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How old were you?
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this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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I was in high school when I started to realize that I was bisexual. I started questioning around Grade 11 and 12, and then came to terms with it in my first year of university. However, it didn't really change anything for me. I was in a long term relationship at the time, and after that one ended I very quickly ended up in another relationship which I've been in ever since. Both of them were "hetero" relationships.
Knowing that I'm bisexual hasn't changed my feelings for my partner. All it has done for me is help me accept that what I'm feeling is normal, and that it's perfectly okay to be attracted to both males and females.
The fact that you're happily married shows you still love your spouse. Questioning your sexuality doesn't have to change anything about your marriage. If anything, I would talk to your spouse about it and go "hey, I've been thinking about this a bit, and I'd like your support while I try and work through these feelings." You can question and work through it without having to "experiment" or look for anything outside your current relationship.
And remember, being in a "hetero" relationship does not invalidate your sexuality. You don't even have to label your sexuality if you don't want to.
Yeah I'm definitely not looking to experiment. I feel pretty confident in my sexual preferences, but for whatever reason just started question, expression, I guess? I'm not quite sure. We've been married ~10 years and loving it, but somewhat suddenly, questions came up and I'm not quite sure how I feel about anything.
Do you mean expression in terms of gender? Or just more generally how you present yourself to the world?
I'm not totally sure.. Maybe both? I felt somewhat uncomfortable with certain aspects of my body, on and off,, as I assumed all do for a long while.
I had assumed that gender expression was about how you revealed yourself to the world, but this is all so very new to me. Newer than I would have expected.
I'm not sure if this will help you or not, but gender expression can be whatever you want it to be. How you express yourself in private can be different than how you express yourself in public, or how you express yourself to family can be different than how you express yourself to friends.
Maybe you don't identify with any gender. Maybe you identify with your current gender but there are still some things that don't feel right. Or maybe you identify with something else altogether. Any of these is perfectly okay.
I'd also like to point out that being uncomfortable with certain aspects of your body can be normal, but it depends on the context. For example, feeling uncomfortable because of where your body carries its weight is very different from feeling uncomfortable because it feels like part of your body doesn't represent you accurately.
I think in this situation you'd do well to do a bit of googling. Read various sources about coming out, stories about how people realized and came to terms with their identities, and just information about questioning in general.
In my opinion, everyone should question their gender and self-identity at some point in their lives. For most people, that probably just means going "Am I comfortable being a boy/girl?" and answering it with "yes" and then going on with their lives, but for some people it might lead to deeper exploration.
Thank you so much for your help. I will definitely try to keep this in mind in all this figuring. I have a hard time expressing things in words but this has been more than helpful!
I hope you're able to figure it all out! I wish you the best of luck.
Thank you so much. I thank fuck that I was born when I was so I can feel less alone with stuff like this.
I think about that all the time. It hurts my heart that there have been so many people who have gone through things like this all alone with no way to talk to anyone about it. I know it still happens, but at least in this day and age there are so many more resources. I can't even fathom dealing with these kinds of feelings 100 years ago.