Beth365 wrote:

Hello everyone

I did not know so many of us where going through similar situations. My husband of 14 years been together 16 years came to me to tell me he bisexual. Of course this was about two weeks before our wedding anniversary. He states to me he wants to be able to go have sex with men but still be married to me. He does not want that to change.

I don’t even know how to process the situation. We have had many discussion about it. I think I am more mad at myself then anything right now. He has cheated on me before. I was pregnant with our first child when he apparently started emailing,sending pictures, taking ad out. I found out about this by accident. He had been doing for year and half behind my back. I should have left the but I love him. He said he was done with it. I guess not since here we are. He want to go have sex with other men but us to stay married. He states it would be just sex. I don’t know how to wrap my head around it. I love him but not sure I can do this. He states I could go have sex with other people as well. I am not the type of person just goes and does that. Unfortunately we kind have to stay in the same house because of our financial situation. I wonder now what he doing when he not home.

How do you have open marriage? He stayed to me this is what he wants. I feel like he wants his cake and eat too. He type person gets in his head he going to do it. He already started looking on a app. I am so anger and hurt. I feel so broken. I feel bad for people around me because I get pissed off very easy now. He also does not want people to know the truth about him either. He just tells people we are having problems and may get separated. He tells me that I should love all of him if I really love him. It shouldn’t make difference if he bisexual or not. He acts like I am supposed to just except and not have any type of emotions about it. Part me just want to tell people that he wants to be with a man. That’s why we having issue. The other part of me knows that would be wrong to do. I feel I have no where to turn because most people have no idea about this.

Thanks for listening

You can only attempt an open marriage if that is what both parties want. You do not want to entertain this idea and I don’t blame you. The issue here is that you obviously still love your partner and he does not love you. The idea in his head is that he can do what he wants  when he wants and so therefore can you. He is basically asking if it is OK for him to have an affair with your knowledge and if you agree, his conscience is clear. I love the fact that when they come out to their partners the “outee” then wants the partner to keep quiet about it. It is like being held captive with them in their closet while they are free to practice whatever they seem fit. You become not just a beard, but a bearded hostage (meaning you effectively become Terry Waite). This puts additional strain on the straight spouse over the strain they feel from the admission of the same sex attraction in the first place. He is not being bi-sexual, he is being gay. When he is having sex with a man he is being 100% gay. When he is having sex with a woman he is being straight . I don’t understand why even straight people struggle to understand this concept. When a partner tells you they are bi-sexual, you already know they have a straight relationship so what they are actually saying is that they are gay, they are in fact asking if it is OK for them to go and be gay when they feel like it. You are very, very unlikely to go through life with a 50/50 split in your sexual orientation all the time. To me, it seems that bi-sexuality is a stopover identity on the journey to gaytown, or the semi-autonomous republic of Lesbia. I have read hundreds of coming out threads on the web about sexual identities being “fluid” and at some point they nearly always say “I used to identify as bi, but now I am certain that I am gay/lesbian”. It is very much a case of having your cake and eating it. The other thing I have noticed is the alarming amount of gay spouses who seem to believe that their new identity gives them some sort of entitlement to act in a way that suits them because they are “special”. Well, they are special in one way, they seem to think that it is OK to treat people who love them as a means to a selfish end. Take the whole gay thing out of the equation and you are dealing with infidelity with implied consent due to the spouses acceptance of mitigating factors. Do not accept the mitigation if it is against your own morality. If you know that your acceptance of their new standard goes against your own morals and then accept this without protestation, well you have allowed the most valuable part of your own self esteem to be taken from you and absorbed by someone who does not deserve it.

Sorry for the rant. Not having a good day!

4889 days…

Ordinary guy wrote:

I love the fact that when they come out to their partners the “outee” then wants the partner to keep quiet about it. It is like being held captive with them in their closet while they are free to practice whatever they seem fit. You become not just a beard, but a bearded hostage (meaning you effectively become Terry Waite). This puts additional strain on the straight spouse over the strain they feel from the admission of the same sex attraction in the first place. He is not being bi-sexual, he is being gay. When he is having sex with a man he is being 100% gay. When he is having sex with a woman he is being straight . I don’t understand why even straight people struggle to understand this concept. When a partner tells you they are bi-sexual, you already know they have a straight relationship so what they are actually saying is that they are gay, they are in fact asking if it is OK for them to go and be gay when they feel like it. You are very, very unlikely to go through life with a 50/50 split in your sexual orientation all the time. To me, it seems that bi-sexuality is a stopover identity on the journey to gaytown, or the semi-autonomous republic of Lesbia. I have read hundreds of coming out threads on the web about sexual identities being “fluid” and at some point they nearly always say “I used to identify as bi, but now I am certain that I am gay/lesbian”. It is very much a case of having your cake and eating it. The other thing I have noticed is the alarming amount of gay spouses who seem to believe that their new identity gives them some sort of entitlement to act in a way that suits them because they are “special”. Well, they are special in one way, they seem to think that it is OK to treat people who love them as a means to a selfish end. Take the whole gay thing out of the equation and you are dealing with infidelity with implied consent due to the spouses acceptance of mitigating factors. Do not accept the mitigation if it is against your own morality. If you know that your acceptance of their new standard goes against your own morals and then accept this without protestation, well you have allowed the most valuable part of your own self esteem to be taken from you and absorbed by someone who does not deserve it.

I agree with a lot of this. I've always believed in bisexuality (despite the fact that the only bisexuals I've ever known are now out-and-proud gay men)—but I think it's probably a lot more rare than I'd ever imagined. If you go to the bi subs on Reddit (including one I stumbled across recently called "MarriedandBi") the "bisexuals" (particularly the men) come across as quite tortured...They speak of having sex with men as a "need"...(this is probably 90% of the posts there..) Many only come out to their partners because they want to be able to have sex with men with their partner's permission (many are already "chatting" with men on things like Kik, camming, and engaging on apps like Scruff and Grindr). I think when they get to a certain age (mid-30s, it seems, and later) their repressive tactics aren't as effective...Beth's husband is particularly brazen...for lack of a better word...He essentially said: This is what I'm going to do whether you like or not. It's insane, really...I don't believe the straight spouse she feel like they are under any obligation to stay trapped in the closet. In fact, I think it is quite harmful. 

Like the poem OG, thanks for posting it.

My thought was maybe intersex people are oriented both ways, maybe they are, after all it may be rare but the odd person gets born with one testes and one ovary.  Occasionally it is not clear cut, it is not xx or xy, on the rare occasion it is something like xxy.

But even then it seems to me orientation is still set, one way or the other, xx or xy.  Can you face in both directions at once?

I know there's variants of every sort but you get the transgender male, he feminises, he might have a phase of saying he still wants women but in the end he is trying to attract another male.  I used to wonder why would you go to all that trouble to feminise yourself and then end up together with another transgender.  Now I get it, they're gay.  Underneath the whole journey they are two men, xy and xy, who are same sex attracted, and it's a real partnering.

I tend to think of bisexuals as people who have a lot of the make up which goes with being straight but underneath they are same sex oriented and so it pulls them that way.

I have yet to hear of anyone who has a mid life crisis and goes from a gay relationship to a straight one.  Legions go the other way.