Hi,

It’s my first time posting here, but I’m a longtime lurker from my now-abandoned lemmy.world account. So, here’s goes…

I’ve been feeling kind of stuck in my life, and wanted to see if any comrades had experienced anything similar or know folks who have. My main difficulty is that I only realized and accepted that I’m bi after my wife was pregnant. This is a problem for me because my wife is strictly monogamous. When we last discussed things, she flat out said that she couldn’t accept me being with anyone else, even if the relationship was strictly sexual.

And I’m torn here. On the one hand, I love my wife very deeply and absolutely don’t want to lose her. We’ve been together more than ten years, and she’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met. On the other hand, I have this nagging feeling that a big part of me is going unexplored and undeveloped, to the point I find myself inexplicably mad at my wife sometimes - I guess because I blame her for not “letting” me explore this other side of me.

And about feeling stuck, I know I need to tell her how important this is to me, and to ask again if there’s any way at all we can deal with it together. But when we’ve discussed it previously, multiple times, I dealt with it poorly and hurt her very badly. I just don’t know if she can take another round of the same damn thing, and I’m very reluctant to try and have it turn out badly yet again.

Again, I’d especially appreciate hearing from folks who’ve been through similar situations, or at least know people who have.

  • TraumaDumpling@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    either this is a big enough issue for divorce or its not, that seems like the relevant question you need to ask yourself and think about the ramifications of.

    staying together doesn’t (or shouldn’t) necessarily mean you have to suppress or deny your sexuality, bi people aren’t necessarily poly, but it seems to my unexperienced self like you are looking for a way out, like you aren’t really satisfied and are together out of a sense of obligation, habit, or fear that you won’t find another relathionship thats as satisfying, or genuine concern for your children.

    i’m probably aromantic and unexperienced in sexual relationships though, just my 2 cents after witnessing people’s long term relationships go sour around me.

    • bicuriousButters [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      9 months ago

      Yeah, maybe I’m trying to have it both ways, I don’t know. I can’t imagine my life without my wife, but sometimes I feel like it’s not really “mine” while we’re together. I guess I want to feel like I’m being true to myself and not denying what I feel, and that’s been hard for me for a while now.