Hi, I am a bisexual woman, previously married to a man. I would say I'm 60/40 sort of straight to gay in my way of thinking about it. I've dated a lot more men than women, but am turned on and have had great sexual and emotional relationships with women. Right now I am dating a man who I have been with for about 6 months. He's awesome and things are going really well - we have fun together, honest, open, great sex, etc. This relationship however has meant the end of a friendship/relationship with a woman that I've known for about 3 years. This is because she and I were casually involved with each other (her more serious about it than me) and it's hard for her to be friends with me now that I've "moved on". The problem is that I still love her. But I'm not willing/ready/able to commit to a sexual, romantic intimate relationship the way I am with this man in my life, and I'm not sure why. I wonder if I still have some internalized homophobia around my relationships with women. Because I'm much more willing to "make" a relationship happen with a man than with a woman, even if the feelings are there for the woman. My current boyfriend is not into the idea of an open relationship, so I don't really have much room to negotiate around that. I've made a choice of who I want to be with, but the loss of this woman in my life is bigger than I thought it would be. Not sure anyone has any answers for me, just thought I would put it out there.... thoughts?
it sounds like either internalized homophobia or your preference for men being stronger than for women and/or your current relationship with the guy
I've stayed in relationships in the past out of fear of losing a person in my life/being lonely. If this is the case with either your boyfriend or with her, you need to acknowledge that right away. Or maybe you're poly, and you want to have multiple relationships, but you need to find like-minded people to explore that with rather than force others in your life to go along with it.
