Before you were married the door was open for her to move her sexuality in either direction. Once married and starting a family that door closes to anyone who takes their vows seriously. To be honest, I think it is good she revealed this now instead of thinking she could repress this. My guess is eventually this would have happened. How long is hard to say, better now than in a decade or so and with the added responsibility of children to provide for. During that process you might have found your relationship going distant and downhill and your spouse falling into conditions such as depression that you could do nothing to help with (part of my personal experience).

Changing yourself isn't the answer (not saying that some of us couldn't use a bit less 'macho strong man' in our personalities). This isn't like changing habits about tidiness or putting the cap back on the toothpaste. Short term it might have worked for a while but you might have found yourself on a slope where eventually it wouldn't have been enough. Compromise, compromise some more and eventually you don't recognize yourself and still wind up separated. You need someone who loves you for who you are, not as a project to renovate.

It sounds like there's been honesty and no infidelity. Maybe that will allow you both to love each other enough to recognize continuing is a bad idea and to let go is what will be fair to all. Seeing a therapist is a good idea and feel free to also post here, even if it is just to vent a bit.

Taylor,
  I read your wife's actions as no different from those of anyone--male and female, straight or otherwise--who gets cold feet after the wedding and not before.  Suddenly she's seeing what her marriage vows are going to require of her: fidelity and monogamy to one person, no matter the attractions elsewhere. (For the record, those same vows apply to you, too, and I don't see you kicking about your new inability to pursue other women when the urge hits.)  I assume that earlier in your partnership, she did not miss being a woman-identified woman in a lesbian community (or, as a bisexual, the possibility of living as a woman-identified woman in a lesbian community).  No one can say why she has now decided that her declaration (through her marriage to you) that she will continue to forego that identification for the foreseeable future has suddenly become intolerable to her.  
   What you need to do now is not to think about how to re-make yourself in order to woo her back in a kind of "pick-me dance" ("pick me and your heterosexual partnership over being a lesbian").  If "the seriousness of building a life and family together" is too much for her, and she's declared she doesn't want to do it, changing yourself to become "less masculine" (less who and what you are) would make no difference whatsoever.  
   From my perspective, you are far too forgiving, and far too willing to see her side of things to the detriment of your own needs.  Some salutary anger on your part would be entirely appropriate; as her fiance you had the right to expect she would weigh the possibilities before the wedding, not after.  That was her responsibility and obligation to you; she failed to do it, and it doesn't matter why--don't get involved in trying to figure her out.  
  If she's now decided her sexual orientation is as a lesbian, then you end the marriage, experience the loss, and find someone who will say "forsake all others" and mean it. 
   

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (April 15, 2017 7:00 am)