I'm not sure if I need a slap or a hand hold. I definitely need to talk.
I apologise for this if it's unclear/rambling, because my thoughts aren't 100% clear so I'm having trouble expressing what I'm feeling. I'm worried I've made a massive fuck up over my own sexuality. I'm trying to work out where/when I did it, and whether it was just cowardice.
I am currently married to a man, we have 3 DC. We'll have been married 10 years this summer, together for 11. I'm almost 34, and from the age of 19 I have considered myself to be bisexual. From 14 to 19 I considered myself to be a lesbian.
I was 100% okay with being a lesbian. My parents had lots of gay friends when I was growing up, in fact the majority of my dad's friends were gay; so I was confident I'd have their support. From when I was about 12 Dad used to joke about me being his butch daughter (I was all oversized checked shirts, jeans and DMs back then). When my uncle came out, my parents were really vocal and critical about how his mum had such a hard time with it, and they'd never have guessed she'd be so narrow minded.
I played hockey at a club and there were quite a few lesbians there that I knew. And somehow I was incredibly lucky at school, people just took it on board and got on with it, no one gave me any crap at all.
And then my parents found out, my mum read a note that a friend and I had been passing at school, and all hell broke loose. And that carried on. When I was 15 my mum shrieked that I was a dyke and a sexual deviant. I had a few other friends who were gay from another school, my parents referred to them as the queer freaks. I started going out with a girl my parents actually knew, and they threatened me and screamed and shouted. I was told it would "kill" my grandparents if they found out, that they would never get over it, that they would be completely ashamed of me. They made me change my A level choices so that I couldn't do PE "like a fucking dyke". Etc etc.
Despite all that at home, I carried on. I had several girlfriends (not at once!), one who was slightly older, and that lasted a couple of years. I was out at school and at my hockey club, but it was completely ignored at home, because if it came up it was awful. I never really felt their reaction as insulting so much as an immense betrayal. I felt like they'd lied to me about how they felt about gay people, they'd led me to believe they were positive about them, and then they'd pulled the rug out from under me. Now I realise it was a bad case of nimby, and I still consider it to be a massive betrayal. To this day my parents maintain a party line of "it was great that you didn't mess around dating at school, it meant you were able to focus on your grades". All just erased.
And then I went to university, where I assumed I'd be even freer, and somehow that went wrong. At school people had not only accepted it, but talked openly to me about my girlfriend. When I told friends at university that I had a girlfriend they didn't know what to say. It was all very awkward. And so it was ignored there and at home. I went to the LGB (as it was then) meet up in my first couple of weeks, I was at a women's college, there were three of us, the surprisingly hostile LGB officer, one second year, and me. The second year and I became friends, but then she dropped out at Easter and I never heard from her again. And to top it all off, just before I'd left home my girlfriend fell off the wagon and started drinking incredibly heavily again, and so my first term was a relationship misery until I broke up with her at Christmas.
I didn't worry that much about being single, I had lots going on. But I was at a loss about where to meet women. I didn't know any other lesbians at university, nor did my friends. I'm not really sure how that happened, it seems unlikely looking back, but I genuinely didn't.
At the end of my first year one of my friends told me that a guy she knew was really interested in me and did I want to go on a date with him. We talked because I wasn't that keen, but she said "you never know til you try", and I joked that uni is the place to experiment and said I'd go on date. And this is where I'm pretty sure I went wrong, but I'm not sure why. Because I went on the date with him, we had sex, and I didn't enjoy it. And then I agreed to go out with him. And I'm not sure why I did it. I'm not sure I knew at the time, and I definitely don't understand it now. Looking back, I'm now really concerned that I did it to opt out of being gay. Because I was happy while I had a good support network at school and at hockey, and then I know I had a rough year and felt isolated. But I don't ever remember being ashamed, or feeling like I was suffering. My parents were homophobic, but most other people I met were just awkward rather than homophobic. So I'm not sure I did do it from cowardice. But I don't understand what I was thinking otherwise.
So if my sexuality came up I told people I was bisexual, and I went out with him. And now my parents were supportive, and it was all "oh, is he coming to visit over the summer". Although my parents have never acknowledged anything prior to that, so as far as they're concerned I'm straight. Friends who had never asked about my girlfriend had no problem asking about my boyfriend. And it did make a difference to me. And I think maybe that while I didn't have a great time sexually, that seemed less awful than being ignored, and screamed at. And maybe the situation at home had had more of an impact on me that I thought it did at the time.
After we broke up, another male friend asked me out, and in my head I was someone who dated men now, so we went out for a while. And after him was DH. I also slept with a couple of other men in the gaps. And one woman.
One thing I know about these relationships is that after a couple of months I went off sex. For the first one, I put it down to the fact I'd had glandular fever and I was sleeping insane amounts, and I was just too tired. For the second one, I was doing my finals and he was writing up his thesis, and then he moved so it was very long distance. And for the last 11 years, it's been various things - I was very very unhappy what I was doing when we got together, had a mental health crisis and quit what I was doing, so I thought that was to blame. Then we got married and things were a bit better, then there was pregnancies, and breast feeding, and times when things just weren't that great between us. But the reality is that DC3 is 2, and we haven't had sex for 8 months, and since he was born it's probably been less than 10 times.
I feel really guilty about the sex thing, because I know it's me stopping it. But since last summer I just can't. DH isn't pushing. He knows that I go through phases where I just am not interested. And I assumed this was like that. But I've been more and more uneasy about it, and if I'm honest, I have had what I would class as genuinely enjoyable sex with one man. With the others it's been either fine, or actually not great. I'd been thinking that maybe that's just what I'm like, perhaps just not that sexual. Maybe I've just been really unlucky with the men. But I loved sex when I was dating women. But I was a teenager then, so maybe it was just that.
Fuck, I don't know. Maybe I've not made a mistake. I'm bisexual, I'm not that into sex, and I'm just romanticising the past. But I'm not sure. I don't know. Right now, I'm just confused about what I am and what to do. And I'm terrified about hurting my family (DH and kids).