Does anyone have any experience of this? Sorry Long!

[INeedAdvice]

Have known dh for quite a while and have been married for 6 years and have 2 dcs.

I have on several occasions, I have discovered information on gay/bisexual dating sites and msn conversations that he has had with other men.

I started a thread almost a year ago about this but thought we had sorted everything out.

Last night, everything came out in the open, he admitted he was bisexual and always had been but that he loved me and our children and did not want to lose us.
I said that deep down, I already knew but still loved him and that he was still the same man that I fell in love all these years ago.
He was expecting me to ask him to leave and I think we were both surprised by my reaction to what he told me.

Today, I suppose the reality is beginning to hit home and know I have a lot of questions that I want to ask, but I don't want to hear the answers to, if that makes sense.

If he does love me, then I don't want him to leave as I love him so much, but I don't know if I can stay "happily" married to someone who I am always going to wonder what he is up to/who is he meeting.
Do we stay married long enough for our children to grow up, I think we are basically still very happy together and despite what has happened in the past.

Is there anyone out there in a similar situation and how is the best way to deal with it?

thanks

I'm sorry you are going through this. I have no experience to offer, but I think in your position I would be demanding that he stay faithful. Being bisexual, IMO, does not excuse unfaithfulness. You have the right to expect monogamy whether he is heterosexual or bisexual.

I agree
Fidelity, not sexuality, is the issue here.
Has he actually been unfaithful, or was he looking at the websites as a means of working stuff out for himself?

you don;t have to be married to be good paretns and a good team

if he wants to explore the bi / homosexual side of his sexuality and you want him to be faithful, i don;t see how you can stay together

does he love you enough to repress this side of him.. do you think he is actually gay , and is saying bi so as not to hurt you as much?

regardless of gender, sleeping with/having a relationship with another person is often a total dealbreaker

but if you can be apart , as amicably as possible, surely that is better ?

you have to talk and communicate, especially if this has been showing sighns for a year

I am 99.9% certain that he is not gay and he has said that he has never done anything apart from look at the sites and chat online.

I love him and he loves me, I don't know if that will be enough to keep us together but the thought of splitting up just makes me more upset than him admitting last night that he was bisexual.

We have a baby and a toddler and we need to be a family as I don't think at the moment, I would be happy to split up with him.

looking at dating sites/ chatting on line, for me, is an indication that infidelity is a step away. i would also consider intimate conversations/ cyber sex a serious threat to the stability of my marriage.

he is clearly not settled in a marriage, perhaps this might change, but it woudl be a good idea to seek some sort of counselling for your both

he is clearly struggling to repress the other sides of his sexuality

if you cannot live with infidelity, and cannot bear the thought of splitting, tehre is nowhere left to go

what does he want? longterm?

Is the man wanting to experience man to man sex and leave it there or develop a man to man relationship?

I don't think I would see the advantage of anal sex, but if that's what the man might want (or want to experience), is that something you might consider trying with in your relationship?

I think the man admitting to you that he feels bisexual is paving the way for him to go in that direction - with or without you.

The more he suppresses his feelings, the more they become a distraction. He sees a reminder on MSN and gay/bi dating sites, so his interest grows. If he was going to pack it in, he would avoid feeding his interest.

The more you accept him wanting to think about his bi interests, the better the chance of him crossing the line into doing something that you feel crosses the marriage line.

The more you refuse to accept him wanting to explore his bi interests, the more he will want to explore because it's an unanswered question.

The bloke might love you and the children, but if he did, would he be wanting to hurt the people he loved? It might be better to say that he loves you more than he wants to explore his interest. In which case, how long will it be till you and he have a disagreement and his interest to know the answers about his bi feelings become stronger. You might want to avoid the disagreement - so you end up walking on egg shells. Will you be happy?

That's what I think.

This happened to me several years ago.. like you I had questions but didn't want the answers.

He registered with some dating sites and stuff and arranged to meet someone while I sat at home sobbing my head off.. he came back and said he hadn't been able to go thru with it but then wanted me to do sexual things to him that I wasn't comfortable with. Our sex life suffered cos we just weren't relaxed with each other anymore and tbh I think because I didn't have what he wanted.. after a couple of years we did break up.

My goodness, what a set of narrow-minded responses!

Where did the OP say that complete sexual exclusivity was necessary?

Dh is not gay or bi, but when we got married we were barely more than teenagers, so we did not know ourselves completely.

We agreed that if either ever felt the need to explore their sexuality in a way that could not be fulfilled within the couple, that they could go and do it elsewhere. For us, the 'marriage limit' was emotional, we both felt that so long as the emotional relationship was with each other, occasional casual sex would not break us.

We also felt that not having the lure of the forbidden and the adrenalin of the danger of being caught would be healthier for us, as we are both risk addicts and would have been possibly tempted by that side of things.

We specifically discussed the issue of exploring same sex relations and felt we would both be OK with the other doing it. As it happens, neither of us is that way inclined, so I can't say I know what it feels like.

Think about what it is that you actually care about and have a 'no taboos' conversation with your dh, my guess is your relationship will benefit from it, whatever you jointly end up deciding is best for you.

ib thank you for your response, yes it might be difficult for others to understand but I knew dh had "issues" with his sexuality before we married, although he had assured me that it was just curiosity and nothing else!

At the moment, he is still the man that I love and the man that I married, for better or worse.

Also, we want to stay together, whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but having searched the internet, there doesn't seem to be much support out there for people in the same situation, which is why I started this thread.

We both feel that nothing much has changed (at the moment) he is being honest to both myself and himself. I don't know how far he has taken things but I know he has not had much opportunity recently.

I am not narrow-minded thankyou-very-much, but this would be a deal breaker for me

Actually, something has changed. You have been honest with each other and you have confirmed that you love him as he is, not as society thinks he should be.

Those are good changes! Be brave, carry on in this spirit and you could potentially end up with a much richer and more rewarding relationship than you ever thought was possible.

And for him, being accepted and loved unconditionally is the greatest thing that could ever happen.

Just make sure that you have clear boundaries that you both agree on, that is what is going to stop you 'always wondering what he is up to'.

AF, it may be a deal breaker for you, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean it has to be a deal breaker for the OP. She didn't say in the OP that it was.

What matters is what works for her, not what would work for anyone else in that situation, surely?

this is tricky on an emotional level, but tbh I don't think it's as straightforward as him wanting to cheat on you with another man/other men.

Most of us fancy men, no? And most of our dh's fancy women. But we are married to them/they are married to us, and even though they still fancy women and we still fancy men doesn't mean we're going to shag them does it?

I don't see why this can't be the same in a bisexual relationship? Surely bisexuals do have long-term partners and remain manogamous?

of course ib, each to their own

however, if the OP wants fidelity from him there are very clear warning signals here

if this man had been on dating sites specifically for females and having msn convo's with willing and available women then I think the advice would be very different

on many other threads (some currently ongoing, I won't link but they are easy to find), this behaviour is regarded by many as cheating, or at least a long way along a continuuum of faithfulness/unfaithfulness

she has already said she knew there were issues about his sexuality abd previous events coming to a head that she thought were resolved

now, what I think she needs to do is decide whether she can live with the uncertainty about how far he is prepared to go to fulfil his fantasies and for me, whether this involves a male or a female, this is a situation I could not live with

My dh is reading this at the moment and yes he is still my dh.

I don't like the idea of him dating a man or a woman and I think if he was ever to be unfaithful, then I would have to seriously reconsider if staying with him, would in fact be in my and my dc's best interests.

He was so upset last night at the prospect of losing me and everything that we have together, maybe I am just being too understanding or forgiving but I want to give "us" a chance and see if we can work through this together.

I just don't know how to go about it.

I am sorry, I don't know either

IME very limited I'll warrant, my friend's exp told her this.
She said she still loved him and over the next few weeks what she discovered was that he meant he was gay.
He didn't want to hurt her in any way more than the revelation but wanted her to end it as he had enough to deal with without that as well...he also wasn't sure.

In hindsight she said it would have been easier if he had been straightforward but he said he felt gay but wasn't 100% because he loved her which must make him bi surely..t'was his logic.

She still wanted to remain with him but he wanted to embrace another life.
That's my indirect experience

I hope that you get through this and have a result in the end that suits you and your family well

I am sorry you are going through this, it must be heart-breaking for you having this confirmed about your husband, the person you should be able to trust most in the world.

I don't see how it can be healthy or feasible long-term for your dh to live while repressing this side of his sexuality. The fact that he is having MSN messages with men and going on dating sites is a step along from just wondering about it all.

How can you live with this uncertainty, yourself? Will you be truly happy in the marriage knowing your DH is struggling with this?

I appreciate that you both love each other and that you have the children to think of, but perhaps it would be better to separate amicably and parent your children together as close friends.

I think the OP does have some sense in her. The DH has not crossed the line - yet. If he did, she would have to reconsider.

While I might not be to happy with a partner with me looking on dating sites, she has a remarkable level of trust and it would appear that the relationship is based on honesty. Both good qualities for a good relationship.

As a man, I might feel inferior if a partner of mine felt the need to be with other women and I would want to address my short fall to be the person I should be..... with in limits.

I find that putting the shoe on the other foot and imagining things that way is a possible way to test the situation... not that you plan on going through with that action, but just the thought process to get the feelings.

Trust, the all important word in any relationship and yes my trust in my dh has been severely tested in the last 24 hours.

As I said earlier, what is upsetting me more, is the prospect of leaving my dh, whom I love dearly, rather than the fact that he admitted that he is bisexual.

I am not being naive, I just feel that we what we have, is worth more than throwing everything away because of a hypothetical situation.

I am fully aware that I may have to accept that our marriage is unable to survive but at the moment I am not ready to do this.

INA, do you trust him or not?

Sexuality is irrelevant. It just means you have the capacity to love a person of either sex. It does not mean you have to have sex with persons of both genders throughout your life.

He may now and then see a man and think pwoar, in the same manner as YOU may see a man and go pwoar, or in the same manner as he may see a woman and go pwoar, you get the gist. It does not mean he will want a shag. Fidelity is the key whether you fancy men, women or both.

but fanny, how would you view chatting to available people on msn and frequenting dating sites ?

I just saw your last post.

The biggest threat to your marriage right now is not his bisexuality, it has been there all the time, but how you react to it.

There are plenty of married bisexuals around, who has fallen in love with a person of the opposite sex and not really cared that they love a woman, rather than a man, or vise versa. They marry, have kids, and live their lives as normal people do, and dont really care much about other people the could have had sex with, fancied, or been in relationships with. Why should it matter? A heterosexual couple is not threatened by any possible people their partner could have fancied, etc. Neither should your married be threatened by it.

Your husband may really in his heart wonder what the fuck is the fuss, I love HER, I married her for goodness sakes.