Married Closet Bisexual

If I'm hearing you right, then it's not that you're not attracted to your wife, it's just that you are finding yourself attracted to men as well (and may not have ever acted on it).

I'm glad that your friend is being supportive, but I do disagree with her on the question of coming out to your wife - keeping it a secret forever will not protect your family (after all, it's already causing you stress, and you're part of the family).

This could be a questions of revisiting your marriage and seeing how it's going, or of looking into individual counseling to help you sort out some of these thoughts.

 

Hi Keith,

I read through your thread in the other forum and thought I'd reply here. I think this forum gets more attention.

I'm in a similar situation, married with kids, with no desire to end the relationship. However, I'm still coming to terms with my sexuality. I think that I've probably always been bisexual, but I'm moving away from mostly being attracted to men toward feeling increasing attraction to women. This is causing problems because my attraction to my husband has been eroding for a while, and I'm struggling to get it back.

My question for you is: are you satisfied with your relationship with your wife, both romantically and sexually?

This predicament is hard for me to understand, because the way I see bisexuality is that you have the capacity to be attracted to both men and women. You may lean more toward men or women at any stage in life, and it may change by the day, the month, the decade. For me personally, I just don't see it as needing both to have a man and a woman in my life romantically. I guess I see that more as being polyamorous than bisexual, do you know what I mean?

Anyway, back to the coming out question - now that you've told your best friend, do you want to tell more people? Really think about that, because if you do, you really will need to tell your wife. It'll be an even bigger blow if she knows that you've discussed this in depth with other people in your life before talking with her.

I wish you all the best

 

Hi Keith

I could have written your letter 20 years ago. I am bisexual and have been married for over 30 years and still love my wife and am attracted to her. I, too, knew I was bisexual when I married and didn't really tell my wife (I did when we were dating but she doesn't even remember it). My gay desires just seemed optional to me. And, not acting on them really was a choice. I was sexually satisfied for the first fifteen or twenty years. But, as my wife aged, she became less interested in sex (it happens), and I started to desire sex with men and began to fantasize about it.

When I hit middle age, I started to resent my wife for the loss of my straight and gay sex life. So, I had a rough couple years and I took it out on her. I was angry, depressed and anxious. Finally, I decided to cheat on her (I had never been with a man). I couldn't go through with it. But, I decided I needed to tell my wife; which I did in May of this year.

She took it very well. It, actually, stimulated our intimacy. I was finally able to be all of me with someone. Nothing to hide any longer. Hiding this secret was destroying me a day at a time and I couldn't even see what I had become. I do now. I am much more open with everyone. All my relationships with family, friends, coworkers are better. In the process of hiding my gay desires, I was hiding a lot of my personality. My wife is, in a word, thrilled because I am the boy she married.

I am not out to my friends and family. There is no reason to be. My wife does not want the scrutiny of our marriage and I respect that since it affects her and we are a team.

I also, now, have a gay life that is part of the marriage. My wife attends Pride events, we guy watch together, and I share my gay fantasies with her. It is a part of me and she wants to share that. She also decided I could have some intimacy with men to satisfy that part of my gay sexuality.

I am older, and no kids. I think that can make a difference on how my wife accepted it. So, it may not be the time for you to disclose this to your wife. Only you will know this. But, I urge you not to let it go as long as I did because the secret will eat you up. You know you don't have to act on your desires. I equate this with my attraction to other women. I can look but not touch.

Someday, your wife may be comfortable with an open marriage. This could take a lot of communication and trust. Part of the reason my wife is good with it is because she knows I didn't cheat.

I hope this helps to hear from another guy who knows how this feels.

 

I have been in that situation and am now divorced, although I never came out to my ex-wife (other problems in the marriage). If you're completely happy in your marriage I'm not sure what would be gained by coming out to your wife, and coming out would no doubt change your marriage forever. Is struggling with a desire to have sex with another man any different than struggling with a desire to have sex with a woman who is not your wife? I would recommend thinking about all of your options and the possible fall-out of coming out if you did--and have a plan of action. And find someone to talk to whose judgment you trust ... perhaps but not necessarily a therapist. I generally don't think that someone should dump news like this on a spouse (who is not there to be a therapist) unless the situation has become completely untenable and a change needs to be made.

 

Keith, are you sexually attracted to your wife? Or do you feel that you'd be more fulfilled (sexually and emotionally) in the relationship with a man? What are your sexual fantasies? You should be extremely honest with yourself in responding to these questions. And, yes I think you should come out to your wife as bisexual, because so far your marriage has been based on lie. A partial one, but lie nevertheless. She is entitled to know the whole truth about your sexuality.
Best regards!

 

justaguyinsf

There is a lot to, potentially, gain by letting your spouse know something that is such a big part of you as this is.

When my wife stopped desiring sex, I felt like I could not really talk to her about it. I could not share my needs with her because I was always afraid that I would disclose my gay desires. So, I didn't share. Little by little our intimacy disappeared. The disclosure of my sexuality changed this almost overnight. I was able to be vulnerable and to share everything that I felt. My sex life with my wife and our intimacy in general is better than it has ever been. I thought I loved my wife before and now I am astounded by how much more my depth of feelings for her are with her acceptance of all of me.

To dismiss one half of your sexuality as unimportant enough to keep a secret from the one person you should share everything with is doing yourself a major dis-service. To deny yourself some expression of that sexuality, even in platonic ways, is also something I would not recommend.

Look, I know the fear of losing your spouse over this disclosure. I have about 100 posts here on this forum while I cried my way through this. But, getting this out was life changing for me.

 

Keith,

I just want to say that I was in your shoes earlier this year. Coming clean to my wife was the best decision I've made. We've been married for 13 years and have 4 kids. I had viciously repressed my bisexual side until finally admitting it to myself early this year, after finding out one of my friends is bisexual. I came out to my wife about 6 months ago and things have never been better.

I think one of the things that made my wife so accepting was that I hadn't cheated on her before coming out to her. She's been amazing, and as Nickw said, its great to share that part of me with her and to explore that side of things together. We've even started to explore an open-ish marriage. She's been incredibly supportive.

There's no predicting how your wife will take it. I was prepared for mine to leave me, but for me, there was no way I would want to stay in a marriage that was full of deception anyway. If she can't accept you for who you really are, do you really want to stay with her the rest of your life?

Things could go terribly wrong coming out to your wife, but they could also be better than ever.

 

Hi Keith!

Another married, bisexual guy here.

In my case, I've always had same-sex and opposite-sex attractions, I've always been bi as my sexual orientation. I've also always been monogamous, even back when I was single. I've been married 15 years, have two kids. Still attracted to, and like sex with, my wife. She's known I'm bi for a long time.

For me, my sexuality has been constant. As opposed to some bisexuals who are more fluid, I've just always liked both. Since I'm monogamous, I'm happy married to my wife, with a whole bunch of male and female attractive people out there that I'll never be involved with.

Still, keeping the secret just between me and my wife (well, and the gf before her, too) was eating me up slowly inside. I got tired of not being honest in life. So this year, I've been coming out to those in my life, and also getting involved volunteering at our local LGBT Center. Not easy to do, but with my wife's support, I've accomplished it. It can be done, and it feels great to be out.

You sound definitely bi.

I'd recommend thinking about whether monogamy is what you want. In addition to helping you with your own path, I can almost guarantee that is the #1 issue to your wife.

Also consider whether you want to be out publicly.

It can work out well. I am so much happier now, it worked for us.

Hugs and good luck!

 

Keith83. Only you can decide when it is right to share all of your sexuality. Bisexuality is not a choice. However, how we practice it, how we share this part of our sexuality with others is unique for each of us.

 

I understand completely I'M not going to give you advice here, you'll have to make your own decision. You can read my thread in this same section of forum ( It's time to tell you all.) That will explain why I don't think I should be giving you advice. There are a lot of people like us out there. Believe me you are not alone.:smilewave

 

What sort of conversations have you had with your wife over the years about different sexualities? For example, have you ever addressed the idea of either of your kids being gay... or bisexual when they are older? Have you ever talked about a celebrity who has come out as gay... or bisexual? Did you talk about any of these issues and your voting intentions during the Irish referendum campaign for same sex marriage?

Before coming out, we often need to test the water and observe reactions and I'm wondering if you've ever done that with your wife? What sort of vibes does she give off? Whilst it will offer no firm indication of how she would respond to you being bisexual, it may provide some clues.

I would try to open a conversation with her about the wider issue of sexuality (maybe in connection with your kids) and see how she responds. A good way of approaching it, might be to refer to the Kinsey scale - point out to her Alfred Kinsey's findings - that most people are somewhere between 100% straight and 100% gay.

What do you think about testing the water and let us know how it goes?

 

Keith83

Continue to share your story here. It took a lot of encouragement from this forum for me to find the strength to come out to my wife. Patricks's advice to test the waters a bit is good. It may help with your confidence. I knew my wife was LGBT friendly because she had gay friends and I have gay siblings. That helped, but I still worried about her being upset I had waited too long. She understood when I told her that hiding bisexuality is something we learn so young that it becomes second nature.

Here is my story:

http://emptyclosets.com/forum/lgbt-later-life/213359-my-wife-knows-everything.html

 

Keith

My wife said something similar about bisexuals a couple years before I came out to her. Part of the reason it was so hard to do. I have a brother who got divorced and a couple years later came out as bi. My family, and my wife, did not take it well at all. I have a huge family with two other gay siblings who are very well accepted. Yet, being bisexual was not received well at all.

I, too, was worried about my wife feeling like sexually she was inadequate. And, due to a screwed up hysterectomy, in a way, she was. So, for several months before I came out to her I started re-kindling our romance a little at a time. We went dancing, I gave her massages, did little favors as often as I could. Our sex life started to improve and so did the rest of our relationship. I let her know how much I loved her.

After I came out, I confessed that I had been worried about how she would react and I wanted the marriage as strong as it could be. Especially since I had been lying for so many years. She just brushed all that off.

I took about 4 months from when I decided to tell her till when I could do it. Don't feel like you need to rush this. It needs to be when you are ready.

Don't let her catch you with porn. My wife would have hated this. It was much better to talk about the "clean" parts of being bisexual. If you are looking for something to force you to come out you may not be ready. Do it on your terms.