Sean01 wrote:

Thank you for posting everyone. In reply: 

2. Anyway, as I said, posting in support of you Sean, while still on the trail of my personal bugbear - the term bisexuality.  I am hoping you will delve a little deeper into your partner's feelings for women and see what exactly he means. 

If you're referring to my partner's claims he's still attracted to women, wouldn't it be an exquisite bit of karma if he left me for a woman? Now that would certainly be a tasty bit of irony. That said, the last time he slept with a woman was, I believe, in 1993. He only claims to still be attracted to women when we're around heterosexual women...not a mention of it when we're with our gay friends. So I reckon it's part of him still trying to pass on some level. BUT only time will tell.

A slightly different take on Bisexuality. I personally have some attraction to women, and I have known plenty of gay guys state they have some attraction to women. However, the problem is the amount and frequency of attraction. It is why I compare it to a dying flashlight (weak.... tends to go out, might work for a few seconds if you shake it) to blinding sunlight (so strong you just can't easily ignore).  If the Pope need to a man to guard a college dorm room of deeply religious young women, there would be a far greater probability of a lesbian sex scandal occurring on my watch than a heterosexual one involving me.

 A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was in a gay bar when that famous Pepsi commercial of Britany Spears with Bob Dole came on. It got the attention of a total of one gay man. Who got strange looks from the rest of the men in the bar and even he said He would go after her, if only he was not gay. If Brittany could only entice one man out of a dozen....Houston there is a problem!

The thing with Gay/Bi/Straight is that we want clear easy separate labels, and it is understandable. However real life is messy. Many gay men can have some sexual attraction to women. It is just that the attraction to men tends to be stronger, more frequent, and harder to ignore. While the attraction to women is in various stages of poor to non-functional. 

3. I'm guessing it's an emotional sort of attraction rather than a sexual one.  I mean, do you believe he actually wants to get into bed with a woman, Sean?  

No, but I've told him many times that he can sleep with a woman if he wants to. Not surprisingly, he's never acted on it. I reckon his attraction to women is more an attraction to female glamour...sort of like a gay man fawning over bejewelled European royals or sparkly Hollywood stars. I reckon he's more attracted to bling than breasts. But I will promise to update if he steps out with a woman. ;)

Be well!
 

Gay men can have emotional attachments to both men and women.  Getting in bed with a women is just a lot more complicated on the gay end. He can on some level(even if it is just intellectually ) want to get into bed with a women but the rest of it is a problem,

If there is sexual attraction it tends to be just with only a very few women and not very strong.   Some guys are more bi-functional than others but at the end of the day they would prefer men.

There can be problems with the fact that his partner might not be able to turn him on or he might need to think of a guy in order to function and the functionality could be limited(i.e. Only able to do it under very limited situations). There might not be enough attraction to over ride the ick factor(i.e. You want me to put it where...eweh!!). Or knowing he is strongly attracted to men, he could feel like a phony or fraud about doing it with a women. 

Anyway my experience with guys who where bisexual was that they didn't just want men. They wanted both men and women. They didn't want either/or but both and would happily have both several women and serval men at the same time. With married gay men it tended to be the wife and men, men, men. 
 

Last edited by Diff I guess (April 20, 2023 9:23 pm)

Thank you everyone for writing. Here was my original post in response to Anon: 

I don't think it's stupid to want to believe the man you married [swearing up and down that he's straight/bisexual] and to work like hell to make your relationship work. Where things go wrong, however, is believing that a questioning husband is capable of being honest about his sexuality. As I shared in my podcast interviews, letting your questioning husband drive the relationshiop bus is a bit like nervously watching Stevie Wonder take the wheel. As a blind man, no matter what he says Stevie Wonder just can't drive. Similarly, men who since childhood have lied to themselves and others about their attraction to men simply cannot be honest about it, particularly when their wives are asking, "Are you gay?" This is why so many questioning/closeted men blame their attraction to men on sexual abuse or they claim to be bisexual.

I apologize for any confusion regarding the above message. If I'm reading your replies correctly, you interpreted the above to mean, "It's now up to the straight spouse to drive the relationship...not him." Incorrect, although I can see where I went wrong and sincerely apologize. 

Here is (I hope) a better example: asking a husband who has lied, distracted, and hidden his homosexuality since childhood to suddenly "own it" by honestly answering the question "Are you gay?" when challenged never works. This is akin to asking a unilingual, English-speaking husband to suddenly express himself in perfect Mandarin Chinese. My point is: when speaking about his sexuality, honesty just isn't a language he understands nor speaks. Moreover, like learning another language, it's going to take him years of immersing himself in the gay community and gay culture to overcome the fear and shame then honestly admit to himself and his wife, "Yes I'm gay." Gay men like me marry women in a f*cked up attempt to never answer (nor be asked) this question! So I'm not surprised that Anon's husband initially lied about his sexuality, only to come out as gay 2-3 years later. This is a common path.

While all straight wives deserve an honest answer to the question "Are you gay?", 99% of straight wives never get an honest first answer to that question. Expecting honesty from husbands who are pathologically dishonest about their homosexuality, and have been for a lifetime, is akin to assuming a blind man can drive a bus or, in the blink of an eye, thinking someone can speak fluent Chinese. I'm not referring to gender roles nor who has to drive a relationship, nor who has the power in a relationship (historically the husband). I'm trying to drive home the point that a closeted/questioning husband's first reaction to the question: "Are you gay?" is going to be an outright evasion/lie; because dishonesty about his sexuality is his first language. We marry women to avoid people asking us this question. This was Anon's experience with her husband first claiming he was bisexual (lie) only to admit, "Yes I'm gay." 2-3 years later.

Based on my own personal experience, on many years of interviewing closeted/questioning/out gay men who married women, and based on countless exchanges here, Anon's husband has followed a common path. While his first reaction was to lie when challenged about his sexuality and then double down on his marriage out of fear, most mixed orientation marriages (MOMs) end after a few years because he has finally learned some degree of honesty/acceptance about his attraction to men. Sadly, Anon heard yet another lie: "I'm gay, realized I was gay two weeks ago, and want a divorce." I reckon that for the past 2-3 years after initially claiming "I'm bisexual" her husband was slowly learning to be honest about his sexuality. Tragically, post-discovery most closeted/questioning husbands keep their wives in the dark, go to even greater lengths to conceal their cheating, and then dump their wives once they've found a new partner. While cruel, fiendishly dishonest, and completely unnecessary, this is unfortunately the common journey for gay men married to women. I hope that makes sense. 

If any straight spouses wish to comment on the above posts or ask a gay ex-husband questions, please feel free to do so. Be well! 

Last edited by Sean01 (April 21, 2023 4:15 am)

Firstly, thanks Anon, much appreciated.

Diff I want to respond to your post so here is what you wrote in italics:

"The thing with Gay/Bi/Straight is that we want clear easy separate labels, and it is understandable. However real life is messy. Many gay men can have some sexual attraction to women. It is just that the attraction to men tends to be stronger, more frequent, and harder to ignore. While the attraction to women is in various stages of poor to non-functional. 
 
Gay men can have emotional attachments to both men and women.  Getting in bed with a women is just a lot more complicated on the gay end. He can on some level(even if it is just intellectually ) want to get into bed with a women but the rest of it is a problem,

If there is sexual attraction it tends to be just with only a very few women and not very strong.   Some guys are more bi-functional than others but at the end of the day they would prefer men.

There can be problems with the fact that his partner might not be able to turn him on or he might need to think of a guy in order to function and the functionality could be limited(i.e. Only able to do it under very limited situations). There might not be enough attraction to over ride the ick factor(i.e. You want me to put it where...eweh!!). Or knowing he is strongly attracted to men, he could feel like a phony or fraud about doing it with a women. 

Anyway my experience with guys who where bisexual was that they didn't just want men. They wanted both men and women. They didn't want either/or but both and would happily have both several women and serval men at the same time. With married gay men it tended to be the wife and men, men, men. "

So thanks Diff, lots to think about in that.

My thoughts in a nutshell - what kind of sexual attraction is it where at it's best it is overcoming an ick factor at the thought of actually doing it with a woman - is there an ick factor involved at the thought of sex with a man?

Everything you said above indicates it is men that are attractive, women not.  

So what do you think is going on with the bisexual men who are routinely having sex with both men and women, is there dominating behaviour involved?  It's certainly not monogamous or an emotionally intelligent way of going about having a love life is it.

Thinking about it there are women who want both.  Primarily they have their girlfriends, but they also want the game of flirting with and marrying men.  Like it's their god-given right.

Last edited by lily (April 21, 2023 7:57 pm)

Who knows how things go moving forward, but traditionally speaking I think it's just a lot easier for women to hide their homosexuality than it is for men.  I do not believe in sexual fluidity for women any more than men.  I think it likely there are more women in the closet than men.
 
Can you imagine being straight, Sean?  No more than I can imagine being gay, I'll guess.

As I have taken in how prevalent the closet is it makes sense out of something I have wondered about since I was a teenager - why all the secrecy and confusion around sex.  A tsunami of word salad covering up the closet.

Diff outlined 3 types of 'bisexual' male.

Married man having lots of sex with men while still having sex with wife.  (shall we call him gay man in closet?)

Man who has multiple partners, some women as well as men.  (my guess is this is mechanical sex, no expression of his identity and no love lost on any of his partners either but let's face it, straight men do not want to have sex with men, so gay). 

Man who is predominantly attracted to men but can get romantic feelings about women - until it gets to the bedroom where having sex with a woman gets problematical due to the ick factor involved in PIV.  (let's call him gay)

Three very different types of people, but their sexual orientation is the same.

The ick factor, the ewww factor - it's real.  So is monogamy.  

So when your 'soul mate' says he is bisexual, the straight partner believes this means their bisexual partner has chosen to be with them, that they are the one person in the world he wants to be with - not that he is wanting to date men.




 

lily wrote:

Firstly, thanks Anon, much appreciated.


So thanks Diff, lots to think about in that.

My thoughts in a nutshell - what kind of sexual attraction is it where at it's best it is overcoming an ick factor at the thought of actually doing it with a woman - is there an ick factor involved at the thought of sex with a man?

Not a straight guy so I can't say much about women, but yes there is an ick factor with men. However the gay attraction tends to over ride it.  Basically with gay there is the whole want to see him nude and do things with and to him. If you are attracted to a guy that is one of the things you feel. You can also get lovey, dovey emotional feelings like want to get lost in his eyes or think he is really great or a very positive vibe about this person but that is another matter.

Now acting on it is another matter but yes you will be tempted to do something sexual with that guy. Once the hormones calm down and the more rational parts kick in, a guy might feel regret, shame or even be disgusted by what they did(or thought) but that is another matter.

Everything you said above indicates it is men that are attractive, women not.  

In general yes. With women it tends to be with certain women and not very strong.  With men it happens much more often and much stronger. To give you an idea of how different it is, I once worked at a factory where it was all men. Once a woman came into the floor and brought everything to a stop. I was the one guy standing there wondering "What happened. Why did everything come to a stop? " . Same thing happened may years ago at a super bowl game. Thousands of men bowled over with a sexy super bowl performance.....and on this end nothing. 

So what do you think is going on with the bisexual men who are routinely having sex with both men and women, is there dominating behaviour involved?  It's certainly not monogamous or an emotionally intelligent way of going about having a love life is it.

Some guys are just not looking for love. Random sex can be fun, but unfulfilling. It is rather like eating a bowl of candy rather than a plate of real food. Anyway for a married guy simple sex is a lot easier to manage than a relationship. Sex with a guy only takes a short period of time  but who the heck wants a relationship where the partner is only available for an hour or less every so often. Now sometimes things stay just sexual but sometimes things bloom into a relationship. The reason why bisexual men do both is more because they can.  Gay men just are not very tempted by women and so they don't.

Thinking about it there are women who want both.  Primarily they have their girlfriends, but they also want the game of flirting with and marrying men.  Like it's their god-given right.

Not a lesbian so I don't like commenting on them. I think that for both gay men and lesbian being in an opposite sex relationship can be problematic. There are tons of reasons why a gay man would marry a women. They may even have been good intentions at the start but the end can be very bad and painful for more than just the gay person.  I think the lack of honesty both to themselves and to their partner is possibly the biggest and most damaging issue.  I can tell you a handful of stories about married/formerly married guys who in my opinion were jerks but that won't fix things.  I suspect that having a ongoing gay relationship before getting married could be a problem. Basically the other partner might get jealous of the wife. But unlikely things do happen. More often the person might have had gay relationship(or sex) and thinks he can ignore the attracted to men and does not take into consideration the not very attracted to women and decides to date.  It is very hard for a guy to accept being gay and this lack of honesty to themselves going in will only led to more dishonesty to others as things progress.