Late-bloomer lesbian? Married to a man

[PopcornForDinner]

I'm 35 years old and have had several DC with my husband, who I've been with since I was 19 years old. We met at a time when I was going through a lot: I'd just come out of an abusive relationship, was sexually very promiscuous, had just had an abortion, was struggling with a difficult relationship with my mum, was binge drinking and using drugs, studying, trying to find a job, etc.

After we got together, we lived a pretty wild lifestyle with a lot of booze and drugs for a few years, until we started TTC when I was 24/25. I cleaned up my act, finished my studies, got a job - while he would still go on benders a few times a month.

I got pregnant and had the baby, and during the first year of DC1's life, I was very alone with the baby while DH partied. But he paid the rent and bills so leaving wasn't easy, although it was something I did think about a lot.

The partying continued on and off for two years, until after we had DC2. Throughout our marriage, there have been ups and downs and he's had several relapses, although he's mostly been sober since 2020. We've since had four more children and decided to move to a new city and start a new life.

To cut a very long story short: I believe that his excessive partying over the years left me with a lot of resentment. I've suggested going to couple's therapy but he won't go. We are great parents and work well as a team, but we are very much housemates, rather than romantic partners.

Since the birth of our last DC, we've not DTD. "The baby" is now 15 months old. I feel like I have little to no sexual attraction towards DH, and the thought of male genitalia doesn't turn me on at all. However, I have increasingly found myself fantasising about women. I am not attracted to anyone in particular, but the thought of being with a woman (romantically, sexually, in a committed relationship) feels more and more appealing.

I have identified as bisexual for quite some time (and my husband knows this). In high school, I had crushes on girls - but never really acted on those out of heteronormativity, internalised homophobia at the time, and shame. At uni, I made out with women (drunken nights out always though).

Being with a woman long-term just never seemed like a "viable option" - and I just carried on a path that felt already paved for me: move in with a man, get married to a man, have babies with a man... I obviously do not regret marrying him or having our children, but I feel like now, after I've had my last baby, there's been a bit of time to breathe and figure out who I am and what I want, possibly, in the future.

This is all very stream-of-consciousness, but I do feel like this is me coming out (albeit anonymously, online), no and saying: I think I'm a lesbian.

I would much prefer to be with women, or rather, a woman - and the thought of it excites me far more than the idea of being with a man, any man.

But so... what do I do? I'm not in a position to divorce or separate from DH at the moment (I can't go into too much detail because I don’t want to be identified), but I'll just say that it's not logistically possible at the moment - and probably won't be for quite a while.

I've thought about asking how he would feel about opening up our relationship - but that doesn't feel quite right either and I know he wouldn't agree.

He's not pressuring me to have sex, but we do often half-joke about how long it's been, and then make plans to fix the issue soon - but then never get around to actually doing it, and frankly it's been so long now that I dread the idea.

I don’t know what to do. I feel trapped and sad. This is a person who has known me almost half of my life. We've been through a lot together and we have wonderful children. He is a loving, hands-on father and (now) a supportive partner. I don’t want to 'give up' on us, or betray him - but with him not agreeing to go to therapy, I feel like my hands are tied and that was my last attempt at trying to salvage/fix our relationship.

At the risk of getting judged (I want to be honest and get this all off my chest), I have considered having an affair just to see if sex with a woman is really the thing that gets me going, but I don’t know if I could live with myself and the deceit of it.

So what now?

I think you need to put your sexualoty aside for a while. That's not the issue here. As if you weren't bi, the issues would still be there. You have a lot of resentment retaining to your dh's behaviour over the years, and that needs to be dealt with. An affair won't fix anything. Say you have an affair with a woman, or a man, the issue will still remain, regardless to how that affair may go. Have you considered counselling for both your relationship and your past?
How would life be without your dh? Financially? Practically?

I know a lot of late bloomers, men and women, who left marriages after their children were born. It doesn’t seem to be that unusual to be gay within a hetero marriage unfortunately. Whatever the other problems in your marriage are, you are not going to ‘fix’ being a lesbian and so you need to start planning the next phase of your life.

Honestly op I think you need to just focus on yourself for a bit without thinking about jumping into a new relationship, male or female

What a shock it will be for your dh to learn that you are gay. Think of how to tell him and let him know asap. Get help and support for you and your dh. Look at getting divorced so that your dh can move on and find someone else to have a relationship with. You too can find a relationship and live according to your needs.

I think you're just using the excuse of your DH's previous drinking to try and excuse yourself having an affair. He was good enough to have 6 kids with but now you're over it and want to move on to women? Grow up. Do him a huge favour and tell him you don't want to be with him anymore, it's not his problem that 'logistically' you need to stay with him.

Look at your life and how you can put things in place to allow you to leave. Even if it means having a 5 year plan. Don’t have an affair, that’s never the right way to do things (although I’ve seen enough over the years to understand how these things happen!).

Your marriage sounds tricky at best, and your H doesn’t sound particularly motivated to help change things which is reason enough to put things into motion to get yourself out of there.

Counselling doesn't have to be for both of you, if you feel youe having issues and he won't go with you you can have Counselling on your own.

I wouldn't jump into doing anything rash like an affair to see if that helps how your feeling. It will just makes things messy and more complicated.

Go speak to someone about how your feeling and see if they can help you deal with things.

I don't want to downplay your sexuality. You may be a lesbian, who am I to judge. But it's not a coincidence that this is coming up now rather than years ago, despite you always knowing you were bi. Which means at one point in your life you did feel attracted to men as well. I don't know if that would have been the case if you were always a lesbian.

I think your lack of attraction to men is probably more due to the fact that you've been disappointed over and over by the men/man in your life. And I do understand that after your experiences with men, you end up just going off the entire gender. I also do understand how having a relationship with a woman would seem easier now, because you don't associate women with all the problems you've encountered with men.

What you need to realise is that you're engaging in a fantasy that isn't going to fix any of the reasons why you're unhappy.
Having an affair, having an open relationship, ... These things are nothing more than a distraction. They may feel good in the moment, but they solve nothing of the underlying issues. The issue being that you're unhappy in your relationship, no longer attracted to your husband and resenting him for what he's done in the past - understandably so.

If there's an emptiness inside you, that doesn't get resolved by blindly running into the next drama. You say you can't divorce your husband. That may be true, but I doubt it. You may nog be able to divorce him today. There's a difference. You may need to take action, raise your income, get your things in order. There are steps you can take towards that. He won't join you for couples counselling, but maybe you need individual counselling to help you stay on track.

I'm sorry that you are struggling with this, and that your husband was so unsupportive during your first two children's early days.

It ia not uncommon for people to realise their sexuality later in life, and I can imagine this is difficult for you, but I want to set that aside for a moment.

What jumps out at me in your post, is that you went from partying a lot from 1 - 25, then you had 6 babies in what 8/9 years? No judgement on the number, but I'm sure you can appreciate that that's a lot of kids in a very short space of time, and the fact your youngest has just cleared the first tough year makes me wonder if there's another element here of always chasing the next thing, the next high, the next endorphin rush. I know this might sound a bit crazy, but as someone who has in the past felt this way, I recognise it a lot in your post. I have had periods in my life where my brain has latched onto something and can't shake it until something appears to take its place. That is to say, I'm not saying you aren't gay - you may very well be, but in regards to the turmoil this is giving you and your feelings towards your husband, I'd be tempted to take a step back and wonder if any of what I'm saying rings true.

I mean what you are describing is exactly what being bisexual is. Even bi people can have a preference but usually end up with one or the other. It doesn't mean that you're a lesbian because you're falling out of love/lust with your partner.

Thank you for your replies. I'm not using my husband's past behaviour as an excuse at all. It does, however, explain when and where I feel we started to drift apart (or me from him, at least).

I'm not looking to jump into another relationship, that’s not what I even want. But I do crave that physical touch and closeness and sexual attraction that I haven't felt in years and years.

I think it's hard to determine how much of what I've done and felt have been due to society's pressures and heteronormativeness, but yes, maybe my sexuality is kind of irrelevant at this point and I have other things to figure out.

We would not be able to separate at the moment because my husband has gone back to university to study and depends on me for an income and I wouldn't want to throw a spanner in the works now while he's trying to finish his degree and would not manage financially otherwise.

You've managed without sex for a couple of years so surely would be best to put on back burner for now and concentrate on your 6 kids. Time enough to focus on yourself and what you want when they are grown up. They didn't ask to be born and could be really awkward/embarassing for them depending on their ages. I know two ladies that married in their 70s and live very happily together but that occurred after the children had grown up and left home.

You are in charge of making your own choices. Be careful with your wording, even in your head. It's not that you can't divorce, it's that you don't want to at this time for X or Y reason. If our inner voice is saying that you can't do anything or make any changes, that feeling of having no control over your own life can be soul-destroying.

This is homophobic - there is absolutely no reason why the OP’s kids should find their mum having a relationship with a woman more embarrassing than their mum having a relationship with a man. Yes of course kids don’t tend to love it when their parents split up but as I’m always reading on MN - it’s also a mistake to stay together “for the sake of the kids”! Having parents in happy, fulfilled relationships is important.

One of my friends when I was a teenager in the 2000s had a mum who was a lesbian - who had broken up with the kids dad and come out. None of us kids/teenagers thought anything of it.

You think she should wait about another 16 years? Really?

If you're stay with him, you'll have to be faithful.

If you leave, you can do what you want.

I think you're getting a hard time on here. A bit of therapy (if you have any time!) might help you to clarify things for yourself. There's a lot of things going here for you.