I'm 39 years old and married to a man, a good man. He's the only person I have every been with. I know it sounds quaint. That's not how it's done anymore - especially for people like me- self important, metropolitan, private school educated... you get the picture. We don't have kids. I wouldn't let that happen. It's easy to blame my career but it's really that I grew up in a house with a borderline mother and a narcissistic father and I'm terrified of hurting my own child the way I was hurt. That acceptance has taken me about the last 6 years in therapy to come around to. I finally got to the point in therapy where I felt I could learn to be "ok..." and suddenly this other part of me that I had shoved down along with all the other dark mess came bubbling up. I never knew I was attracted to women. I had a fraught relationship with a girl I called my best friend in high school. Maybe she knew and manipulated me. Maybe we were both dumb high school kids. But I look at that now and realize I probably wanted something more and she wanted me to suffer. I didn't know what I was looking for or who I was... and if I did, I killed the very notion of it just the same way I stifled all the rest of my pain back then. Even that paragraph was not something I could have even typed a few weeks ago and now it comes out easily and I know it is truth. My first love was a girl in high school and I never even knew. I've told exactly 3 people that I'm "not straight." Last night was the first time I put the word "bisexual" in an email to my therapist. She's been trying to get me to say that, or whatever version of that I determine is true, out loud for a number of weeks now. "Not straight" was as far as I got out loud. With my husband, it's actually easier. We've talked about all of this. He seems almost excited for me but also apprehensive because neither of us knows what this means. He finally acknowledged to me the other day that he realizes this could end us and he's scared. At the same time, he wants to talk to me about it and experiment with it the best we can with just the 2 of us. I think we both agree that our relationship could not survive anything that wasn't just the 2 of us. When I finally decided to embrace "not straight," I went out and cut my hair. It seems so cliche but at the same time it felt empowering. When I talk to those I want to keep at arms-length, I blame it on my workouts at the gym in the am. Only those 3 people know it was a small gesture that seems to make me feel just a little bit more like myself. I saw some colleagues on a work trip over the weekend and got a lot of active no-comments. I'm not sure why people think I don't know what it looks like. But this is more than just a haircut and I don't know where to go from here. There are people I should tell. There are people I need to tell. Do I have to tell everyone? Will I feel like a phony if I don't? Why would I want to impose on someone else like that? Why do they need to hold this for me? What do I tell them when the ask what it means when I don't even know what it means? What DOES it mean? How do I take the next step? I've been sitting on this for weeks and all I have is a haircut and questions about my marriage that make me so desperately sad. My husband is a good man. He stuck with me through the crazy... through the years of therapy to recover from my horrible childhood. We finally got though it. I'm finally ok and I can be the wife he deserves. Except I'm not the person he married anymore. He has a panic disorder that he has largely had under control for the last year. Is it a coincidence that he just started having panic attacks? How could I be this cruel? I want to ask how I could possibly throw away all of that for "just sex" but even as I type this I know it's not "just sex." I just don't know what else it is. I can't decide if it's important enough to risk my marriage for if I don't know what it is. I'm just afraid I won't ever figure out what it is if I don't actually experience it. Anyway, I've poked around this page a bit and I've seen just how patient this community is - even when noobs like me show up and ask the same questions that hundreds of others have asked before. Even without your responses, I'm so grateful to all of you for caring for one another.
@CJSav Can you picture yourself happier if you had the life you have with your husband but with a woman? That was the question that put everything in perspective for me. I want the life I have, the relationship I have, I just want the husband I have to be the woman for me.
Welcome to EC, you have taken a massive brave step and identified who you really are. This journey can be very painful. You have to go at your own pace. You tell people when your ready. I came out in February and still not everyone knows. Your husband knows and he was probably the most important to tell first. I only told a few people face to face, I used emails, texts and Facebook... Have you thought about joining some LGBT groups? That's where I get my support network from. I have straight friends but the gay community is important to me too. Your perhaps being to hard on yourself, do things that make you happy, you deserve that at the very least. Sending you a hug XX Rade ..
