Help! I'm being pushed back into the closet.

It’s hard, but honesty and the truth are the way. It will take practice but it will be important to tell those close to you. Your wife will do what she needs to do. I am down the road a bit. Check out my posts and ride the wave. You’ll be ok. Everything is happening exactly as it is meant to. Sending good vibes your way!

 

First of all, congrats on telling your wife. It takes a lot to be able to make that step!

As hard as it is, let her ride the emotional roller coaster and give her space. You have had years to process this information and come to your own conclusions. She is also going to need time to feel sad, angry and hopefully land on acceptance like you did. But it will take time and communication between you two.

For now, the only control she has over this thing is the sense that only she knows. Let her have that for a bit while she gets used to the idea. Also, she is going to go through anger stage so try to take her words lightly and try to not make it personal. She will try to blame you for it all but that will also pass with time.

If you guys want to stay together I would also suggest maybe couple therapy so you guys can learn healthy ways to communication all your emotions with each other.

 

Congratulations on being able to come out to your wife. I wish I could, they I think she suspects. I’m sure it’s going to take a while to adjust to this. If, as you say, nothing is really going to change, then hopefully you two can just carry on with your lives together. I, too, have no plans to be with a man, even though I’m bi so though I want to come out, I’m not sure it’s worth. I’m probably just being cowardly though. I wish all the best for you and your wife

 

I totally agree with Smurf. She needs time. It's not easy for her, she thought she married a straight man and now you're not. She also has to go through the stages of grief. That takes time. You will probably want to take bigger steps than she is ready to take at this point because you are way further in the acceptance process. Keep that in mind and take her feelings into account. You will have to wait and see how she will react in the future. It's possible she will be ok with you being out later on. It's also possible she won't.

 

@DecentOne, hopefully you already see you're not alone. I applaud your courage in opening up to your wife. And, I understand her being a bit freaked out right now.

I actually came out to my wife on our honeymoon (can't believe I did that! ). She was actually really good about it, even joined me at a bisexual group meeting. Then I fell back asleep and back into the closet. The problem was that the counseling was taking me in a direction where I didn't want to go.

So my suggestion to you is to get clear with yourself on where you want to go, and communicate clearly as you proceed.

In hindsight, I should have communicated to my wife and the therapist that 1) I wanted to make the marriage work, and 2) I wanted to be true to myself and honest with my wife.

 

Hey @DecentOne -
Dang - sounds like some churn in your marriage right now, and a lot of uncertainty. That's part of what scares me about doing the full-disclosure coming out - the outcome is not under my control.

This weekend I did a different kind of coming out - I laid out all our finances for my wife. I had kept some things from her because I don't have confidence in her ability to handle money. I told her that each step along the way, with everything I chose not to tell her, I did it because it gave me some of the comfort I needed in order to stay in the marriage, and that was my goal -- to make the marriage work. I wonder if that's true for you too, that you made the choices that you did along the way because it seemed like the way to keep the marriage going.

The train keeps a rollin'! Good luck to you. I hope some clarity and direction come your way. I'm cheering you on!
=Sevn

 

Sexuality is quite complex and no two people think exactly the same about it.

It is good you are open with your wife, sex feels good, with men or women, call it bi, call it what you will. Labels are not the end all here, but just the box we seem to fit in. There are no easy answers sometimes.

Society wants us to believe a lot of things. Humans tend to have a lot of notions about how and what we need to do sexually.

I am glad you told her, but think about what you need the most in your life. What does sex mean to you? Who can you live with or with out.

Being Bi can mean a lot of things. Someone might be attracted to both and only be with one person. ( in this case your wife)

Safety is a huge thing also you do not want to give anyone anything if possible.

None of what I said is an answer for you but some questions to think about.

Whom do you love? How will you show it?

most important who and how will you show love to those you care about?

when it comes down to it you alone can answer these

 

While it's great that you are being true to yourself, and very true that what both you and your wife are going through is definitely hard one thing that I have to ask is what is truly your end goal?

The reason I'm asking is because if you are in a monogamous relationship, love your partner, and have no plans to go outside of the marriage or explore your bisexuality then being bi really should not be a concern, or necessarily even a big topic of conversation.

To me it's not that different than if you have had a bi relationship at some point before you were with your wife vs. A heterosexual relationship before you were with her.. It's not relevant to the relationship (or shouldn't be).

So while honestly is important in any relationship the effects of coming out don't necessarily make a lot of sense in the way you are describing what you want for the future.. So what is truly driving your actions? I'm not being negative but the normal progression for self discovery (of any kind) is to question, research, identify, explore and at some point validate and assimilate it all and the process can take years.

From what you have said and your actions you have identified that you are bi. If that is as far as your inner self needs to go the importance of coming out imo likely would not be that important to you unless on a deeper level you feel the need to go farther. Again, I'm not trying to be negative.. Or trying to discredit your thoughts or feelings, I'm just giving food for thought.

This may also be part of the reason why your wife is so upset.. If you were is her shoes would you not think "why would he tell me this if he's not going to act on it?" since you are in a committed relationship. So in addition to where this sits in her personal belief system, she is likely perceiving this as the impending end of your relationship.

I hope everything works out for the best for both you and your wife.. You will both need a lot of patience, love and understanding in processing all of this and making things work God Bless!

 

@MzMrAlexa I on the other hand totally understand why it was so important to DecentOne to be open and out to his wife. I've always been open about my feelings to my BF and he suspected I was bisexual before I did (and not in a phase as I thought). I hid it for anyone else accept my parents (but they probably thought that it was a phase too). And at some point I just didn't want to hide anymore. I just wanted to be ME (because my bisexuality is a part of me) and meet others like me. I felt so lonely at some point! My BF and I still have a good relationship (and as far as I'm concerned it's even better because I feel way better!) and I've never been unfaithful and I don't have any intention to. I'm just like f*ck you, I'm bi although I'm in a relationship with a man, and I'm so done with the hiding thing!

 

Yes! I was going to reply but seems like you got it covered. I think its incredibly healthy for your relationship to be openly honest of who you are. It will be tough to get there, but your relationship will be better for it in the long run. For what is worth, I have seen it work wonderfully. Where the couple is in a monogamous relationship, she is openly bi and her husband is fully supportive of it all. You got this

 

My marriage hasn't been exactly smooth, but mostly we've made it work. But the truth of my sexuality is like a pebble in my shoe that I can't ignore, and I see how hiding it is not working. Yeah, I could just keep hiking with that pebble causing me pain, or I could stop and fix it.

 

You made me laugh with the mono comment.

You are getting there it seems from your posts.

 

@DecentOne , I'm sorry your wife is so closed to you talking with people. That must be really threatening to her. But it's not healthy to clam up. Do you think she just needs some time to go through the stages, get past denial and eventually to acceptance? I can only speak for myself, but being active her on Empty Closets has the most constructive, positive and honorable things I've ever done in the realm of my non-conventional sexuality. I hope that's true for you too, and that you'll keep at it vigorously.
Love and light-
=Sevn

 

Do you ever have times when you wonder if you've just sort of made-up the whole non-conforming sexuality thing? Not long ago there was a woman in the news (out of respect to her I won't mention her name) who was white but had adopted an African-American persona, and risen to a level of prominence at the NAACP. Maybe I'm just like that, trying to add something interesting into my otherwise ordinary life.