Bisexual Couples Stories

Bisexual Couples Stories
“When my husband and I got married in June of 2014, he thought he was marrying a heterosexual, cisgender woman.
And I thought that, too. Or at least, that’s what I had convinced myself I was.
I grew up in the cultish atmosphere of Evangelical Fundamentalism, in a small church that followed the teachings of now-disgraced leader Bill Gothard. Teachings that pushed strict gender roles, purity culture, complementarianism: women are women and are feminine (submissive), men are men and are masculine (dominant); women and men only marry each other and have no sexuality outside of heterosexual marriage. Anything outside of those boundaries was shameful, taboo, ‘an abomination.’
Though my parents were less strict and allowed me to be a tomboy at home, the church spoke for God, and it was God who I aimed to please. So I suppressed everything in me that told me I was uncomfortable with the gender I’d been assigned, and any attraction I had to anyone who wasn’t a cisgender, heterosexual male.
Eventually, though, life happened. Through the years, I began to deconstruct my faith in difficult and beautiful ways, and by two years into marriage with my husband (who was also raised in Evangelical Fundamentalist culture), I was finally able to begin to name who I’d always been.
One night when my husband and I were settling into bed, I said the thing that had been on my mind a lot since the anniversary of the PULSE nightclub shooting:
He looked at me, then looked at the ceiling, then back at me, ‘Yeah, I kind of figured.’
He smiled. ‘Not obvious, but I could guess.’
I asked him if that was ok, if it bothered him. He said no, but wondered what it meant for our marriage: was I discontent, did I regret marrying a man, or committing to a monogamous relationship before truly realizing my identity? I assured him that I had no regrets, and he assured me that he loved and accepted all of me.
Another year passed, and as I continued to explore my identity, I figured out that the term ‘pansexual’ more closely fit me, and my partner continued to support me.
A fond memory I have of him showing his acceptance of my sexuality shortly after I came out to him was one evening when we were trying to decide what to have for dinner.
‘We could do burgers, or pizza,’ he said, looking in the fridge.
‘I could go either way,’ I shrugged.
‘I know,’ he raised his eyebrows. ‘But what do you want for dinner?’
The transparency of me sharing my identity with him brought us closer together than ever, and gave me the courage to continue naming things within myself.
The next time I came out to him, we were in the room of our rental house that we’d made into an office. He’d paused his video game and I’d stopped working on my art project. We were talking about LGBTQIA+ rights, social justice, and politics, as we often do.
‘You know how I told you what a tomboy I was when I was a kid?,’ I asked. He nodded. ‘Well, there were times when I really, truly wanted to be a boy. I’ve never been fully comfortable with being a ‘girl’ or a ‘woman.’ I’ve always felt out of place for that, like the wrong shape.’
‘But you love sparkles and dresses and things like that,’ he said, more of a question than a statement.
‘Yeah.’ I replied. ‘I don’t think I feel like a man, either. Have you heard of being non-binary?’
He had questions. I had questions. Gender identity is a complex thing, confused all the more by society’s pigeonholing of what is ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine.’ We had several more conversations over the months about what this meant and how to understand it.
During one of the early ones, I asked him, ‘Is this weirding you out? I don’t want to freak you out.’ In that moment, I had a streak of fear that perhaps us discovering the truth of my gender identity would be a game-changer for him; that being pansexual was ok but learning that he wasn’t actually married to a cisgender woman might just be too much.
‘No!,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to understand. But just because I don’t really understand what it feels like for you doesn’t mean I don’t believe you or it weirds me out.’
‘You’re not regretting being married to me?’
‘Of course not.’ He smiled. ‘I married you for who you are, and this doesn’t change that. You’re still you, and I still want to be with you.’
A few months later, I ordered my first chest binder. A vest, and slacks. I was putting together an outfit for a party at one of the few queer-friendly spaces I knew of, excited to show up as a version of myself I’d rarely gotten to embrace.
My husband saw me trying it on in our bedroom.
‘Oh cool, you remembered to leave the bottom button of the vest undone!’ He exclaimed (that was a men’s fashion rule I’d picked up from watching him dress for events in the past).
‘Yeah!’ I smiled, excited by his positive reaction. ‘Can I borrow the tie you wore at our wedding?’
He helped me tie the tie. ‘You look good.’ He said and winked.
That night he helped me buzz my hair.
It’s been about a year and a half now that I’ve been totally out as pansexual and trans non-binary/genderfluid.
Having a spouse who was willing to accept me and grow with me, even during times when neither of us had firm answers to all the questions yet, has been invaluable to my journey of self-discovery and freedom.
Our mixed-orientation marriage has given us more opportunities to show one another love, acceptance, and intimacy than many couples might ever have. I’m grateful for those opportunities, and for a partner who honors them so deeply.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Elise Huther. You can follow their journey on Instagram . Learn more about Elise’s art on their website and Facebook . Do you have a similar experience? We’d like to hear your important journey. Submit your own story here. Be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.
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“My doctor’s cold hands pressed against my breasts. ‘No lumps, but let me process the urine sample.’ 5 minutes later, she retuned with a beaming look on her face. ‘You’re pregnant! Congrats!’ I’m…what? Who? How? ‘Infertile’ and on birth control, I was in utter disbelief! We went from a quiet little house in Suburbia to catapulted into parenthood. I had no energy or desire for intimacy. We hit the one-year mark completely sexless.”
“After a 3-day binge, I told my husband he needed to choose. He could go to rehab and get sober, or he needed to leave. He chose to leave. I was a single mom with two heartbroken little boys. I knew I wanted to help other kids out there going through the same thing.”
“I was written off as hormonal. My husband frantically demanded I be intubated. He kept screaming, ‘The oxygen levels don’t matter. She’s in a Myasthenic Crisis!’ I tried to take a breath. It was too late. All my muscles started twitching. I was flopping around on the hospital gurney uncontrollably. Suffocating. I was dying and no one was listening to my husband’s desperate pleas. I heard Code Blue called over the intercom and faded away. I didn’t wake for 2 weeks.”
“The day after Mother’s Day, my brother called at 3:30 a.m. ‘There’s been an accident.’ Confused, I asked, ‘What do you mean?’ He replied, ‘Momma has BEEN shot.’ Without a shadow of a doubt, the second my mom got to heaven, she sent my son to save me. And that is exactly what he’s been doing since he took his first breath on this Earth.”
“At 40 years old, post-vasectomy, we thought my husband was shootin’ blanks. All I could do was laugh out of shock. Very quickly followed by a much larger part of me saying, ‘Oh…sh*t…’ As I stood up and washed my hands, I was overcome with a feeling of dread.”
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Published May 22, 2012 12:00AM (EDT)

Related Topics ------------------------------------------
Bisexuality
Infidelity
Marriage
Since You Asked

Recently my husband of 18 years has explored his sexuality with other men. He admitted having four sexual encounters with random men he solicited from Craigslist. After a week of hell, and many a shouting match, he begged me to take him back, claiming that his experimentation is not worth losing his family. As in a textbook scenario, he, somehow, convinced himself that I, being very liberal and supportive of gay community, would understand, and maybe even approve, his urges. Having two teenage daughters and being a stay-at-home mom, I have initially agreed to let him back into the family fold, after all his STD tests came back clean.
I have immediately lined up a therapist, not being able to go through the crisis by myself. I have consulted the divorce lawyer as well, but decided that I simply cannot afford to leave him before I can secure some sort of support system, income, job, anything that would assure my landing on solid ground. Now, being middle-aged and with thin résumé, getting a job will be difficult in this economy, and I am more and more inclined to pursue separation, since staying in the marriage is not really emotionally healthy for me. I do give it a try every day, and every day is an effort, but, although he did give up his "encounters," he still maintains virtual presence in the gay community through porn and his private Flickr account(s). Although not a deal breaker, his Internet activity makes me conclude that he is not willing to make an effort toward the true reconciliation of our relationship, and that his real orientation is something he will not be able to deny for much longer. I do realize that his orientation is not a choice, but his behavior is.
My priority is our girls, who are, hopefully, oblivious to the extent of our marital crisis, but I am asking myself lately if it is time to let him go, and hope for the best for all four of us? I do not want to hurt the girls, but I do not want to carry on with this agony for much longer either. This past couple of months have been hardest in my life, just watching everything I ever believed in crumble apart. My self-esteem is still pretty high, but self-pity creeps in every now and then, hurting my ability to think straight. I want out; the question is do I wait until the girls are off to college (another couple of years), or do I seek an exit now.
You need concrete help. For that, you have wisely chosen a therapist and a lawyer.
What I can do is help you form a narrative or map.
Because you are human you will seek meaning in what happened. We seek meaning in misfortune whether we get cancer or have an accident or are bombed out of our houses by unseen jets. It helps. It helps to make a story out of what happens.
Your story will be something like this. You fell in love and got married and had two beautiful children and had always thought there might be unexplored territory between you and your husband. But you did not go there. You may have learned a way of relating that, though intimate, allowed for certain unexplored regions. You may have termed this privacy, or given it some meaning. But you sensed that your husband was not completely transparent to you, that he had secrets or evasions. Having no clear guidelines, you let these areas, and perhaps these doubts, go unexplored. You didn't press the issue. You made small incremental decisions that maintained the relationship and the family.
It may be that at the first you wondered if this was the way it was supposed to be. You may have talked to your friends about it, subtly suggesting that things were "good" but not "great," that you wondered sometimes ...
Maybe. Maybe not. I think it likely, if you are honest, that you had vague suspicions.
At any rate, now it has become clear that your husband has been hiding a great deal from you. So you are incensed, enraged, hurt, betrayed. You've had a terrible shock. Gone are the bedrock vows and beliefs on which your marriage rested. You are now in the sticky muck of uncertainty. It is hard to walk now; everything is harder.
For a while it's going to be one day at a time, slogging through, some days better than others. You will have to decide if you can continue living with him and for how long, and under what circumstances, and for those decisions, you have help through a lawyer and a therapist. One way or another you will arrive in a future that was not the future you imagined.
What do I see for you in the future? I see a wiser woman; I see a woman who finds new strength in herself to protect her daughters and make a new life. I see a woman who now knows you never really know, who learns that when disaster happens you're capable of more than you realized. And maybe there will be some new rules in this story -- rules about hunches and doubts, a rule that says if something doesn't feel right, it isn't.
We are educated to be sensible and quasi-scientific in our decisions. In the conscious realm we operate on what we can see and hear. But in the unconscious realm, the animal realm, the realm of hunches and doubts, we need to listen more carefully to unformed notions we don't fully understand and yet which persist, in their way, in their language of symbols and doubts and strange coincidence.
I wish to leave you with this: You are not alone. This has happened before. You have strength and support to call on. You can get through this and be stronger and wiser. You have help. You have people who love you and are on your side. You are going to be OK.
Copyright © 2022 Salon.com, LLC. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. SALON ® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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I've been with my husband for 9 years. When we began dating he was open about his past of dating men and women. He claims to be bisexual. It didn't bother me at first until I started to really fall for him. His biggest fear was what women would think of his past when dating them. We got through our issues and still together with a baby.
It seems like society as a whole accepts woman to be bisexual and if a man has been with men he's gay.
As a woman, would you be able to date a man that has been with men in the past?
And, do you think it's more accepted for woman to explore same sex relationships than men?
I have dated a bisexual man and it did not bother me.
Yes it is more accepted for women to be bisexual, even celebrated sometimes (not to say they don't have issues of discrimination)
Yes, I could absolutely be with a bisexual man. I'm bisexual myself.
Yes, I think that society often stigmatises bisexuality in men, but often (by false means) glorifies it in women. It's an incredibly frustrating double standard.
Yes, I could date a man who has been with men. As a bisexual person, I actually really hate the way bisexuals are treated in the LGBT community. And men have it so much worse. It would not bother me, but you're right about the prevailing view in our culture.
Would I have dated a bisexual man? Nope.
And yes, it is more acceptable for women to be bi. It's one those things where no one looks twice when a guy walks around with his shirt but
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