Coming out as Bi to DH

[Scorchioo]

Just over a year ago I came out as bi to DH. A family member who had divorced her husband was now in a relationship with a woman. We were on the subject and I told DH I believed myself to be bisexual. When we first met DH knew that I had some attraction to women and that I had kissed women in the past.

It did not go down well. DH was almost sickened by what I told him and immediately started to text his mother as he “needed someone to talk to” I told him I wasn’t comfortable with his mother knowing and that if he needed to talk to someone I would be happy for him to confide in a friend instead. He said I can’t “control who he talks to” His mother is the type to use this information as a weapon against me.

DH then used graphic sexual language grilling me about all the stuff I would do to women. Would I ….. a woman etc. He kept saying he felt sick and if I was really bisexual he couldn’t remain married to me. He felt betrayed and acted like I had cheated on him.

I ended up backtracking and told him I was just confused and that my sexuality is fluid instead.

He then a few weeks after became hugely suffocating, physically touching me all the time and almost “love bombing” me.

We have not mentioned it since.

Has anyone got any experience with this sort of situation?

If it was so important to him he should have checked.

Porn is a deal breaker for me. Before entering a relationship I ask, do you watch porn? And let them know that if they developed a porn habit on the future, that would be it for me. It would be bizzare for me to never ever mention this, get 10 years down the line and freak out over a casual admission that they watch porn.

I get the bi man STD problem - but surely STD tests all round before any new partner sorts this out?

Back in my 20s all you have to do was suggest you were interested in trying sex with a girl and you'd get a blokes attention immediately. They would then pretty much combust to hear you've kissed a girl.

That's absolutely not the same as being bi and for all we know was the extent of the conversation OP had with him.

Oh and the suggestion that just because your preference is a hetero only partner is homophobic ... I knew plenty of guys who got off on the idea of girls but we're still very homophobic about gay man. So I don't think this theory as robust as people would like to think.

This I agree feels weird.

And the first person he tells (actually messages so there's a digital footprint too) is his mum? Yuck

"She moved the goal posts"

Rubbish

It doesn't matter whether a partner is straight or bi, or fluid. As long as your physical relationship is mutually satisfying and you both enjoy your physical intimacy...the commitments you make to each other in marriage or a monogamous relationship is monogamy & fidelity - not attraction.

If you're married and it's not on the way to being over I don't see why your sexuality is relevant?

Same whether the marriage is same sex or man/woman really, the relationship is exclusive to that person unless agreed otherwise so the identity of other people you might well be privately attracted to isn't something to be shared or considered...

Monogamy makes being bi irrelevant if you're actually monogamous...

He is behaving appallingly, but I also think you should have made sure you had that conversation before you married him. I would be shocked and upset if my DH came out as bi, partly because we've specifically had conversations about sexuality and so it would seem like he had been lying or hiding something.

I think it’s normal to talk about these things with your partner, and he’s behaving very strangely. It’s just a part of who you are, it doesn’t mean you want to have an affair.

He’s feeling massively insecure, you’ve effectively told him he isn’t enough for you because he can’t hope to fulfil that other side of your sexuality.

You may think it’s who you are, but some things are best kept to yourself.

That your husband insisted on telling his mother is a total eye-roll—he sounds ridiculous. This also sounds like information you should have kept to yourself if you didn’t intend to act on your attraction to women.

I also don’t see why you told him… you’re married and have made your choice ‘for life’ so to speak.. are you thinking of changing the current situation? I can’t think of any other reason you have told him and I would feel hugely unsettled if my DH said to me randomly that his sexuality was not as I had believed..

That’s not how bisexuality works though. Maybe he’s interpreted it like that but he’s wrong.

Monogamy makes being bi irrelevant?! What the hell? 😂😂😂 Do you think it makes being straight irrelevant too? Being bi isn’t an action, it’s a sexuality. If you can be straight and monogamous and still call yourself straight then, newsflash, so can bi people!

But he already knew she was attracted to women so it shouldn’t have been a massive revelation!

I think I would be inclined to put it down to him feeling threatened and stupid in the moment because for some reason, bisexual people get tagged with the 'promiscious' label and I imagine perhaps that's a bit ingrained in his head. I've had male and female partners in the past be quite weird about it for the same reason, a kind of kneejerk 'I'm not enough and what if she wants to go and get off with a load of women that I can't compete with'. Which is absolute nonsense, assuming you're monogamous.

However I would expect a pretty rapid apology showing actual understanding of why he was being a massive dick (and biphobic), otherwise this would be a problem for me. Your sexuality is what it is: a lot of women don't come out (or realise) that they're not straight until later on, and just because you're monogamous doesn't make it any less a part of who you are.

All these (straight) people saying you should’ve kept it to yourself because being married cancels out your sexuality - does that apply to you too? If someone asked you whether you were heterosexual would you say “oh no, I’m married”?

See how stupid that sounds? That’s what you’re saying bi people should do.

If DH had told you he was bi and it was a genuine surprise how would you have reacted? Just to say that I don’t agree with his reaction but I’m not sure what you hoped to gain by telling him so far along in your relationship. It’s lovely in a way that you’ve made peace with yourself and your identity but I can see the other partner assuming this means you want to pursue relationships / sexual encounters with women. Are you genuinely not interested in doing that now that you’ve come to this realisation?

Exactly this. Marriage should be based on honesty. In the OP's own words (and those of other posters I might add) it is an essential part of her identity in which case it is a very important issue, not only to her but to her DH. You can't have it both ways. You can't say that it is important enough for her not to hide it and yet not important enough for him to be shocked and insecure.

Being bisexual has fuck all to do with promiscuity though.

I'd be disturbed by him wanting graphic descriptions of what you would do with another woman as he claims to be so sickened. It sounds voyeuristic!

Yeah but she thought he already knew!

But he clearly didn’t. As I said, I’m not condoning is frankly weird behaviour, but if you honestly didn’t know your partner was bi and you were married it probably would be quite a shock to find it out so late in the day. Now that it’s properly out in the open I wonder where OP goes from here. If it is just an identity thing and they have no intention of perusing anything outside of their marriage then it’s a bit of a non issue but I can’t believe that this is truly the extent of it.

"It’s part of my identity and something I had recently discovered. "
But it's not recent, is it. You were attracted to and kissed women before.

So is it at all relevant now? If you chose a partner and intend to remain faithful, it doesn't matter what you were before, it doesn't even matter what you are now, does it? Because it's irrelevant. If you intend to remain faithful.

I'm bi. I never really 'came out' to anyone directly. It always felt odd - just imagine announcing to people that you're straight. They would wonder why on Earth you bothered telling them!
I have happily told people I was dating another woman but then left it at that, only giving more info if asked.
Then I started dating my DP. We didn't talk much about exes so it got to the point we'd been together a year and I realised he didn't know. I decided to just blurt it out to him, feeling it was something he should know, especially in case someone else mentioned it to him and he felt lied to.
He was fine with it, maybe because I made it clear that I had zero interest in anyone else.
Perhaps your husband just needs reassurance about your commitment to your marriage. Though I would personally shut down the sexual questions about what I would do with a woman - none of his business really considering you're in a monogamous heterosexual relationship.

He obviously didn't realise the extent of your attraction to women. I've never believed that bi people can't be faithful because they can't be satisfied with only one sex; never conceptualised bisexuality like that, just that you could be attracted to and fall in love with both men and women. But I can see why, if after all this time, you suddenly felt a need to tell him your attraction was this strong, that he might worry he can't satisfy you.

I think if you can communicate to him your real reason for wanting to tell him - so that he knows all of you - and you're exactly the same person as before, he might be reassured. Personally I wouldn't have told him at all; it's the kind of thing he just didn't need to know, but now he does, so if you can assure him of your reasons for telling him, hopefully that will help.

What do you mean "recently discovered"? What did you discover? Recently?