When is it not enough anymore?

So I had this long conversation with myself today in my head about things. I wondered how long would I be ok with being "not-straight" living day to day the life of a "typical" suburban mom (minus the mini-van), husband, two kids, house, full time job. How long will I be able to convince myself it's enough when I have these other desires. There is this other part of me that I feel each day is becoming stronger and stronger, or I should say that I am allowing myself to become stronger. When I have a chance to myself I will read literature, or watch shows, or come to this forum so I get the chance to explore and express my true desires which I feel I cannot do in my everyday life. Yes I am choosing to stay married and true to my commitment to my marriage, my husband my family. I have gone decades ignoring this ache, pushing it to the side, calling it something else and not given any life to it. But now, now I have fully accepted and embraced my attraction to women and its with me each day. And each day I allow it to grow. I find myself lately trying to to connect to that part of me in any way I can. For now, in the infancy stage of my acceptance the ache has not become horribly overwhelming-yet. however each day it grows and grows. I guess I worry that one day my current attempts to stay connected with this part of me won't be enough anymore and I will want more and need more. I am not sure what to do. I don't want to suffocate a desire that I have kept stifled for almost forty years, but how much do I let it grow?

 

My husband is more than open to a threesome. That's where his head is at. He is fine with bringing another woman into our bedroom, as long as he is part of it. But that's not what I want. First off, if I was physically intimate with another woman I would want it to be me and her only. I don't want him to have anything to do with it because for me it's not the point. This is the important part---I want a relationship with a woman and everything it entails, the ups and downs, the emotional connection, the physical connection, all of it. It's not just about sex as my husband thinks. He doesn't understand the I want a girlfriend part. I have been in two situations before with the emotional connection with women. Our behavior closely mirrored that of a relationship without crossing over into the physically intimate side. My husband saw me through both of those situations and was extremely jealous and rightfully so. I loved being in those "relationships" and reasoned to myself that I had just found a best friend and someone that I grew super close with. This helped me justify continuing them....Bc they were women and they were my best friends, and there is nothing wrong with that. But there was something wrong with it and also something so right. That high that I felt having that relationship with another women was like nothing I ever experienced. And I want more. I crave more, ache for more. I am open with my husband about my attraction to women, but only to a point. I feel bad and guilty a lot because he is my partner and best friend, how do I tell him that basically he is not enough for me.

---------- Post added 19th Sep 2015 at 09:48 AM ----------

And not to mention that I think if I was given full permission to have a girlfriend, I would end up having a girlfriend, getting lost in the relationship and want nothing more to be with her, eventually ending up with me leaving my marriage.

 

SiennaFire, Totally agree. I don't have to explore to know whether or not I like women. I know I do. That has truly been my struggle, am I bisexual or am I a lesbian?

---------- Post added 19th Sep 2015 at 06:09 PM ----------

I feel a mixture of feelings. I am excited and happy. The possibilities seem to run rampant through my mind of what could be, what it is like, what have I been missing for all of these years. But then I get sad as well. I feel loyalty to my husband and my marriage. I don't like feeling like my feelings towards women and my wondering "what if" negates the past decade I have spent married to my husband.

---------- Post added 19th Sep 2015 at 06:14 PM ----------

Soulstone, can I ask if you left your lesbian lover because you felt you were not being faithful to your husband and marriage or because you truly just didn't want a relationship with women anymore. I agree, I have made a commitment and I plan to honor that. It is not any secret my husband and I have had several issues over the span of our marriage and these issues make things easier for me to allow my mind to wander what if. I struggle sometimes with ending my marriage, not because I feel I may be a lesbian (sometimes I wonder if I am truly a lesbian and not bi...) but because him and I are not working. I don't want my questioning of my sexuality to be a part of my decision to leave (or to stay...) but it is part of who I am and I think it almost has to be part of my decision as well. That being said, I did get marriage and made a commitment to my husband and my marriage and my kids to be a family. Pursuing any relationship with a woman now seems very selfish to me...

---------- Post added 19th Sep 2015 at 06:23 PM ----------

Cap, for me I tender to disagree. I don't think that me finally acknowledging my sexuality is like me deciding that I want to date a football player or as you said someone younger, etc. For me the issue is much deeper than that, much more inherent to who I really am as a person. Struggling with my sexuality has been very much a life long struggle for me and one that I do not take lightly. Being raised in a religious environment with very conservative parents I did not feel I had the "comfort" of determining what I want or what I like or whom I may love because I was given a map per se of the path I was to follow and deviating from that path was frowned upon. Now that I am a grown woman and have decided to take ownership of myself, my life and my feelings (which has been many years in the making) I feel that I can no longer allow these feelings I have to lay dormant. At this point in my life I do not have a connection with a woman, a relationship that is constantly distracting me and pulling me away from my marriage. Since the connection between myself and these two women I had connections with has been gone, I do find myself a bit more focused in my every day life, my marriage, etc. But being attracted to women is not something that I know will ever go away. I am very open with my husband about how I feel and my needs. We discuss how one cannot control whom they have feelings for, its the behaviors that we chose. My best friend, the first one I ever loved, the first person actually that I ever was in love with is no longer in my life, but her choice. It was needed for her to make that break, bc to be quite honest I would have never done it. I love her too much and want to be with her too much for me to have ever broken things off and disconnected. My love for her blinded me to my actions and I was behaving seriously like a teenager and doing things that were not ok in my marriage. My husband and I have been through counseling about it, discussed what happened and how I feel. He knows that I desperately want a girlfriend, but also knows that I believe if I pursue a girlfriend it is cheating. So for me it is not so simple...this desire is very much a part of who I am and it is not going away and as I have said, I am not sure how long I can ignore it.

---------- Post added 19th Sep 2015 at 06:32 PM ----------

Bi2me,
I think that is part of my issue, I have a very horrible time at boundaries. When I have a romantic connection I want to be all in. I do not fall in love with every woman I meet (although sometimes I think I want to because I want that connection so bad...) but when I do feel something with another woman and then reciprocate behavior (constant talking, texting, flirting, etc. ) I have a difficult time stopping, bc it is something I want so much. I don't want to cheat on my husband. I don't think about dating other men and wanting to start a relationship with another man, I just have finally allowed myself to accept that I enjoy the company of a woman and accepted it for what it is---romantic, sexual attraction and that I want more of if. And how I feel when I am in such a relationship is sooo drastically different than how I have ever felt with my husband it feels like an awakening and I find myself thinking often "my goodness, if it feels this good to talk to a woman and spend time with her when I have finally allowed myself to like women, what have I been missing all these years." I wonder, often, maybe I am a lesbian. Yes, I am married, I have had sex with a man, I have two children and this has been my life. This is the life I was taught I was supposed to live. I have lived for my life for my values, my upbringing, my parents, my religion. I don't really know who I am without them. This life has defined me rather than me defining it. When I first started accepting that the feelings I was having for my best friend were actually romantic feelings and not just best friend feelings I feel like I was making a choice for me, to be me, to be who I always have been but have been hiding from. I felt freer and like I was coming into my own skin. Hard to describe, but it felt really good and horribly terrifying at the same time...

 

3rd time I feel for you I really do. I wish I could somehow make it all better. I don't know if you are allowing or letting it grow, as much as coming around to who you truly are? I don't know. You know more about yourself than I may never know about myself. I hope you can come to a resolution that gives you comfort.[/QUOTEa]

Thanks rachael1954. I appreciate the support. I know that there are a lot of us in similar positions. I am naturally a thinker and a feeler I do too much of both and when they both are combined it makes for one emotional mess of me.

"I don't know if you are allowing or letting it grow, as much as coming around to who you truly are?"

This is such a true statement. I don't know either, I think the correct answer for me would probably be both. This is definitely a part of me, a big part. And after acceptance I have definitely let it grow too. I just know I don't want to hurt my husband and my family, or myself either. I don't know what a good balance is for me or even if there is a good balance. I kinda obsess about the girlfriend thing way more than I should because it is something ingrained in me that I want. My husband threatens to leave at times, when we fight, we have had our troubles over the years. I think part of me secretly wants him to go, because then he makes things easier for me. I know it is a terrible thought, but it is a thought of mine and I own it. Just like desiring a woman. It is not only a thought but at the core of who I am. Now what the heck do I do with it since I have defined myself as a heterosexual woman for all of my life and built a life around it....

 

So I thought I would post as an add on here something that happened last night shortly after I began the thread. As if I don't already feel bad enough, guilty, etc.....

I have always never been very interested in sex. Did not have sex until I got married and when I did it was like, that was it? I was not impressed at all. My husband is very interested in physical intimacy, namely sex, so in our marriage I am sad to say that it has become a routine of mine that I participate in because it is part of my "job." Since I have acknowledged my sexuality, I have had even a harder time being intimate with my husband as my mind wanders and I just am not into it. Well apparently, unbeknownst to me, my husband has been taking a form of Viagra for a bit of time. Last night before him and I spent time together he took a pill. We were together and things were fine, it has been a while, so it was a bit better than most other times. My husband jumped in the shower and I proceeded to leave the room. Suddenly I heard a cry out and a thud. He apparently became dizzy in the shower, and when he got out he fainted and collapsed to the floor. I immediately ran to his side and he was literally shaking on the floor and out. He had hit his head on the floor and face, broke two teeth and was bleeding. I was horrified. He refused to be scene at the hospital and I asked him what had happened. He told me that he had taken a form of Viagra, that this had been the second time when he felt dizzy and almost collapsed. He told me that he wants to be with his wife but is having troubles....my heart broke a bit. I am struggling internally with my questioning of my sexuality and my husband is having his own struggles. I am not sure an intimate experience between himself and I will ever be the same again...

---------- Post added 19th Sep 2015 at 07:11 PM ----------

I feel like an awful person....and wife.