r/mixedorientation

I came out to my wife yesterday and it was such a beautiful experience for us both.

A bit of history, I’ve had sexual attraction to guys all my life , but have struggled with it . I’ve never acted upon it and kept it hidden, just fantasising which progressed to chatting online to guys and watching Bi porn. Like any long term relationship we’ve had our ups and downs, have 3 kids and a busy life. Every now and then I would watch porn, then get guilty and put it down for a while , but always come back to it.

I recently got diagnosed with ADHD at age 56, so that’s been something to deal with as well. So glad I did because it’s really helped me open up to my wife .

Also my darling wife is fighting Stage 4 cancer, she’s stable at the moment and feeling good. This is the main reason why I wanted to come out to her. I want to be truly authentic with her and for her to know the real me. I don’t know how long she will be with us and the idea of keeping this hidden from her was becoming too much .

She suspected something was up anyway, last week she said ‘you know what , if you were gay it wouldn’t matter’.

I must of given out some kind of vibes, women are very intuitive. I’m not your typical overtly masculine kind of guy. Introverted, sensitive and quite empathetic.

We were in bed yesterday morning and I questioned her about her comments from last week. She said , so are you , or are you bi? I told her everything. She listened and accepted me for who I am. I explained it’s purely sexual attraction and definitely not romantic for me. I just don’t feel romantic about guys. I would never cheat on her and just want things to stay the same.

We both admitted we had grown apart and lost the connection, me coming out to her was the best thing thing I could have done, we are both on the same page about how to move forward.

So my experience of coming out couldn’t have been better. For nearly 40 years I’ve been carrying the weight of this struggle and I feel finally free to be myself.

**26M** – Question for the ladies.
For the past four years, I dated men, but I’ve recently ended that chapter of my life. I genuinely want to settle down, get married, and start a family. I’ve completely walked away from that lifestyle, cut ties with the friends I made during that time, and I’m focused on building a different future.
My question is: would you be comfortable marrying a man with a past like mine, assuming he has been honest about it and has truly moved on?
For context, I was always the masculine partner in those relationships, not the other way around.
I’m looking for honest opinions, not judgment. I’d really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

My husband (26M) and I (29F) have been together for 4 years and married less than a year. I'm looking for advice because I feel stuck in a cycle of dishonesty, and I don't know how to move forward.

From the beginning, I was very open about my sexuality (I'm bisexual and have had relationships with women). Whenever I asked about his sexuality, he'd describe himself as "straight-ish" but never elaborated.

About two years into our relationship, I accidentally discovered searches for gay porn on his Reddit account while using his phone. When I brought it up, he eventually admitted he'd been watching gay porn since he was young and had two sexual experiences with men in college. He said he enjoyed parts of those experiences but never explored further and had no intention of telling me about any of it.

I wasn't upset that he had same-sex attraction. I was hurt that he had hidden a significant part of himself from me while I had always been completely open with him. I encouraged him to explore these feelings through therapy, journaling, or self-reflection. He said he would.

Over time, I worked through my feelings in therapy. Sometimes I felt accepting and understood that fantasy doesn't always equal real-life desires. Other times I felt deceived, inadequate, or worried I was a placeholder.
He proposed, I said yes, and we got married. Then things escalated.

During our honeymoon, I discovered he had been masturbating to porn while I slept. That hurt, but I tried to move past it.
A few months later, I found evidence that he had been on Grindr. When confronted, he admitted he had been trying to find old nude photos from a man he hooked up with in college because "real people" were more arousing to him than porn. I was devastated.

That conversation led to some major breakthroughs. He finally acknowledged that he's bisexual, came out to his family, started therapy, began working out regularly, and we've worked on communication through weekly check-ins. He has repeatedly reassured me that he wants a monogamous life with me.

Recently, during one of our weekly talks, I asked how things were going. He told me he'd been avoiding porn and either masturbating without it or using videos we'd made together.

The next day, I found multiple porn searches from just a few days before that conversation.
When I confronted him, he admitted he lied because he felt ashamed and hoped he could eventually stop using porn altogether.

That's where I'm struggling. The issue isn't that he's bisexual. The issue isn't even the porn. It's the repeated dishonesty. Every major setback in our relationship has involved me discovering something first and then getting the truth only after confrontation.

I love him. I want him to feel safe being fully himself. I support him exploring and accepting his sexuality. But I don't know how to rebuild trust when honesty only seems to happen after he's caught.

Has anyone been through something similar? How do you move forward when the core problem is shame-driven dishonesty rather than the underlying behavior itself?

throw away account since my wife has my other account.

TLDR: I'm a bisexual woman married to a lesbian woman and i miss having intimacy with males. i feel like the "domineering" or "masculine" one of our relationship.

i think i mainly just want to come here to express some thoughts and see if other people ever feel this way.

i am bisexual and i have been with my partner over 5 years now and we just got married almost a year ago. i absolutely love her, and believe she is the most beautiful woman in the world. she's my favorite person and my best friend. she knows that i am bisexual, because i have had relationships with men before her, but i often just call myself a lesbian when people ask because i don't want to be that married person that says "well, i'm bisexual, but i'm married to a woman."

i know, not very accurate, but it's often hard to explain to outsiders. i also often tell online guy friends that i am a lesbian just so there are no blurred lines and no opportunity for more than a friendship. my wife is a "gold star" lesbian; i am the only person she has ever been with romantically and sexually besides a few online relationships.

i've been open with her and asked her if she would ever want to open the relationship because she's never had sex with another partner and that i would be okay with that, but she shut it down and was very disinterested because she basically hates people, lmao.

me on the other hand, after 5 years (and some "lesbian bed death"), and carrying all of the "masculine" energy of our relationship, i miss just being "feminine" and feeling like i am "being taken care of," if that makes sense. i know that many may not understand this. yes, we are both women, and i know assigning gender roles to non conforming people is confusing, but i just often feel like i am the more domineering person and i'm the one that initiates sex and plans/dinners/etc. i also am the one initiating just romantic intimacy as well, i.e. massages, kisses, compliments, etc. we have talked about this though multiple times and not much has changed. i've even let my hands off the reigns because i thought "maybe i'm just a control freak," only to realize no intimacy will happen at all if i do not initiate it.

lately, i have been struggling with missing the intimacy from a male/masculine person. mainly, the way the intimacy from a male makes me feel, i guess.

does anyone else struggle with this? i know it may sound like i am just a traditionalist, but i never really wanted to live with a man or marry one. i guess it could be a "grass is greener on the other side?" i'm also unsure how to talk to her about this without her absolutely hating me and maybe even threatening divorce. we've talked about parts of our relationship, but never the "i'm longing to have s3x with a man" thing.

btw, i'm not obsessed with sex or anything. i mostly just want to feel loved. i have started to ruminate on my appearance because of it, and it's just a sensitive spot. mainly just looking for support and understanding. people who can relate to feeling like they carry the "dominant" energy. it's quite exhausting.

thank you if you read this entire thread and mods, if not allowed please delete. thank you.

Simply that. How many mixed orientation marriages (of any kind) do you think end specifically because one spouse (not necessarily the lgbtq+ one) either got caught or confessed to cheating? Not because of financial problems or infertility or anything like that. This is something I've been wondering about for a while. Whenever I try to get statistics online it just says something along the lines of "there is no specific data for that". The only thing I've found is a study that says mixed orientation marriages are 2-3x more likely to end in divorce. This isn't meant to be rage bait or make anyone feel defensive. Obviously every marriage is different.