Hi, I’m a 30 female my husband 37 male and I had gotten into an argument were it resulted in us stating divorce was the solution. The argument had to do with me wanting to talk about the harm his actions had done , he refused. I said I can’t move forward without a conversation, he said then I guess we’ll divorce.
I know he is bisexual and I’m fine with that, he left after our discussion and later texted me he thinks he might be more gay than bi. The next day he said he didn’t mean it and he wants to repair our relationship and move forward. I can’t help but think he is just suppressing his true desires for my comfort. I’m not sure where to go from here. I’m not even really sure what my question is. I love my husband very much but I want him to live a fulfilled life. We have 2 children. Have been together almost 10 years. A part of me thinks he is here because he feels he should be. Not because he wants to be. When I asked him this he said he is were he wants to be with whom he wants. He does have a past history of cheating with men, I can’t help but think I’m helping feed his denial.

Cross posted with edit

I'm (hubby) a bi man in my early 40s, married to a straight woman (also early 40s). We met in college, fell in love...but having grown up in a conservative community I'd had urges/interests I didn't fully explore.

I had my first bi experience our senior year and we broke up (in part because I wanted to spare her that). It didn't take, though, and we got engaged shortly thereafter...during which time I continued to chat and sometimes meet guys for j/o and oral sessions.

My Jekyll and Hyde experience continued until we got married - and it stayed buried for a while. Until it didn't. Two additional incidents led me to a guilt and shame driven breaking point, and I finally told her that I was bi and had experiences whlie we were together.

She was, understandably, shattered...but we worked through it, did some counseling together, and made it through the other side.

We reached a point where I was comfortable disclosing kink interests to her too, including cuckolding. We started exploring around the edges of that, nude beaches, chat...and a guy we were chatting with told her that I'd shared a kink with him she didn't know about.

Those feelings of betrayal and hurt came back, and now we're once again in counseling to see if we can find a way forward that recognizes our mixed orientations in a way that's fulfilling to us both.

We'd love advice on getting through it - experiences others have had in similar positions, what came of that, and anything you think might help.

I accidentally married a gay man. I am a really religious person, well was. But anyway, i dont care that he is gay. Admittedly , I didn't realize it because i only had two other boyfriends. I didn't find out until 3 years of being married. Life hands you cards and you do what you must to keep your vows, I loved him so much. Compliance in bed was safest, anyway.

I just.. i just want to understand what the fuck would possess someone to do this to another person? Why did he marry me? He could have just as easily not done that. Why would you create a whole family just to have it all be a lie?

I ask here because.. im not looking for a woman's input. Maybe someone has experience? I try every day to forgive him.. but its hard. He is such an evil man and the things he has done to me are truly horrible. I just dont get it.

Everyone deserves safe love that makes them happy.

I am just looking for some type of radical understanding. I am so afraid of this happening again and it seems that.. a lot of straight men don't know they aren't straight? If sexuality were a choice id run away with a woman and be thrilled with never even being in the same room with a man ever again. So, i promise i come without judgement.

Firstly, I would request you not to judge me & criminalize me- if you are in a western modern country- You will never fully realize the velocity of family pressure in a 3rd world least develop Muslim Country.

So, me ,36 M, Closeted man got married (arranged traditionally) suddenly with a one-week notice. I have been avoided it for years with many trick and excuses and my family got clever and I dont know- a surge of storm and boom. You know in Muslim/Asian society there is arranged marriage.

So now, as a closeted husband in such a hetero Marriage- I am planning to survive with intimacy and duty sex, initially, as I can't afford to mess everything at least in a year ( or may be surrender to perpetual lifetime struggle).

The Closeted/Gay husbands here, can you suggest me how can I perform an intimacy just to overcome initial shame & embarrassments?

A friend suggested to I take 25 mg of sildenafil last night- but it did not arouse me that much. maybe I ate heavy dinner at same time , plus my inside Orientation and stress and fear and shame blocked me to perform possibly.

We kissed and hugged , Which was not enjoyable and fun a bit, but I was not vomiting at least, which I feared that such foreplay like acts with a woman might make me passing out.

But You know, I have been heavily resilient by years of hiding, secrecy of feeling and heartbreak for not living a desired romance.

Another problem is, am not a Top or Bi- which I guess could have make things easier. I am mainly Side Bottom. So being active with woman, and having erection for oppoiste gender seems a much harder work than many.

Please give me your suggestions how you perform with your wife when you are totally into man or Same sex.
And keep an i on my feed- I will be updating results.

If possible- please share this so I get more reply.

I have been searching this topic on reddit but there is no similar post I guess.

Thanks in advance.

How did I miss it?

How to cope after finding out I was a beard ?

How could my boyfriend make it seem like he actually liked me for so long.

I’m so sorry to invade this space with a question like this, but I guess i’m looking from the perspective of men who have done this before or people who understand the psychology of it. I also see that there was a recent post made that was similar to this, so sorry about that.

I am a woman in my early 20s in college, and my boyfriend of nearly a year has just come out as gay to me. Completely gay and knew the entire time. He knew when he pursued me, when he cut off his friends to spend more time with me, he knew when he told me he wanted to marry me, he knew through all of it.

I never suspected a thing, so i’m very thrown off, and honey extremely extremely hurt.

When I tried to have conversations with him about it, he would keep it vague and it would alwyas be along the lines of “i thought it would help me get rid of being gay” (not verbatim but that was pretty much it).

I just don’t understand how he was able to go on vacations with my family, spend almost all day every day with me, kiss me, cuddle me, be physically playful with me, and then tell me he’s not into me at all, and he’s been into men as long as he can remember.

I’m so, so so lost.

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Originally established in 1999 as "International Celebrate Bisexuality Day," it was co-founded by three incredible activists: Wendy Curry, Michael Page (the designer behind the iconic pink, purple, and blue flag), and Gigi Raven Wilbur (who celebrates their birthday today, September 23rd!). This day caps off Bisexual Awareness Week (September 16th–23rd, est. 2014), wrapping up a week dedicated to honoring the community, challenging biphobia, and actively fighting bisexual erasure.

- Love always, a proud straight wife and fervent ally.

I(30M)'ve always had a strong libido. I started watching porn very young, and I felt a strong attraction to girls until the end of my first love, around age 17 (a genuinely toxic and destructive relationship). After that, my desire decreased and took on different forms, like being more turned on by submission or humiliation. I had other relationships with girls over the years, but intimacy became increasingly difficult, since I was less and less attracted to "conventional" sex, and to vaginas in particular.

I had a long-distance relationship with a girl for a few years, which I ended up ending because I didn't want to commit to marriage; I felt like something was missing. Months after the breakup, I kept exchanging sexually charged messages with her and eventually told her about my fantasies; exploring them with her let me get some pleasure from them and develop them more clearly, though without fully accepting them (I was still very ashamed of myself at that point). What appealed to me was imagining myself in the woman's role instead, and that with men. Wearing sexy things, being very submissive, for masculine men. In the end I kept watching a lot of straight porn, just mentally putting myself in the woman's place, and it was very arousing.

Five years ago I met a wonderful girl, who is my girlfriend today. She comes from a fairly conservative background, but she's the kindest and best person I've ever met. I love her enormously. At the start of the relationship, still ashamed of myself, I didn't tell her about any of this and tried to perform normative sexual acts, with a lot of difficulty and disgust. It was rare, but it didn't bother her, because for her, even though she liked it, it wasn't that important. Three years into the relationship, I discovered the transgender subreddit, and read a lot of accounts that overwhelmed me. I came across terms like asexual, bi, AGP, non-binary, etc., and it was a shock. Six months of heavy depression and anxiety followed, then I got out of that loop by understanding that I didn't need to fit into a box, and that everyone could be happy in their own way. My girlfriend was very supportive, as were my friends, when I told them about this feeling of being different that I had.

Then two years passed, during which nothing really changed — no more intimacy with my girlfriend, but she tells me she's happy with me. I do what I can to find things online that might help me feel some pleasure. The problem is that she'd like to get married, move in with me, etc., and hearing that makes me sad, when it should make me happy — it's as if deep down I don't believe in it, and with the guilt I feel, it makes me feel a deep sadness. And that's because I feel like something is missing, I'm afraid of the future, as if I haven't managed to find my place. I'd like to find solutions to have more intimacy in my relationship eventually, because that might be something that could help me picture a future. On the other hand, imagining leaving her makes me even sadder — I've shared so much with her, there have been a lot of ups and downs, but always communication, kindness, tenderness. That's why I'm posting this here, because I feel this relationship is incompatible, but we love each other a lot and hope to find a way to make it more compatible.

PS: After the revelation two years ago, and especially when my girlfriend started talking about marriage, I said we needed to make progress on our sex life first, and I started seeing a sexologist. Unfortunately, two years later, nothing has changed, and we're at a standstill.

Anyway, I hope I'm posting in the right sub, and I wish everyone a good day.

I'm in my early 40s and have been married to my wife for a long time. We have children and have built a family life together.

Earlier this year, I discovered that my wife had been having a relationship with one of her close female friends. At first I was told it had only been going on for a relatively short time. Later I discovered that it had actually been going on for many years.

The fact that it's another woman adds a whole different layer of questions for me.

My wife identifies as bisexual, although this isn't something that has been openly discussed outside of the people directly involved. From what I understand, this isn't simply about experimenting or discovering an attraction to women. The feelings between them appear to have been genuine and have existed for a very long time.

And that's one of the things I'm struggling to understand.

What does it mean when your wife has had a relationship with another woman for years while also maintaining a marriage with you?

Was she living two versions of herself?

Was there something she was able to experience with another woman that she couldn't experience with me?

Is this fundamentally about sexuality, or is it actually about the particular person she fell in love with?

I've found myself wondering whether there's a part of my wife's identity that I've never really known.

That's difficult because I thought I knew my wife extremely well. We've shared most of our adult lives. We've raised a family together. I've always thought of myself as the person who knew her better than anyone.

Now I'm questioning whether there was an entire part of her life and identity happening alongside mine that I simply wasn't aware of.

And I don't know how much of that I should take personally.

I keep coming back to the question of whether there was something I couldn't give her because I'm a man.

That's a particularly painful thought.

If she'd had an affair with another man, I think I'd be asking what he gave her that I didn't. But with another woman, there's an additional question of whether there's something fundamentally different about that relationship that I could never have provided.

At the same time, I don't want to reduce this to "woman versus man". I know people can fall in love with particular individuals regardless of gender.

I'm also struggling with the fact that this woman was presented to me for years as simply a close friend.

I supported that friendship. I encouraged my wife to spend time with her. I accepted that they were extremely close.

Now I know that what I thought was a friendship was actually a romantic relationship.

I've chosen to stay in my marriage. I've also chosen not to demand that the relationship between them ends. I would rather try to understand the reality and work out whether there is some honest way forward.

But my wife doesn't really want to involve me in that part of her life. She keeps the two relationships fairly separate.

I'm finding that incredibly difficult.

Partly because I don't know what their relationship actually looks like, but also because I don't know what my relationship with my wife is supposed to look like alongside it.

I don't want to compete with another woman.

I don't want to force my wife to choose between her sexuality and her marriage.

And I don't want her to feel that staying with me means giving up an important part of who she is.

But I also don't know how I'm supposed to rebuild a marriage when there is a relationship that has existed for years and that I'm largely kept outside of.

For anyone here who is bisexual, has been in a mixed-orientation marriage, or has experienced something similar:

How do you understand the difference between sexuality and the specific relationship?

Can a long-term same-sex relationship exist alongside a genuinely loving heterosexual marriage without one relationship ultimately making the other feel secondary?

If your partner has discovered or expressed a part of their sexuality later in life, how did you deal with the feeling that you'd never really known the whole person?

And perhaps the question I'm struggling with most:

How do I work out whether I'm being asked to accept my wife's sexuality, or whether I'm being asked to accept a relationship that has effectively existed alongside our marriage for years?

I'm not looking for people to tell me to leave or to condemn my wife. I still love her very deeply, and I'm trying to understand this rather than punish anyone.

I'm looking for perspectives from people who actually understand the LGBTQ side of this, because I suspect there are things about this situation that I'm simply not equipped to understand from my own perspective.

18 trans man pre med transition

Ive grown to learn that some people's attractions are fluid and changes over time. I've always found mine to be in the queer umbrella. When I was younger I had crushes on afab individual that was actually the majority of who I dated. These relationships mad me feel as tho I was bi. Granted I only ever kissed them I didn't know what to feel when we did it was confusing for me at the time. ThenI had an ex when I was older and we ✂️ and I felt that confused feeling again, but at the time I was romantically attracted to that person so I tried and tried to see if I liked it more then. Now I'm in a relationship with a agender man who originally fibbed about being demisexual at the time he identified as asexual. This relationship has been going on for over 4 months and we only recently seen each other in our birthday suits and I love my partner hes a very handsome and beautiful individual. But even tho I love him dearly so so much I can't seem to find my self sexually attracted to genitalia he wishes to keep. Identified at t4t gay man before we dated but I don't think I am. My dilemma here is I think I'm only romantically attracted to the partner that I've met his family spent the night at his house and even proposed not formally but proposed to. What makes my dilemma bigger is he learned he had sexual attraction because of me.We also established we weren't going to be in a Polly relationship. But I learned i only love him romantically. I don't know how to break it to my partner I only like penises without making him feel less like a man. Nor do I want to loose a person I love so dearly. What do I do feel like a horrible person?

Hello! Is there anyone here from the Philippines that is willing to participate in our undergrad thesis. Our study is titled "Case Study of Gay and Lesbian individuals in Mixed-Orientation Marriage Driven by Religious Expectations." Our qualifications are as follows:

• 18 - 65 years old

• Legally Married for at least 2 years to the opposite sex.

• Your partner is now aware of your sexual orientation.

• Currently lives in Luzon, Philippines

• Must have been married due to religious expectations

Our study aims to explore the lived experiences of individuals under this situation. Especially those who married due to their strong adherence of their religious practices. In the Philippines, there is an ongoing discussions about the dynamics of accepting same sex relationships. Yet, there are limited studies that shed light on the experiences of individuals who recognize their sexual orientation later on their marriage, resulting in mixed orientation marriages. Thus, your participation will

contribute valuable insights into the lived experiences of gay and lesbian individuals in mixed-orientation marriages, benefiting families, mental health professionals, and future researchers. Apart from that, we understand that our study tackles sensitive topics and issues that arise especially with these unique personal experience. Hence, participation is entirely voluntary. Please feel free to reply to this post as we will also give incentives to our participants. Thank you so much!

I’m new to Reddit and new to this community. My husband disclosed being pansexual to me almost two years ago. He was trying to describe himself to me and it was word for word some of the things my daughter described when she was in highschool. I’m forever grateful she chose to come out to me before anyone else and she prepared me for another big moment in my life. She laid the foundation without even knowing it!

I was terrified and thought our life might be over. I couldn’t focus on work. I spent wayyyy too much time online researching all the ways this was going to hurt me. I cried every time I was alone. At the same time I loved him just as much and was supporting him to be himself and explore his metro side. I felt like I lived in two brains for about a year. Being his biggest cheerleader but also waiting for the ball to drop.

Open marriages may very well work for some people but I’m not that cool. I’d been in a monogamous relationship for 17 years and no part of me wanted to see him with someone else or even have to know about it. I had to deal with all insecurities that women on here have expressed… am I enough? And something people don’t talk about a lot is the mourning. I mourned the safety and security of my heterosexual relationship. I knew him one way for my entire adult life and had to get over it and know him differently. Sometimes I was angry about never being given a choice in any of it and felt deceived and stupid.

It turns out, in our case, he didn’t come out to gain freedom from our marriage. He came out to be heard and seen and comfortable in his body. My fears weren’t completely unfounded given everything I’ve read online… but I needed time to trust my situation. My nervous system has had to do an entire reset over the past year and he’s been there for all of it.

I’m saying all of this to hopefully resonate with someone at an earlier stage than me. It gets better. The separation anxiety I had when he would go to work calmed right down and I feel safe in my life again. I wasn’t crazy for being scared but he never had any intention of acting on anything, he just wanted me to know him. So if you’re finding yourself in the early stages of your partner coming out my biggest piece of advice is to save some time and anxiety by first establishing their goals. “What is your endgame goal in coming out to me, what do you need/see for yourself moving forward” “where/what is my place in your sexuality and in my future relationship with you”. Unfortunately I was often too scared to ask those questions directly and respectfully so verbal mistakes were made.

Mixed orientation relationships don’t have to be open and your partner coming out doesn’t have to lead to infidelity. A purple pill man isn’t a precursor for promiscuity. I really wish I saw more posts/stories like mine in the beginning and I may have been less terrified. A purple husband can be amazing. They dress fantastically, the sex is unreal, they are open to being emotionally mature and we spend way more time together now than we did before. He will go shopping with me, do our toenails, hang out and garden together, play with the cats and cook meals. I wish he was like this the whole time!

Hi all! This is going to be a long and emotional post so please bare with me, and please be kind 💔

I (34F) have been with my (34M) husband for 19 years. We were each other's first loves at 15 years old. We have grown up together and have been married for 15 years. We've always done everything together, people close to us joke that we are the same person. And in a way I think we are, I literally do not know who I am without him. Our relationship has always been great and we have two beautiful children together aged 9&10.

He had never been a physically affectionate person. He only ever really touched me when he wanted sex. I accepted that that's just the type of person he was. Physical touch was not his love language. The problem was that physical touch is my language! So after many years of missing that physical affection I felt incomplete.

It was me who decided I wanted to open up the marraige 5 years ago. At first it was just threesomes, then venturing out on our own. After a while we both decided that we were able to love more than one person and polyamory was a good fit for us. Anyone who is experienced with poly knows that it's not a walk in the park and does not come without jealousy. But it worked for us.

After a few false starts we each found a partner. Me a boyfriend and him a girlfriend. We added them to our family and would alternate nights staying with each other, and staying with our partners. For 4 long years we were a mostly happy family.

My husbands girlfriend was actually gender fluid. So they actually felt feminine some days, and masculine others. She brought my husband out of his shell so much to the point where I hardly recognised him. They started doing everything together and the relationship became very unbalanced. I tried to tell him I wanted more time with him but he didn't care or listen. In the end it wasn't worth loosing him so I accepted my fate, enjoyed the 1-2 nights we got together and spent more time with my other partner.

(Hang in there, we're almost there! Thank you for getting this far!)

A few weeks ago my husbands GF broke up with him. He was understandably upset and for the first time admitted that he had been neglecting me and that things had gotten out of control. He promised to make it up to me, and apologised for what he had put me through. Said he wouldn't date again until we were okay. He and GF decided to remain friends. Which was hard for me.

Then a week ago today, he woke me up from a nap and told me he is gay. I was gobsmacked. He's always called himself bi-curious but has never actually expressed any interest in being with a male at all. And now he is telling me that not only is he sexually attracted to males, but also that he is no longer attracted to females at all, me included. After the shock wore off I said well that's it then it's over.

Now this is where it gets confusing.

He tells me that he can't live without me, he says that I am his soul mate. That he is romantically attracted to me and just as in love with me as he ever was. He has also been so affectionate since telling me and is constantly touching, hugging and kissing (peck on the lips) me. I am so confused. I am grieving the loss of his attraction to me and have been crying daily. I have also lost all of my (not that I had much in the first place) self confidence and feel disgusting about my self. I have lost 3ks in a week because I can't even eat.

I want to make this work. I don't know who I am without him. I don't know how to let him explore his attraction to men without feeling extremely and detrimentally jealous. He promises that he can give me all the love and support that I could ever want, just not the sex. I am still with my BF so it's not like I will go without. But the loss of his attraction to me feels like a physical wound.

How do I know he won't have his first experience with a man and then leave me? How do I know I'm not just going to be a place holder and a safe space for him until he finds what he's really looking for? How can I get my confidence back and feel better about myself?

Please if anyone has any advise or has been in a similar situation and tried to make it would I would love to hear from you.

Thank you so much to anyone who has made it to the end of this post. I am so broken right now and could use any support at all.

Hi all,

Using an alt account for this as it's personal.

My wife and I have been together 10 years, married for almost 5. We have a 3 year old kid. We've had some intimacy issues, especially after the birth of our kid. Part of it was definitely me, I've gone through some struggles with trauma (sister died of od in 2020, partner nearly died in childbirth). I got really bad about coming up to bed, just up til like 2am, smoking weed and watching YouTube and watching my kid on the monitor, waiting for him to wake up. Our sex life was down to every couple of months. She had expressed concerns about this over the years and I always deflected. Finally a month ago she asked if I could take off work on a Friday and she left for her parents house when I got home from work (they were on vacation). Finally, we exchanged letters that Saturday night.

In mine I acknowledged how I had been, and what changes I needed to do (get therapy, which I've now been in for a month). In her letter, she revealed that she's been feeling more certain that she's gay, and not bi (as I've always known her). There's more to it, but this was a devastating blow. She's in therapy too now, and is still thinking about if she wants to stay in the marriage. Obviously, we're not making any big changes right now. We have a kid and own our house, and he is our first priority.

But right now, I could just use some support or advice. Therapy has been really helping my problems with communication, how I get defensive and afraid to talk about things deeply that hurt. I've been going to bed on time for the first time in years, my hygiene is better, and I've pretty much cut out smoking weed. But what sucks is knowing none of this could matter and I just have to sit in limbo until she figures out what she wants. It's hard because I want to do what I can to save our relationship, but it's really hard because I also know that it might all be in vain. We established boundaries right away when she came home after her first letter, hugs and kisses okay, sex off the table. After a couple weeks I wrote her a long letter, really owning my problems in the relationship, and laid out how much I love her and desire her. She appreciated the letter, but I've still gotten no big response from her.

It's just hard. I love my wife so much and I don't want to lose her and sitting with the not knowing is really painful.

What do we do with the grief of what might have been?

Coming out or embracing your identity later in life can bring unexpected grief for the experiences you missed. But acknowledging that grief doesn’t mean rejecting the life you have now.

Sometimes, healing begins by honoring what was lost while making room for what’s still possible.

Read the full blog → Exploring and Releasing Queer Grief

My sister has been married for some time about less than a year, and the marriage has been quite difficult. There have been a lot of problems between her and her husband, as well as ongoing issues with her mother-in-law.

Recently, my sister has started suspecting that her husband may be gay. She doesn’t have definitive proof, but there are certain things that have made her seriously question his sexuality and whether he genuinely wants to be in the marriage.

At this point, the marriage has deteriorated to the point where she is considering getting a divorce. The problems with her mother-in-law have also contributed significantly to how unhappy she has become.

I’d really appreciate advice from people who have experienced something similar, particularly on how to handle this calmly and respectfully while making sure my sister protects herself.