"Honey, Are You Bi?" Coming Out Bisexual in a Heterosexual Marriage

One night after the kids went to bed, as my husband and I had our evening tea, he turned to me and said he had a question to ask me. We'd been having some couple problems and been trying to overcome them. It felt like we had grown apart... his recovery and my journey of self-discovery had put us on two different paths for some time. So late-night conversations were commonplace as we strove to find each other again, but the question this night surprised us both.

"Honey, are you bisexual?" he asked in a calm voice. To both of our surprise, I answered, "Yes, actually... I think I am."

We had been talking about a short story I had written a few years ago, erotic fiction about two women... well, about me and some unknown woman. He had had a strong reaction to it at the time (was challenged by it)... he had been very "concerned" and wanted to know if we needed to have a talk. At the time, I was too scared of his reaction, so I told him no, it was just fiction, trying to see things from another angle and such. We never talked about it again.

He said he'd been wondering since he read that story... and that he had felt there was something all along. I told him I'd been wondering since then how to tell him, without making it sound like I was unhappy with him. I explained to him what I felt I was, pansexual, and that I didn't consider myself "bi-curious" because it's not like I have the urge to go experience sex with a woman. I merely hold the potential within myself, and it may remain unfulfilled for the rest of my life, because I have already chosen my mate and have my family.

I hadn't thought I was concerned about his reaction except that he would think I was leaving him for a woman or something silly like that... but I must say... I was tremendously relieved when he did not look at me with disgust, or distrust, or hatred, or any of a myriad things that crossed my mind in that flash of panic after I said "yes." I mean, I *knew* he wouldn't think less of me, but knowing and having it happen real time... well, I was just relieved, and I think he was too.

So, there was fear, a little anger, tears, confusion, questions, more tears (all mine, I cry so easily)... but in the end, amazingly, there was only love. It's strange how this has brought us in many ways closer than ever, at a time in our marriage when we really needed it.

The Elephant in the Room

As my wife mentioned, I entered treatment for alcoholism some years ago. I've been sober AND happy for sometime. This is often a hard place to find for those of us who choose a life free from alcohol or other substances.

One of the cornerstones that helps make such a life possible is practicing honesty. Rigorous honesty about lives, our deeds (good and ill) and our motivations. In other words, honesty about ourselves. I know I'm not alone when I admit I have the ability to ignore the elephant standing in the room. I can convince myself the damn thing isn't there.

Such was the case with my wife's sexual identity. It is true she didn't tell me once she understood what she was. It is also true that I knew what she was - going back years in our relationship. Now, I didn't know about her bisexuality because I caught her gawking at other women. But there were subtle signs. Signs I still find hard to articulate. I compare it to listening to a radio station playing rock when occasionally I would hear, say, out of place jazz music mixed in the rock radio signal. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone, but it does to me.

I suppose as most couples do, we had the requisite conversation about our romantic pasts. As she mentions in a prior post, she didn't lead a sheltered life. She was far more sexually active prior to our meeting than I had been. But she had never been with another woman. Yet I felt at some level that she had that capacity. Over the years I had thought about asking her point blank if she considered herself bisexual. But in my generation, that's just one helluva question to ask your girlfriend/wife. Such a question might result in a good slap in the face! Plus the thought of asking that little question provoked great fear in me. In my past, asking life altering questions in prior relationships resulted in the end of the relationship. Once I had asked a girl if she was really planning on going to school on the opposite coast; her answer was yes - end of relationship. Another time I asked a girl if she really did cheat on me with her ex-boyfriend; her answer was yes - end of relationship. Following up on this track record with asking Kate if she was bisexual, well, you get the point.

Ah, but that damn elephant...

Bisexual, Pansexual, Omnisexual... Oh My!

As I started nurturing myself, looking within to see who I had grown up to be, I realized I was bi-curious. That's a word I didn't know when I was young.

From dictionary.com:

bi-curious  — adj, considering experimenting with bisexuality

So then, I was curious. I couldn't very well experiment, as I was faithful to my vows, but I was curious enough to look up bisexual in wikipedia. But it didn't really click for me until I came across the word pansexual and the phrase "People, not pronouns" on, of all places, Facebook. People... not pronouns. Not men, not women, not him or her... THAT made sense to me!

I remember the thrill it gave me when I saw that word and first applied it to myself. I had a group of friends on Facebook and started tossing the word about. "I'm pansexual!" I tried it on, and it seemed to fit.

But I didn't tell my husband.

My Life Before Bisexuality

I've been a bit different all my life. I knew I wasn't a lesbian, so I figured I must be heterosexual. I didn't know bisexual was an option! (I know, that sounds lame, doesn't it!)

When I was in high school (in the 80s), there were no Gay/Straight outreach groups yet. LGBT didn't exist. There were no openly gay boys. There was one girl I knew was lesbian, but only because I had seen her making out with a girl in a dark corner of the mall. There was no internet, no Google to ask questions of. So even though I didn't live an exactly sheltered life, there was not much information out there. I knew what gay was, and I was not. So I assumed I was straight.

As I got older, I had a fascination with gay people and gay rights. I didn't know many gay people and was not part of the culture, but it still intrigued me. I didn't find many women attractive though, so I continued to think I was straight. I attributed my interest to the fact that I was the racial part of an interracial couple, and my own marriage would have been considered illegal a generation ago in California.

I met my husband when I was 21, and we've been together since. We've had our ups and downs as a couple, but all in all, it's been a good 20+ years together. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Ten years ago, my husband entered a recovery program for alcoholics. I won't really get into that here, but it was a difficult time for the family, and most of my energies were devoted to his recovery and keeping everything together during that.

A few years ago, I started feeling that his recovery was going well enough that I could start concentrating on myself again. I wanted to find out who I was after all this time. What I found out was, I was bisexual!

The Husband Shall Chime In

So this is my first blog post. When my wife told me she was considering blogging about her experience as a bisexual woman who happened to be married to a member of the opposite sex, I was surprisingly open to the idea. I say "surprisingly" because I'm an incredibly private person. And this material falls under that domain in my life. However, like Kate mentions, it has been nearly impossible to find information about the experience of being on both sides of the closet (pre and post coming out) in a marriage largely intact. No extra marital affairs, no wife coming home announcing she's in love with another women, no divorce, no public shaming in church, no disclosing to the kids we're separating, and on... Statistics are to be found, true. But hidden are the stories and experiences by, what seems to be a hidden demographic in our society (and in research); self identified bisexual/pansexual women successfully coupled with heterosexual men.

On the flip side of success I won't say that this experience has been free of fear, anger or mistrust. It's a hell of a thing to wrap your head around the fact that your spouse experiences same sex attractions. One dimensional porn fantasies aside, the reality is at least five dimensional encompassing love, identity, trust, friendship and society. And yes, sexuality too. But, again, not sexuality in the realm of porn, but sexuality in the context of "Is my gender enough for her?" "Is she gender blind (thus negating my masculinity)?" "Does she prefer blonds or brunettes?" Oh, and girls night out no longer has the same comforting ring of pure platonic comradery. To be sure, I trust my wife but it has been a shift in perspective.

However as far as these things go, I'd much rather wrap my head around this than having her tell me that she has a lump if you know what I mean. I must admit that I'm very proud of the courage she's mustered going through this coming-out process. So as Kate concluded in her first post, I hope to help her share her story, in hopes of finding others to share with them and learn from.

@katesbidiary on Twitter

Hey look, I'm on Twitter! @katesbidiary

Ummm now if I can just get Handsome Hubby to explain it all to me... :)

Why Blog About Being a Married Bisexual?

I've been reading a lot of blogs about being bisexual lately. Well, not a lot. I've so far only found maybe 6 to a dozen that are active. A lot of interesting stories out there, but none that I can really relate to. 

You see, I am a typical suburban working mom. I don't drive a minivan, and my kids play video games rather than soccer, but I have a handsome husband, a nice little house in a nice little suburb, 2 sons, a dog, and a cat. My kids do ok in school, and my mom watches them in the afternoons 3 or 4 days a week.

You would think I was normal.

The thing is, I'm not, not entirely. I like boys, but I also like girls. Most of all, I love my husband, and I love my family, but that's not the entire story.

I am a semi-closeted bisexual woman (with no history of same-sex encounters) married to a heterosexual man. From what I have found (and not found) on the internet, that is a rare thing, and the fact that I want to continue to live my life being married and not seek same sex relationships outside my marriage seems to make it rarer still. I'm in no way judging those whose marriage ends or changes to an open marriage, but those are situations that I can't relate to.

I've seen research and articles about how a spouse's newly discovered bisexuality or homosexuality will ruin their marriage. How there will be soul searching, affairs, separations, divorce. I can see how this comes about, that with the awakening of sexuality comes a need to express it, and how the straight spouse feels betrayed.

What I haven't seen yet is a story like mine, one in which the couple stays happily married, and uses the bi spouse's coming out as a catalyst for communication and honesty that bring them closer at a time when they had drifted apart. Am I being naive?

So I present my story, in hopes of finding others to share with them and learn from.  :)