The QLP Questionnaire: Ty Beaver
"Shortly after my wife and I opened our marriage, I connected with the man who would end up being my first boyfriend... and our relationship was incredibly intimate on an emotional level..."
Have you struggled to find love? Or maybe you had a difficult time making it work in a same-sex relationship or outside the typical heteronormative parameters that dominate our culture and have lessons to share? Since most LGBTQ+ people don't have many role models to help us learn what it means to put ourselves together, we invite you to take “The Queer Love Project Questionnaire” and share your distinctive experiences so that others might learn from them. Email us at QueerLoveProjectSub@gmail.com to find out how you can participate.
I have been a writer for most of my life, and I’ve kept journals consistently since I was 14. I earned a creative writing degree in college alongside one in journalism. I was an award-winning journalist for 10 years before moving into public relations and strategic communications. I am also a married father of two who likes to make things and who has an unhealthy addiction to chocolate milk.
My aspirations have shifted wildly over the past 20 years. Since coming out at 40—and being forced into a second career transition—I now aspire to find a job that pays well enough to support my family, while I dedicate most of my energy to personal creative projects. I started my first Substack, Sitting Queerly, in February 2024 as a way to explore and connect with other late-blooming queer folk. I have since recently launched Reading Photographs, a Substack dedicated to exploring my archive of photography from the past 15+ years. I have self-published several photobooks, which can be found on MagCloud. I am also attempting to write a novel.
What is your age; where in the world do you primarily live; where did you grow up?
I just recently passed my 42nd birthday. I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for 18 years, most of that in eastern Washington state. I grew up outside of Kansas City—on the Kansas side.
How do you define yourself on the LGBTQ+ spectrum?
I currently define myself as bi/queer when it comes to my orientation. There was a time where I used the more niche “Gay+1,” as I have no interest in women outside my wife, but I feel “bi/queer” is a more immediately accessible descriptor. As far as sexual identity, I feel closest to a masc-presenting bear.
What is your relationship status? (Single/Dating/Longterm/Married/Other) Understanding that for some it can be “complicated,” feel free to use whatever terms make sense and as much details as you feel comfortable sharing.
I have been married to my wife for 12 years, and we’ve been together for 15 years total. I can still visually recall the moment she hooked me. We both worked in a newsroom, and she had just started and as I was walking by she looked over the top of her glasses (they had this stained glass design on the temples). We flirted pathetically with each other for several months before we went on our first date to a pumpkin patch where we bought a pie pumpkin, and she made me a pumpkin pie that she forgot to put the sugar in.
About a year ago, we transitioned to an open marriage, though I am the only one who seeks intimate relationships outside our bedroom.
Do you have an “ideal” relationship status? (Single/Dating/Longterm/Married/Other)
I honestly don’t know? From my experience, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence no matter what my circumstances and how long I worked to get there. My wife and I have built a good life together, and I have no interest in her not being part of my life. At the same time, marriage/parenthood does have its constraints when trying to explore one’s queerness for the first time.
“There is no such thing as soulmates. There is no such thing as ‘the one.’ There is no one who can be your ‘better half.’ You are a whole person who needs people, not a single person, to express your whole self. Live accordingly.”
What is the biggest misconception about being single or in a relationship?
I think the biggest misconception about being in a relationship—especially a cis-heteronormative one—is that your partner should fulfill every intellectual, emotional and physical need.
When was your first intimate moment (holding hands, kiss, etc.)? Was it with someone you liked? Did you feel pressured into it?
Middle school. Valentine’s Day dance. The girl I would date off-and-on until my senior year of high school had her friends ask if I liked her, and I said, “Sure.” So we became a couple. We posed for pictures and she put her arms on my shoulders while I held her waist.
But the moment that truly felt magical was at the Homecoming dance our freshman year, when we were slow-dancing at the end. The lights came on and the music ended, and we looked into each other’s eyes and kissed each other softly. We were terrible for each other—and I’m glad I moved on (I thought she had, too, but she tracked me down my first year in college by going to every dorm and asking for me)—but I’ll acknowledge that moment left an impression.
How would you define love? Is it the thing you work at for a long period of time? Or is it the strong feeling you feel for someone right from the beginning for no reason? Love is wanting what is best for the other person—even if it’s not what you want—while doing what also is best for you. It’s rare that what’s best for you is best for the person you love. But if you love each other, you navigate it. And if that means ending the relationship, then that’s what you do. This is what makes love painful.
Does the relationship fill your deepest needs for closeness with a person? Or do you prefer not to share every part of yourself?
Oh, I thought it did. I wanted it to. I love my wife. I care very deeply for her. And for a long time, I convinced myself that she was meeting all the needs I should expect to be met in a marriage. At least, as was taught to me through my childhood and engagement with the culture around me. Until I accepted my queerness, I never shared it with her, or anybody for that matter. I kept that part of myself buried beneath a mountain of shame and guilt. It is the root of my greatest insecurities and fears.
I ended up telling only one person before I told my wife, and that was my therapist. The primary reason for telling my therapist was because I was so worried about how to tell my wife, and I wanted someone to help me figure out how to do that. I’d heard the horror stories: wives who kicked their husbands out of the bedroom, out of the house, demanded a divorce immediately. I did not expect that strong of a negative response, but I couldn’t rule out disappointment, sadness, anger either. And yet, she’s never expressed anger or resentment. There have been moments of sadness, of anxiety. Now she knows everything about me, however, and that has made us closer, I think.
When did you come out to family, friends and others for the first time?
I came out to my wife in February 2023. Came out to my two best friends and a handful of others through the rest of that year and into 2024. Came out to my three siblings in the spring of 2024 and to a larger group of friends and my two young children in June 2024.
Did you have any LGBTQ+ role models as a child or teenager? What do you remember about images of same-sex or queer relationships or messages you gleaned?
The only queer person I knew growing up—and I didn’t really know he was gay until I was embarrassingly older—was my mother’s younger brother. I barely knew him because he lived on the West Coast and would only come for Christmas occasionally. He and his partner always signed gifts with their names, and I never really thought about why he wasn’t married. My mother liked her brother, but I very much got the impression from my father that he did not and that it was at least in part due to my uncle being gay. I otherwise largely heard only negative messages about queerness, if I heard anything about them at all, and I would parrot them because people pleasers gonna people please.
It wasn’t until I was much older and moved West myself for my first post-college job that I came to know my uncle and his now-husband better. In fact, visiting him at his home in San Francisco and getting to know his friends became a way I could dip my toe into queer culture without “outing” myself.
Do you have a Chosen Family?
I’ve definitely come to rely upon some guys a lot as I’ve accepted my queerness. Most of them I’ve met through an online group for queer men who were/are married to women. We support each other, offer perspective, check in on guys who haven’t posted in a while.
I’m still very anxious and awkward in queer spaces, an artifact of my living a largely straight-coded life. Finding other men who are in my specific circumstance—married to a woman and accepting queerness very late in life—has helped me find my footing and overcome my worries that I’ll feel as isolated in queer culture as I do in straight culture.
What is your relationship with your biological family (if any)?
We’re not estranged, but I also don’t think we’re particularly close. I still talk with my mom regularly and we have a big family chat thread that includes my brothers- and sister-in-law. I either go back to visit or my folks come visit me about every two years. I live a day’s worth of flying or multiple days of driving away, while my other siblings live within a day’s drive of my folks. As much as I know my folks wished I lived closer, I would be nowhere close to where I am now as a person if I did.
I do keep parts of my life from them. While my siblings know I’m bi/queer, my parents don’t and likely never will. My father would never understand. My mother I think could, but I also don’t want to burden her with keeping a secret from my father.
What do you (did you) like about dating as a LGBTQ person? What do/did you dislike?
This is still a new realm for me and is a bit awkward given that I am married to a woman. I have to be mindful of boundaries that I have in place to protect my family. Any man I connect with is always going to come second, whether they end up as a friend with benefits/fuck buddy or a serious boyfriend. And as a whole-ass adult with responsibilities, I can’t be very spontaneous or impulsive like going for a drink last minute. All of that can be very frustrating.
At the same time—and maybe this is just because I’m in my 40s and don’t give a fuck—but I find connecting with men much more straightforward than dating women was when I was younger. And I’m digging being blatantly flirted with and lusted after. As someone who’s had body-image issues his whole life, it’s been incredibly affirming.
Has race, ethnicity or cultural differences been a factor in who you seek out?
It’s more body type and presentation that determines who I seek out. Generally, if you have a beard, a decently hairy chest and kind eyes, I’ll check you out—and I’ve gone outside those parameters at times. I’ve been amazed at some of the guys who’ve been interested and connected with me as I would have considered them out of my league.
Have you experienced heartbreak?
I would say I have experienced fear of change. I think a lot of us, when ending a relationship, confuse the two. When you’ve been with someone for some time and you’re now looking at a life going forward without them, it’s scary. But that doesn’t mean you’re heartbroken.
When my college girlfriend broke up with me over the phone two weeks after I moved across the country for my first job, it devastated me. I had been thinking about buying a ring. My sorrow was more because I was all on my own in a strange town with no one I knew, and she was a tether to the familiar. And it had snapped. The thing is: I stretched that tether to the breaking point on purpose. I knew I had. But change is scary, no matter how much you may want it.
“The emotional rollercoaster of coming out, paired with no longer suppressing my interest in men, has impacted my attraction thanks to bi-cycling.”
How would you term your sexual relationship with your primary partner? Has that changed over time?
I wouldn’t call our sexual relationship particularly adventurous. That said, it has largely been very fulfilling. We had dry spells, mostly because of me battling severe anxiety/depression, but got past them.
My coming out has changed things on my end. For the first weeks after I began accepting my queerness, I couldn’t get enough of her. But the emotional rollercoaster of coming out, paired with no longer suppressing my interest in men, has impacted my attraction thanks to bi-cycling. Since then, it’s been a little rockier. All that combined with my anti-depressants and stress from an unexpected career transition led to some tears and tough conversations in bed.
Things are better now, as we’ve found a new rhythm. There are still things we need to work on. For me specifically, that’s being more communicative about what I need.
Do you have any moments of joy, happiness or pleasure that you can share about being in a same-sex or queer relationship?
Shortly after my wife and I opened our marriage, I connected with the man who would end up being my first boyfriend. We were together for six months. I could not have asked for a more patient, understanding, kind and slightly kinky man to help me embrace who I am and what I need to be whole. Hands down some of the best sex I’ve had with a man (not that I have a lot to compare against), but our relationship was incredibly intimate on an emotional level and that was more important to me in the end. We are still friends and check in with each other.
Have you ever been in a polyamorous relationship or would you like to be in a situation that doesn’t involve just two people?
I don’t think of relationships as being polyamorous. Rather, that’s a quality of an individual. I think of myself as being polyamorous, or capable of it. I love my wife. And I did (and still do) love my first boyfriend. Truly. That’s part of the reason why I didn’t fight it when he ended it. I knew I wasn’t meeting his needs and I was realizing he wasn’t meeting mine, so I let him go.
When you love someone, you want them to be happy, and him finding someone else was going to make him happy. If ending our marriage would make my wife happy, I would acquiesce. I would be devastated, but I love her and want what’s best for her. And while I’m not actively seeking it, I don’t deny that I may fall in love with another man or men.
Are you married? Have you ever wanted to be? Whatever the response, explain why and what your hopes, dreams and journey has been like.
Yes, I am married. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t pursue it to meet other folks’ expectations of me. But I’ve been the beneficiary of incredibly dumb luck in that I met and married a woman such as my wife. Her patience, empathy and sarcasm have been life-saving and affirming.
What is your philosophy about relationships?
There is no such thing as soulmates. There is no such thing as “the one.” There is no one who can be your “better half.” You are a whole person who needs people, not a single person, to express your whole self. Live accordingly.
Any advice you’d give to someone younger than you who thinks it’s impossible to find love?
I’m gonna steal from RuPaul: “If you don’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love someone else?”
BONUS:
We all need more inspiration. Please recommend something that influenced or helped shape you significantly that you’d recommend to someone else.
Book: The Once & Future King by TH White. I read it for the first time in my mid-twenties, and there’s a quote from it that made me feel seen: “He was trying to find out what he was, and he was afraid of what he would find…All through his life, he was to feel this gap: something at the bottom of his heart of which he was aware and ashamed, but which he did not understand.”
Movie: Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World. This was the first movie where I saw a relationship between two men (Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany) portrayed in a way that was even close to what I longed for myself.
Song: I’ve been obsessed with the song “The Trapeze Swinger” by Iron & Wine for years. If anyone were to write me a eulogy, I’d want one written like this song.
Thank you, Jerry, for letting me ramble 🙂