So, about that post-coming out high ...

Svenbutton

Your description is great. Yes, I felt that. Two years later, I still feel it sometimes...more often than feeling sad...which also comes and goes.

I've never, not for a moment, regretted coming out to my wife. But, I have regretted coming out to the local gay group.

For me, I've learned to pick my battles.

The freedom you feeling is addictive, isn't it?

 

I am glad you have gotten to where you are. When it comes down to it we are all who we are no matter what we say or do. We are who we are, and sharing who we are with others is a good thing.

No matter what we have to share or why.

 

I know that feeling well, even now almost 2 years out and almost 1 year into an openly gay relationship I am still on a high! I still feel the sense of liberation, of being who I was always meant to be. Every morning I want to pinch myself that I had the courage to embrace my homosexuality and to daily wake up next to a gorgeous man and be a real couple. I feel like I have been let in on a marvelous secret, you can find emotional, intellectual and sexual fulfillment with another man. No need to buy into the heteronormative brain washing by society that you can only find happiness with a woman. I love being gay and only wish I had realized it earlier. I continue to embrace more and more of my gayness as I grow as a happy open homosexual.

 

In wrote a post a few years back relating, is similar form, to listening to music while at the gym. And how I was not just listening to the music, but actually feeling it. It seemed to take over my entire body. It was amazing.

For me, it was my emotional wall starting to come down allowing me to feel emotions that I previously ignored. What a ride it has been ever since!

 

Hey Sevnbutton

Can you articulate why your wife is angry with you? What are her issues with your sexuality?

 

Hmmm. Part of sexual attraction is be desired. I have issues with my wife NEVER initiating sex....at least since the first year together. Sex is always my responsibility. I'm tired of that. Has your wife initiated sex in the past and you didn't respond? A couple's sex life is the responsibility of both of you.

As far as not "finishing". TBH, I have a lot of trouble finishing with guys (doing intercourse it takes me forever) but never have that problem with my wife. I think it is a little bit of nerves for me when that happens. I worry so much about trying to please the guys that that consumes me. With my wife, it is so much more relaxed.

Have you discussed trying to work on your sex life and switching it up a bit? Maybe she needs to up HER game a bit?

 

Hi Nick,

Why have you regretted coming out to the local gay group? Just curious. I was also in a heterosexual marriage and came out during it. I had a very good experience coming Out with a support group for heterosexually married gay/bi men. I am fortunate to live in Boston where people have progressive attitudes and where there is a very large gay community.

 

You should google “Husbands Out To Wives” and join the list serve. You can talk to hundreds of men in your situation.

 

At first I was well received. But, the gay guys here don't want a married bisexual around. So, after a couple years of making some friends (I thought), when I didn't leave my wife, I was no longer welcomed. It just made me lonelier. So, here I am out to only my wife these days, or with a couple men discreetly for intimacy, but the broader gay community doesn't fit. In a word, I have no one to "be gay" with. I think that's really important too. At first, it was really great though and I miss it!

 

that is too bad

my groups are not like that and we have several married men in the group

 

Hey

This is not all that uncommon in our situations. Our wives may use our sexuality to blame us for other short comings, or perceived shortcomings, in our relationship. I have often said this...how lucky I am. But, there are some things that my wife will still bring up...how angry I was for awhile...Now, I will hear a bit of "you don't need to get mad about this" even when I am not at all mad just distracted or busy. My wife has some sensitivity to it. For sure this disclosure will affect the self esteem of our spouses. How can it not? It really takes an understanding that being a bisexual makes us a bit different in how we see men and women. It is hard for others to understand this. Most of my gay friends don't get it either. They might see my relationship with my wife as competition and it is not that way at all for me.

Again. You just have to ride this out awhile. I know this can be hard.

 

Just curious ... have you admitted and apologized to her for your part in things? (Sorry if I have overlooked your saying so in prior posts.) I have always found that a true and since apology can really be healing and stop anger coming back at me.

 

Apologies, no matter how sincere, can still sound a little...off.

Here is an extract from what I have been learning about Non-Violent Communication (NVC):

"NVC shows us a big difference between mourning and apology. Apology is basically part of our violent language. It implies wrongness — that you should be blamed, that you should be penitent, that you’re a terrible person for what you did. And when you agree that you are a horrible person and when you have become sufficiently penitent, you can be forgiven. Sorry is part of that game, you see. If you hate yourself enough, you can be forgiven."

"Now, in contrast, what is really healing for people is not that game where we agree that we’re terrible, but rather going inside yourself and seeing what need of yours was not met by the behavior. And when you are in touch with that, you feel a different kind of suffering. You feel a natural suffering, a kind of suffering that leads to learning and healing, not to hatred of oneself, not to guilt."
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If you focus on unmet needs, on both your parts, if you focus on the natural grieving that occurs from one's own recognition of one's own and the other's unmet needs, then you can be free from the implications of wrongness, or wickedness; on either side.

If you can connect with what she is going through in the present moment, in what is alive in her at whatever moment you interact, and if you can connect with the grieving and vulnerability that you are feeling now and which can lead to learning and healing, without self-hatred, you may find that connecting with what is alive in her with what is alive in you, without reference to the past, may help you both come out of this without all the rancor that too often, and tragically, arises from this situation.