Dear EC, I am a bisexual female and have been in a long term hetero relationship, but despite this being a loving partnership, I have probably never felt that physically we have "made love". I know that a lot of it has to do with my partners problems, for him sex is a mostly physical act, and he has trouble incorporating our emotional life into it. As result we had a mostly asexual relationship, which felt unsatisfying. We have broken up, and then come back together. When we were apart I missed him, and most levels I am happy with him, but part of me holds back and wonders if maybe I should be with women, that I it can never work with a guy for me. I was once out as gay, but "reverted" to bi after I had an equally enjoyable experience with a guy (I came out after my first experience with a woman). I've had very enjoyable sex with men, I've had amazing sex with women. Other men than my partner that I was in love with where men who were mostly somehow unavailable: long distance, too old, etc, so I don't know if I can have a fulfilling emotional love/sex life with a man, but I can definitely love a man. I can have good casual sex with men , but I don't know if fancy men physically, it was usually because I felt I liked them as a person. I love the man I am with, and yet I don't feel the sex is emotionally satisfying and currently non-existent, if the reason for this is on his side we could try couple therapy etc, but how do I know if it is not because I am more compatible with women? This is holding me back emotionally with him as well. As a girl I thought love was about finding a "soul mate" and in my fantasies it was interchangeably a close female friend, or a male partner whom I married in a low-key civil ceremony in everyday clothes. As an adult I have become progressively aware that the hetero version of the scenario entails procreation, which makes it to me somehow "philosophically inferior". How can you love somebody freely and with respect for their liberty and yet by the mere act of physical love endanger that liberty through pregnancy? Of course pregnancy can be wanted and an expression of love, but it is not always the case, and in cases in which it is not you have to put up barriers in your body, or alter it through medication, which is also not something you would want for a person that you love. Same sex love seems to be more simple and more free. Sexually I fantasize mostly about women, but I also used to fantasize about men. How do I know I did not "forbid" myself being attracted to men? Or how do I know I did not fantasize about men in the first place because this was what I thought was "normal", and not because I have fancied them? It seems that philosophically I seem to lean towards being gay, but how do I recognize if in reality I prefer women exclusively or if I am truly bisexual since I love man, and the reason I am not fully happy with him lies on his side. I would be grateful if somebody helped me make sense of all this.
I don't seem to be able to edit the title or post, but I guess I should be more descriptive, I am trying to figure out if it makes sense to see myself as bi if I am unhappy with the physical side of this hetero relationship.
