My Big Day's Coming...

[MikeW]

Jedinudist's post "The Big Day" explaining how he's felt about himself and his life life in the past is, with few exceptions, my story...

I have recently come out to a very close friend of 30 years. He is gay and has been out for 20 years. I came out to him b/c I was confident he would accept my being bi. Which he did, but to my surprise he said he never had a clue. He and I grew up together. We know each other very well. I guess that's a testament to how deeply I have buried my true feelings and sexuality. A little over a week later I came out to the counselor I've been seeing since my divorce five years ago. She will continue working with me as I sort this all out.

My problem is that I am remarried (31/2 yrs) to a women I love with all my heart. She has been the driving force behind me discovering who I really am. I have never told her I am bi. But I can't live a lie any more. I feel compelled to tell her the truth. How does one do that?

I'd like to hear from the straight wives (Mrs. F, calling Mrs. F...). How did he tell you. What was your first reaction? How did you cope/adjust in the short/long term?

I'd also like to hear from the bi men, how did you tell your wife? Did it affect your marriage in an adverse or positive way?

A huge part of me is incredibly happy that I am dealing with what's been locked away in my head for over 35 years. I’m excited about it. I’m looking forward to life with a new understanding of myself. But a large part of me is scared shitless of losing what I have and who I love.

I, like Jedinudist, have made mention in another post that I am not afraid now to be who I really am. I suggested that I find out how to change my name here on the board. My name isn't Marc. I used that name for two reasons. One being the anonymity on the internet but the main reason was b/c of my desire to hide my true self from myself as I’ve done all my life. I’m through with that now. Pandora’s box is open and the lid don’t fit no more! My real name is Mike. Maybe Drew can change my name to MikeW when he’s got a minute or two and I can stop hiding who I really am.


Mike W

[arana]

My best wishes to you on this one Marc. You must know somewhat how your wife feels towards these issues and how she would react to the news when you tell her. If not, you should try to get her to give you some insite on the subject before just blurting out anything. Also I think you should go over what and how you tell her very carefully before you say anything to her. That is a very tricky area and some people take it well while others freak out. I would not want to learn about it the way some wives have here. I'm glad you are wanting to tell her and hope that you have her full support.

[JohnnyV]

Marc,

I would like to congratulate you for making this big step. As a bi male out to a straight wife, my message is very simple: LISTEN TO HER.

You've gone through a huge emotional journey and reached a critical point. Much of that has involved thinking about how you feel. It is easy, in such a state, to forget that this is going to be a huge emotional journey for your wife, and she too will have many twists and turns, feeling different things at different times.

You have to let her react the way she reacts, without judging her or being disappointed at her response. If she is angry at you, you've got to hold your tongue, just sit tight, let her do the talking, show her that you are willing to absorb some ups and downs.

I think most of our gut instincts, in these cases, is to spill forth a long explanation of ourselves. We want to give a long confessional, and manifold clarifications of all the things that we didn't say before. The problem is that ends up causing the bi person to talk and talk and talk, while the straight spouse, overwhelmed, feels completely powerless and silenced.

I think you ought to prepare a simple talk with the most basic points you want to make about your new identity; don't feel like you have to over-explain every little detail. Maybe even leave some unnecessary points out if it's going to cause distractions in the conversation. Then let her talk, and listen very closely. Answer her questions.

My wife handled everything okay, but I told her everything before we got married, so it was a little different. I emphasized to her that she was the most important thing in my life, and telling her about my sexuality was a way to preserve honesty between us, not a way of asking her for license to do whatever sexual thing I wanted. That worked well.

Good luck!!!!
J

[wildangel]

I wish you much success on telling your wife. I hope that your hope, love, trust, respect, and faith in this lovely woman shows when she tells you that she loves and accepts you for who you are. Good luck!

[littlerayofsunshine]

Mike,

I wish you the best and hope for you a wonderful coming out.

[koda26]

Marc,
I have been married for 12 years with two wonderful children, house, dog, etc... eveything seemed okay. But, I always felt detached or like I wasn't giving enough of myself to my wife. 6 months ago my wife and I had one of those turning point moments in our relationship. I took the big step of coming out to her as bi. To try and keep some firm ground under us. We did the usual thing , or maybe not, of google'ing support groups and personal stories etc. 6 months later I have learned somethings... 1. Communication and trust is the key; my wife and I have very clear ground rules and we always keep checking in with one another. 2. My wife does get upset sometimes and I have to be patient and not take it personal, sometimes I have to remember this women loves me so much that she did not go running and screaming a way. 3. I am more complete and a better husband then I was before; in some ways I think about who I was as a shadow of who I could be. Now my wife gets all of me... our relationship has not been this close since when we were dating.

The most important thing, I have learned is to seperate being bisexual from normal marriage up's and down's. Every time one of us is stressed from work or what ever, doesn't have anything to do with me being bi. Marriage like everything else it takes work... it just happens that bi-husbands bring a little more to work with.
Good luck and take it slow, it is worth it.

[Avocado]

I wish you every luck. My sig will link you to my own coming out to my (then unofficial) fiancee story. Just tell her you're bisexual, you must be prepared from that point on to accept that she's the one asking the questions, and you must be prepared to answer them rather saying your own thing. She may be angry you didn't tell her, or she may wish you hadn't even if you would have still been bisexual. Best of luck. If she has any queries or worries you could always email her a link to this place where she can ask us;)

[pmg_ams01]

Mike,

You just said so many things that touched me personally - I've been through much the same as you recently. You have no way of knowing how your wife will react, but to let you know what's been going on in my case...

I also got to the stage where I couldn't keep the lid on things any more. I've known from a very early age that the sight of men's bodies excited me. However, I had a string of nice girlfriends and had great sex with them when I was younger (I'm 44 now - so I'm allowed to use "when I was younger" !) and have always acted straight. I then met my wife and knew I'd found a soul-mate, we got married and that was 16 years ago - and we're still together. However, to cut a very long story short, I found this site, and from the situation of knowing I wasn't gay, knowing I wasn't straight but not knowing what the hell I was, I found a place and a community where I felt I belonged. Before long, I got to the stage where I knew I would burst if I didn't try to explain to my wife what I was going through and driving home one night I resolved to "come out" to her.

Her reaction was cool (as in frosty) and in the subsequent weeks she got upset and made comments along the lines of "I wish we'd never got married". I did try to get her to look up some of the bi-resources, but she wasn't interested. People on this site offered to help - for which I'm eternally grateful - but she wasn't interested in help from this community. Since then, with a fair amount of talking (not always easy), we've settled into a mutually acceptable lifestyle - we work together on the farm, we sleep in the same bed - we spend a lot of time socially together. She and I both want to stay together and continue living in the same house (apart from the emotional bond which is still there, we also have dependent relatives), but she consistently says that it's for me to decide what I want out of life. We have together come to the conclusion that the sex life which had deteriorated anyway (that's another story) is no longer a consideration - she actually feels turned-off by the fact that I could be sexually attracted to another man. In fact, we're moving rapidly towards the situation of an open marriage - I've no idea how / if that will work, but neither one of us wants to remain celebate for the next 40+ years and the chances of us rekindling our sex life seem non-existent, we're going to see how that works out.

I'm going to my first counselling session this week and will be as open and honest as I can there (I'm getting better at that all the time) - I've no idea how much help it will be, but it's worth a try. In the meantime, I've had one chance to meet up with another guy from the site - my first time in fact with another guy. It was a wonderful experience, and it's made me all the more determined to live a life more honest and true to myself and my sexuality.

Well that's a very brief ramble through my recent past. From what I've read on this site, there have been very many different experiences when "coming out" to one's spouse. Mine's been tough - but I daresay a lot of people have been through worse - and for you it may be no easy path, but personally I felt it had to be done, and I'm happy to live with the consequences. Good luck to you - and if you ever want to chat or discuss my experiences in more depth, please feel free to contact me.

Mike

P.S. up til now I've always used the name Pete on this site, but my real name's also Mike - I will have to think up something original for Drew to change me to.

[pmg_ams01]

Did I really write "...that's a very brief ramble..."? Think I need to check the meaning of "brief" in a dictionary! :crosseye:

[glantern954]

Hi Mike,

I told my wife about my sexuality after one year of marriage. It was one of the hardest things I ever did. Be prepared to answer the question, "Why did it take you 30 years to tell me?" I have heard several stories of spouses having a hard time with something so personal being kept from them for so long. She could be hurt that you didn't trust her to accept you. She may feel like she never really knew you and will cast doubt on everything she thinks she knows about you. He loves me. He is faithful. He is honest.

She is also probably going to want to know, "Why are you telling me now?" "Are you seeing someone?", "Do you want to date others?", "Have you been unfaithful?", "Why did you tell yoru friend before me?", "Are you planning on leaving me?" Be prepared for these and many more. Answer as many of them as you can before she even has to ask them or wonder.

After 30 years I am guessing you have an idea of how she feels about same sex relationships, hopefully they are not negative. Those negative ideas can easily be transferred to you.

It is a very brave thing you are contemplating. I admire you for even considering it. I don't know if I could have done it after waiting so long. Hopefully, she already knows on some level.

Reverse your roles and answer the questions that you would have if she were coming out to you. I also suggest visiting biresource.org and printing out some of the pamphlets like: "What is Bisexuality" and "Myths about Bisexuality" and have them ready for her.

http://www.biresource.org/272

I wish you all the best.
Mike