I’m 30, bi, male and in a heterosexual marriage. I’ve always had sex dreams about both genders. Six months ago, I finally admitted to myself I’m bi and began exploring different pornography and fantasies. I waited a few months prior to coming out to my very progressive partner who’s best friend is bi and has a transgender child.
After fourteen years of dating, marriage, and monogamy… she puked when I told her. Literally puked. I explained I did not want to open the relationship or make any changes, I only wanted her to know. Fast forward a few months and she brings it up again—this was three nights ago—by asking what I would do with a guy or trans woman in a hypothetical situation and I explained I’d try anything. She puked again.
I’ve had a lifetime to come to terms with my own sexuality. I understand she needs time to process, ask questions, and come to terms with whatever new view she has of me. She’s requested I don’t tell anyone outside of our marriage (her best friend does know and has helped greatly by talking to her) and has even gone as far to say she would not have married me had she known from the beginning. Confusingly, quarantine has led to nightly sex with some kink she’s never explored (and now requests regularly – sometimes you gotta lick that ass!) and our relationship has never been closer.
She’s clearly not affected on a daily basis but how can I support her and her journey to acceptance?
Bisexual And Really Freaked Out
You’re not heterosexual, BARFO, so you’re not in a heterosexual marriage. You entered into an opposite-sex marriage with someone who believed you to be heterosexual. You didn’t lie: you believed yourself to be heterosexual at the time you married. But you’re not. And we don’t have to wonder whether that news came as a shock to the wife. She’s made that clear.
Before I say anything else: having a judgmental, unsupportive, bi-phobic opposite-sex partner correlates very strongly with negative mental health outcomes among bisexual people. And it’s hard to interpret all the puking your wife has been doing as anything other than judge-y and bi-phobic. If the person you married—if the person you love—can’t contemplate who you are without hurling, well, remaining in that marriage isn’t any better for your mental health than it’s going to be for her molars.
That said…
To be informed that your partner of fourteen years—the person you’ve been with since you were in high school, the person you’ve built your life with and around—isn’t who you thought he was because he isn’t who he thought he was had to have come as shock. And your wife has had to process that shock at a time when we there’s enough shocking shit going down to keep us all queazy.
So how do you support her on her journey toward acceptance and/or the ability to keep her lunch down?
You give her time. You let her ask questions. You answer her questions… and then maybe you hold her hair for her while she pukes. Hopefully the shock will wear off and she’ll come to realize you’re the same person you’ve always been—you know, the man who loves her, BARFO, and a man who’s proven himself capable of honoring a monogamous commitment. And a piece of the advice I give young queers about coming out to their parents applies: when she comes around, BARFO, don’t hold what she was said in shock or anger against her. I don’t doubt it was painful for you to hear her say she wouldn’t have married you if she had known. I have a gay friend whose mother told him she would’ve aborted him if she had known. My friend and his mom have a great relationship now because my friend was able to forgive his mother.
It’s a good sign your wife is asking questions but it would help to know why she’s puking. If it’s disgust, well, that may be hard to get past. But if it’s fear—fear you’ll leave her, fear this means you’re secretly gay, fear your entire relationship has been a lie—then you can reassure her. You can patiently explain that you don’t intend to leave, that you’re not gay, and that your relationship hasn’t been a lie. And the longer you stick around, the more likely she is to believe all of that. But your wife is probably wondering what else you want besides her love and support. Do you want her permission to act on your attraction to men someday? And what would that mean for your marriage? If the only question she’s asked over the last three months is what you would do with a man or a trans woman if you had the chance, then she’s clearly thinking about the sex you might want to have with people who give you what she can’t, i.e. dick.
Gay, straight, or bi, one person can’t be all things to another person sexually, BARFO, but we like to pretend that’s the case. I’m his one and only, he only has eyes for me, he’s never so much as looked at anyone else, blah blah blah. Some people find it easier to buy into this lie if they bring “everything” their partner wants to the bedroom. Discovering that a partner who loves to eat your pussy (and your ass) would also like to suck a dick (and eat man ass) makes that one-and-only pretense harder to maintain. Letting go of that comforting illusion after fourteen years of marriage—even if you’re not going to open up the marriage—can be scary.
But setting the puke aside (or flushing it away), the fact that you’re closer now than you were before and that you’re having sex and that you’re experimenting more are all good signs. Keep talking, keep fucking, and keep eating that ass.
