Husband came out as bisexual

[TARDISmum]

Been with DH 12 years and married for 6.5 years and recently told me he is bisexual.

It's just so odd.

I know it doesn't change who he is. It doesn't change what it was about him that I fell in love with but it feels like the landscape of our marriage has changed.

I want to be supportive but just don't know where to start. Where would you start with that.

Well, yes it changes everything. Maybe not for you, of course, but for millions of heterosexual people who signed up to be with another heterosexual person, not bisexual or homosexual, this would change a great deal.

However, back to you.

1. Anyone can leave any marriage at any time for no reason or any reason.
2. Anyone can find a person unappealing sexually at any time for no reason or any reason.
3. Nobody ever needs to offer any explanation as to why they find someone sexually unappealing.
4. It's not remotely phobic to find anyone sexually unappealing for any reason or none.
5. It is however deeply phobic and coercive to try to slyly insinuate that a person doesn't have a right to find anyone sexually appealing or unappealing for any reason or none.
6. Some people try to act coercively and pretend that heterosexual relationships are lacking, they often use words like "vanilla" to try to be slyly derogatory towards heterosexual people. Those people are bigots and coercive.
7. If you no longer find your husband sexually attractive that's absolutely fine - not phobic, not bigoted and not wrong in any way.
8. You do not owe your husband your body, your rights, your life or your support.
9. Your husband has completely changed the terms of the marriage you agreed to, so you must now renegotiate your terms.
10. You are allowed to simply dissolve the marriage if you wish to on this basis alone - and you are in the right if you choose to do so.

These statements can't be argued with, they are irrefutable.

Some questions you probably need to ask yourself.

1. Why is he telling you this now?
2. Has he been hiding this from you all along?
3. Has he only just realised this and if so, why now?
4. Is it possible he wants to fuck men?
5. If he wants to fuck men, are you ok with this?
6. If you are not ok with him fucking men are you willing and happy to lead a sexless life and just stay together as friends?
7. Why are you more concerned about supporting him than your own feelings?

There's a LOT more to consider of course, but much depends on your answers to these.

Whatever YOU decide it is entirely up to YOU.

You do not owe your husband your marriage, life, body or relationship or your support. He has completely changed the terms of your marriage.

You did NOT marry a bisexual man. You married a heterosexual man.

Anyone who pretends this is unimportant or has low importance is a) a liar or b) without any understanding of how most humans operate.

Anyone who pretends anything I have stated is unfair, unkind, phobic or unclear is being a) irrational, b) coercive or both.

Good luck.

No, it's just irrelevant why someone is not sexually attracted to someone else. They just are or are not sexually attracted to them. End.

Anyone can be turned off about absolutely anything in a person, politics, preferences, passtimes, personality, before we even start on the physical side of things. A voice, a walk or a laugh can put some people off.

Everyone can find people attractive or unattractive for any reason, or none.

We never need to debate it, or worry about it, or pretend to try to understand it. It is simply accepted.

Oh good lord there’s some terrible comments on this thread. I told DH I was attracted to men and women (but had only had relationships with men) years ago. As I have zero interest in cheating on him, it wasn’t actually a big deal at all. Our relationship hasn’t changed. If he was telling you he’d cheated (or wanted to cheat) that’s different, but if that’s not what’s happening don’t let people here scare you. It’s your marriage, if you trust him then nothing significant has changed.

What comments specifically are terrible?

Please quote them verbatim and point out why they are terrible.

It’s different though in that the relationship is different.

It doesn’t make any difference to your family’s relationship with you that you’re bisexual. You’re still their daughter, they don’t have a physical relationship with you, so who you are and aren’t attracted to is irrelevant to them.

However, you have a sexual relationship with a partner, and if that partner only wishes to be with someone else who is heterosexual (which is entirely their right), then they should have that choice early into the relationship.

To tel them years down the line smacks of an agenda and is manipulative.

Think about it. If you enter into a relationship with someone then you might talk about previous partners, previous relationships, and your thoughts and feelings and attractions. Being Bi doesn’t equate to looking for the first opportunity to cheat, and many people are in happy monogamous relationships with people who are bi.

However it’s not unreasonable to think there is likely an agenda if your partner suddenly announces years into your marriage that they’re sexually attracted to other men/women. This is why so many people are saying that coming out well into the marriage is a precursor for having an affair. Because what other reason is there to suddenly announce your sexual attractions after years of marriage other than that you want to pursue something else. It’s naive to think otherwise.

And again, this isn’t comparable to telling your partner you’re bisexual at the outset of your relationship.

It’s not dissimilar to telling your partner years in that you’ve fancied a threesome or to cross-dress or to have anal. Generally people bring up these things because they want to explore them.

The worst has got to be “bi now, gay later” which I haven’t heard for decades! But it generally seems quite alarmist. If the OP wants to leave her DH that’s entirely up to her, but there are many straight people married to bi people and it’s absolutely fine. Bi doesn’t mean adulterous.

I’m a bi woman but there is more stigma associated with bi men than bi women. To be completely honest, the fault lies mostly with gay men who used bisexuality as a stepping stone to coming out as gay.

People can say that him being bi doesn’t mean he’ll come out as gay later. This is completely true, it doesn’t. But you can’t blame people for thinking that when it has been the case countless times!

There are also a lot of gay men who’ve used women as ‘beards’, a lot of the time because they want children. I’ve known men who’ve done this and I’m (unfortunately) related to one of them. When they eventually get caught (they always do), they will very likely say they’re bisexual rather than gay because they think it’s more acceptable.

To me, this is biphobia. It’s not a term you can apply to yourself just to later discard it when it suits you. People can ease themselves into coming out all they want, but they shouldn’t drag others along as collateral damage.

You definitely need to have a deep discussion with your DH, OP. Don’t invalidate your own feelings for his.

caught on grinder "loooooads of straight men have sex with men"

By definition, they ain't straight! That particular category error really boils my piss.

I'm bi. I'm not ashamed of it. I don't see a point in pretending to be something else and I really don't like other people pretending to be something they are not.

You're right about everything bar one assertion: like it or not, OP married a bisexual man. Sexual orientation is not as fluid as people tell themselves it is so it's extremely unlikely that he was ever straight. The question becomes whether he told her he was straight. If OP presumed that he was, that's not on him.

No, OP married a man who didn't tell her he was bisexual. Should she have asked specifically? What else should she have enquired about? So if you don't ask a particular (obscure) question before marriage it's your own doing??

Do straight men have to tell their partners that they are straight? If not, why a different standard for bi men?

Because it's lying by omission.

What a ridiculous leap! Bisexual people aren't deviants! We are no more likely to cheat than other people. It isn't a step on the way to be gay. And it would only involve role play if both people were in to it!
Why on earth is MN so biphobic!

Does he expect anything from you? What kind of support do you feel like you need to give? I've had bi partners before. It didn't really mean anything. It didn't require anything from me. I suppose if they'd made it an important feature of their personality/character it might have, but just the fact of being bi meant nothing.

Every single one implying all bi sexual people cheat or that bisexuality is just a stepping stone to coming as gay. Both are total nonsense. Bisexuality is a thing.

It's bizarre, isn't it? It's like saying, "OMG Your partner is straight. That means the dirty bastard fancies other women and he is going to try to get you involved in threesomes and orgies."

I would wonder why he hasn’t said anything before, especially as you seem very keen to be supportive. My ex was bi and it came up very early in our relationship (first few weeks). Why now? Other than that it is pretty irrelevant unless it is a problem for you.

Hi. I think his background is a huge part of this.
I recently came out as bi to my husband. In hindsight, I've always been but my repressive, homophobic family made it impossible for me to accept. We're no contact now for other reasons. It was a random line in a film that suddenly made it click for me. I told my husband because it's part of me and was a big thing I needed to work through to an extent. I have no intention of cheating, have not realized this through cheating and have not fundamentally changed. I hope it's the same for your husband.

For me the concern would be that it must be a different experience for a man to have sex with a man than with a woman. So I can understand why a bisexual man would want to explore that especially if he hasn’t before and I can understand why the wife of a bi man would worry she isn’t fulfilling his different desires.

You’re implying that someone who is gay would be fine in a relationship with someone who isn’t gay, and vice versa. As a straight woman, I wouldn’t be attracted to a gay man. And I very much doubt that a gay man would be attracted to me! So it’s not as simple as saying it’s just to do with one’s sex. It’s also to do with one’s sexual orientation.

How is it lying by omission for a bi guy not to say he's bi, but not for a straight guy not to say that he's straight?

Wow OP, the responses here are cray-cray. MN is the worst place ever to pose a question about anything other than rigid heterosexuality or lesbian relationships.

My husband is bisexual, it's just an interesting thing about him that we muse about sometimes (e.g. if we're watching telly and talking about which characters we fancy!). Just tell him it's great that he knows something new about himself, and that he shared it with you.

Wow. Some of these posts make me want to weep. So much bigotry about bisexuality.

Unless he does anything about it he is absolutely not changing the terms of his marriage. There’s every chance he’s telling his wife to share something about himself he has no intent to do anything about.

FWIW I’ve come to realise as I’ve got older that I’m bisexual (I’d always put my relationships with women in my youth down to “experimentation”).

Does it mean I’d be unfaithful to my husband to explore this? No.

Does it mean that I’ve changed the terms of our marriage? No.

Have I explicitly told my husband? Also no. I’m sure he is aware but I never really saw the point because it’s him I’m with - who should he care who I find sexually attractive? I’d like to think if I did though that he wouldn’t write off our marriage because of it!

OP I hope it all works out for you both

I’m 51 and it definitely was. Not sure where you were brought up but my goodness the 70s and 80s were not the 40s and 50s! Good grief!!🙄

@TARDISmum I would echo what other posters have said that I think he’s laying the groundwork for coming out as gay. I really don’t know why he’s making an announcement of it or how this has not come up at all in years.
I would be very wary of only doing what your suggesting which is going down the route of support and love etc etc. Be aware that this could come down to you having your needs subsumed by his indefinitely. It is not your job to just play the supporting character in the TV show of his life!

This happened to my friend, it turned out that he was in fact gay and had been having sex with his colleague.

Your dh is letting you know he you that your world is just about to come crashing down. This is not about sharing secrets op, this is most likely to be the end of your marriage as you know it, please get your financial details in order and start protecting yourself immediately if you are still intimate. In your place I would be getting an STI test too.