The bi women thread that doesn’t get deleted…

[OneOfEachPlease]

There have been several bi women threads on here over time. But they have always got deleted. I thought I would try and start one that doesn’t. Aspiration in the title!

I have done this under my usual username so it’s clear as it can be that I am what I say I am.

This is a thread for any bi woman or any women loving women in any circumstance. So you’ve know all your life and had multiple female (and male?) partners to you’ve only just realised. All are welcome. Maybe you want to act on it, maybe you don’t. Just a general chat and support thread!

My circumstances are that I have probably always known I was bi but put it away in a little ‘that doesn’t matter’ box in my brain. Reader, it did matter. Having got divorced (not related to my sexuality) I have wanted to act on it but I get worried about being inexperienced, body confidence and life getting in the way! I have had sex with women but only twice (2 women, 1 time each). I imagine, for understandable reasons (ex husband, boyfriends, lack of blue hair 😉 …), me being bi wouldn’t cross people’s minds so I am unlikely to just bump into either bi friends or more.

I've known most of my adult life that I am bi. it never meant that you should explore outside of your marriage. some of you who are staying with your men but happily explore outside honestly. self-entitledness at its best. how would you feel if he did it? wouldnt be ok i am sure :LTB. have you ni morals?? (not talking about those of you who dont have husbands)

I don’t know if I’ve always known and not admitted it or not but relatively recently (I’m 44) I’ve come to realise I am definitely bi. I had a brief experience when I was younger that’s probably never really left the back of my mind. I guess I’m nervous about how to explore it, there’s the apps but then my DC are of an age where that’s trickier. I’ve had some enjoyable message exchanges on here but it’s gone no further than that. It’s something I need to explore and possibly come to terms with more as I do that. All of my friends are, as far as I know, straight as an arrow so I’ve never been brave enough to try a bar by myself.

I think there is something about having bi friends and being able to be out to at least some people which has so far been the main thing for me. It’s nice not to feel it’s unimportant and it’s important to me to be able to talk about it. I think the hypotheticals are important too - thinking about the possibilities and which may or may not be desirable or possible makes the whole thing feel less secret and deprioritised.

I don’t think anyone is saying this is morally simple. For some of us the distress is precisely because it isn’t. Discovering or properly acknowledging attraction to women more than 25 years into a relationship is messy, painful and confusing, especially when you’ve been faithful your whole adult life and never expected to be here. That doesn’t make every action right, but it also isn’t the same as casual entitlement.

but it is not communicated to the spouses is it @MidlifeQuery ? if it is then hats off. because they have a right to know who they married.

@LadyLavenderUrchin I think there’s a genuine question about when disclosure should happen, especially in a long relationship with children and major consequences involved. Is it at the first intrusive thought or fantasy, at the point of online searching or messaging, or before any physical intimacy outside the marriage? I’m somewhere in that grey middle ground and trying to work through it carefully before dropping a truth bomb. The advice I’ve received in real life is not to disclose immediately, but to start by addressing the existing relationship difficulties first, which I’ve begun to do, while also trying to limit online activity rather than escalate it.

@LadyLavenderUrchin there is a lot to process and think about between admitting to yourself that you're attracted to women (especially if you didn't acknowledge or explore that before getting married) and being ready to drop that bombshell into your marriage/ family/ friends.

Everyone assumes that when we say 'explore' being bi we're jumping into bed with people but actually it's helpful meeting and talking to other bi women, how they've approached the subject with their partners, what their story is and how they manage to have a bi identity within a 'straight' relationship or if they have left a relationship, what life 'after' was like. Straight friends just don't have the same knowledge or understanding.

My network of bi/ later life lesbian friends aren't people I sleep with, they people I can go to when I want to phwoar about Gillian Anderson, share a fab wlw book or film I've read or go to a LGB/ Pride event with.

I don't know @MidlifeQuery open communication is the only fair thing I can think of. if it's a fantasy it is something to talk about if it is more serious it is also worth talking. it is not fair to just happily chitchat explore work out this brand new side and in case there is a good deal coming your way then you drop the hubby and leave him wondering what the hell happened. it is fair from the start. there can be a lot of reasons. maybe the partner wouldnt want to be with a bi woman or someone who is in the middle of working it out regardless of it being physical or not. that would be fair. and again ask yourselves - if the shoe is on the other foot would you all be comfortable and ok with the hubs doing the exact same thing? or would you want to know. we all know the answer to that come on.

@TasteOfHerCherryChapstick of course there is. but it is exactly the reason why it is not fair to just be on your journey when in fact it would or could have an impact on your loved ones. doing all that in the comfort of being private and out of sight is great. and then when you feel ready you just drop it to unsuspecting other halves which is a shellshock. it is something they deserve to know you are thinking exploring about because of your partnership. and this whole how to live your bi identity it just screams boredom and curiosity of the unknown. I never needed a label and I dont itch for an outlet for my bi side. it is just who I am, my husband knew from the start but I dont stay up awake wondering how to channel it. just like straight people dont toss and turn to figure out how to be straight that day. if you need outlets you just want exploring something you haven't before. simple as.

I wonder why so many of us do come to the realisation about ourselves later on? I think for me it was a dawning realisation from early on but not one I really thought about doing anything about until I was divorced. (Sexuality didn’t feature as a factor in my divorce, I know it does for others). I think I thought for a long time I was happy just to know it about myself, but as I have aged I think that was fear and I am less happy to live all compartmentalised these days. I want to be whole! For me that means more people knowing and/or it not being unusual for me to disclose in appropriate circumstances (I don’t tend to lead with it “pleased to meet you, I’m oneofeachplease, bisexual” 😂). But I have been effected by the nasty stereotype about bi being ‘attention seeking’ and that has at times silenced me.

I would much rather 'explore' my thoughts myself, with friends or a therapist to understand and challenge what I'm thinking/ feeling before I put this on my partners plate to deal with.

I don't agree that a partner has an automatic right to know what your personal thoughts and fantasies are or who you are attracted to.

@TasteOfHerCherryChapstick yes or no - your man doing the exact same thing: are you happy with it or no??

I dont think a partner has automatic rights to know all your personal thoughts and fantasies like that but that is an identity thing, and that is part of the deal you made when you became a couple - your identity is part of what he signed up for. nobody gives a damn about getting the hots for someone in the gym or something.

I don't think he has a 'normal' need for human connection or intimacy but if he was getting his needs met elsewhere I would be delighted for him! We havent had sex or even kissed in over 7 years. He does not want to talk about it. That aside we get on very well!

I am sorry. that is horrible @TasteOfHerCherryChapstick.
that is not exactly normal.

@OneOfEachPlease For me, I think it’s a combination of things are why is showed up now. First dealing with why I didn’t know when I was younger. Perhaps being part of the generation educated under section 28 and lack of positive lesbian, bi role models when initially discovering sexuality in teens, then being in a committed monogamous heterosexual relationship since being 21 so not exploring my sexuality with different partners in my twenties. I recall a number of uni friends only coming out only several years after they had left uni by which point I was in a LTR with the man I went on to marry. Why now in my mid- forties specifically, probably because I’m less tolerant of things that aren’t working in life whether that’s my job, my marriage or my identity I suppose and evaluating all those things critically and making some changes. Then there’s also perimenopausal libido meaning fantasies of women are harder to ignore and block out.

Similar. Only had sex with my husband once in the last 5 years. I don’t think an open marriage is the likely the right solution for us but if it was I would be similarly happy for my husband to meet with other partners

you ladies see a pattern right? disfunctional relationships with dead intimacy. dont tell me there is no correlation between the two things. if you had a working fulfilling relationship you wouldnt fantasize (not necessarily just the sex part) over things you dont have. i know this is not the case for everyone but i see it so often. see it now and when i was younger - this searching and curiosity kickstarted from shit relationships (and yes most of those lack intimacy. shocking)
sorry about it. it must be hard

@LadyLavenderUrchin you are really derailing what is meant to be a supportive thread. You’ve made your point very loudly and very clearly. Any chance we can move on?

I think there is something about wanting to know and be yourself and having less tolerance and actually being braver and more willing to change, whether than change is your mindset or leads to actually being braver actions.
It was funny when I was single and ready to date post divorce. I wish I had a copy of my dating profile, I imagine it was so confused to any woman reading it!!

yes of course

Thanks 😊 I hope everyone is having a good weekend! Mine has been highly unglam!

Yes, all quiet. No big ‘coming out’ party this weekend. Genuinely interested in hearing anyone’s experiences, if they’re willing to share, of telling a long-term partner about their feelings for women and what the result was. Did the relationship end, survive, did you regret telling, did you wish you’d done it sooner?Did you then go on to explore and date after and how soon or had you already met women before? Just curious to hear how others navigated it and how it looks from the other side.

Late forties, married and a mum. I used to class my attraction to women as a fantasy, but now I call it a desire suppressed. The urge to act irl has definitely increased in recent years. There’s no-one irl to talk to, so it does help to read how others made sense of it, whether you acted and how you navigated it.

here are some real-life examples of people in my circle.
me: I was already bi before meeting my hubby he knew from the start and never cared. we dont open our relationship I dont need hidden forums and he never begged to have threesomes with my hot friend. it was never a suppressed desire, I see a hot guy, that is wow, I see a hot woman, that is wow too. and that is it. I lived with a woman before. and holy cow was it exhausting btw haha.

my friend K (46): she realised she was attracted to women when she was 42, told her husband, he accepted and processed it and then later after he learned that she was messaging other ladies on a message board, having 18+ chats they divorced it was too much for him.

my best friend C (44): married for 20 years, 2 kids. she also told her husband from the start. when they got together she wasnt sure what these feelings are. husband understood, he was supporting her from the start there was no sneaking around. they live a happy life since. she doesnt care to experiment either.

my younger sister C (38): got curious halfway her marriage, got into messaging others, had a fling with another young mum, drama, husband left her after much arguing.

my coworker K (38 or 37): long-term partner left on his own without arguing as she said she would like to experiment. today she regrets it. she says he is the one that got away in exchange for sexual curiosity that is not even all that.

mum-friend from DD's school (40-44?) : had a shit marriage so got curious. told husband, divorced husband, had a few relationships with women but realised she is into men but not into shit marriages. funniest person you ever met. especially about this topic.

That’s so interesting! I told my current beau on date one and they reacted well so that was a green flag. I have a friend who had reconciled their sexuality earlier so they have had relationships with both sexes and apart from people being surprised when the new partner isn’t the same sex as the old one, that seems to have gone ok. They are married to a man now and having a second kid and people seem to forget she is bi and I wonder how that feels but we’re not close enough friends for me to ask something that personal.

I also have a friend who isn’t yet sure if she’s bi or a later life lesbian. She is divorced and happily coupled up with a woman now.

My own relationship has always had some consensual grey around the edges. We’re very committed and not poly but on an odd occasion will do something together and I have briefly dated casually a woman alongside our relationship. I would say I would think about doing something like that again apart from I feel time poor and I have not found it easy to meet women and my relationship does take primacy so what I am looking for is someone in a similar situation, which is doable but not exactly 10 a penny! My partner and I have a really good relationship and sex life and talk a lot so I know I am privileged here and it would be so much harder if they hadn’t known from the off and we both hadn’t been divorced and not keen to get back on the same path we’d been on before.