Confused sexuality

[user1471507501]

I am 48 and have been married for nearly 20 years with 2 lovely children. In the last few years I have found myself increasingly attracted to women. I have always had crushes on women, but I have never really questioned my sexuality until recently. My husband is a decent man and although we have our ups and downs, we are happy and have a good life. I have no intention of cheating on him, as the devastation that would bring is too awful to contemplate. I sometimes wish he would cheat so that would give me a free pass (ridiculous I know). I'm not sure what replies I hope or expect to get, but it would be interesting to hear from women in the same position.

My Mum....at the age of 50...started dating women and has never looked back. She doesn't care about labelling herself, but I suspect she is bisexual- as am I.

I have dated both men and women.

I also know several other women, previously in hetero marriages or relationships for decades, who now live as lesbians.

I think it's a normal thing...but that might just be the circles I move in.

Yes, I've heard of cases like your Mum, which are wonderful. If I were single I would embrace my new feelings without looking back.

I suppose you just need to accept those feelings and move on. The fact that you might be bi doesn’t alter the fact that you’re married and won’t cheat. So really these feelings aren’t really any different to those you might have occasionally felt when seeing an attractive man.

Nothing useful to add except I could have written your post. I’m 46, married for 20 years with 2 children and no desire to change the status quo. Have also always had crushes but more in an admiration way than sexual so never really thought anything of it. But now I seem to be in the grip of a full on obsession, thankfully with someone I’m not likely to run into on the school run so totally harmless but even so, this is full on physical for the first time. It’s left me feeling weird but strangely calm and, I don’t know, like there’s this whole unexplored side to me that, at my age, I didn’t expect to find.

Have name changed as DH knows my posting name. He’d be surprised and maybe shocked but I agree with Angelf1sh that it’s actually no different to fancying another bloke. I love my DH dearly and that’s that. But it’s odd to think about after nearly 50 years!

And this is the first time I’ve put this anywhere except in my head! Sorry, that was a hell of a lot of ‘nothing useful to add’!

Nice to know I'm not alone. Not that I thought I was. There is a woman at work who I keep fantasising about. She is married and probably 100% straight. But there seems to be a spark. I'm probably deluding myself.

But does it matter if you’re deluding yourself if you’re not interested in cheating on your husband? You can have the occasional fantasy if you want to, we all do it.

Just treat the situation the same as if it was a man you were having feelings about, their sex should make zero difference.

I don't think that sounds 'confused.' Most women (and men, actually) have much more fluid sexualities than most of us are willing to admit. In fact, more women than not will tell you they are at least sometimes attracted to women, as will some men (obviously, it is unfortunately much less socially acceptable to be intrigued by the same sex when you're a guy). I would definitely say I'm also attracted to women. In fact, I might almost be MORE attracted to women (as a group) than to men (as a group). Like I find my husband attractive and enjoy having sex with him, but don't necessarily feel that way about most men, though I would say I probably do feel that way about most women. That's fine. It's just an attraction. I have had some experiences with women in the past, but I want a relationship with a man as I just tend to get along better with men generally and specifically with my husband, so it's not in conflict for me. But it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with finding other people attractive, as long as you don't act on it of course (or at least without an explicit agreement that that's within the bounds of your relationship).

Yes I would class myself as bisexual but due to having a very controlling mother who is homophobic I've never explored that side properly - went on a date with a woman once but freaked out that it was all moving too fast and stopped seeing her. I'm now single and when it comes to men, as soon as anyone is interested in me I freak out. So I'm considering trying to date a woman and see what it's like. It's scary, but I don't want to get into another relationship with a man and always wonder 'what if'. It must be hard for you being married and feeling these feelings. My ex didn't like that I was bisexual, but like someone said it's more common than people think just not everyone is open with themselves or others about it.

Yes - I fell in love with a woman 11 yrs ago after having had purely heterosexual relationships. I was married to a man at the time with two youngish children. It blew my mind and sent me into a tailspin.
I am now married to the woman I fell in love with and we're incredibly happy.