Looking for acceptance. Armando Rubio has fallen for Kenneth Niedermeier on season two of 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way, but the Mexico native still hasn’t gotten the approval of his family.
“I haven’t talked to my family in three years about me being gay, because I’ve heard comments about them still not accepting it, still not wanting to see it,” Armando, 31, says in Us Weekly‘s exclusive sneak peek of the Monday, June 22, episode. “I’m very scared. I don’t know what to expect. I just do not want them to keep denying it.”
Armando and Kenneth, 57, are the first male same-sex couple to be featured on the show and despite their age difference, are determined to make their relationship work. However, Armando has always struggled — even marrying the mother of his 6-year-old child when he wasn’t yet ready to come out.
“As you know, we’ve talked about it once before. I’ve spent my whole life hiding who I am. I know that maybe having been married may have confused you, but I did it for you so that people wouldn’t talk about you,” he tells his parents in the clip, pausing to wipe tears from his eyes. “There were nights where I cried alone because of hiding who I was.”
His mom also breaks down in tears in the clip, as he continues to explain that it’s been “hard” living his life, feeling like his parents don’t love him.
Previously, Armando opened up about his past relationship with a woman — the only one he had been in. “My first relationship was with Hannah’s mother,” he recently revealed. “Even though at a very young age, I knew I was gay, given the macho culture I was brought up in, I wanted to have a relationship with a woman. And I thought that this was the only possible way that these feelings could go away and I could be a man. … After we had been married for about eight years, I decided to tell Hannah’s mother that I was gay.”
He also noted that his ex-wife was heartbroken and “kinda lost” by the news. She died a few months later in a tragic accident.
For more, watch the full clip above.
90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way airs on TLC Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
