Found out DH is bisexual and a liar - can I ever be happy with him?

[eskimomama]

DH and I have been together 10 years, we have a DD who has severe autism. I'm a SAH mom to be full time carer of DD, I do 99% of the childcare and household chores, while he's busy being the breadwinner and full time complainer.
First of all I must say I have been madly in love with this guy, I really loved him and still do, so what will follow is really a huge shock to my system.

2 months ago I discovered that DH was bisexual, because he had gay porn on the computer and gay chat apps on his phone. It was a massive shock to me as I had absolutely no idea. I know nothing about bisexuality so first I thought he was a repressed gay and I had just been used as a cover for his need to conform.
It caused me massive anxiety and had to confront him after 5 days, I forced him to admit it. It was a very emotional talk where he promised he never cheated, would never cheat or do anything to hurt me or DD or destabilise our little family. I trusted him, he really sounded sincere.

Yet just a few weeks later I started having negative thoughts again, I spied his phone again and was horrified by what I found : he had contacted a male prostitute!! He wrote to him "my wife agreed that this would be my outlet"!! To which the guy replied if I wanted to participate and he answered "probably not if ever, sorry"... WTF!!

How could he promise to be faithful with big tears in his eyes and 3 weeks later contact a male hooker???

I had to confront him again, I didn't mention the spying and what I discovered, but said I had had a very bad gut feeling and wanted him to reassure me he wouldn't cheat. He got angry and aggressive, saying "will I have to repeat the same thing over and over again for the rest of my life"... I told what I thought of promiscuous gay sex behind my back, told him to look me in the eyes and tell me the truth : He looked me straight in the eyes, his face didn't twitch, his eyes didn't blink and he LIED to me. He said he wasn't planning to cheat and that I should calm down. That's what I wanted to hear but I knew it was a lie, what an AWFUL feeling.
On top of that he started mixing up all our problems : special needs child, isolation because of it, he said "we don't have a relationship" bla bla bla, to which I said it was very offensive and unfair to me, as well as sounding like he wanted to justify future cheating.
(for what it's worth we have sex 4-5 times a month)

The next day he had deleted the chat with the prostitute on his phone. Which at this stage doesn't mean anything to me. I'd say only 50% chance he didn't meet him.
I told him I'd be ruthless if I found out he has cheated and exposed me to STDs.
I do NOT think he gets the point.

How did I end up with a man who is completely different to what I thought? On the outside he's mister charmer, everybody loves him and finds him kind and caring. His family would never believe it.

I've been reading lots about bisexuality and I just can't make up my mind. I can hardly find any husband with some sort of mental stability. I find 3 types of marriages :

• those where the wife allows the husband to have sex with men every now and then or simply an open marriage both sides : totally NOT for me. I just cannot bear the thought and can't believe that's what he wanted all along
• those who split because the bi husband just cannot live without gay sex, even though he knows his sexual urge will destroy his family
• those who stay together because the husband has made a rational, conscious decision that his family is worth more than casual sex for the rest of his life, and is happy to stay monogamous - those seem very rare.

I need some help. I haven't told anybody and I am lost, and extremely anxious, which I really don't need as my stress levels with DD are already sky high.
Please don't tell me to just dump him because I am financially dependent on him and that would really not be easy. Maybe I will have to but I want to explore other options first.

Is there any hope that I can make him realise he just wants to have his cake and eat it? And that he is seriously hurting me and making me massively insecure?
In all evidence he says one thing and thinks another, so I can't have such conversations anymore.
Does anyone have experience with this kind of crap?

thank you

Bisexual people don’t need to sleep with both genders at once any more than heterosexual or homosexual people need to sleep with every member of their preferred sex who catches their eye.

He’s a cheat. His sexual orientation has nothing to do with it. Don’t give him more leeway than you would a straight man.

Then I retract my statement, happy to be corrected....but I think thats hugely wrong still!

What an outdated way of thinking.

A bit like the whole not legislating about lesbian consent/laws because its not seen as really sex.

If I was in a gay marriage and my wife cheated I'd be pretty fucking pissed off I couldn't divorce her for adultery....it makes gay sex seem somehow "lesser".

Agree with wild and stitch

What an outdated way of thinking

A bit like the whole not legislating about lesbian consent/laws because its not seen as really sex

Yup, that is actually the reason why. They cannot decide what counts as sexual intercourse for a same sex couple plus all the MPs probably think it's ick and that gay men cheat all the time and shouldn't mind if their husbands do. You get the picture. Very old-fashioned.

My view- adultery should not be used in either same-sex or hetero marriage. Why single cheating out as the one bad thing that is so terrible? What about domestic violence for instance? I think hitting your spouse is worse than cheating on them personally. There are couples who are married but have open relationships- it has nothing to do with the state whether someone sleeps with someone else. If their spouse has an issue with it, they can use the unreasonable behaviour fact as same-sex couples have to do.

The only reason all you can find is tales of woe is because the copious amounts of bisexual people in perfectly happy relationships don't post about them online.

So so true. Thank you for saying this. I wish the happy monogamous bisexual people were more active online!! When you research about bisexuality it's all about "accepting that your husband needs to fulfill his needs". The first 10 links on google are just about that. From " respected " sources.

He’s lied straight to your face I don’t think you’ll ever trust him, if it men or women he’s interested in it doesn’t matter the trust is gone. Sorry.

Op... My dexh was in denial about his sexuality the whole of our marriage.. Slightly different as he wanted to be in a same sex relationship but had had a heterosexual relationship with me... But intimacy fizzled out... It was awful wondering what was wrong with me for a long time... Eventually we met other people, both of us and amicably separated to be with them
I did retrospectively look back and wonder if he had been thinking about men when we had sex.. It's horrible,

Your dh has admitted he is bisexual but he clearly 'needs' that other side of his sexuality to be real, not a fantasy or just a thought in his head.

His behaviour is escalating.. Apps, chat then direct contact... He is not going to be able to get all that back in the box.

If you arw not interested in a open or poly relationship then you need to separate.

My dp is bisexual. I'm ok for him to watch porn but if anything above that including webcaming or chatlines I would consider cheating and end relationship.
When we agreed to be in a monogamous relationship it meant just that. The gender of the person he was cheating with wouldn't matter, the betrayal would be the same.

So so true. Thank you for saying this. I wish the happy monogamous bisexual people were more active online!! When you research about bisexuality it's all about "accepting that your husband needs to fulfill his needs". The first 10 links on google are just about that. From " respected " sources.

I wonder if these people would be so accepting of their husbands needs would be so accepting if those needs involved orgies, or young women, or going to BDSM clubs?

BUT I suspect that a huge proportion of those posts were men trying to legitimise their cheating.

And the reason why us monogamous bisexuals dont post more is simply this..

It would be a weird conversation to start because it literally would never occur to me to go...

"HEY GUYS. I'm bisexual but in a hetero relationship which is happy!"

Look at Mumsnet......posts on the relationships boards are about problems because thats when we need opinions.

I would be very, very sceptical of posts trilling about open marriages and fulfilling needs.

The thing is though, you havent caught him on his first contact with a escort have you?
That would be such a coincidence. I bet he does this all the time

Forgot to say...leave him!

I’m a bisexual female who is monogamous and I’ve been with DH for 15 years plus

Cheating is cheating it wouldn’t matter if that was with a man or a woman

I heard this issue being discussed on the radio recently and the person being interviewed made a really interesting point.

There are many different sexual styles.
For example my dh is quite reserved in bed, I like things a bit wilder. But I knew when we married that I was committing to this. Our sex life is great but could be a bit more adventurous. It would not be ok for me to have an affair to satisfy my desire for wilder sex. It would still be cheating.
If one in the relationship wanted oral but the other didn’t, that would not give them permission to have an affair to fulfill that desire. You commit to your relationship. Anything outside of that is cheating. End of! It doesn’t matter if there are other types of sex that you would enjoy. You are in a committed relationship and anything outside of it is cheating

qazxc did you set these rules with your dp? How do you know he's never on chat lines? And do you know if he has been watching gay porn or is it hidden from you?

There are many different sexual styles.
For example my dh is quite reserved in bed, I like things a bit wilder. But I knew when we married that I was committing to this. Our sex life is great but could be a bit more adventurous. It would not be ok for me to have an affair to satisfy my desire for wilder sex

What a brilliant way of putting it.
Bang on.

I know plenty of bisexual men in happy, long-term monogamous relationships, some with men and some with women.

Bisexuality just means that you have a bigger group of people you might find attractive.

I do disagree slightly of sexuality remaining the same throughout life, and not being affected by stress. I've been attracted to men and women in the past, but since having children have been exclusively attracted to men. And I know that parenthood has changed how a lot of people I know feel about their bodies and their sexuality and how they express themselves sexually. But that's irrelevant to the OP, whose problem isn't so much that her husband is bisexual but that he an unfaithful liar.

qazxc did you set these rules with your dp? How do you know he's never on chat lines? And do you know if he has been watching gay porn or is it hidden from you?

What would your personal boundaries be with hetero porn?
What line do you draw there?
Then that's the line you use for this.

HOWEVER....

He has already proved a liar and a shitbag.
No matter what your boundaries he's not going to respect them.

He will tell you and promise you anything to get off the hook....but how can you believe anything he says?

I think it will not be good for your mental health if you end up in a position where you feel like you have to worry about what he's doing/ have to police him.

Please don't do that to yourself.

Im a bisexual woman, it just means I fancy men and women. I happen to have fallen in love with a man, this means that I will not cheat on him with either sex. In the same way you don’t want to have sex with other men, I don’t want to have sex with other men or women, though I am attracted to both. It doesn’t cause me to be promiscuous or have an inability to control my sexual urges. It just means that when I was single I could go either way.

Lana many of these pages are written by women (female psychologists - or fake I don't know) !! There's one from the independent that's just appalling. Pretty much telling elderly women to just accept the gay sex because their husbands have been good husbands all these years. Its like top 3 link on google when you type " bi husband "... Urgh!

Couple of things here:

Firstly, would it have made any difference to you if he'd told you from the outset that he was bisexual? I.e. Would you have still been happy to pursue a relationship with him? Not because there's anything wrong with being bisexual or because being bisexual means he's more likely to cheat with someone of the same sex, but because if being bisexual would have been a deal-breaker for you in the beginning of the relationship then he presumably knew that fairly early on and consciously lied to you about his sexuality.

For me, I am attracted to heterosexual men. I have no issue with what anyone else does in their relationships, and I have no reason to think that being bisexual would make one any more likely to cheat, but finding out some way down the line that my partner was bisexual would be a deal breaker for me as I am personally attracted to men who are attracted to women only. That is my choice as much as it is someone's choice to be with gay men or women only or to not have an issue with what someone has done in their past or who they're attracted to.

The second issue is that it appears your DH haS used your heterosexuality to justify his cheating with other men on the basis that you don't understand that he apparently needs to also sleep with men. This is of course not true because whoever you are attracted to doesn't mean that you're not capable of a monogamous relationship.

Ultimately, he married you "foresaking all others," and as such there is no justification for him to sleep with anyone. If he'd generally gone for taker women or thinner or larger ones he couldn't have justified sleeping with another woman on the basis that he was attracted to different types. This is no different.

You need to get yourself checked for SDT's regardless, and then I would get rid of him.

eskimomama

Definitely step away from that shit.

That is not representative of any bisexual/hetero experiences or me, or the many other bisexuals on this thread.

Self justifying bollocks of the highest order.

It really is simple....
When you take out the sexuality he's just a basic lying, cheating, good ol' fashioned scumbag.

He's trying to justify it by using his sexuality....but it doesn't matter one tiny atom whether he likes men, women or aliens from zog with purple spots and antenna....he made a promise to you that he has broken, and lies to you.
All decisions you make here should be based on that one simple fact.

STOP GOOGLING!!

Being bisexual doesn't mean that you are a cheating liar, it just means you find it possible to be attracted to men and to women.

The problem with your husband isn't that he's bisexual. It's that he's a porn-using dick who is looking to cheat on you with a prostitute. The sex of the prostitute is immaterial.

I agree with others. This is not about having a sexual attraction to men (or if it is, it shouldn't be, that's your hang up). Lots of people fantasise about all sorts of things they would never do in real life. I totally find women attractive. I have watched 'girl on girl' porn. I have fantasised about being with women. I have in fact made out with, done some pretty heavy touching and exploration with a woman. But I'm not gay or bi. I've always dated and had relationships with men and I've been happily with my dh for 10 years. Just because you might explore something doesn't mean it's who you are. I consider myself straight because I want relationships with men and I love my dh and it's never occurred to me to stray from that to be with anyone else (man or woman). But it's also never occurred to me to tell my dh that I sometimes fantasise about women or have watched certain types of porn and I'm not sure honestly he even knows about the one women I hooked up with in the past (many years before we met). But if he found out, he wouldn't be shocked or freaked out or think I was gay or bi. Sexuality for most people is much more fluid that you are imagining.

BUT that isn't the point. Cheating and seeking out sex workers for casual sex behind your partner's back, regardless of whether they are dudes are not, is not okay. And that's what you should be upset about. There's no way that's okay, but you need to get away from the fixation on it being a man because it makes no difference. Cheating is cheating. I would look into relationship counseling and counseling for both of you individually (and with someone who is open-minded and non-judgemental) if you want to stay together.

I found gay porn on our home computer in 2004. It explained a lot about our 'marriage'.

I have been divorced since 2009. It has not been easy, financially, for me and our 5 children. But emotionally and psychologically it has been the answer to a prayer.

What you need to do:
Stop having sex with this man.
Never resume the sexual relationship.
Move him to a spare bedroom or the couch.
Get STD testing ASAP.
Start detaching emotionally. Use the word I instead of 'we' in your head. Get back in touch with yourself as an individual.

You can't trust him - you have seen him lie to your face. I have had the same experience. Do not believe a single word he says about sex.

Do not try to get any sort of closure from him in the form of the truth. It will never be forthcoming. This is part of detachment. You know what you saw. You know fully what it means.