Samantha Greenstone and Jacob Hoff are a happily married couple with a big twist – and say there’s one thing people can never get their heads around when it comes to their relationship
Woman posts about ‘fulfilling’ wedding vows to ‘gay husband’
Gazing into each other’s eyes, Samantha Greenstone and Jacob Hoff could have been any other newlyweds basking in their love as they recited their vows in front of their friends and family.
But there’s a twist: Jacob, 31, is openly gay, Samantha, 38, is a straight woman – and the pair couldn’t be any happier.
Mixed-orientation relationships, as they’re called when one partner is heterosexual and the other isn’t, are nothing new. But Samantha and Jacob insist theirs is not a ‘lavender marriage’, where one of them is deeply in the closet and the other acts as a public ‘beard’; their love is the real deal.
It comes just days after fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg paid tribute to her husband Barry Diller, who came out as gay at the age of 83. “All I can tell you is Barry and I have had an incredible life, love for 50 years,” she wrote. “We have been lovers, friends, married, everything.”
For Samantha and Jacob, they say the main thing people are curious about is what they get up to in the bedroom. “All people want to know is, do we sleep together and are we monogamous?” says Samantha from the LA home they share together.
“And we do sleep together, we’re actively trying to have a family, and we’re completely monogamous. We say that just because we have this sort of new-age relationship, it doesn’t change our relationship and how we approach marriage.
“To us, marriage is a sacred thing, and we are old-fashioned in the sense that we just want to be with one another. We don’t want to open the relationship up, we want that traditional family,” she says.
Jacob agrees – and gets frustrated when people assume he must be bisexual or pansexual (when romantic or sexual attraction transcends gender).
“We get a lot of, ‘well how is Jacob ever going to be fulfilled by not being expressing his gayness?’ That’s where I see a little bit of the bigotry come in, because it’s like, ‘oh, you think because I’m gay I’m less loyal to a person?'” he says.
“Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean that I would ever be less loyal. In a relationship, you wake up and choose your person every day, and that’s the same no matter what dynamic.”
The couple, both actors, have been exclusively together in a romantic sense for the last eight years, and tied the knot in a white wedding last December, surrounded by 35 guests. But before that they were best friends, having met at a callback for a production of Fiddler On The Roof in Escondido, California.
“It was love at first cackle,” Jacob has previously said, on hearing Samantha’s laugh echoing through the lobby of the theatre. He ran up to her and told her: “If they don’t give you that part, they are crazy.” When they were both cast in the play, their bond grew and soon they were seeing each other every day.
After the show closed, the two travelled back and forth between LA and San Diego to meet up, depending on where they were each working. And after 18 months of friendship, Samantha realised she was developing stronger feelings for Jacob, but knew he was only attracted to men.
Seeking advice from an energy healer – who told her the pair shared a “spiritual umbilical cord” – Samantha took the plunge and texted Jacob asking if he ever felt more for her than just friendship.
“I said, of course I feel more for you than a friend, and I’m willing to try it,” Jacob recalls. “I was feeling excited but also nervous that I’m not going to be able to successfully have a relationship with a woman in this way. It was a bit terrifying, I was worried about ruining the relationship based off of the awkwardness if I wasn’t able to have an intimate relationship with her.”
While their friends have been accepting and supportive of their blossoming romance, Samantha and Jacob faced criticism from some of the LGBT+ community. “It seems to be that even within the queer community, sometimes people are like, no way can a gay man ever marry a woman,” says Samantha. “The concept of ‘love is love’ seems to have parameters when it comes to that idea.”
“There’s a rigidness that happens between the different sects of the queer community, because you have to be defensive a lot the time against people who are not accepting of you,” Jacob explains. “So sometimes if somebody identifies as gay, they can be very firm and like, ‘no, if you’re with a woman you cannot be gay, you must now fall into the label of bi or pansexual.’
“What we say is, this is not gonna work for everybody. Maybe this [relationship] is a one-off thing, but it does happen, and it is also important for me to still keep that identity as gay. That helps me translate what’s going on in my brain, which is that what I find attractive is men, not women. My partner just happens to fit outside that.”
For now, the pair are focusing on their plans to start a family – the natural way. “We’re just ready to take that step and be parents. It’s exciting the thought of just raising a family together,” Samantha smiles. “We like classic strong names, not trendy LA names like Feather,” laughs Jacob.
And the message they’d like other people to take away from their relationship is a simple one. “Love is love,” says Jacob. “It can transcend anything that you expect out of your life. You think your life is so firm but somebody can come in and shake the whole thing up. But you are allowed to keep your [sexual] identity no matter what your partnership situation is, and that’s really important and healthy.”
“We’re just two people who fell in love for all of the right reasons,” adds Samantha. “And our purpose in continuing to share it is to provide visibility for mixed orientation relationships. We want people to know that it’s real. We’re here, and love, pure love, really can dictate more than labels can dictate.”
*Wedding pictures courtesy of Briars Atlas (@briarsatlas)
