I am Bisexual: finding myself and reflections on how I got here

It’s been six months after I woke up to the fact that feeling a compulsive need to seek out same-sex intimacy was not the general behaviour of straight men and that I had been leading a double life since I was a child.

I just want to update everyone on my progress thus far and thank you all for the support and community that I have found here.

After living in denial for most of my life and repressing my same-sex attraction, refusing to acknowledge it even to myself, I’ve finally allowed myself to seriously take a look at who I am without assuming I am who I’ve been told I should be.

The catalyst for this was meeting up with another man for an anonymous sexual encounter via a popular app. The experience entailed a kiss and some brief mutual masturbation. It was halfway through this experience that I ‘woke up’ to what I was doing and left. I couldn’t rationalise this behaviour as innocent curiosity like I managed to do with my somewhat regular usage of gay porn, chatting to other gay men via a hookup app, and having a ‘full’ massage from a male massage therapist. Somehow, I was able to deny to myself that any of these actions were those of a man who was not straight. After all, I was *only* seeing what happened in gay porn, I was *only* speaking with gay men, and I was *only* enjoying a massage from a therapist, regardless of how it (and I) finished.

My moment of ‘awakening’ during my encounter with the man from the app lead to one of the most traumatic periods of my life. Who on earth was I? On the one hand I was a faithful, straight husband, and on the other I was a not-straight man who cheated on his wife. I felt like utter ****, and I still feel such a sense of guilt about my actions as I type this.

Thankfully, I have since found myself.

I am a bisexual man. Always have been; always will be.

Since my catalyst moment, I have been in a state of mental chaos, unsure of who I am or what parts of my self were kept hidden from me. It is a hideous thing to not know or trust yourself. It makes you doubt everything you know to be true.

I went through long periods of thinking I was bisexual, and then gay and then bisexual and then gay… and on and on and on.

What finally allowed me to settle on bisexuality as a label that best defines me was two different experiences: first, allowing myself to ’accept’ me as a gay man, and then realising that this label didn’t seem to fit. Second, realising that I still notice and sexually desire women right now, just like I always have done throughout my life. I’ll elaborate on each of these experiences a little further.

Last week I allowed myself to say ‘I am gay’, after having the pressure to say it float around in my head for so long. What followed was relief, followed by a feeling of, ‘oh, that’s it’? I suppose I expected to cry or break down or something. I didn’t. I adopted this identity for the next few days, but all the while something about it felt off to me. Not that I was scared of being a gay man — I’m not bothered by that, I just want truth. The thing that bothered me was that it just felt a little too inauthentic to say I was gay and adopt this identity, like I was distorting my experiences and discounting other aspects of me that were also true. Yes, I am sexually and emotionally drawn to men, but that’s not all, is it? I knew that it wasn’t.

If you’ve read some of my other threads, you’ll see that I have been struggling with the idea that my attraction to women is something put upon me by a heteronormative society and a fundamentalist Christian upbringing. For a while I was starting to see myself as a gay man who was forced into being drawn to women. After all, I have lots of very strong and apparent fantasies and desires to be with other men. They seem so overpowering at times, and I thought that the intensity of these feelings and fantasies must indicate that I am gay. All the coming out stories from other closeted gay men made me think that perhaps I was one too. I now know I am not.

After months of thinking on this, I have come to the conclusion that this is just not the case. I am not gay. I have always been sexually and emotionally drawn to women too. I managed to date and marry a woman, and I had no inclination that this was just a pretence to hide my gay orientation. Just yesterday I was standing behind an attractive lady in a queue and my mind began to fantasise about her and I felt drawn to her. I didn’t try to do this, it just happened. She popped back into my thoughts the next day too. I’ve always noticed women like this. More so than men even.

I stared to feel guilty for having these opposite-sex desires because of my newly adopted gay identity. It felt like I was not being true to myself by choosing to identify as gay. I can imagine me in a romantic and sexual relationship with another man, but I think that if this were an exclusive relationship, I would miss and still have a longing for women too. Just like I do now for men. The gay label does not ‘fit’ me, despite me trying to make it fit. It feels inauthentic to adopt it exclusivley.

I have come to accept that my fantasies and desires for the same sex are an equally valid part of me that has been suppressed for so long. But they are not in any way more true than my societally ’acceptable’, heterosexual desire for women. They can co-exist together, and now I am starting to remove the shame associated with same-sex attraction, I can enjoy these dual sides of my sexuality.

I am compatible with both men and women, emotionally and sexually. This feels right. The bisexual identity fits me in a way that the straight and gay labels do not. I have now come to see bisexuality as the most accurate description of my sexual orientation, and not simply as part of the bargaining phase on my way to acceptance, as I previously thought it might be. It actually took me to try and accept myself as a gay man to realise that I am truly bisexual and not exclusively gay.

I feel relived and happy. I feel that I now know myself once again and that the chaos and discord in my head has ceased. Thank god.

Looking back now, I can see why I embarked on the aforementioend same-sex experimentation: for my entire life I have been conditioned to see same-sex relationships as sinful, and that sinful, unrepentant people would be punished by god at a final judgment. I was taught that if I did anything wrong that I should confess it to god and forget that it ever happened, as he would forgive me and spare me from hell. Using this model as a child, I was able to seek forgiveness myself for any behaviour or even thoughts that were deemed ‘wrong’ by my church. I was never taught how to be vulnerable with others about how I felt and to share my feelings with others, knowing that I would be accepted regardless. I was taught to manage wrong feelings and behaviours in secrecy. Although my parents were always accepting of me and tried to encourage me to talk about how I felt, the fear of divine judgment overrode their acceptance, and because they were Christians of this variety too, I knew that they were part of this system at some level.

I knew that everyone else in my Christian bubble would disapprove of ‘wrong’ behaviour or thoughts, so why would I tell them about my ‘sins’? I didn’t need to anyway, as they were between god and me alone. I was given a ridged, black-and-white model to live my life by, and a method of repentance to restore me in god’s sight when I was inevitably unable to live up to that self-righteous model of behaviour.

Even though I left behind these fundamentalist beliefs years ago, it seems that my behaviour was still moderated by the secrecy and shame that it taught me. When I felt my desire for other men arise again, I suppressed it, hoped it would go away and soldiered on with being a good husband. Although I no longer felt the need to repent of these thoughts because they were sinful, I was conditioned to believe that they should never be shared with others, and were unimportant struggles that all straight, married people had to deal with. My marriage didn’t exactly provide the safe environment to raise these thoughts either, as my wife has been dealing with chronic physical illness and mental health issues. So I unwittingly stayed in the closet and continued to live in denial.

Things have changed now. Over the last few months I’ve resolved to embrace living an honest life and not the secret, shame-filled existence I have lived for so long. I realise that being honest and vulnerable might bring more pain to my wife and I, but I can’t live back in the secrecy and shame of the closet now that I can see the destructive behaviour that such secrecy and self-denial led me to.

At present, I honestly have no idea how my marriage will work out. I suppose we’ll be faced with living in a monogamous, mixed-orientation marriage or separating. My wife has forgiven me for betraying her trust, and I need to try and forgive myself now. This is much easier said than done, but it is getting easier day-by-day.

My wife knows that I am attracted to men on some level. I’ve not come out to her as a bisexual yet, as I’ve only recently done so to myself. To be honest, I think she’ll be relived, as she no doubt thinks that I am gay and not attracted to her at all, which isn’t the case.

No doubt I’ll be making more threads about how I try and fit my bisexuality into our monogamous marriage, and I don’t know how it will work out.

For now, I can rest in the fact that I now understand myself as a bisexual man and no longer need to live in denial or shame. This comes as a huge relief.

Again, I want to thank everyone who has helped me along my journey thus far, and those who have just read through my (admittedly rather long!) posts.

Thank you! (&&&)

 

sounds like you have been giving this a lot of thought. In trying to read this thread and compare it to other threads of yours (which I can not specifically recall but need to go back and read) I am a bit confused. So would you mind just clarifying a few things succinctly so we call all be sure we are reading this correctly:

1. You now are comfortable you are bi? Has a therapist helped you come to this conclusion or is this an identity you concluded on your own?
2. Have you told your wife previously you thought you were gay? When do you plan to tell her your bi?
3. Does your wife know you met with a guy to experiment?
4. Once your wife knows your bi, what is it you want out of the relationship with her? What would you the ideal relationship be?
5. Are you going to couples counseling?

 

Sure.

1. I am. I have spoken to a few therapists, including a LGBT-specialising therapist, and we have discussed sexuality as a spectrum and where I see myself falling on it. I have arrived at the conclusion that I seem to fluctuate from attractions to both men and women regularly, but that I never fall exclusively at one end or the other of the spectrum, even though sometimes it seems like I am close to one end or the other. Pinning myself down to only one of these ends seems inauthentic to my desires and experiences.

2. I told her I am attracted to men in some way, and that I may even be gay. She has given me space to figure this out. I have not yet told her I am bisexual.

3. She does. I told her after it happened.

4. Not sure at present. This is what I am reflecting on now. I love her, but I am not sure how to manage my attraction to men in a monogamous relationship. That part of me will always feel unfulfilled. I'm sure that I would feel this way towards women if I was in a monogamous relationship with a man too.

5. We most likely will do after I come out to her as bisexual.

 

Got it, thanks for clarifying. it sounds like you are being thoughtful and taking the right steps. Also, you must feel a sense of relief now that you better understand your sexuality.

A couples counselor should be able to really help both you and your wife figure out together what type of relationship will work best. At this point, keep an open mind (as it sounds like you are), continue to be transparent with your wife, and see where the discussions take you. I imagine the process to figure out what type of relationship will work will be quite evolutionary as you and your wife discuss it together.

Good luck on your continued journey!

 

Thanks, OTH. You've been a great help in getting me to this point

Yes, I feel such a massive sense of relief. My wife has commented that I seem more like my usual self again (more upbeat, smiling etc.).

I agree that a couple's counsellor will be helpful, and that I need to be transparent about my needs and open-minded about how our relationship may work out. My wife has definitely stated that monogamy is one of her core values of a relationship, and I respect that. Whether or not I can share this commitment is something I will be reflecting on now.

 

Well, I appreciate she is saying that now, and it sounds like your debating that yourself as well. The mind can do some crazy things when faced with hard choices - for the both of you.

After I came out and told my ex I was gay, after some discussion, she came to me and asked that we stay together even if I needed to "do my thing". I was actually quite surprised that she would have wanted to do that. However, I also concluded I did not just want to "do my thing" but rather I wanted to live completely authentic from there on out. We did go to a counselor and it became clear to the both of us what the right path would be.

So, you never know how things will play out. The one piece of advise, as I stated before and as you already recognize, is for complete transparency. It might be painful, but at least you will have absolute clarity, as will you wife, and together you can both make the right decisions.

 

Just a quickie about some advice I got here a year ago. As a bi myself, I'd been challenged by the difficulty in finding my desired authentic part time guy lover … among all the men out there trolling for gay sex. In my case … I was particularly attracted to younger hot guys, who usually had no authenticity.

The advice was to seek a compromise: find a guy where there was at least some attraction, open to a part time relationship, & where there was some sexual juice. I've found it in a guy who used to be married, like myself. We have sexual compatibility - he's a bttm, I'm a top. That balance is essential. We have a good heart connection, we're both spiritual. He's handsome enough. Maybe not a GQ type, but I've always found when u are authentically close to someone, man or woman … u mostly forget their appearance, because u have a solid intimate bond that is much more important.

 

Congratulations on finding yourself!

I have found comfort in embracing the label "bisexual" myself. I know labels aren't for everybody, but the bi label has been so awesome for me understanding myself over the years. Not straight, not gay. Definitely bi.

You can be married to an opposite-sex spouse and monogamous and still bisexual. Lots of us are.

Some bisexuals find polyamory to be the right thing. It's not for me, but I respect that.

You've made the most important step by coming out to yourself. Congratulations - be an awesome bisexual, rock it!

Whether you decide to come out (like I have) or not, you're still bisexual, and I wish you happiness wherever your journey takes you. (*hug*)

 

Great update. I definitely can relate to much of your situation. Particularly in regards to the gay vs. Bi question.