'I'm a straight woman. He's a gay man. We're happily married.'

As Jacob waited for his turn to audition, it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. The energy was as tense. Anxious performers scrambled through scripts, whispering their lines and double-checking lyrics. The air was thick, but composed. Silent.

Then, from the audition room, came a loud and confident scream.

"People in the lobby started laughing; it just cut through like a knife," Jacob told Mamamia.

"I remember being like, 'Whoa, somebody in there right now has some massive balls to be doing that when we're all on our best behaviour."

When the doors burst open, a bunch of performers filed out. Instantly, Jacob knew which one was responsible for the noise. A girl named Samantha.

"There was an energy about her that I was like, 'That little woman made that big noise'. And I turned to her and I said, 'If they don't give you that part, they're crazy'."

Watch: Misconceptions about mixed orientation relationships. Post continues after video.

As fate would have it, both Jacob, 31, and Samantha, 38, booked the theatre roles and had to stay in a resort for the duration of the production. A month later, in January 2016, rehearsals began. 

In their first break, Samantha escaped the chaos for some peace and quiet.

"I'm like, I'm getting away from this. I don't need to be socialising. And Jacob kind of had the same idea," she told us.

"He saw me by myself in the lobby, and he noticed that I was drinking very good water, and we got in a conversation about how important we think it is to drink quality water."

That one interaction was all it took. And for the next four months, the US-based pair were inseparable.

"We did crazy things during that time. We went to a cult meeting to get free food three times. We could do anything and it would be fun together."

They would stay up talking until 4am, before waking up the next morning and immediately going on a hike together. 

"At the end of the day, when we would be leaving to go to our respective villas in the resort, we'd be like, 'Why are we even leaving?' And there were a couple of times where he slept over at my villa. We'd sleep in the same bed, but it was completely platonic," said Samantha.

After all, she knew Jacob was gay. And she was straight. They couldn't be involved romantically.

But slowly, feelings started to creep in.

"We both had it sitting inside, but didn't quite know how to acknowledge it or place it, and there was a lot of fear of acknowledging it and shifting the tides," said Jacob.

Jacob and Samantha in the early days. Image: Supplied

It wasn't until 18 months later that Samantha made the first move.

"I went to an energy healer, and she was asking me questions about my life," Samantha recalled.

"She said, 'Are you in a relationship with anyone?' And I said, 'I'm not, but I have this connection with my best friend that I cannot describe'. And she said, 'Where your hand is right now is where your stomach is, and it's where the umbilical cord attaches. What I'm picking up is that you guys share a spiritual umbilical cord'.

"Just hearing it phrased in that way was enough for me to be like, 'I've got to text Jacob and ask if he has feelings for me'."

So that's exactly what Samantha did.

"I'd never done something like that before, but I just had this gut feeling that I needed to do it. And I asked him if he ever felt more for me than just a friend.

"And he said… 'What do you mean?'"

It's not exactly a rom-com script, but Jacob had his reasons.

"I was scared. I was like, 'This is what I want and it is what I feel, but I'm scared that I'm not going to successfully be able to be in a relationship with her, because she's a woman, and it's gonna f**k everything up'."

But two minutes after sending his reply to Samantha, Jacob realised it "wasn't a sufficient answer".

"So I said, 'I'm willing to try this; of course I feel more. You're more than a friend, and you're like nobody else in my life'."

They reunited a week later when Jacob visited Samantha for the opening night of her theatre show.

"There was fear in the back of my head, but then we came together as a couple and all of that doubt went away," said Jacob.

So, they started dating romantically. For a year, things were great.

"So I said, 'I'm willing to try this; of course I feel more. " Image: Supplied

"In terms of the connection we had, and the way we were existing together, it was perfect. We were working together, there was nothing about what was going on that made it seem like we wouldn't work."

Then the doubt crept back in.

"I started feeling like, 'Oh, am I holding him back?'," Samantha recalled. "I didn't want him to feel like he couldn't be his truest self."

The idea of a gay man and a straight woman being together forever seemed implausible; unrealistic.

So, the couple decided to seek out a therapist. And something amazing happened.

"We started telling her our story, and she was like, 'I'm sorry, but I have to tell you that I am a straight woman, and I consider myself a straight woman, but I am married to a woman, and she's the only woman I've ever been attracted to, and meeting you guys is kind of blowing my mind right now, because I didn't realise that there were other people in this dynamic'."

The technical term for the dynamic is 'mixed-orientation relationship', where each spouse has a different sexual orientation.

"I have so many gay friends in my life, but I had never heard of a mixed-orientation relationship," said Samantha. "Once we had an example of this relationship existing, and it being told to us in a way that just felt so practical, we realised that these relationships exist, they're just not talked about. This is just a variation of love that happens."

'Mixed-orientation relationships' often get confused with the concept of 'Lavender marriages', but this doesn't bother Samantha and Jacob.

"Historically, a lavender marriage was a marriage of convenience, but also, in this day and age, most of them are marriages of convenience, where people are like, 'You know what? I don't want to live life alone, so I'm gonna marry my gay best friend'. If that's where life takes you, that's totally fine," Jacob said.

"Mixed-orientation relationships are people who have different sexual orientations and preferences, and they happen to be in a love relationship.

"What we've decided is that we are a lavender marriage with a more updated definition that we think is a healthier way of life," he continued.

"We're going to continue to say 'mixed-orientation', but maybe we also have to allow space for mixed-orientation relationships within the realm of lavender marriages, and show that, yes, technically, a gay man married to a straight person would be a lavender marriage. But we want to make it very clear that we are a love match. We're not just in love because we're friend soul-mates; it's a romantic tie that is like any other hetero or homosexual relationship."

This goes for intimacy as well.

"We have sex. We're not weird or wild. We say it's like our two souls coming together. It's completely fulfilling to me," said Jacob.

Samantha added: "We hold hands in public, he'll put his arm around me if we're at the grocery store and we're just standing around in line. It's very traditional for the packaging being untraditional."

While Samantha's family is quite progressive, it took a while to open up to Jacob's parents.

Jacob and Samantha on their wedding day. Image: Instagram/@briarsatlas

"I was not out to my family yet, and I was very selective as to who I told about being gay, because there was a lot of fear of rejection. I was made fun of a lot," Jacob shared.

"My dad's family is very conservative. Growing up, my dad and I had confrontations. I would sit there and watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show over and over and over again, and he was suspicious. I never was interested in sports. I like musicals. He was like, 'Are you gay? What is going on?' And we would get in these fights."

For Samantha, it was hard to watch the man she loved keep a part of himself hidden.

"He's so honest about everything in all other aspects of his life," she told Mamamia. "So to see this honest person feel like he could not be honest with his family, I definitely saw him struggle with his own personality in a way."

Surprisingly, it was COVID that encouraged Jacob to confide in his family. 

"It was one of those sicknesses where you get the chills and you have a fever, and you feel like you're on death's door. And I started having reflections about my life, and I thought, 'If I was to die, I would not want to die not telling my dad this'," Jacob explained.

"So I woke up the next day and called him and told him, and he was confused, but accepting. It immediately relinquished so much anger."

In November 2024, after seven years together, Jacob and Samantha got married in Florida, United States.

"The day was amazing. It was perfect. We decided that we really wanted to keep it small and have it be our family and a couple of friends. So, it was 35 people total," said Samantha.

"It was truly magical. It was exactly what I feel like a wedding should be. We made it about us. We had this moment where we were just sitting there and looking at all of these people in our lives who had never met before, but have shaped us so much, just getting along and loving each other. Anyone could have been sitting next to anyone, and it would have been this big, happy, joyful moment."

For those who still don't quite understand their relationship, Jacob and Samantha have one message.

"When you find the right person, it doesn't matter what you come to the table with, it has a way of working itself out," said Jacob. "Don't ignore the signs if it doesn't come in the box you were expecting, or the box that you have known in the past, because it might just be right."

Samantha added: "Love is love, like everyone says. This is another incarnation of that."

You can follow Jacob and Samantha's story on TikTok here and here.

Feature Image: Instagram/@samanthawynngreenstone/@jacobmhoff