First - I'm sorry you find yourself here but this is a place where you will meet people who have been through similar experiences as yourself.

I personally don't place much stock in tests, especially if you take them more than once and possibly know what answers can skew the results. I always go with people's actions. That is the real them, even more so than words. Based on your story the actions seem to me to be confused or deceptive, keeping you off balance, constantly moving the chairs around while keeping you blindfolded.

Let's get one thing clear - YOU did not cause this. That doesn't happen. You are either attracted to something or you are not. No amount of "not really into it" sex with a woman will ever make me start wondering about being with men.

If possible you should seek some personal counseling. Depression is not a good way to exist and many of us know what it's like. Just like he needs to figure out what he wants, so do you. Many of us also had a fear of the unknown, this is all natural. There might be a local group you could join, best way to find out is to email the SSN from the contact information on their main website. This site might also help as we have some wise people and lots of personal experience of our own.

Please keep checking in here.

Hi Flakesofglitter,
Just want to say I'm so sorry you are now going thru this nightmare. Your story sounds so similar to mine. I've been with my husband almost 15yrs, married almost 5. We have 2 young children. He's told me he's bi, then gay. But flips back n forth between the two, but it doesn't matter cuz he's cheated on me with men. I am now divorcing him which is the hardest thing for me to do. I have always wondered too for the past 4yrs when we were intimate if he's imagined that I'm a man, that's a terrible feeling & thought.  Of course he always denied it. i can't take the lies anymore. Stay strong for your children, I know how extremely difficult & hurtful this is.  I'm seeing a counselor. It does help to talk to others on here about it. I wish you the best for yourself & children. I wish I could offer more advice but I'm still in the middle of this nightmare myself =[

Hi - I'm so sorry you find yourself here.  You say so many things that hit directly on what so many of us have gone through or are currently going through.  I know that "you're not alone" sometimes doesn't give that much consolation, but I hope it helps you to see that you didn't cause any of this. 

Hopefully Cameron will see this and post soon.  He is a gay man and has lots of insight in to the bisexual and gay world.  He was married at one time and also went through a lot of the things you are describing - just on the other side of things.

There is one thing you will never know for sure....well, a few things.  You will never know how long he knew (that story will continue to change) and you will never know if he's really bisexual, bi-curious, or gay.  The reason is because of exactly what he said - he doesn't want to leave, experiment, and then find out he doesn't like it.  Then, he's lost you.  So the answer he would most like to hear is that you will be waiting in the wings while he experiments with other men.  If it works out then great!  He will find a boyfriend.  If it doesn't then he will come running back home only to have this bubble up all over again because he will realize that maybe it wasn't the experience that was bad, it just wasn't the right man.  And the BS will start all over again.  That doesn't sound quite fair does it?

To this day, I still have no idea if my ex was bi or gay or just curious.  He will tell me "just curious" all day long.  He will tell me "it's too bad you left and broke up a great marriage".  But the lies about the long purple dildos, flesh colored dildos with veins and balls, gay porn, and hundreds of pictures of his own schlong tell me otherwise.  Also, the fact that he said it was just a curiosity and he could stop (but never could or did) is the biggest red flag of all. 

In the end, if you want sanity and peace, you will have to make this about you.  It took me soooo long to learn that.  Like you, I was focused on HIM.  How can I help him find out.  How can I make sure he's telling the truth, how do I know for sure he's not cheating.  The answer is: you can't.  It will come down to what you can live with and how you want to live.  I couldn't live with hidden dildos and knowing he was using the camera for naked pics.  I couldn't live with lie after lie that he wasn't watching gay porn any time I stepped out of the house. 

However - your story has some twists that mine didn't have.  The fact that he's already told you he can only get excited about males is not good.  Throw the pregnant lady thing in there and that's probably one of the weirdest things I've ever heard.  So he's in to dudes but he's excited at the fact that his sperm has the power to cause pregnancy - that's what it boils down to. 

So, you have to sit yourself down and ask yourself: what's the best outcome at this point if you want to stay married?  The BEST (if you want to call it that) is that he comes to you and completely changes his mind and says omg, you're right!  I've never been gay, I was just confused.  I'm bi and I was wrong when I said I am only attracted to males.  What that does for you is put you in pretty much the same place you're in right now...wondering.  You will wonder forever if he was confused, lying, the Kinsey scale test wasn't right...on and on and on until it drives you crazy.  So no - the best thing that can happen here is he can be a man and let you go while he moves on to his new life.   But it will most likely never happen because he's scared.

I realize I'm rambling and jumping back and forth to topics but this is exactly how my life went for years.  Back and forth, a tidbit of truth, then denial that it was ever said, then another tidbit, then denial of the whole thing entirely, then ding dong...here's the mail man with another dildo. 

Daryl hit it spot on with his advise to watch the ACTIONS.  Words are crap.  A good friend once told me this about one of his siblings who was a chronic liar: believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.

Hang in there.  Start focusing on what will make you and your kids the happiest.  He needs to work out his own happiness on his own.  Your responsibility to your partner's happiness is when you're in a loving, honest marriage.  When one partner tells the other he's not attracted to your species and that he gets off to pregnant women, that's your cue to run and worry about your own happiness.  If every man whose wife turned down sex after the birth of a child turned gay there would be no straight men on the planet.  Don't even give that a second thought.

xoxo

Thank you both, you really put a lot into my mind I didn't think about.

The one thing that really really stands out to me is what you said he will try it out with a man, not like it but always want it with another because it wasn't the right man.... I am very confident my husband has never been with a man. I know where there's a will there's a way, but I truly believe he hasn't. I do however think my husband will never be happy until he does do things with a man. He has asked me if he could experiment with an open marriage. To which I'm not comfortable with... But after the idea he will try it not like it and thinks it's the wrong man keeps surfacing in my mind.

Ever since this has happened my husband has begged me for sex. Could this only be because he is trying to fix the pain he has put into me? I know you said I need to find happiness in myself, and not worry about him. But this is so fresh, it's been hard.

Everything I read, everything I see, points to divorce and I guess I'm in denial. I really didn't want my marriage to end. I really loved the life I had even just 4 days ago.

I know I'm jumping all over the place, my mind is everywhere...


I did make an appointment with a different therapist. Well I'm trying to I emailed a different therapist and called, waiting for a call to make an appointment. I know this is what I need to start healing.

I have been a stay at home mom for 5 years. I guess I'm terrified to lose my everything. Leaving my husband means losing my income, my house, my insurance, my husband, my best friend,really just life as I know it.

I do think my husband wants to stay married as a cover, his mom and step dad hate gays. They are so hateful... And everybody at his job hates gays, he said the last gay person there got fired...

Sorry I keep going all over the place, it's been nice to talk to somebody about this... Thank you

Try not to borrow tomorrow's trouble's today.  And by that, I mean that you need to put your first foot down and then follow that with the other.  Don't try to jump to the end goal and then figure out if you have the strength to get all the way to divorce with the resources you've got right now (emotional and financial).  It will almost always look like you can't. But what you'll find is that once you know what you need and want, the rest starts to unravel itself.  What I'm saying is that it's important to figure out what you want (read: need), and then let the rest settle itself out later.  Your counselor should be able to help you greatly with this.

TRY to not let your fear or desperation run the show.  I know it's easier said than done, I know.  A lot of people start off with their goal being to save their marriage, or to remain with their current partner - whether from love or fear.  But don't put the cart before the horse.  Keeping your marriage intact may SEEM like a great, noble goal.  Until you realize that you will give up almost EVERYthing for the end goal.  And then you'll have what you already have - a marriage in legality, but something that doesn't feel anything like a marriage.  That won't make anyone happy.  It could potentially be even unhappier than it is now - even with all your current misery.  Deciding the end goal is an intact marriage may lead to you giving up your rights and needs in order to attain that one thing that is, in effect, worthless without some realness behind it.  Your goal should be closer to finding out what will make you both happy and what will be workable to meet both of your needs in the marriage.  Before you can decide if your two goals can be mesh, you need to know what both of you separately want.

I get that you think that your husband may not be completely sexually fulfilled if he isn't with a man - even on the side.  Well, let's take the gay out of it.  What if your husband came to you and told you that he's attracted to other women, and he really would like to explore that.  Would you let him? Would you tell yourself that his happiness in his sexual life is so important that it's okay if he overruns your needs to be completely fulfilled?  Would you give up ALL of your needs so that all of HIS could be met?

It's okay to decide that you're only okay being married if it's monogamous.  That's what you promised each other.  The rules don't HAVE to change now because he decided that he doesn't want to be faithful to you.  You are well within your rights to say, "Thanks for letting me know that you are sexually attracted to men.  But nothing has changed here - I still expect you to  be faithful, monogamous, and put our marriage first.  If you cannot or will not do that, then we've got a problem".  If he agrees to that, you'd need to lay out what monogamous means to you - otherwise he may well feel free to meet up with others to talk about what they wish they could do to each other, send pics back and forth, or go on dating sites to chat it up with others, or look at porn.  He could well have an emotional affair and consider it not cheating - because he's chosen to only abstain from what you can't technically call him on.  Let him know up-front what your definition of monogamous are.  And don't fall for that "If YOU needed the freedom to explore, I'd support you" bullshit.  Sorry, but that's what it is.  Of COURSE they're going to say that - because it suits their argument.  Tell him that you don't CARE if you'd let you cheat on him; that's not what YOU consider a marriage.  You have every right to insist on monogamy and faithfulness.  If what he wanted was free reign, he shouldn't have married you.  He did.  he took vows.  Stand by them or move on.

If you figure out what you want, and go back to him and let him know what is acceptable to you, and he says he can't do that, (or says okay, and then you catch him breaking the rules - this is actually a more likely scenario), then you will need to know what you're willing to do in that situation.  If you need monogamy and you don't get it, you need to tell him that you'll be moving on.  Sometimes couples get stuck in an endless cycle of this - for years - even decades.  Where she tells him that he can't cheat, and he says okay, and then she find stuff.  Then she confronts, he cries and says he's sorry and that he doesn't need that anymore, and then gets better at hiding his stuff.  Then he gets lazy and gets caught  all over again.  Wash and repeat.  It's freaking miserable.  Lay it all out ahead of time, and ignore logistics of HOW to move on.  Figure that out later, as your end goals become more clear.

Just my $0.02.

I am very in love with my straight husband (after divorcing my gay husband), and I'd have a difficult time with the thought of throwing in the towel for any reason.  But I have learned that when someone's actions don't match their words, to hell with the words.  The ONLY person I'm interested in being in a relationship with is someone who soooo wants to be in a relationship with ME.  If I have to convince him to be with me, it's not gonna work.  I can carry the heavier load at certain points in our journey (just as I expect him to sometimes do), but wanting to be with me and respecting me are absolutely necessary to the marriage surviving.  If he can't respect me, he doesn't love me.  Don't act desperate for the love of someone who isn't respecting you, but wants you to respect him.  Keep your eyes open.  Be on your own side and that of the marriage - not JUST on his side of him getting what he wants at the cost of all else.  F*ck that static.

Kel