a sexual minority—remain understudied in the Philippine context despite the country’s rigid heteronormative legal and cultural framework. This qualitative study employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to examine the lived experiences of six self-identified lesbian and gay Filipinos (five gay men, one lesbian woman) in MOMs. Grounded in Husserlian phenomenology and Prospero Covar’s Banga framework from Filipino Psychology, the study explored how participants entered, navigated, and integrated their homosexual identities within heterosexual marital structures. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using IPA’s hermeneutic process. Four superordinate themes emerged, organized under the acronym RUNWEY: Reasoning (converging antecedents into marital union), Unfolding (management of identity disclosure), Weathering (relational consequences of homosexuality), and Yielding (identity integration). Entry into MOMs was shaped by both internalized motivations—love and procreative desire—and contextual influences, including familial pressure and identity uncertainty. Disclosure dynamics varied by the timing of sexual identity recognition and produced distinct patterns of openness and concealment in marital and parent-child relationships. Despite persistent sociocultural and relational challenges, participants demonstrated resilient integration of identity. These findings underscore the need for culturally informed psychological interventions and more equitable legal frameworks for sexual minorities in the Philippines.