Being Bi (maybe....)

I apologize if this comes off as a run on sentence....I have come to terms within the past two years with my feelings/attractions to women. I had several feelings as a result of my acceptance: most notably fear, excitement and disappointment. I had been struggling with these feelings which I didn't know were feelings since I was fourteen when I first began to have feelings for another girl and it had laid so heavy on my heart for so many years. As many of us have done, I became good at hiding these feelings, ignoring them, pushing them aside, avoiding, dismissing them, you name it. Anything I could to not deal with them. I got married, had kids because that was part of my "life plan". Being attracted to women was definitely not. Not gonna happen. Not accepted in my religion, out of the norm from what I was taught a family looked like, me like women, no way. This is were the fear existed and still exists. I may have accepted my feelings and my attraction to women but my family has no clue. I was, and still am, the good Catholic girl...yup. Totally good and totally kinda gay....lol. But I digress.

So here I am now slowly approaching my forties. I have accepted my attractions to women, but I am still married, have younger kids, live a pretty "normal" suburban life. I have been struggling lately with what my acceptance of my attraction to women means to me now, what place does it have in my life? Am I willing to leave my marriage so I can explore that side of me? I don't know the answer to that. In all honesty my marriage is not that great, we have struggled over the past several years and a part of that was because of the "friendship" I had with my first love, the girl I feel in love with at 14. Her and I did not have a defined relationship, never spoke one word about attraction for one another, never were physically intimate but my goodness when we were together the world disappeared and I liked it that way. We spent lots of time together, just being together, activity did not matter, just wanted her there with me. Kids were in the peripheral, husbands-wait we had husbands (kidding---its just when we were together even when we were kids, it just always was her and I, we had this own little world together). We never cheated on our husbands as I defined cheating but as I later learned from counseling I had a very intimate emotional relationship with her and this in itself is a form of cheating. It was not intentional, it was just who we were, what we had. We texted 24/7 when we were not together. We had sleepovers, kids present (our kids loved one another) and often did many activities such as dinners, shopping, etc. you name it we did it together. We liked one another's presence. She knew me better than anyone...she knew everything but that I was in love with her...The point being I loved having her in my life. Looking back on it now it was almost as if I had a girlfriend with out the definition and verbal proclamation of such and I loved it. It just felt natural to me. Things between her and I eventually ended and we parted ways just a few years ago. My husband and I finally spoke about what really happened between her and I and he forbide me from every seeing or talking to her again. I understand his thoughts and feelings on the subject. He actually was able to see what I always felt about her. I tried to hide this part of me but apparently it did not work.

My husband was aware of my attraction to women and has been since we first began dating almost twenty years ago. We never really talked about it at the beginning but in the past several years we have openly discussed it. My husband is all about the physical part because that is the part that excites him. To me it is about the emotional connection, which is something that I have never been able to have with a man...and to be honest don't really have with him. It is just different with a man and a woman for me. My husband has tried to suggest bringing a woman into the bedroom among other things, and I am really not interested. I am interested in an actual connection with a woman and not just the sex. When I advise him of such he tells me that in his eyes this is cheating and I don't disagree. Again, where the fear comes in, I don't want to destroy my marriage, but now that I have accepted these feelings I don't know what to do with them. I don't want them to drive my mere existence and do something based on the fact that I am now out to myself.

Then comes the disappointment. I am choosing to stay in my marriage because that is the commitment I have made...but sometimes I even have to think about myself saying that. Am I just saying that to stay because that is all I have known or because the fear part is just too overwhelming and I shut down.

I believe I am bi. I have been in love with a man and been in love with a woman. I have had strong feelings for a man and a woman at the same time. In fact being in a relationship with both (it seems that my husband fills alot of my needs for me and then a strong emotional connection with a woman fills some other needs for me) seems to be what makes me happy...but doesn't make anyone else happy (husband...the female I have the emotional connection with). I am disappointed that it seems that this realization and acceptance of my attraction to women may mean nothing. I am so torn sometimes. I have been working with my husband to repair our marriage but once I became open to accepting my sexuality my mind wanders and sometimes I honestly don't know what to do about it. I wish sometimes I felt more inclined one way or another (felt completely straight or completely gay) because this in between stuff for me feels like I am living daily with a bit of a loss and I don't want to feel that way.

I know that there are lots of us who feel this way, each struggling in our own way. I have no idea what to do with these feelings now because now that I have let them be, exist, and accepted them (and fully embraced them) I am left with the now what? Maybe nothing so what was the point....ugh.

 

Confused04, yup I am in therapy. She has helped me tremendously with my acceptance of my sexuality...wade the waters of what I want and don't want. At first I thought I was in love with just my friend, that her being female didn't matter and that I loved her irregardless of gender...I think in a way that was me trying to convince myself it was a one time deal with her and that I was not interested in women beyond that. But once I thought about it and began to let my mind wander I realized yes I love women and am very attracted to women and a particular type too...looking back over my life I have always been drawn to a certain type of woman-androgynous, more masculine. Just thought it was that I thought they were interesting...nope. Way more too it. Thanks for your kind words. It's such a process to work through these feelings...

---------- Post added 27th Aug 2015 at 04:56 PM ----------


Identity, Aww. Thanks for the hugs, they are always welcome.
I have struggled with what it was I was feeling my entire life, why I never was boy crazy like the other girls, why I didn't act crazy like they did about boys...why even being married sometimes I am so disinterested in my Hetero relationship and sex and why I always felt something was missing. But then when I had my relationship with my bff I didn't have this void...she filled it. My connection with her filled me up and completed me in so many ways that a man never had for me. Now that being said I do have a connection with my husband but sometimes it just feels like blah...l am left wanting more, needing mores I feel bad for even saying that.

I married my first and only boyfriend. He is what I know. I would love to have the opportunities to maybe experience a relationship with a woman, a full relationship with emotional and physical intimacy, but I don't think that is something that will ever happen. My husband already feels threatened by my attraction to women and has flat out asked me if one day I will come out to him as a lesbian. To be honest, I lied and said no Bc I don't know. I don't know. I wish I did...

---------- Post added 27th Aug 2015 at 05:07 PM ----------

Yup BidiKlum, we will figure things out.
Thing is I think I want more than close friendship. For me, the connection with a woman feels like an almost necessary part of my existence right now. I crave it, I need it and I want it. I don't know how to deal with that want and need or if there is even a way to deal with it. I have female friends that I am close too, but it is not the same as having that deep, intimate emotional connection (as I know you understand). SO, here I am stuck as usual. And I have mixed feelings about not having experienced the physical part of a relationship with a woman---on the one hand I am glad because I think if I did have the emotional and physical connection it would be soooooo very difficult for me to not constantly be obsessed with wanting it even more than I do right now...but on the other hand I desperately want the whole package, the physical and emotional connection. A lot. So lies the issue, I want what I can't have and I don't know how to get over that...go back in the closet? I don't want to but how else do I get by with just a hetero relationship? Ugh. So complicated, so frustrating...

---------- Post added 27th Aug 2015 at 05:13 PM ----------

bi2me, I think you are right. I myself really believe in monogamy maybe because that is how I was raised I don't know. But that is what i thought I always wanted. After having been married for over a decade and also having that connection with a woman basically all throughout my marriage, and now not having that for the past couple of years (because of the absence of my bff) I am really really beginning to feel a need for it. And now since I have accepted my attraction to women, I want the emotional connection as well as the physical one as well. They both are so appealing to me and I think may be what I have been missing for so long. But my problem is, do I go after this desire, try and experience what I feel I need to the fullest and put my marriage and family at risk. I just don't know...

 

Well Hello.

Nice to meet you!

You have found a good place here for support and insight

 

Hi Rachel1954,

Nice to meet you
It's awesome to feel that someone (or a lot of us) can understand what ur going through isn't it? When I first started coming to terms with my feelings I was so lost and felt I was crazy. Most days I still don't know what to do with my feelings or if I should do anything at all because choosing to do something would be life altering for so many involved I don't know if I can do that....ugh.

What u said about not trusting your feelings....I get! Totally understand. It's such a confusing time!

I would love to chat if you want. You have to post at least 10 times in order to write on others walls. It's nice to talk with others who are experiencing the same things bc, I know for me, I don't really have anyone here around me who gets it....