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?

Personal preferences aren’t phobic ffs.
🤣

Of course you can decide but just asking - if you discover that your DH is attracted to something else you could never offer, like that he's also attracted to women of a different race to you or women who are younger than you are, would you leave him?

It sounds like a possible communication issue - he's mistaken your intention in officially now labelling it as some sort of indicator of dissatisfaction for you in your sexual relationship (that he can never resolve) and possible intent or desire to experiment on your part.
It may be that he sees it as cumulative - so he's somehow assuming your bisexuality means needing sex with both a man and a woman to feel satisfied, instead of where you're coming from as it being sex with either a man or a woman. Being in a monogamous relationship with a man doesn't make you straight, or that you've picked a side, it's that the person you've grown that relationship with and are committed to happens to be a man.
So it wouldn't be surprising if he's now feeling more insecure if he's misunderstood and the questions he's asked sounds like he's scrambling to understand.
Unless you do actually want to experiment, how would you have liked your DH to respond? It can be really hard to have productive conversations on this topic when it's such a personal experience and a lot of us struggle to fully and clearly articulate the feelings involved and assumptions can be made as to what certain terminology means. Plus, it does feel sometimes like you can't actually ask any questions at all without someone quite aggressively telling you that you're homophobic.

Preference is one thing. Expressing revulsion is another thing.

No, but he is unlikely to sit his wife down and say: "I have something I want to discuss with you. As well as wanting sex with you, I also want to have sex with Aboriginal Australian women"

Its not the same.

You're all nuts by the sounds of it.

Well your examples- especially the one regarding the “intelligent conversation” are not entirely equivalent.

as I pointed out previously being gay or bi is not necessarily an observable trait that you happen to be attracted to or not.
You may well be attracted to a bi or gay person (not knowing they were bi/gay) but you say that if you found out they were bi you would then decide you wouldn’t date them. In that instance, you are attracted to the person, but repelled by the trait of being bi. That’s the homo/ bi phobia.

but yes, for what it’s worth, I do think that fat phobia and ableism absolutely also shape people’s (ideas about) sexual attraction. And I’d think it straight up fat phobic if someone said “I’d never date a fat person” and ableist if someone said “I’d never date a disabled person”.

Except that no one in their right mind tells stuff like this in passing, unless you believe that Real Housevives of Whatever is real...🙄
Can you actually imagine actual normal people let's say going shopping and Sarah's seeing Jack getting the lettuce in his basket and saying, in passing ofc, Hey, so your girlfriend is bisexual I have heard! How is that coming along for ya all?
Really?

I am attracted to intelligent men with interesting conversation, is that prejudicial to people with speech impediments or autism etc?

What the actual fuck, how have we gone from biphobia to out and out ableism? Why would someone with autism not be able to hold an intelligent conversation, if anything someone highly intelligent is more likely to be autistic and you don’t even realise it.

Your personal physical attraction has nothing to do with another’s persons personal attraction to either sex. If they’re sexually attracted to you and you them, as long as their past sexual experiences have been consensual and safe then how on earth does it affect a strong current relationship?

Which changes nothing about what @Scorchioo said.

What are phobias if not personal feelings about/ towards something/ someone?

Calling something a “preference” doesn’t mean it’s automatically not prejudiced/ discriminatory , many (most?) of our preferences are informed by prejudices.

It’s not homophobic to find the act repulsive. It’s homophobic to consider the people who do the act repulsive

IMO it's just as homophobic for pp to make irrelevant comments about how sickening she considers the prospect of same-sex activity. I mean, how exactly is it relevant to the thread?

Ableism wah wah. Next I'll be ageist because I rule out nursing homes as a place to get a shag. The point I am making is that assigning some label of prejudice because they don't fancy someone is stupid.

Why did you tell him?

If you’re with him and not thinking of being unfaithful its irrelevant and telling him you’re bi is bound to upset him as it implies there’s a reason you’re telling him. Maybe you want to be with someone else (a woman, a man, makes no difference) either on the side or as a threesome. Of course he’s upset.

I had a relationship with a woman before I met DH (22 years ago). He doesn’t know and doesn’t need to know. He doesn’t know how many or any specifics about previous boyfriends either. Our past obviously shaped us but we don’t need to discuss our previous partners or irrelevant aspects of our sexuality to be happy together.

I'm sort of in a similar boat! I realise going back to my late teens that had I been in a more open environment, I'd have experimented more: it's not like I couldn't have made it into a thing and been a gay woman for a while, but that isn't how it felt (sexuality being complex and all that). I never did act on it beyond a bit of snogging, and heteronormativity is such a drug that I just went with the flow because that's what you did. And now people are talking more, the kids I know are completely open to a more fluid sexuality and that's inspiring. I think, well - I am where I am now, I'm married and that's happy for me, but if I had my time over I would definitely have done things differently.

Another friend of mine is maybe more like you: she's completely settled, but the NB identity that she could have had feels very right for her. She explained it as having not had the tools to explore something that might have made her feel more comfortable in ways she didn't realise were possible. She sticks to clothing as a personal expression of that and because she's 55 and arty, nobody looks twice at her (and it's a look I share! But don't feel NB at all).

Sexuality doesn't always fit into a box, it's not always one thing, and it changes sometimes over time. And if you are either dead straight or definitely gay, that seems hard to comprehend, going by the responses? I don't know. And if you've always felt a little bit in-between in ways you can't quite articulate...now is a really freeing time. Prejudice is RIFE but it always was, no changes there really, as anyone can see by this thread. If you find the people you can talk to who get it, then it's very relaxed and interesting, actually. You don't have to be out there shagging or upsetting your marriage. I'm not. I'm just a bit more...easy in myself.

And all of this…

Genuine question because i really can't work out the answer, So as a hetrosexual if wouldn't enter a relationship with someone that is Bi it means i am biphobic ? So what does it make a lesbian that won't date a transwoman, would she be transphobic ?

I don't like blondes but that's cos brown hair looks better not because blondes are disgusting.

Do you not see a difference?

You are absolutely entitled to be attracted to whomever you please but you were absolutely ableist and have no clue about autism to make the connection you did in your post.

The poster didn’t express revulsion. She just said it would be a turn off. If would be for me too.

Being bisexual isn’t a choice, but it doesn’t mean I have to find someone who is bisexual attractive. I would not date a man that I knew was bisexual as it’s a turn off.

Ableism wah wa

charming.

I don't think you should have done this. The LGB aspect of it is irrelevant really. What's relevant is that you are in a lifelong monogamous marriage - either you protect and work at that, or it could end. He probably felt really threatened by it.

Why on earth did you tell him then?

What do you want to get out of it?

If you've only recently 'discovered' you're bi, how is it part of your identity? How did you identify previously? As being bi has become part of your identity, how will this manifest?

why is it a turn off?