Why I Regret Telling My Husband I'm Bisexual
Every ounce of my being wholeheartedly regrets telling him about that part of my world.
ART STOCK CREATIVE / Shutterstock A few years ago, I had a meltdown in the car with my husband. We were leaving a restaurant and he pointed out a girl he thought was cute. It was no big deal in itself; we do it all the time.
He knows I’m bisexual — I told him when we first started dating — and he likes to try and rev me up with someone we’re similarly attracted to. I didn't think coming out as bisexual to him would be a problem.
But it was our anniversary, and his doing it on that day was just too much for me. I’d been having self-esteem issues and felt like, looks-wise, I could never measure up to the girls he pointed out.
I started to cry, babbling about how, as the bisexual wife, I wasn’t enough for him and all I wanted was for him to only want me and have just me be good enough for him. Which, of course, it is, but I was in hysterics. I cried the entire way home.
I don’t know that I ever fully recovered from that day. I realized I was being silly and got over it, sure, but there’s still some lingering resentment when the topic of other women comes up. (Yes, I’ve talked to him about it already, thanks.)
My sexuality is constantly on the table in our marriage. Since I told him I also like women, every day has been a windfall of “Oh, what about her?” or, “Hey, why don’t you call that hot friend and tell her to come over?” or, “Don’t you still want to have another girl with us at least once?” or, “What about the neighbor, do you think she’d be interested?”
I can honestly say that every ounce of my being wholeheartedly regrets telling him about that part of my world. It’s not that I don’t want to share my full life with him, or that I wanted to keep it a secret. It’s just that now, I feel this immense pressure.
All he wants for his birthday — he doesn’t like material gifts — is a threesome. It’s also all he wants for Christmas, our anniversary, Valentine’s Day, or really any time gift-giving is expected. And he brings it up all the time.
It’s seeped into our sex life.
If we’re in the middle of a session that just isn’t super-hot for whatever reason, he wants to know what I’d do if another girl were there. And he tells me what he would do. Sometimes he brings it up in the middle of some pretty steamy encounters, and it kills the mood for me.
I get that it turns him on and that he’s thrilled with the idea. But for once I’d like to hear about how hot I am, and how much I turn him on, without mentioning anyone else.
On top of that, now I feel like I have to try and form another relationship — one with a girl we can eventually bring back to the bedroom — in addition to our marriage. It makes me uncomfortable. I feel like I always need to be on the lookout, always need to be flirting with someone, always need to be expending that energy that I’d rather put somewhere else.
And he eggs me on. He asks me to leave notes for a cute waitress at a restaurant with our phone number.
He asks me to go chat with that girl sitting alone at the bar. It’s exhausting. I want to be married to my husband, not my husband and some random chick that sometimes comes over to spice things up. I don't want to be just the bisexual wife.
The worst part about it, for me, is that sometimes I’m into it. Depending on my mood, I play along. Because you know, I’ve had threesomes. And they are pretty phenomenal if it goes well. So I can’t really blame my husband for everything here.
I’m giving him some pretty mixed signals — one day being all for it and the next being furious. This leads me back to my point: if I had never told him to begin with, we wouldn’t be having this struggle.
Alex Alexander is a Yourtango.com pseudonym.