Help/advice appreciated please - confused bi mama

[Nico89]

Hi 👋

I'm 35 female, openly bisexual/pan since my early teens but my last 2 serious relationships have been heterosexual (currently married to husband 2 father of DS, and was previously married to husband 1 and father of DD).

2 problems I need help with please...

1. I feel like the above invalidates my bisexuality. I feel like people don't believe me or think I'm making it up and I feel like a fraud.

1. I've developed a serious crush on a female friend at work (she is gay, but also in a long term relationship) we flirt a lot in a friendly banter way and we did have a drunken kiss at a work do in the past.

I'm struggling with navigating my feelings. I dont think anything would ever happen between us as I absolutely wouldn't cheat on my husband and I love him dearly. But I'm really missing intimacy with a woman (not even necessarily in a sexual way), and can't get it out of my thoughts. It's really messing with my head and I don't know what to do. I don't have many friends and certainly not many that I could talk to about this. My husband is one of my closest friends and we do talk about most things, but I feel like this would hurt him.

Thankyou if you have read this far.

Any help or advice appreciated. X

Most people only have a sexual relationship with one person at one time and it usually isn't the pinnacle of their sexual happiness but good enough in the context of the whole relationship and family. Are you just expecting a bit much?

i think i get the invalidation/invisbility thing, i don't think there is an answer to that if you are going to stay in your marriage, its a bit like your husband wanting everyone to know about his past girlfriends, just a bit weird and ick

don't try and have sex with your work colleague, it'll properly bollox everything else up that is near enough guaranteed

Thankyou for the most unhelpful and judgemental comments.

You clearly didn't properly read my post given some of your answers.

Do you think you're gay and just didn't realise or wanted to do the whole marriage and children thing regardless of your real feelings?

Regarding everyone thinking you're not really bi. Does it matter what other people think about your sexuality? I'm not sure how it concerns anyone.

It's normal to develop crushes on other people even if you're in a happy relationship. However you've crossed a line. You call your husband your best friend yet your behaviour doesn't belie that.

I think you need to decide what it is you want.

I agree with @username358. Honestly, other people aren’t really interested in your sexuality, they’ve got their own lives to lead.

I also agree that having crushes while in a LTR is very normal, the key is not to act on them. If you’re thinking that you might be gay, however, you do need to end your current relationship rather than cheat. Your DH probably has a crush on someone too-imagine how you’d feel if he acted upon it.

Would you also feel invalidated as bi if you were in a relationship with a woman and people naturally assumed you were both lesbians?

Why does it bother you if people don't assume you're part of a sexual minority that is discriminated against, especially when you're in a monogamous, heterosexual marriage?

If both you and your friend have a crush that you've acted upon by kissing, you've both cheated on your respective partners.

This isn't a result of your, or hers, sexual orientation. It just sounds like you're both unhappy in your relationships.

My advice is that you think very hard about all of this, and that you come clean to your husband. He deserves to know.

Thanks for all your input...

For clarification...

1. Said kiss was prior to husband and I being married... and he knows about it, I told him at the time. There are no secrets in our relationship.

1. I was bullied as a child, a teen and as an adult. I'll lot of the bullying was at the hand of a parent. I was also in an abusive relationship.

All of this means that I have spent years and years trying to be someone I'm not to appease my abusers and to fit in. As a result I have severe depression and anxiety and suffer from imposter syndrome and cptsd. This is why my identity and being my true self now is so important to me. Does it matter if other people know my sexuality? No probably not, but for my own self worth and piece of mind I feel I need to be true to myself and open with others.

Since my post I have spoken to my husband more in depth about my recent feelings and not having it bottled up helped massively.

I also chatted with the colleague in question and we laughed it off. She has been dealing with some personal struggles as well as us our workplace currently causing us both (and my other colleagues) a lot of stress, which has brought us closer together as we care deeply for one another as friends.. No more. My own mental health wwobblesand neurodivergence had muddled tthings as I have struggles processing feelings.
Since we aired it and spoke through it all, everything has gone back to normal.
I'm focusing on finding who I am and taking time for me, as well as working and putting more energy into my husband and I relationship.

I had hoped for some non judgey advice or help. But realise my original post didn't read well (or probably this one).

I'm going to be ignoring any further posts and closing down the post if I work out how as it's actually just angering me rather than helping, and I don't want someone else feeling confused like me to face the same bitchy judgement If they stumble upon this post looking for help.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't think anyone was purposefully unkind to you.

You didn't clarify that you'd kissed her before meeting your husband, people can be forgiven for assuming it'd been after you'd married him.

But you did continue to flirt with her up till now. Your assertion that you didn't like to been seen as someone not having to bother with discrimination you don't actually have to deal with is insensitive at best, and if you weren't equating being bi with polygamy, then it wasn't clear either. Being bi is not at all the same thing as cheating, which is what you were rightly chastised for.

I'm happy you came out clean to him, but you still seem to think you were a victim of sorts here.

You weren't.