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Still don't feel completely sure about sexuality

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by LostInDaydreams, Oct 8, 2016.

  1. LostInDaydreams

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    Apologies for posting twice in two days, and I'm not even sure where I'm going with this...

    I just want either the questioning to go away and be forgotten, or to be confident in my non-straight sexuality.

    For most of my life, I've not been secure in being straight and I've not really understood what the big deal about men was. However, I didn't question my sexuality. I just thought I'd meet a guy and have children, and that anything else wasn't part of my life or an option.

    I've been consciously questioning my sexuality for about a year now, and I still can't quite believe this is part of my life. But, I suppose it's not really part of my day-to-day life.

    I suppose I'm waiting for absolute confidence in being gay, and I don't know if that's ever going to come. To be honest, if I wasn't in a long-term relationship, this wouldn't really be an issue. I'd be worried about telling my parents, but I'd be more willing to just to go with it. The doubts only really creep in when I think about having to leave my partner.

    Can anyone relate to this? Was there a moment when you felt confident about your sexuality? If I'm not completely confident by now, is it more curiosity than anything else?
     
  2. Landgirl

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    I think the key thing here is that the doubts only creep in when you are considering leaving your partner.

    If my own experience is anything to go by, I don't know that absolute confidence ever comes. But I have noticed that the lack of confidence over whether I am 100% gay tends to be associated with times when I have a lack of confidence over key relationship issues. It used to be when I considered leaving my husband. Then it was when I had had an offer accepted on a house, which made everything seem so much more final than temporarily renting. Now it is when I consider the prospect of how I would cope at the point when a new relationship became sexual (if I ever reach that place, I need to meet someone first!)

    I have no problem accepting I am 100% gay when at work, in the supermarket, in the pub with friends, watching a movie, or any other situation where my focus is not on my own relationship issues. Therefore I am coming to the conclusion that the doubt represents a form of panic attack.

    I remember asking my therapist, do straight people ever lie awake in the night wondering whether they are gay, or does the fact you actually have to ask the question mean you must be gay or bisexual? She said she had never come across a case in over 30 years where a straight person spent time worrying about whether they were gay. It was just so obvious to them that they weren't, that it never occurred to them to wonder.
     
  3. Really

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    This reminds me of this video where they discuss how they knew they were gay/straight. At 3:50, The straight girl recounts how she momentarily wondered about being gay but knew instantly that she wasn't because the thought of doing something with another girl made her cringe.

    I think for straight people it just is what it is. There's no questioning, no waffling, no nothing. It's just not something they can fathom. We, on the other hand, especially as adults, are all about the questioning and waffling. And overthinking, etc.

    For myself, I completely accept the evidence that I'm not straight but I'm not at the point where I can picture myself being as confident in a real life situation with potential mates.
     
  4. findingjoy

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    Hi! I can definitely relate. I don't have children or a relationship, I am sure that complicates things, but there are times it feels so real, then other times it feels like something outside of me. Do you sometimes think it's just that you're unhappy or its just mundane in your LTR now, and the gay fantasies are a perfect world?

    So, if you were not in a LTR, you would completely identify as gay? To me you're just saying "I am gay" but I have some complications right now. " I am not trivializing those complications -a daughter, and her father -but are the problems in you relationship the result of you realizing you're gay, or just that you have a lack of emotional/physical attraction to your partner?

    I know we both relate to each other's posts well, despite being different..i can completely relate to this!:



    ---------- Post added 10th Oct 2016 at 09:14 PM ----------

    That may be the case with your therapist but . I have done a lot of questioning here and elsewhere and read lots of cases of sexual fluidity, of porn and masturbation addictions (*mostly men) skewing sexual tastes and fantasies and emerging evidence of OCD related questioning of sexuality (straight men fearing they might be gay).

    I examined all these things as objectively as i could when I was questioning my sexuality. I also weighed in how much repressing sexual identity can distort perceptions. For example you can be a gay guy but feel status of dating the pretty homecoming queen, the validation you get from doing it -other guys being jealous of you - can make you forget or brush off the fact you're note excited when making out with her.

    ---------- Post added 10th Oct 2016 at 09:25 PM ----------

    I loved your post in my thread ..similar to this one, both of us feel so strongly sexually but have so many doubts, and to top it off,it's all just fantasy now. On my other thread you wrote:

    to me it sounds like you really know... but I know that 'knowing' feeling can run away from us too.

    Have you ever found men sexually attractive? have you always found women sexually attractive.
     
    #4 findingjoy, Oct 10, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 10, 2016
  5. LostInDaydreams

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    Thank you all for your replies. It really helps. Also, I'm glad I'm not alone in feeling this way.

    Findingjoy, I really liked this example:

    For me, there was also something about just having a boyfriend, sort of like it was an achievement of some kind.
     
  6. findingjoy

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    I read a lot of your posts and we go through similar *but not exactly the same - struggle. On my other thread you wrote;

    Our situations are different. I look at women and I like looking (well maybe we're the same there :slight_smile: ) but I don't seem to get aroused. But when I embrace "I am gay" , it feels like shackles and chains are falling off and this feeling of ecstasy overwhelms me.
    Maybe it's just a fantasy.

    Have you ever been attracted to men? Have always been attracted to women?

    Today I met a woman I gelled with, and all my gay fantasies went away..and for the first time in like two years, I am sexually aroused by women... now I am confused again.. because I dont' feel bi...

    Do you experience that at all? I Know when you get busy with work sexual fantasies diminish altogether , but do they ever change?


    Also, I don't think sex is the end of everything, so ultimately what do you want?
     
  7. findingjoy

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    ..and I don't want to be bi. Like you I want to be totally comfortable with one or the other and I really felt I like I was comfortable with being gay and happy about it.
     
  8. LostInDaydreams

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    Until recently, I wasn't conscious of any attraction to women, or rather I'd fantasized about women, but not read anything into it.

    I've had crushes on guys/men, but there wasn't really a sexual element to it. So, I'd dream about settling down and having children with a particular guy, or just being his girlfriend, but I never fantasized kissing them or having sex with them. I didn't really think anything of this because there were anonymous men in my sexual fantasies, but those fantasies were never about the men themselves or their bodies, just the scenario.

    I've never successfully fantasized about a specific man, not even my current partner.

    That must be really confusing!

    Mine have not changed, and they don't completely go away, they're just on my mind less.

    I do occasionally notice men, usually because I get the sense they've noticed me or they've got a unique/nice dress style that catches my eye. I have also (whilst questioning) tried to imagine myself being with them sexually, but I really don't think that I'd enjoy the reality.

    When I'm not thinking about questioning and all that stuff, men never really catch my eye. At university, I can recall thinking it was odd that I was surround by all these good looking guys and I had no interest in any of them, there was just nothing there.

    Thanks, it's a good point. I suppose I feel gay and not gay at the same time. On the inside there's a gay version of me that's never seen the light of day, and the outside presentation of me is so far from living as gay, it seems impossible.

    Bi has never felt right for me, even at the start of questioning, this was never about being bi. Do you get any feelings like that?
     
  9. greatwhale

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    An important insight from the writer N. Taleb from his book Antifragile is that we are far better at doing than we are at thinking.

    The radical conclusion of this is that it is OK to proceed and try things without fully understanding them. It means doing things (within reason and with intuition) that do not come fully clothed with certainty...and if you think about it, how certain are you of the other choices you've made in your life (e.g. your career, the place you live, your habits, etc.)?
     
  10. looking for me

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    this speaks volumes, I was where the OP is a couple years ago. taking that leap, within reason was the best thing id done for myself in a long time.

    and thanks GW, this is a timely reminder to myself to take a chance that scares me, within reason of course.....
     
  11. confused04

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    Wow! I could have written this entire post myself, with a few exceptions. I am not in a relationship, have been single for an embarassaing amount of years. I really related to the sentiment to either have the questioning go away or be confident in your non-straight sexuality. YES. Ugh.

    I wish I had answers, but i have none.
     
  12. confused04

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    My therapist said something similar to me. She said most straight people don't agonize over whether they are gay or not (and in my case, for 13 years).
     
  13. greatwhale

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    I went back to your opening post, and noticed that I missed an important part of it. You stated that:

    There is the idea out there that we are rational beings who weigh the pros and cons of a decision evenly and objectively, but this is not the case. If you read the work of Kahneman and Tversky and their Prospect Theory, you will understand that we are roughly twice as averse to potential losses as we are to potential gains. This is the antithesis of rationality, but many decisions, big and small, are made in this frame of mind.

    In this light, your doubts about your sexuality are not necessarily based on any intrinsic uncertainty but on a rationalized consequence of the fear of losing your partner.

    According to prospect theory, you may be overestimating the low probability of being badly affected by a breakup while underestimating the (perhaps) higher probability of finding a life that is more in accordance with your true nature.

    Only you know for sure what these probabilities are. However, you are still questioning, this is not something just out of the blue. If you examine your life retrospectively you may realize there have been many instances where you have "not understood what the big deal about men was."

    The best you can do is honour your questioning; take it seriously, it won't go away. Understand that losing your partner perhaps looms in your consciousness more than it should and that gaining a life that accords with who you suspect you may be could be undervalued.
     
    #13 greatwhale, Oct 25, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2016
  14. LostInDaydreams

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    Thanks so much for all your replies to this thread. I have been reading them. I usually acknowledge responses to my thread, so apologies for not doing so sooner.

    Thanks, greatwhale, for both of your replies. I was thinking about this just the other day, and I won't type up a list, but I do think that any time that I've wanted to be in a relationship with a man, it's been out of a desire to fit it and just be like everyone else.
     
  15. SHACH

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    That's an inspirational post if ever there was. I have to say I did resolve to focus on more on doing and less on thinking a few months ago but I seem to have fallen back into that thinking trap. This is generally what we should all be remembering in these situations.
     
  16. Landgirl

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    This is exactly what I have come to recognise in myself. It's only when the prospect of completely losing my husband is in sight that I start to doubt my sexuality. We've been separated almost a year now, and are in the process of buying a house for me. As soon as we had our offer for the house accepted I started to feel sick with anxiety, and to worry about the future, and to feel I could go back to him. I have only ever had sexual feelings for two men besides my husband (and never acted on them). Each time they arose at times in our marriage when my husband was distant towards me and I felt I was losing him emotionally. Whenever things were good, the feelings for women started coming back.
     
  17. findingjoy

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    I feel the same way. Bi has never felt right, I feel that having sex with a woman is like wearing a pair of shoes that doesn't quite fit, Yes I could walk in them, but why would I when I could walk in a pair of shoes that fits me.
     
  18. Hushhh

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    I used to think I was a lesbian when I was younger, well bcs I had fantasies about girls and it was the lack of vocabs that made me think that way. I am still in the closet btw, but it was when I got enggaged that I knew I was Bi and accepted that. Now I'm married and I love my partner, but I feel guilty about this other side of me that he doesn't know. Bummer!
    Sometimes it's ok, sometimes this whole thing gets me down too.
    I know I'm not being helpful, I wish I could be but just know that you're not alone.

    Oh and I read an eye opening comment last time, I forgot from who. So this member said it doesn't matter if we're straight, bi, or gay, if people aren't happy in their relationships, there's always going to be a point when a partner starts to look for something that they cannot find in their current relationships. That's when they start to explore. Fantasize about other things, or act on it. (Either about sexuality, or a job they want, travel, leave etc.)

    I don't really know why I'm saying that but people have individual needs and aspirations, we have the choice to involve our partners, just put up with things no matter how miserable it is, or chase our dreams alone.

    Best of luck to whatever you decide on doing! :slight_smile: