Need a hand hold;My DH has come out as bisexual.

[Uberella]

As the title says;my husband told within the last days that he’s bisexual and I’m absolutely broken.

He says he loves me and still wants me but he’s attracted to men too.He said he wasn’t planning on leaving me or cheating with a man.

Without telling me first he’s told our DD’s who are 18 & 20 and now he wants to tell his friends.

I feel blindsided by this;I’m still trying to process what he’s told me and now he’s telling people before I’ve even had a chance to wrap my head around it.

I’m currently an absolute mess;it’s 1.30am,I can’t stop crying and I’ve got to be in work at 8am and I don’t actually know how I’m going to function in the morning.

I don’t know what my is going to look like and I’m just spiralling.

And instead of dealing with this gently and quietly why he is hellbent on announcing it to the world?

Surely if your priority was really your marriage and wife, you would be discreet and follow her wish to process this quietly and privately.

It’s the “announcement” that is worrying.
it seems like paving the way to exit the marriage.
And discussing it with your daughters first is doubly inappropriate: discussing too much about your own sexuality with your off spring is a bit yuck (and boundary eroding), and to discuss it with them before you makes it worse.
And telling everyone - we’ll all it would do if a friend or acquaintance did this is make me avoid them as a bit of a narcissist (different if they had exited a marriage and then explained, but I have plenty of friends who just quietly got on with having partners and people accepting it).

I totally get how disorientating and upsetting this has been, OP.

I do wonder if he is doing this not as a precursor to acting on it but in an insensitive rush of feelings on deciding to declare this side of himself? Lots of us with teenagers will notice how totally freely they accept a range of sexual preferences, and easily declare that they are gay/bi/pan etc. I think there’s a lot going on there but if it means that gay kids feel less trauma growing up then all to the good. Your own daughters are out. Has he been feeling a bit resentful that he’s been suppressing this side of himself until now and decided the time had come to own it? And now he’s on a sort of euphoria wave and wants to shout it from the rooftops?

I’m not saying he’s going about it in remotely the right way. He’s being thoughtless and self-centred, and this should first and foremost have been a conversation with you, and you alone, and you should have been part of deciding when to tell others. But it’s not necessarily happening because he now intends to experiment with men?

Just a thought.

I understand that, and I certainly feel for the OP as she’s obviously struggling with it.

If fact in my initial post I couldn’t understand why he would suddenly announce it now- telling her may be one thing but why the children and wider circle? I thought that was odd and assumed as many on this thread that it must be because his intention was to explore.

However, I read the thread before commenting and saw that OP then mentioned she thought her husband had told his children because they are both gay. So this makes perfect sense as an explanation. Maybe them coming out finally inspired him to be honest about his feelings, and his desire to relate and protect his children (totally natural) made him want to share his own experience.

In this context I think it’s really useful for OP to reflect on how her prejudice towards bi men (a common feeling that has be widely projected by an number of pp on this thread) is getting confused with an idea that he has betrayed her, doesn’t find her attractive and intends to cheat. Ideas that there is actually no evidence for whatsoever but is being widely promoted on this thread because of biphobia.

This perspective may be challenging to you and others, but it’s totally valid and ought to be allowed to be heard.

I really can’t stand the posts that are insinuating that there is some kind of phobia issue - it’s okay for anyone to say they do not find bisexual people attractive, it is a personal choice.

Why are they not equal? I don’t get it. Both are attracted to men and women. Is it just because you feel men are more likely to cheat in general or are you saying something about gay/bi men in particular?

Wild. Absolutely wild.

Articulated perfectly.

She’s distressed because she doesn’t like it. If she was fine with it she wouldn’t be on here posting. Telling her she needs to challenge her own prejudices is about making this ok for her husband not her, it’s making it a her issue not a him issue. She isn’t obliged to swallow her feelings for this.

Sexuality is often instinctive, some men will be appealing to me and some downright repulsive. If I have to think myself into being fine with something then I’m really not ok with it, you can’t think your way into attraction.

It’s like those trans people who claim that if you are a lesbian who doesn’t find transwomen attractive that good hard think about your prejudices should help you find them attractive. It’s a guilt trip.

*I believe in monogamous marriages that are rooted in respect and love from the beginning, not lies”.

OP’s DH telling her he’s bi now, does not mean that he’s not monogamous, that he does not respect or love her or that he is a lier.

It’s really important OP understands this.

If he’s not going planning to cheat then I don’t see an issue? I don’t think being bisexual means he’s suddenly a sex addicted deviant planning long weekends filled with dogging and chemsex parties with a Grindr burner phone on the go.

Perhaps your daughters openness has prompted this awakening and feeling confident in his own sexuality.

Loosen the grip on those pearls and give him a hug.

Statistically men ARE more likely to cheat. We can’t ignore the facts. This has always been the case

www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18233843.amp

Cross posted but I do agree that it’s totally possible this was a gesture of support to his children. He’s just handled it badly with OP and I suspect is now on a bit of a high and wants to tell everyone, without considering the feelings of others involved.

And many lesbians - myself included - distrust bisexuals, for good reason.

If there's genuinely no intention to explore that side of things and date men then I think this is a "that's nice dear" kind of situation.

However I too think it's probably a matter of time and smacks of a mid life crisis type thing.

If I were you I'd start thinking about how things would work financially if you split and make preparations behind the scenes.

We differ on believing he has only just had this epiphany now. I don’t believe that for a second. Therefore he has been lying about who he is, and forcing her to live a lie too.

Yes exactly this this. I'm also bi but married to a man. Old friends know because my previous ltr was with a woman, but I never bother telling anyone new.

The only reason my sexuality would be relevant is if I wanted to act on it. Otherwise the only people who care who I fancy is me and my husband, and we're just happy we fancy each other.

I don’t think there’s any basis for assuming OP’s feelings are rooted in raw attraction (although that itself can of course be shaped by prejudice) . She hasn’t even mentioned that herself- only that being with someone bi makes her “uncomfortable”.

It seems much more likely to me, and based on responses on this thread, that her feelings are rooted in stereotypes about bi men, that they are inherently promiscuous, that he intends to cheat, that he’s secretly gay and therefore doesnt really fancy/ can’t be satisfied by her, that he’s insatiable, that he’s a deceptive lier, that other people will find it weird and creepy etc. these are attitudes shaped by biphobia that have been promoted on this thread that may well be informing much of OP’s shock and pain.

In the space that is an internet forum, you’ll always get a plurality of views. Here’s my 2p worth…

I wonder he’s suddenly felt able to share this perception of himself with your daughters because they have been open with their sexuality and he feels liberated by that? So it may not have been a planned disclosure, but maybe just prompted by watching them & how they are living their lives.

and it may (or may not) indicate that he wants to be unfaithful to you. Rushing to divorce him feels a little hasty when you just don’t know that is the case.

but allowing yourself time to grieve for the marriage you thought you had and adjust to your new perception of who you’re married to is completely appropriate. Time is what will give you perspective. He’s still the same person you fell in love with, etc etc.

anyway. Sending you a virtual hug OP. It feels like a very big thing, but in the final analysis might not turn out to be so significant after all & you won’t know that for a while.

I don’t get the accusations of bi-phobia. I don’t care if someone’s bi, if someone decided to announce their new found “bi-ness” to me I’d say “er ok, I’m still heterosexual if we are sharing”. I have gay friends, I literally don’t care about them being gay in either a positive or negative way any more than I care if someone is hetro.

I do care if my DH is bi because my attraction would be affected. I couldn’t care less if anyone else is bi. People have all sorts of things they are fine with, I’m not obliged to be fine with those things.

You have no basis for that assumption whatsoever though, so what value is it?

And as if being accused of it is supposed to be some kind epiphany for people. I couldn’t care less if my neighbour, my boss, my best friend is bi but I would care if my husband was.

TBH - why does it matter? Unless he's planning to cheat, who really cares if the other people he's potentially attracted to are male or female? He's married to you, so he'll not be having it away with anyone else anyway right?

What is he saying needs to change given this realisation about himself? Why does he need to announce it to all and sundry unless there's some kind of change needed because of it?

You seem to be having trouble grasping the importance of honesty and transparency in a marriage.

You can’t trust someone that lies about who they are. Given trust is an essential element to any relationship I would think the marriage is now in real trouble.

No, biphobia is not the topic. A handful of posters seem intent on making it the topic, though.

Given that the OP’s husband has just - out of the blue after many years of marriage - told her he’s sexually attracted to men (and not even had enough respect and love for her to tell her first), I think she’s been ‘gently challenged’ quite enough for one fucking day, don’t you?

She’s shocked, been thrown off balance and is now questioning how well she knows her life partner and what the implications of his revelation might be. Yet there seems to be little empathy for any of this amongst the cohort of posters who believe the only appropriate response is “cool beans, bro, happy for you - let’s throw a coming out party and get the Chippendales round”.

I’m sorry you’re feeling so blindsided, OP. You need to let the shock subside a bit and have a proper conversation with your DH - you must have a million questions and no one here can give you the answers, only he can.