The story aired in 2007 on Forbidden Love's sister soap Marienhof (St. Mary's Court). The story ran for 8 months.

What makes it different from most other current gay storylines is that it wasn't really primarily a love story (or trying to be one). I would say it is mostly an intrigue story. 

Anyway, it goes like this: 

Sülo is a turkish Muslim and owner of a tiny store for fruits and vegetables. He starts having an affair with high school teacher Mischa Hofmeister (which includes spontaneous sex on the desk in the teachers' lounge). 

Sülo eventually freaks out about the relationship (his first affair with a male) and proposes to his ex Constanze to "give his son a mother again" (the whole story is triggered by the death of Sülo's babymame who lives with another guy). Still, Sülo can't stay away from Mischa and Mischa asks him to call off the wedding. 

Sülo makes a somewhat valiant effort to alienate his bride and run off the day of the wedding. Alas, his bride unwittingly has brought on the big guns when she opens to door and Sülo's family from Turkey comes in. 

Without knowing the reason why Sülo is standing up his bride on the wedding day Sülo's uncle begs him to man up and not bring any more shame on the family. Sülo relents and the wedding goes through. 

I wanna add at this point that this is all very, very soapy. For example, for the first part of the ceremony where the wife says her vows we never actually see the wedding, we just see Mischa's face as he sits there alone with the voices from the ceremony drowning on in the background. We thenswitch over to the ceremony itself with a long soapy pause when the Imam asks Sülo whether any outside force was involved in his decision. 

Mischa when shows up at the after-wedding party, catching the bouquet and holded a long impassioned coded speech about how love should be about courage and truth. 

So far, so soapy.  Sülo has gotten married but the affair continues that both suffer from chronic can't keep their pants on around each other disease. 

It turns into a classic affair storyline, particularly with a long convoluted plot about some stolen pictures that almost gets them caught. And just as they think they have evaded getting caught, they get caught (it's a soap after all). 

But you see, that is where the twist comes in. The thing is, Sülo didn't just marry anybody. No, Sülo married the town bitch. Think of her as the German Sheila Carter. So rather than freaking out about her husband cheating on her she sits down and immediately begins plotting how to get back at him and ruin his life. 

Her plot is to continue acting like nothing has happened and eventually steal Sülo's beloved son away from him. To get sole custody of the child even though she isn't a biological parent and he is. She starts this off by cutting the breaks on his car and then preventing a crash. She then argues that because Sülo had such a close call with death, it would be wise if she adopted Sülo's son. She then has to stay in the marriage while the adoption proceedings are still going on. 

During this time period the scheming triangle dynamic is going on full force. She schemes to get Sülo and Mischa fighting with each other. Mischa begins to suspect that she already knows the truth, but can't prove it. Mischa and Sülo break up a bunch of times during this period and she actually sets them up to meet so she can tape them when they again can't keep their pants on around each other. 

Sülo and Mischa finally realize that she has been scheming against them and try to stop the adoption. Alas, the adoptino went through and Constanze kicks Sülo out of the apartment. 

However, her work isn't done yet. There is a hilarious scene where she shows the social worker the tape of Mischa and Sülo rolling around in bed and the social worker dryly comments she'll need something more impressive than her husbaned "reorienting himself sexually" to cost him his parental rights. 

So she decides to frame Sülo for child and spousal abuse. 

During this time period Mischa considers to leave town and leave Sülo but Sülo stops him from leaving, begs him to stay and tells him that he loves him right in front of the eyes of his cousin and his cousin's husband. From this point Mischa and Sülo are basically an out couple (before that only Sülo's best man knew about the affair) and really nobody in St. Mary's Court gives a damn. 

They mostly try to counter Constanze's schemes, which include lots of talking to herself, trying to brainwash the child, injuring herself and managing again and again goading Sülo into angry outbursts.

This tit for tat takes up a long time and really takes a toll mentally on everybody involved, including Sülo and Mischa (particularly Sülo falls apart and lets it out on Mischa when his ex manages to poison his child against him while Mischa keeps urging him to use more drastic measures to counter Constanze's schemes). Alas, goodness prevails and Mischa finally manages to catch Constanze in her lies with a brilliant double maneuvre (Mischa is pretty much the brains in the relationship). 

Sülo then caps it off by scaring the bejeezus out of his ex and forcing her to give up even her visitation rights rather than just her custody rights. 

What is hard to capture in just a short recap is the dynamics of the entire storyline which are very, very gritty. Particularly during the affair part of the story. These aren't sad torrid lovers kept apart by evil fate. This is a nitty gritty affair story and nobody comes off as saint. Mischa and Sülo argue because Mischa doesn't want to be just an affair. Mischa then changes his mind and says he is okay with being the other person.  On the day of the wedding Sülo asks Mischa to come over for a little adventure (Mischa declines). Sülo breaks up with Mischa because he thinks that Mischa has been stepping too close to Constanze and wants to reveal their affair. Sülo makes it clear that he loves his son more than Mischa. Mischa breaks up with Sülo because Sülo never consideres that he and Mischa and Sülo's son could also be a family. Sülo brags that he is still sleeping with his wife. Mischa sleeps with another guy and Sülo throws a huge entitled jealous fit. Sülo accuses Mischa of having the devil inside him. And and and... These aren't necessarily nice people. 

Anyway, Sülo finally gets his son back but there are still problems because Constanze has brainwashed the kid to stop speaking. But at least the kid finally speaks and Sülo gets his version of a happy end with the person he really loves. 

Sadly the actor who played Mischa had only a 8 month contract and even though he was asked to return declined and said he had no interest in a longer contract. 

So in the end Sülo breaks up with Mischa saying that he still can't deal with being a gay man and he wants to just take some time off and concentrate on raising his son. Mischa asks Sülo if Sülo ever really loved him and Sülo says he did. Mischa eventually leaves but not before he gets to do a great going off on Sülo scene where he calls Sülo on using him. Constanze also gets a great shot at Sülo be pointing out that Sülo is a huge coward and if he had had just had the guts to tell the truth and no marry her then none of this would have happened and it really is all his fault. 

By the end of the story Sülo tentatively begins to refer to himself as gay (for example, he manhandled some punk by telling him if he doesn't shut up he can go home and tell his mom that he got beat up by a turkish Schwuchtel). And he has more or less stuck by hid word. He is still on the show, raising his son, having storylines with his friends and hasn't had a new romance, male or female since then. He still mentions Mischa on occasion. 

There was also a pretty hilarious storyline where one of Sülo's friends has to sleep over and gets really paranoid about the whole gay thing and Sülo teases him mercilessly. 

To summarize... is it a good gay storyline? Probably not. The focus of the storyline is very definitely on the whole scheming bitch aspect/intrigue aspect. And the ending is quite unsatisfying. I wouldn't call it anti-gay, but I wouldn't call it pro-gay either. 

But is it a well written storyline? I think so. The dynamics are very gritty, but they feel very realistic for a high pressure affair storyline and the scheming hateful bitch parts are very well done. It is immensely satisfying when Mischa and Sülo finally manage to bring her down.  

And before you start complaining why there are never any happy gay couples on soaps, well, there are. The soap is Lindenstrasse and the couple is Carsten and Käthe. 

But that's a different story ;)