Bisexual in a straight marriage

Jack Scott's recent post, "I'm married to a bisexual guy, will it work?", really hit home for me, for all the obvious reasons.  This guy is very insightful, and, IMHO, certainly knows his stuff.

You see, I've thought a lot about my own decisions, and how I've chosen to deal with the secret side of myself.  I had a lot of options.  My wife knows I'm bi.  She's known since long before we got married.  I had never acted on those feelings before we met, because of my own damn insecurities and the like.  Unless you count a short experience when I was 5 or 6.  (BLM reminded me about that, I will have to tell you about it later.)  I never acted on these feelings while we were dating, or until recently, during our marriage.

But she knew.  And she's supportive.  We've talked about it, and even though it is always awkward for me, it's always made me feel more open and honest than at any other time in my life.  So why then, when I finally get up the nerve to act, do I leave her out of it?  Why do I go out of my way to keep it from her?  To deceive her?  I really don't know, it doesn't make much sense to me either.  But I do have a few ideas.

In Jack's blogs, he talks quite a bit about the difference between a bisexual man in a straight marriage, and a homosexual man in a straight marriage.  I think, deep down, that is what is at the heart of my fear.  I've had these feelings, for guys, for as long as I can remember.  While growing up, I've never talked to anyone about them.  I certainly knew what being gay was, and it was easy to see how it was becoming more widely accepted in society.  I was confused.  I remember light conversations with even the most open and accepting of people that made me close down.  My sister, for example, once told me in my adolescent years that "if a guy is confused, he's gay, that simple".  But it wasn't that simple for me.  I liked girls.  I had many crushes on girls, jacked off thinking about girls, enjoyed playboy.  I knew, or I felt, that if I talked to anyone about my liking guys too, I would be labeled gay.  And that would be that, I was gay, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I think my sister has grown from then, since she's found herself in her own gay relationship.  But I've never had the guts to talk to her about me since.

In the back of my mind, since early tween years, I've thought about the possibility that I really am "just gay".  That I have been lying to myself, and my heterosexual tendencies were a fabrication.  My attractions to either gender are never equal, but swing back and forth like a pendulum.  Maybe when I was more on the straight side, that's when I was lying to myself the most.  Most of society believes that bisexuality is just a myth.  That men who claim to be bisexual are really gay, just trying to get all the same perks that come with being straight.    I, for all my faults, never wanted to appear to anyone as talking the easy way out.  If anything, I liked taking the hard road if only to get the sympathy and attention from those around me.  I felt that stating I was bi would be like a black man bleaching his skin white.  For one, it would be obvious, and two, I would lose the acceptance of either side.  So I hid it.  I hid it for fear that I was really lying to myself.  And for fear that no one would accept me for me.  I also hid just for the simple fact that I didn't want anyone else to put a label on me.

In life, I must always be right.  No one else can tell me something that I don't already know, or I will immediately reject it!  That not really true, but it is always my first response.  It drives my wife nuts!

That I might really just be gay is a fear that only recently went away.  I thought that if I hooked up with a guy, it would confirm my fear.  I'd realize that I was gay, that I no longer belonged with my wife.  That I would have to get a divorce, and have my wife suffer the shame of marrying a homosexual man.  Since she already knew, she wouldn't even be able to blame me, she'd blame herself for trusting me.  I'd have to tell my family.  I'd have to tell her family.  While I may have had all the support and acceptance I need to come out when I was younger, I don't know if that was still true today.  I'd have to tell my coworkers.  I'd be forever defined as gay, and there would be nothing I could do about it.  And everyone I've ever know in life can look at each other and say, "Oh yes, finally!  I knew there was something about him."

All of that vanished a day or two after my first hookup.  That's when I realized that my feelings toward my wife, sexual and otherwise, hadn't changed.  That sucking dick, for the first time, hadn't flipped a switch.  This may have been obvious to everyone else, but it wasn't for me.  I've never talked about it.  I couldn't talk about it.  They only person I could talk to about it was my wife, and I couldn't let on to her that I was afraid I'd leave her.

So now I have a new goal;  Figure out how to live my life in the open.  My wife really is supportive.  I don't think she would support me cheating.  But there probably is a better way for me to fulfill all my desires.  Jack Scott seems to have it worked out.  Maybe if I figure out the right way to approach it, I can get there too.