What to tell him?

You might try writing him a letter (or long e-mail). Something where you can organize your thoughts, and make sure you get all your points across. You might also address some of the counter-arguments you think he might make.

Lex

 

Writing a letter seems like it would be a great way to get all of your thoughts together. I thought about doing it, but was uncomfortable having something physical say my deepest thoughts on it in case he decides to use it against me or something. A letter sounds like a great idea, but I'm too paranoid for that. If you don't want to write a letter i think the best place to start is by telling him you want to act on your attraction to women. You said you have told him before about your attraction so it's a good opener.

When i told my boyfriend he didn't believe me. The first thing he said was that i am bi because i have sex with him. He totally disregarded how much effort it took me to say what i did to him and that was his response. Like he immediately started trying to convince me otherwise. We talked more and he started asking questions about whether i enjoy sex with him or not. I said yeah, but it feels like something is missing which led him to ask if it's his fault. I assured him it wasn't. I said it feels good, but like i could experience so much more if i was with someone i was sexually attracted to. It wouldn't feel forced and i wouldn't feel embarrassed afterwards and actually want to be close and snuggle. All kinds of questions.

I said like a week ago i was going to have a more in depth conversation with him and tell him we needed to break up, but i have yet to do so. Still feeling sheepish i guess. It's really affecting my day to day life too, makes it hard to find joy in anything when I'm keeping something i feel so strongly locked inside. I'm still making progress though, very slowly. Three months into this so far, almost four.

Best of luck to you Paris, just be completely honest and open with him. Me and my boyfriend agreed to answer any question the other one had with complete honesty no matter what. There were some difficult and uncomfortable questions to answer, but it was a relief to be honest with him even if some answers may have been painful for him to hear.

---------- Post added 22nd May 2014 at 12:43 AM ----------

I guess the reason i haven't progressed as much as i want to is because he is still trying to convince me that we can work. He's not understanding how difficult this is for me and that it's not that easy. I can't keep ignoring this empty feeling i have because i feel like I'm missing out on real love. It's easy for him because he is attracted to me, i want to feel that connection with someone. I have tried this long to feel that for him and it's not working. We have a deep connection, but not on that level.

Maybe your boyfriend will allow you to explore your feelings while still remaining together, if that's something you would want to do. For me, i am at the point where i know i only want to be with women and staying with him is only delaying things. As harsh as that may sound. I'm not ready for that yet though, still just getting used to allowing myself to feel what i have been trying to block out most of my life. I think he is noticing changes in me, he's been kind of grumpy. I think he knows where this is heading even though he keeps trying to deny it.

---------- Post added 22nd May 2014 at 12:49 AM ----------

Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe I'm the one still trying to deny it even though I know it's true and he is just waiting for me to say something more? Maybe he feels like if he brings it up it will hurt me? Maybe we are both in denial together? That's prob more accurate.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread.

 

Wow, dating for 13 years, I can't wrap my head around that.

 

@paris: I agree that 13 years is a long time to be dating, but if you two are committed to each other, you've already lasted longer than a lot of marriages. I don't think I have any advice here, but I do have some personal experience.

I told her I wanted to take a break. She started crying, begging to know why because things were so good. I came out to her weakly ("I think I like men"). She was hysterical. There was a scream. She asked when I knew, how long I knew, why I said nothing, who else knows, if I was faithful, if there was someone else, if I had any prior experiences. A lot of religious talk. She called me a liar, immoral, and I saw disgust in her eyes. Immediately broke up.

We talked for weeks afterwards. I cried every time I saw her. We agreed to start over a few months later, with God as our center. That was 3 years ago.

This sums up many of my feelings since the breakup and reconciliation. Honesty is very, very key here. I was really sensitive about everything afterwards, so I omitted deeper facts. This only led to many arguments and betrayals of trust. @paris, Don't make that same mistake. If you don't like sex with him, and you both have worked to make it better without success, then telling him you don't like it is what you should do. It is deception to say "I always like it" when you really don't, and it is unfair to not give him a chance to fix it.

 

I know it's hard - 13 years is a long time. But it will be even harder at 14 years and 15 years. So better to figure this out now rather than later.

What did my wife say? Well... I admitted that I hadn't been faithful, and she was devastated. I strongly recommend to everyone that they shouldn't do what I did. You don't need to 'experiment' to know if you're gay or not. Your partner deserves better - and it makes the conversation a lot easier when you can answer their question honestly and say that you have been faithful.

Other than the letter idea, I'd recommend counselling. For you and then for the two of you together. Figuring yourself out first, and then having a safe and 'moderated' place to talk to him about it might be a good thing to do.

 

"How did your partners react when you came out to them? Did they believe you? What did you tell them? What did they ask? Thank you for your input."\

Hi Paris,
I can absolutely relate to your situation- about a year ago I came out to my boyfriend of 10 years. For better or for worse, for me, it happened in stages- I first told him that I was also attracted to women and that I thought I was bi-sexual. He was supportive and simply wanted to know more, which was a huge relief. He even brought up the idea that I might try out being with a women, but at the time I simply couldn't fathom experimenting like that while still dating him. I felt extremely happy and proud for a few days that I had revealed this to him, but in the coming months, my anxiety increased exponentially and I realized that simply telling him I was attracted to women was not going to be enough for me to feel fully open and honest about how strongly I was feeling about this. And so things clashed again when he proposed marriage, I simply couldn't say yes and we took a long, much needed break and then officially broke up after that time. His reactions to all this were first of sadness, but he was relatively understanding- then I know he later felt very angry, depressed and cheated/lied to. I think he also did feel disbelief- He asked: how could I have had sex with him, on a fairly regular basis for years and appear to have enjoyed it, and not be straight? I told him that while I did enjoy being intimate, I also felt like something was not quite right between us intimately, that there was something missing for me. I tried to be as delicate about all of this as possible- I think he wanted to know how long I knew about this, and this question is still really tricky for me to answer. I think I told him that I only knew in the past year, but, if I'm truly honest, I have been struggling with this for much much longer. For better or for worse, I couldn't bring myself to tell him this truth. I recall being deeply concerned with his reactions, his feelings, and I think that is incredibly important to keep in mind. It sounds like you are very mindful of his feelings, which is fantastic- it shows that you are super caring, but that you have complex feelings that you deserve to explore, if they are growing stronger in your mind.

Since that time I've dated women and a transgender person too, and it has been incredibly revealing and relieving to no longer feel like I'm lying to the person I care about the most. I no longer wake up in the morning with the first thought of my day being "you are gay and living a lie." I have had some of the happiest months of my life. But other months, particularly recently, have been incredibly difficult and the process of feeling truly comfortable with my sexuality has been slower than I would like. I felt major grief about losing this person I loved and confusing/exhaustion about coming out to close friends/family who have known me as only straight for MANY years. I sometimes have this fleeting thoughts where I wish I could just get back together with him and then I have to remember how depressed and deeply wrong it felt deep down. Part of my strange circular reasoning for staying together as long as we did was that we had already been together for so long! I was willing to just stay together, grit my teeth and accept that most parts of our relationship were great, except for this very central intimate aspect. Therapy me helped SO MUCH through all of this- I would be in a very different place had I not had someone else to talk to about this. There were MANY things I could tell my therapist that I didn't not tell my ex, things that would have been much more painful for him to hear. But I now understand that being able to say them out loud was crucial in this process.

I don't know if my story is helpful at all, but it's good to be patient with yourself and know that this process can take so many paths, it doesn't have to be all or nothing- maybe you will experiment with women, but you stay together; maybe you will take a break; maybe you'll just have more conversations and that will help you feel less anxious. Mainly I hope that if you do decide to talk more with your bf about this, that you start to feel better and closer to your truth. Good luck! This forum is awesome place to find support-