My wife told me at the end of November that she thinks she might be gay. I'm 32M and she's 31F. We have been together 8 years and married for 1. She had told me early in our relationship that she had had a reasonably long online only relationship with a woman that she ended just as we were getting together, and so thought she was and identified to me and some others as bisexual which I've never had a problem with. She told me about her past relationships with men , none of which were good. Overall our relationship has always been good and there has been a lot of love and we have never had any major issues until now, but it is very hard to not question everything about our past now.

She grew up in a sheltered area, conservative parents etc and never really let her self explore any of her sexuality properly or that side of herself properly and thinks she may have suppressed things and never let herself really understand it. She is coming to more realisations about her past and trying to understand how she got to 31 without knowing this about herself.  I had always assumed she knew that she was attracted to women but was happy with me. It has been really hard to know that she hasn't been.

She recently had a very intense relationship/friendship with a gay female friend and that was the trigger for her now questioning if she might be gay and been able to admit she is more sexually attracted to women and she needs to explore this side of herself fully. She is now at a point where she thinks these questions won't ever go away for her unless she does everything she can to explore this fully. As we don't want to have an open relationship, this will likely mean the end of our marriage. 

She has had quite a lot of mental health issues in recent years and not been herself for a while and so I don't think she has been able think clearly or trust her thoughts for quite a long time. I have now come to realise that her mental struggles were a results of her understanding more of this part of herself and the conflict it was creating. Our sexual relationship had always been good until she started to struggle mentally. I have felt her changing or pulling away from me in recent years, but thought this was just due to her mental turmoil, but now it is clearer to see why this was happening in the first place. I noticed that she may have been having issues with the sexual side of our relationship but thought it was was due to everything she was dealing with mentally and I had also not been feeling myself for a while. We have had some periods previously where I can tell she wasn't interested in sex and maybe not feeling attracted to me but they eventually ended and things felt good again. She is currently on anti depressants and has been seeing a therapist for the past few months.

It can feel that now the person I fell in love with no longer really exists and this new person is who she feels more like she truly is and I can feel like this is someone I don't really know sometimes. I have been experiencing a great deal of grief, for the past relationship and the one I thought we would have that is no longer possible it seems like now. Since she told me what she is dealing with now I have realised that I have been severely depressed for probably the past year or so, maybe ever since coming out of the pandemic and not realised it myself and I am dealing with that myself now too. I am in therapy currently for that and the current situation. I have recently had a lot of anxiety, sadness and severe insecurities since she told me what's happening. The anxiety has thankfully almost subsided and I am able to think a bit more clearly now. My self esteem and confidence is very low, which may also be due to the depression

I think now she knows with more certainty that her true identity is someone who wants to be with women, not men. And she feels as though not doing everything she can to try and find the answers to her questions will mean she will never have peace, find out who she truly is or be happy with herself. I think if it was me and I was in her position, I would probably feel the same way. This means that she can never be fully happy in our relationship and we are only staying together at the moment as maybe we are too scared, are too comfortable with each other still or don't know how to do this. I know now I deserve someone who wants me for me, not any other reason. The rest of our relationship is good and we still get on as well as we ever have, and still consider each other as best friends. We want to keep as much of this as we can for our futures as we know now that we are unlikely to be able to fulfil all the parts of a relationship that we want for each other, now she has this understanding of herself. So this feels like it is the only right way for us to go now as hard as that can be think about. It seems impossible to think that we won't have that future together now (we are thinking of this as a redefinition of our relationship) and I am struggling, as logically this feels like the right way forward for us but the reality of it is hard to deal with.