I am confused by my sexual orientation. Since young (maybe 8 or 9 yrs old), I know I am always more attracted to girls than boys. I am quite tomboyish when I was young. Dislike wearing dress and hate girly games. When I start to grow older (>13 yrs old) , many of my female classmates were all started to go crazy over boys and yearning over relationships. I don’t really get it and don’t understand what so good about those boys. However, some boys did catch my eyes (very popular figures in school) but most of my attention was caught on those senior girls and my best girlfriends in my school. No action was done, just purely admiring them. Under the influence of my classmates, I did have relationships with boys but the periods together were very short (few months). I don’t think there were any real loves involved; it is more like a “trying” process. Thinking back, all of my deep crushes are girls and seldom boys. I never told anyone about my attraction to girls, everything is hidden properly in the deepest corner of my heart. I didn’t think my attraction to girls is abnormal, I thought it might be just a phase until I met the right boy who can really make me fall deeply in love. When I was 20, it is the first time I fall deeply in love with a girl, S. She becomes my best friend but the problem is that she is as straight as an arrow and abit homophobic. I didn’t tell her anything about my feeling as I am afraid to lose our friendship. It hurts badly and makes me extremely jealous whenever she got into new relationship. My feeling for her lasted for 2 years until I almost gotten myself into a depression. That is the time I finally forced myself to wake up that she is never going to reciprocate my feeling. Fortunately, I really got over her completely after 1 yr and we still maintain as best friends. Despite after this incident, I still believe that I just haven’t met the right guy who can make me fall deeply in love. I continued to have on-off relationship with a guy, W (I know W before I know S.) for almost 5yrs who really loves me very much, very persistent and tried very hard to make me fall in love with him. He is really a good guy but it just didn’t work out because I am simply not attracted in him. At 27 yrs old, I met G who is my colleague. He woos me with great sincerity and managed to win my heart. I fall deeply in love with him. We were together for almost 3 yrs. We spend so much time together and being so close with each other families that we are almost like a married couple but just without the official marriage certificate. Both of us were each other first time when we engaged in sexual intercourse. Sex with him is alright, not very enjoyable but not repulsive as I loved him. Maybe we are inexperienced so I am hardly turned on. There is a point of time that I thought I maybe asexual. I grew up in a rather conservative Chinese family where my parents taught me and my sibling not to get involved in relationships until we are like 18 yrs old or older. They taught us to be protective about ourselves and be very careful not to engage in any sexual activities until the day we get married. Things changed until I met her, C. We fall in love with each other very rapidly. To cut the story short, G found out about C and broke up with me. We gotten into relationship and thing proceed very fast from there onward. Sex with her feels very different. The passion and desire that is missing when I am with G can be found with C. Eventually, I came out of the closet to my family and closest friends. My parents think it is just a phase while my sibling and friends are supportive of me as long as I am happy. Despite coming out to my loved one, I realized that I can’t seems to see myself having a future with a woman. I know I love C and can live with her happily but I just can’t bear to forsake the idea of having a normal heterosexual family (husband, wife and children) and kids. When I am single, I never place much importance in getting married or having a family. But now realizing that I might be a lesbian, all these no longer seem to be an option to me. Yes, I know marriage and setting up a family is possible for same-sex couples but it just not the same traditional way that my parents, education and the society instilled in my mind for the past 30 years. At the same time, I missed my ex, G too. I am really confused by my sexual orientation. Does an unfulfilling sex with opposite-sex partner determines my sexual orientation if I do enjoy sex with same-sex partner more? If I am really a lesbian, why can I develop romantic feeling to G? Or am I a bisexual or bicurious ? Sorry for the long post. Hopes what I mentioned above make some sense.
From your description of your previous relationships, I'd say you're a lesbian. You clearly have a strong emotional and sexual attraction to women. However, you also have severely internalized homophobia (even though you consciously accept who you are, on some level you don't view yourself as the normal woman that you honestly are) from your upbringing, which is why you can't view a same-sex family as "normal". As for why you can develop romantic feelings for a man, you may be biromantic (for some people, romantic feelings and sexual attractions can differ or even contradict each other). And I think your past romantic feelings for G have given you the idea on some level that you could still have the "normal" family. Ultimately, I think you'll have to make a decision about what's most important to you and your happiness. If you choose to become involved with a man, you may have the "normal" family; but you always run the risk of falling in love with another woman. And if G hadn't found out about C and broken up with you, would you have pursued a relationship with C? I think that's an important question to ask yourself.
