Partnered Bisexuals, What Do You Do?

Threes alot of good social media support groups !

 

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If you have a FB account theres plenty groups there

 

I might be wrong but I haven’t seen a forum or community quiet like this one. Also where I live I don’t have access to actual lgbtq community centers, nor do do we have meetups or anything remotely like that so when I found this forum and interacted with some of the people here and advisors I really liked it.

 

All we have are clandestine underground things and shady cruising areas and the apps which is in my opinion are mostly for hookups. Not for people who want to actually talk and build a kind of friendship and connection first.

 

So @Andoni what have you discovered lately about yourself or other stuff related to this topic.Your wants or needs Vs your relationship. I haven’t seen a lot of threads that you wrote maybe it was a while ago.

 

There are quite a few of us on here that have very similar situations. In my case, I was in denial for over thirty years. Throughout my youth is was easier to pursue my attraction to females and supress my attraction to males. It seemed like there was only stright or gay, when I was a kid and gay was bad, not just bad but a horible, perverted thing.

All that being said, I pursued heterosexual realationships and had a good time doing that, especially while in the Navy. You know what they say, a girl in every port.

After the navy, I re-aquainted myself with a friend from my youth, who was just a friend, then a girlfriend, then my wife. We have a child and and had a great marriage. Due to health and phyisical issues, which also stemmed into emotional issues, our intimacey suffered for over fifteen years. I love her very much and have stuck with her and have no plans to change that.

About two years ago, many things happened with me emotionally. I lost my mom, my last living parent. Finantially we almost lost it all, of which I have no support as it is just me due to my wife's physical/emotional condition. Work pressures were horendous and I had some PTSD issues keeping me from sleeping regularly. Add to that my libedo was off the charts and the fluid nature of my sexuality was leaning toward men, hard. Which in my messed up mind was perverse. The veterans crisis hotline saved my life and I decided to make some changes including putting to rest this homophobia in my mind. I accepted myself as bi and the foodgates of relief that went through me were amazing.

Long story longer, I accepted myself as bi at 51years old, married, and with a son. Though my son was 21 at the time. Because of the fragility of my wife, I chose not to tell her. Looking back that was somewhat of a mistake, in that some of the turmoil I have had was caused by this. However as many of us know, we all have to come out at our own rate and in our own ways. I know there is no right or wrong way of doing it. This being said, not so much my wife's opinion.

As you may have guessed, about a year later, my wife asked me point blank what was going on, becuase I was pulling away from the caretaker relationship I had going on with her. I was honest and told her I was bi. She didn't take it well, which is what I expected, mainly because of he frigile emotional state. We agreed to counseling and have worked through a whole lot and are doing well now. The important thing is we did not lose the love we have for one another, we just lost the status quo of our marriage, which frankly had to happen regardless of me comming out.

Our marriage is much healthier now in that we are more open, and like you mentioned, more intimate than we have been in YEARS. We are learning to have a new and improved life together. We have our ups and downs, but there are now more ups than before. She knows I have a desire for men, but not a desire for romantic relationship with men. She doesn't have a problem with me having a FWB, which I have.

This is a friend, not a lover. His and my relationship has more to do with friendship than sex, but there is sex and it is GOOD. We talk, hike trails, do outdoor things my wife and I don't do, comiserate, drink beer, bbq, etc.. Aaaand we have sex ocasionally.

My wife and I talk more. We do more together and are more intimate than we have been in a long time. We actually LIVE together again, rather than exist together.

Man this was long. My appologies to all that read this. Peace!

 

I hear you loud and clear. I actually stopped bringing up that discussion with my wife. Because I realized we are getting no where. It always comes down to arguing, fighting or emotional. I tried to make her understand me and where am coming from. That’s it’s not about her or that I want to hurt her, cheat, or lie. But inevitably that’s what she believes.
Even when i met a couple of gay people I was honest about it. But she didn’t trust me or them. Two of them were maybe bi or I assumed they were because they had ex girlfriends.

What I know now is that am kind of like you in a sense that i can grow fond of people that I like after awhile. If it’s just like a one time thing with a random guy, I don’t probably think it would matter. But I don’t really want that .
It’s like I want my relationship and I would like to explore the other side of me as well. But in reality it wouldn’t work and I would probably lose my relationship if I go with that.

There of course other ways that people may agree on like you mentioned and others mentioned as well. Maybe something like a FWB kind of situation could work or would it? I know it has worked for some people but it may not work for others.

Both partners have to agree to that also what if one of the parties involved started to develop more of an attachment to the other. Then what would happen?

 

FWB gets to pack his lunch box and hit the bricks, because in the end it is your soulmate that trumps the FWB every time. That would be hard, but like I said between soulmate and FWB, soulmate wins. This is where it happens with us. She knows she is my soulmate and I am hers, so I ain't going anywhere. Where it would not work is if she could not accept ALL of me. I told her straight up I was NOT going back into the closet. If I lose her, it would KILL me. If I go back to her perceived idea of a perfect marriage, it would KILL me. After that I said, what I mean is I envision a new and BETTER marriage than we had before.

Through counseling, we are both learning what new dynamics we have. She is learning what being bisexual means to me and how I would like it to work. I am learning that it is not my responsibility to fix everything that goes wrong and that my feelings count too. They always have, but I have bit the bullet so much so often that I try, or was trying to please EVERYONE, but myself. She is also learning that I have felt that way for a long time and that basically I have been holding shit together in our lives by myself. Which is a revelation for her and has helped her realize I have not been trying to replace her or leave our marriage. The nice part is, she is stepping up to the plate to help more. Something I thought she was too fragile for. There is a learning curve for both of us. Sometimes we crash and burn, but we work it out.

 

Yeah Friendships can be more tricky now for me too. Because I live in a small conservative town and I think some people know or have an idea of who I was hanging with at one time or the other and also the apps and all. I do get more of a strange vibe or a certain kind of look. It bothered me at first but now I mostly ignore it.

I am not Homophobic at all. But unfortunately lot of people around me are.

I want to mention things regarding the apps. And some people in general.
Be more wary about people in those apps because not all of them can be honest. Not all of them are what they seem. And not all of them are actually gay or bi either. That’s why I stopped using these apps.

No judgments but it is what it is.

“Yeah, that's the frustrating thing. If society was more accepting, a lot of the less healthy aspects of gay life that people have to judge wouldn't be necessary. Things are improving though. I hope I get to see a time whenhumanity can love all of what it is. I think we're starting to see some promising shifts.Not everywhere, of course.”

I wish things are the way you wrote in the above paragraph. I mentioned similar things in older post a while back I don’t know where

There is progress of course and acceptance but not everywhere. Mostly in bigger cities that are more liberal.

 

@Isbjorn is killing it tonight! Thanks for sharing and your honesty.

 

Hope you find something