Coming out in later life when married questions

It's a common question, but not an ignorant one. I would consider it a language problem, primarily.

When we use terms like "gay" or "straight" we talk about this as if they were definite, tangible objects. Trouble is, they aren't. There is something called the "Kinsey Scale", where a score of zero means one is exclusively straight and a score of 6 means one is exclusively gay.

It is not a perfect scale, but, insofar as it provides a framework for understanding that "gayness" or "straightness" is on a continuous scale (a matter of degree), ranging from zero to 6, you may begin to understand that a so-called gay guy (say, at a score of 4) can still get it up with a woman, and a so-called lesbian or gay woman can be with a man for the same reasons, it then becomes more understandable that for those who don't immediately feel strongly homosexual can enter into heterosexual relationships with varying degrees of success.

Another twist: sexuality can be fluid, i.e. you can be a Kinsey 4 when in your 20's and maybe a 6 in your 40's....By this, I think you can appreciate that sexuality is a complicated and subtle topic to discuss, let alone understand!

Our language is not structured for these kinds of nuance, so it is easy to assume complete separateness between gay and straight, yet, there is nothing further from the truth!

 

The mind is full of imagination. If you rub something and close your eyes you can find the images you need to experience true pleasure..

 

For me being lesbian isnt about the sex. Yes I am more turned on by a woman. But I find I love the complexity of a woman wonderful. Also as a society we are sometimes taught that women don't really enjoy sex anyway. And to have a happy marriage you just have sex to satisfy your husband. I have learned what to do to keep him happy. I dont enjoy it really. Like Richie said if you rub something the right way and provide yourself the images you need....I am not proud of this but I was doing it long before I discovered I was queer. So until I figure out how to tell him I continue on in that fashion. It is not an easy way to live and I dont recommend it but it just happens sometimes. This isnt to say that all women going through what I am do this. I just thought I would tell you how that works for me, since I am currently doing what you asked about.

 

I was raised believing that a straight marriage was the goal in life, and was repressed enough that I really didn't understand or accept my attraction to guys for a very long time, and attributed my general lack of interest in girls to my own personality. But by the time my wife and I got together, I was very lonely and desperate for both sex and affection from anyone, so for several years, everything was fine. In fact, I found her a little too traditional in bed and would have liked to have tried a few unconventional things, but I was afraid to approach her on it, and felt it might "look gay" if I made some of the suggestions. (I actually did make a few and got some EXTREMELY uncomfortable looks from her so I never brought them up again.)

But as people have said here before, it really wasn't something I could sustain forever, and I found myself losing interest, or being relieved when she just fell asleep and didn't want it. I made one last gasp at initiating things with her, shortly after I accepted that I was "probably" gay, basically in an effort to prove to myself I could stay with her and make it work despite that. A few days later she started exhibiting many familiar early pregnancy symptoms, and I went into a complete panic thinking that I might have just signed on to another 18 years together. I waited for a couple months and when it was obvious that the "coast was clear", I decided I had to make some changes--and I came out to my first person, because I knew that I had crossed the line in my brain that I would never be able to go back over. Now, I doubt that I'd be able to perform with her, even if I wanted to, because there's nothing in my brain anymore saying that I actually NEED to. But it took a very long time to reach that point.

 

To your first question: Did I know? I knew something was weird, but when you don't believe something is possible, you literally can't see it.

Turned on by men before entering into a relationship with women? Possibly, understood what this meant? Negative.

If "spent time" = about 16 years together, then, OK, I realized much, much later! We pretty much answered the question in your second paragraph, and, to be clear the "obvious social aspects" were not a trivial matter. We lived according to the script handed to us, this script has changed over the past decades, it is much more acceptable today to live differently, not so when we older folk entered adulthood.

 

Greatwhale I was asked similar questions and couldn't find the right way to answer them. Your response is spot on. With these words as my guide I feel more confident about being asked such questions. Thx.

 

In my case, well I felt attraction for girls since I was a kid, it's just that I also felt attraction for guys, but brutally suppressed this side of my sexuality...(I'm most probably bi, you see)...so this is how I 'managed' to have sex with girlfriends over the years. I can't explain how guys who later identify as *totally* gay managed this, but will read the responses now, as I think your question is valid and no, I don't see it as ignorant.

An edit: having read greatwhale's reply, I can now also see that sexual orientation is more 'fluid', and less fixed, that we might have been led to believe, and his answer resonates with me.

 

In hindsight, I think I knew on some level during my childhood and teen years. Unfortunately the social support from family and friends is not a given during childhood and adolescence. Mix that with a 6 year indoctrination from very LGBT unfriendly work environment (the U.S. military during the 1990's), and it's possible to build a pretty robust closet.

I can't speak for anyone else's experiences, but I was able to build up multiple levels of denial and obfuscation to hide behind, to the point that I felt like I could maintain a straight lifestyle. Unfortunately the self-deceptions and barriers in interpersonal relationships build up to the point where isolation and loneliness can push you to seek out anyone, as choirboy said.

 

I knew I was attracted to females. I found I could be passably attracted to men if I was emotionally connected to them, and decided this was enough to pass as straight. My family encouraged this denial.

I avoided men who asked me out, and instead picked men who didn't demand much sexually (low sex drive, intimacy issues, etc). When we had sex, I fantasized A LOT. Sometimes I'd watch/read porn before sex. I also faked it.

Hetero privilege. Wanting to be normal. Wanting marriage and shared biological children. Lack of gay role models that I could personally identify with. Cultural expectations. I thought if I ignored it, it would go away.