Me again. By the way, I have told him some of this, but I had trouble finding the right words, and I ended up sounding like a "normal" straight bicurious woman. I don't want to make him worried if it is not necessary, but I am afraid there is more to it

By the way..  I want to compliment you for considering this situation honestly and appropriately.  You obviously don't fit the mold of the normal gay in denial spouse that so many of us on this site have had our lives ruined by. 

I applaud you for trying to understand what is going on.  I applaud you for remaining faithful to your husband and placing concern on how he will feel through this situation.   Please keep that mindset!  Oh how I wish my wife would have cared about me a little bit more as she went through her journey. 

If you decide you no longer desire men, even your spouse, there is no real way to avoid pain because he is not going through similar doubts about you or to women in general. In other words, you may be changing but he's not and I can tell you from experience that there is no real way to sugarcoat that. What will make it more painful is either infidelity or a longer term "elephant" in the room that makes the marriage more dysfunctional and less joyful, especially if he can't figure out what the problem is because it's something eating you up inside. Marriage needs honesty and commitment but also needs to be healthy for both parties. I think there is a difference between bi-curious and satisfying that curiosity. Your husband might feel that it's OK, he can handle it if you want to explore that but can he? When you're with him will he have a lingering doubt, wondering if you're fantasizing about someone else? Two's company, three's a crowd? One of the best things my ex did was deciding that it wasn't fair for me to 'sit on the bench' waiting for a call up, otherwise five years later I'd still be siting here. Best wishes and I hope you find some answers. All I can suggest is be honest and fair.

Hello, justme!

Wow, I'm so happy to see how compassionate and thoughtful you're being towards your husband.  You even came to a board for straight spouses to see how you can make this easier for him! 

justme wrote:

Before getting married, I always thought I was straight. I dated men, I had sex with them and enjoyed it, and I had sexual fantasies about men, so why would I not be? I remember looking at other women from time to time and feeling something that scared me, but I just thought those incidents were "exceptions" to my real orientation or something like that.

I'm a gay man who has been happily partnered with another gay man for years.  When he and I were in our 20's and closeted to ourselves and the world, we both enjoyed sex with women, because women were the only people we allowed ourselves to have sex with.  And, we initially felt like we were in love with the women we were dating.  We wrote off our attractions to men as "meaningless," because we were terrified of what our attractions meant.

Your experience sounds very similar to ours, but this doesn't necessarily mean that you're gay!  From what you've shared, you sound bisexual at the absolute minimum.  You're not a "bicurious straight woman," in my opinion.  

In my teens and 20's, I dated women and enjoyed sex with them.  The problem was that sex with women was the only sex that I was allowing myself to have.  And then, after being with a man, I could no longer deny to myself that I was gay.  For me, sex with men was on a different dimension than sex with women.  For me, sex with men was satisfying in a way that I never even knew existed.  I'm fortunate that I never chose to marry a woman and cause all of the heartache that would have entailed.

My life partner had an identical experience.  He believed he was straight, with an unwanted attraction to men that he wrote off as "meaningless."  Like me, he enjoyed sex with his girlfriends.  But then once he was with a man, he knew that he was gay and could no longer deny it to himself.  He now has zero desire to have sex with women.

justme wrote:

I am seeing a therapist who basically tells me "you are a bisexual woman in a monogamous relationship, accept that and get on with you life", which is what I want to do, but I am still not so sure.

 
It sounds like your therapist is dismissing you.  This is unfortunate.  Is your therapist certified in LGBT issues?  Some are.  You might want to find a new one.  

Please be aware though that some therapists will have an "agenda" for you, either wanting you to stay in your marriage and squash your attractions, or wanting you to immediately abandon your husband and embrace being a full-fledged lesbian.  In my opinion, those are both negative options during your "exploration stage."  

Your best bet would be finding a therapist who has no agenda for you other than helping you explore your own feelings, and who fully understands that you are committed to being compassionate and loyal to your husband throughout all of this. 

justme wrote:

The nature of my sexual feelings for men and women are different. Basically, I can get turned on just by looking at a woman, but I also get turned on by flirting with, talking to or fantasizing about men. The visual attraction is just less strong with men, and that makes me wonder if I am bisexual or actually gay. I have never been in love with a particular woman at any point in my life, and that seems weird if I am gay or bisexual, so I truly don't know.

  
Straight people don't have visual attractions where they feel "turned on just by looking" at the same sex, as you described your feelings for women.  You've said here that you've had these feelings for women all your life, and these feelings scared you.  So, being scared, you pushed these feelings away and considered them to be "exceptions."  And now, you've reached a point where you realize that these feelings aren't going to go away.

I'm curious: 1. Why did these feelings scare you in the first place? and 2. Do they still scare you, and if so, why?

justme wrote:

I hate causing my husband any pain. I want to protect him, I want to help him, and I DON'T want us to be going trough this.

 
That is so wonderful.  You sound like a very compassionate person, and your love and compassion will help him through this, whatever the outcome.  

You want to protect him and are asking for people's opinions, so here are mine.  I think that, in order to protect him, three things here are very important:

1.  Keep being honest with him, and be faithful to him as you're working through this.  Just as the guys on here -- who have been through hell -- have said.
2.  Be extremely honest with yourself, and make a commitment to not ignoring this "issue" any longer.  You won't be helping your husband if you dip your toe into this possibility but then decide to jump right back into closeting yourself again.  
3.  In the short term, squashing your feelings for women may seem to bring less pain to your husband.  But, you need to truly know yourself.  If you're not being honest with yourself, then you also can't be fully honest and present with your husband.  The dishonesty and stifled emotions will never go away and will only hurt him much more long term.

justme wrote:

I don't want him to think I have been lying to him when I married him (honestly it doesn't feel that way).

A lot of gay and bisexual people felt that they were being honest when they entered into straight marriages.  Reason being, they wrote off their same sex attractions as "aberrations," "exceptions," etc., and they truly believed that they were straight.  Only in hindsight do some of them have clear vision.  

My life partner never married a woman, but he absolutely believed that he was straight until he was 28 years old.  In his case, he thought that he couldn't be gay.  Reason being, the only gay men he was aware of were all effeminate -- which he isn't at all.  And so, he had no idea that his attractions to men were actually meaningful.
 

justme wrote:

And I don't want him to think I was never attracted to him, but I am not even sure if I know what sexual attraction is anymore.

If you are committed, honest, and compassionate with him as you figure this out, then you will be giving him the best that you can give with the very difficult hand that you've been dealt.  

Last edited by Jeff W (October 30, 2016 8:04 pm)

I think my ex was like you in that following the birth of our first child is when things 'changed' in terms of sex. In retrospect maybe this was the start of her realization that she is gay. But I am also mindful that I could be reinterpreting history to fit a narrative. She would argue she is bi I think.