I need advice so badly. Here is my background. I am a bisexual man who has been married to a woman for 25 years and with her for 30 years. I love her beyond measure and she is my very best friend. She has known I am bi since the second year of our marriage. She has been battling cancer for six years, so our sex life is pretty much none existent. That said, we still love one another, but I am more and more coming into my sexuality. I have told those that are closest to me, including my BFF of 27 years. He is sooo cool with it. I also want to sleep with a man so badly. I want to know what it is like. My issue comes into play because I have fallen in love with another man. It is so sorted and complicated, and I have to admit, I am so ashamed of myself. He works for me and has become a really dear friend in the three years we have known one another. He is straight and married, but is VERY LGBTQ supportive. I told him I am bi and he actually said he felt privileged that I told him. Comments like that are just one of the many reasons I have fallen in love with him. I have tried my best to maintain my professionalism and will never cross the line of propositioning him, but I suspect he knows I am attracted to him. We hug sometimes and hangout outside the office. Every time we do I fall deeper in love with him. He is everything I would want in a man: smart, successful (I know how much he makes), cute as a button, from what I can see he is packing, and has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know. I need advice on what the hell do I do. I love my wife and will NEVER leave her, but my feelings for him are real. I want to sleep with him so bad. I think about him every day all day and hate when we are not together at work. I think most people would not find him very attractive, but I think he is one of the most beautiful people I have ever met. He is such a nice person and is so genuine. Not since a very former BFF have I felt this way about a man. I fell in love with that guy also very early on in my marriage, he is straight, it ended badly and we have not spoken in 20 years! I don't want this to happen to this friend, but I feel I may have to find another job and get away from him. Again, he and I have ZERO chance of being together, but it eats me alive I cannot be with him. The other dilemma is I don't want to cheat on my wife. I won't tell him how I feel, but I am just spinning in circles about this. He is the type of guy I actually think I could tell him with the understanding that I don't expect anything from him and he may hug me. OMG!!! HELP!!!
Tell. Him. It might be stressful, but if he's that supportive with you, he'll understand. I know how it feels to be in love with a straight best friend. It hurts like hell. And in your case, it's even worse. Tell your wife, but really insist on the fact that it hurts you and you will not leave her. Tell them the truth, and say that you need support, you need it. You are three adults, settle it like adults, talk like adults. It'll get better if you talk. And don't forget that EC is here for you. (*hug*)
I think you should talk to your wife and explain your situation. You've been married for a long time so I don't think it's that strange to sometimes have feelings for someone else. You said you won't cheat on your wife and I bet she'd like to hear that. This situation obviously affects you in a very negative way so your wife might have already noticed that you act strangely or that you're moody. If you explain to her what you're going through, she might be able to support you. I don't know if you should tell the man, but you said you think he might be nice about it, so that's nice. Good luck!
Thank you both for the feedback. I just don't know if I should tell my wife. I don't know what good it would do other than make her feel like I have a wandering eye and am feeling emotionally attached to someone else. She has enough on her plate with her cancer. I don't want to add to it. I am really hoping my counseling can help me sort through this.
I don't feel experienced enough at life to be able to offer too much advice. but what I would say is if your wife has cancer and you are going through a really difficult time with her, your closeness to this man may seem magnified and more intense because it is a friendship that is going well, and so needed in the difficult time you are going through. While I don't disagree with the previous posters that its good to be honest, I think maybe just make sure that these are feelings you definitely want to be honest about. The brutal truth is that may make both relationships stronger, but it could damage both of them too. and if you tell the truth to both, that's really brave, but just maybe be prepared for it not going entirely smoothly. xx
Since your wife already aware of you being bisexual...then perhaps you should tell her that you have been considering pursuing a connection with another man. However, the situation with the guy is something I would not consider doing. Just because a guy is open minded enough to embrace and support your sexual identity does not make an opening for you to approach in a manner that could possibly screw up your friendship with him altogether. I have to be honest with my feelings and I just want to let you know upfront that I am not trying to be rude or nasty with my comments but when you know a guy is straight and he has not put forth any typical behavior to give you any signals that he may be bisexual or gay...then I feel until that behavior is displayed then you should respect him by not taking your feelings to another level where in the end...you will be the one with your feelings hurt as well as a broken heart because you have taken his kindness and support for you where it should not have gone. In other words...its all about giving him respect to be a straight man as he is allowing you to be bisexual. I have witnessed guys such as yourself either falling in love or having a crush on a straight man because they are okay with them being gay, bi or whatever and just because they give them support...they tend to override their kindness to developing feelings that should not be...and that is because HE IS STRAIGHT!!!!!! I have also seen when these guys decide to tell the straight guy about their feelings..they do not get the response or reaction that they are looking for and with that...the friendship is ruined. Again...all of this is just my opinion which is based off of what you've mentioned in your initial post and like the title of your post stated: I AM LOVE WITH SOMEONE THAT I CAN NEVER HAVE!!!!! ...Hmm...enough said....!!!!
JonSomebody, I don't take your words as being rude or nasty. I appreciate the straight talk. You are absolutely right and I don't know why I even allowed myself to get this deep with him. I do think I have taken his acceptance of me being bi and his kindness to far. I am on the verge of ruining this friendship and I have to stop myself. He is also married, so this is yet another reason it won't happen. We have had talks about our sexuality and he has definitely indicated he is very straight. I have to work my way through this and quit acting like a silly child. I also know part of this comes from him being so kind and supportive of me as I am going through a lot of high stress situations. Thanks for the advice.
You are so welcome IWICCO...you see..the thing is that I have a lot of straight guy friends who knows that I am a gay man and they have no problem with it due to the fact that I set boundaries and I respect the value of the friendship without taking it to an area that I know would never happen and then too..I totally respect their marriages and their relationship. Since this is the case...my straight buddies are very protective over me and they hug on me all the time and their women have no problem with it. Therefore, when reading your initial post, I could not help but keep it honest with you in regards to my feelings towards your situation. Best wishes....JS:smilewave
I am not sure what to advise you but I disagree with the people who've said you should tell your wife. I am normally the first to advice people to be honest and upfront with their loved ones but your wife has cancer which makes things really different as having a positive mindframe (and therefore having mostly positive energy around her at such a time) is paramount in order for her to effectively fight her disease. I have seen many loved ones of mine die from cancer and I can really tell that their mental health/ mood, played a big part in the progression of the disease. There is no "easy" way to learn and accept that your husband/partner has feelings for someone else and would ideally like to be physical with them. I am bi, so understand how it works but regardless of my sexuality, I would not be happy upon hearing that the partner I am with have feelings for someone else and wants to be sexually involve with them (regardless of the gender of the other person btw). You don't seem to want to leave your wife and you don't seem to want to cheat on her (which is good!) so I can't see the point in telling her, it wouldn't benefit her, or you, or your relationship in anyway. Having feelings for someone else (be it attraction or more) is natural and not something to feel guilty or apologize for, so no need to mention it to your wife. Mentioning it to the other guy though may help, as you may need some sort of closure from him. Hope you manage to sort everything out and hope your wife gets better really soon, OP!(*hug*)
Hi: I'm in agreement with *not* telling your wife. Despite the fact that this is driving your bus in a big way, I think telling her is not the appropriate thing. She has enough going on already without hearing the rather destabilizing idea that her spouse is attracted to someone else. It's not a good time, imo. I also suggest you do not tell the person you're interested in until you talk to someone else. Not only does this affect you, him, and your wife, but also your job and his job. I don't think it's a good idea to unload all of this on one of the people who's involved. However, keeping secrets, especially when you feel something very strongly is difficult so I encourage you to find a third party to talk to: someone you can trust to keep a confidence and who may have some experience in this area; could be a counselor/therapist, pastor, etc. That way you can express how you feel without worrying about hurting/scaring/upsetting anyone else and you can explore further in a safe space what your needs and wants are. Wishing you the best. P.S. Just to commiserate: I chronically fall in love with people I can't have. :bang:
The only reason that I suggested he talked to his wife about him possibility dating a guy is because he had mentioned that she was very much aware of his bisexuality and if I'm not mistaken...it was even suggested that she was okay with him being so. Therefore, I took under the assumption that these two have an open and honest communication line between the two of them and I just if this is the case then out of a common courtesy...he should mention it to her because although she is battling cancer...most women have very strong intuition and they are able to sense if something going on. However, if he decides not to tell her out of respect of her dealing with health issues...I am fine with that also.
All, THANK YOU SO MUCH for all the advice. It has really helped me sort some things out. I definitely plan not to tell my wife as I plan to actively work on getting over these feelings. I start counseling on Tuesday and plan to work through these things. I feel I will be ok as me and the guy I like had a really good talk the other day about our friendship. I was feeling super slighted and being majorly sensitive over a perceived slight from him. We talked it out and he really opened up about the fact he is a loner at heart and that he communicates with me more than anyone outside his wife. I gave him an out that we could just our relationship strictly professional. He didn't want the out. He said he values our friendship too much and would work on himself to be more open and communicative. At the end, he got up, askes for a hug, told me he loves me (this had been a major struggle for him before, as I am a very expressive person) and that I am his friend. He squeezed me why we were hugging. In the past I may have gotten an erection, lol. However, in that moment I felt nothing but love for him as a FRIEND. That was a couple of days ago and I am slowly realizing I have to let this go. I value our friendship way too much. All this said, I am going to work this out in counseling and focus on our friendship. He is just the greatest guy and I want him in my life. Maybe one day a year from now iver a drink I will tell him how I FELT about him and we will have a laugh. Thanks again, everyone!
