r/mixedorientation

Hi all! This is going to be a long and emotional post so please bare with me, and please be kind 💔

I (34F) have been with my (34M) husband for 19 years. We were each other's first loves at 15 years old. We have grown up together and have been married for 15 years. We've always done everything together, people close to us joke that we are the same person. And in a way I think we are, I literally do not know who I am without him. Our relationship has always been great and we have two beautiful children together aged 9&10.

He had never been a physically affectionate person. He only ever really touched me when he wanted sex. I accepted that that's just the type of person he was. Physical touch was not his love language. The problem was that physical touch is my language! So after many years of missing that physical affection I felt incomplete.

It was me who decided I wanted to open up the marraige 5 years ago. At first it was just threesomes, then venturing out on our own. After a while we both decided that we were able to love more than one person and polyamory was a good fit for us. Anyone who is experienced with poly knows that it's not a walk in the park and does not come without jealousy. But it worked for us.

After a few false starts we each found a partner. Me a boyfriend and him a girlfriend. We added them to our family and would alternate nights staying with each other, and staying with our partners. For 4 long years we were a mostly happy family.

My husbands girlfriend was actually gender fluid. So they actually felt feminine some days, and masculine others. She brought my husband out of his shell so much to the point where I hardly recognised him. They started doing everything together and the relationship became very unbalanced. I tried to tell him I wanted more time with him but he didn't care or listen. In the end it wasn't worth loosing him so I accepted my fate, enjoyed the 1-2 nights we got together and spent more time with my other partner.

(Hang in there, we're almost there! Thank you for getting this far!)

A few weeks ago my husbands GF broke up with him. He was understandably upset and for the first time admitted that he had been neglecting me and that things had gotten out of control. He promised to make it up to me, and apologised for what he had put me through. Said he wouldn't date again until we were okay. He and GF decided to remain friends. Which was hard for me.

Then a week ago today, he woke me up from a nap and told me he is gay. I was gobsmacked. He's always called himself bi-curious but has never actually expressed any interest in being with a male at all. And now he is telling me that not only is he sexually attracted to males, but also that he is no longer attracted to females at all, me included. After the shock wore off I said well that's it then it's over.

Now this is where it gets confusing.

He tells me that he can't live without me, he says that I am his soul mate. That he is romantically attracted to me and just as in love with me as he ever was. He has also been so affectionate since telling me and is constantly touching, hugging and kissing (peck on the lips) me. I am so confused. I am grieving the loss of his attraction to me and have been crying daily. I have also lost all of my (not that I had much in the first place) self confidence and feel disgusting about my self. I have lost 3ks in a week because I can't even eat.

I want to make this work. I don't know who I am without him. I don't know how to let him explore his attraction to men without feeling extremely and detrimentally jealous. He promises that he can give me all the love and support that I could ever want, just not the sex. I am still with my BF so it's not like I will go without. But the loss of his attraction to me feels like a physical wound.

How do I know he won't have his first experience with a man and then leave me? How do I know I'm not just going to be a place holder and a safe space for him until he finds what he's really looking for? How can I get my confidence back and feel better about myself?

Please if anyone has any advise or has been in a similar situation and tried to make it would I would love to hear from you.

Thank you so much to anyone who has made it to the end of this post. I am so broken right now and could use any support at all.

Let's face it, being married to a man while you are attracted to women is hard. Really hard. Some days the desire to be with a woman is extremely hard to ignore. I feel like there's this voice in the back of my mind constantly trying to tempt me. My husband is a very religious and conservative man. Most of the time when I try to open up about my struggles he either becomes impatient or preachy about it or just doesn't understand it. Usually I keep my struggles to myself. I'm just wondering how often do you talk to your spouse about how you're really feeling? Or do you mostly just keep it to yourself instead? Is it even appropriate to burden them with thoughts like this? How do you deal with the nagging little voice of temptation?

Came out to my wife a month ago. We decided to try and make a non monogamous mixed orientation marriage work. Anyone have advice?

Hi all,

Using an alt account for this as it's personal.

My wife and I have been together 10 years, married for almost 5. We have a 3 year old kid. We've had some intimacy issues, especially after the birth of our kid. Part of it was definitely me, I've gone through some struggles with trauma (sister died of od in 2020, partner nearly died in childbirth). I got really bad about coming up to bed, just up til like 2am, smoking weed and watching YouTube and watching my kid on the monitor, waiting for him to wake up. Our sex life was down to every couple of months. She had expressed concerns about this over the years and I always deflected. Finally a month ago she asked if I could take off work on a Friday and she left for her parents house when I got home from work (they were on vacation). Finally, we exchanged letters that Saturday night.

In mine I acknowledged how I had been, and what changes I needed to do (get therapy, which I've now been in for a month). In her letter, she revealed that she's been feeling more certain that she's gay, and not bi (as I've always known her). There's more to it, but this was a devastating blow. She's in therapy too now, and is still thinking about if she wants to stay in the marriage. Obviously, we're not making any big changes right now. We have a kid and own our house, and he is our first priority.

But right now, I could just use some support or advice. Therapy has been really helping my problems with communication, how I get defensive and afraid to talk about things deeply that hurt. I've been going to bed on time for the first time in years, my hygiene is better, and I've pretty much cut out smoking weed. But what sucks is knowing none of this could matter and I just have to sit in limbo until she figures out what she wants. It's hard because I want to do what I can to save our relationship, but it's really hard because I also know that it might all be in vain. We established boundaries right away when she came home after her first letter, hugs and kisses okay, sex off the table. After a couple weeks I wrote her a long letter, really owning my problems in the relationship, and laid out how much I love her and desire her. She appreciated the letter, but I've still gotten no big response from her.

It's just hard. I love my wife so much and I don't want to lose her and sitting with the not knowing is really painful.

So my problem is I am very confused of what I am feeling rn and I need an advice. I am a bisexual Female and My story is that my gay best friend confessed to me that he’s been inlove with me for years, and I was actually kind of interested with him too for years and I think I was also falling inlove with him. So we became something, no label, just something. We never talked about label, we were just something, I mever even told him I liked him, it felt like we were just going with the flow, taking it slowly. So we talked everyday almost 24/7, sending reels to each other all the time esp the reels about “ruining the friendship blah blah” until I slowly became uninterested with him — it’s like the spark is gone when I was once very interested with him, I even got jealous when he’s being close to one of our friends. It feels like something changed and I dont know what. It’s just one day I became dry or cold, and I stopped telling him about how my day went. The worst part is that I cringe when I remeber us kissing (when I liked it when it happened). I am so confused why I changed. I liked him for years too, but when we had this “something” I slowly became uninterested. This is very confusing and I feel bad cause he is a very nice person and Im sure he is confues why I became cold towards him. We just suddenly stopped talking and I dont want to talk to him anymore.

My sister has been married for some time about less than a year, and the marriage has been quite difficult. There have been a lot of problems between her and her husband, as well as ongoing issues with her mother-in-law.

Recently, my sister has started suspecting that her husband may be gay. She doesn’t have definitive proof, but there are certain things that have made her seriously question his sexuality and whether he genuinely wants to be in the marriage.

At this point, the marriage has deteriorated to the point where she is considering getting a divorce. The problems with her mother-in-law have also contributed significantly to how unhappy she has become.

I’d really appreciate advice from people who have experienced something similar, particularly on how to handle this calmly and respectfully while making sure my sister protects herself.