Is there a way to tell if your W is bisexual or lesbian? This is actually something I've been struggling with for a long time. I've made joking references to it here and despite our progress, I still sometimes feel like there might be something to this. I *know* that the diagnosis cannot be made on this board and that I'm probably going to sound silly with this but now that we have some people with experience here (SD and bollette), I'd be curious to know if I should pursue this more during my C sessions. If my W is hiding something like that, it would break my heart that to think she's living with such fear. I'd prefer it if she came clean like bollete's W. Because seriously...I've always felt like she was hiding something and I would like to settle my anxiety about that. So here's my list of clues...sorry if I sounds like a dork...
Clue 1. In highschool (years before we were dating), a friend of her told me that she had fooled around with my future W. I always assumed they were just playing around...maybe that's all it was.
Clue 2. In highschool she dated a boy who we all knew was gay (maybe before he realized it) and in college, she maintained a long distance relationship w/ him for almost a couple years. I mean, who can maintain a long distance R more than a couple months after HS? I saw this as a benefit...she's damn committed. But it's almost impossible for me to believe that she was clueless about his orientation.
Clue 3. Around the time we were married, I was at party where a drunk, college acquaintance told me that my W was a lesbian. He had gone to HS w/ her and probably heard the story form Clue 1.
Clue 4. This may be a weird stretch but each year, we attend a party with a large number of gay and lesbians attending. My W wears a different fragrance. I had once heard that this particular fragrance is popular amongst the "lipstick-lesbian" crowd.
Clue 5. We were at a nightclub last year and I glanced over and she was engaged in a french kiss with another woman (who apparently initiated a kiss with her after my W complimented her shoes). This was right at the time we were breaking the gridlock, doing PM stuff, and starting to ML more often.
Clue 6. In general, she seems to be a magnet for women. I've heard many straight women say things like "If I were into women, I would be all over your W". I know this has nothing to do w/ my W's orientation but maybe she has some "vibe".
Now, I could also list a ton of clues why she is straight. She has mentioned that certain guys are hot, she orgasms with me during intercourse and seems to like sex. I also sometimes thinks that she might just be a very LD bisexual but at other times, I think she's terrified to explore or open herself up to these other possibilities.
It's unsettling that I keep coming back to this topic.
Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time
-Steven Wright
I think that there are probably not any clear lines in sexuality. I think sexual orientation is pretty tricky. We all hear about guys in prison ( or at least we saw Oz), who insists they are not gay, but have homosexual lovers. I think Kinsey found many experiment with same sex relationships in their youth. Now, with women I think the lines are especially tricky for many reasons. We are more physically affectionate with each other, often much more emotionally close/intwined each other. Honeypot is right when she says that many women find looking at women sexy, and have fantasies. One of the hosts of the View said that she did not think of herself as bi or gay and she would "date" Angelina Jolie. I am not sure about clues. What happens when you ask her? If she has those leanings, what would keep her from telling you? How goes it bolete?
Arguing with reality is like trying to teach a cat to bark—hopeless. (Byron Katie)
What happens when you ask her? If she has those leanings, what would keep her from telling you?
She says "nope".
The big question for me is "why would I want to consider / believe this about her?" I think the answer is somewhere in the fact that a sexual orientation issue creates a really tidy answer to the HD/LD thing rather than forcing one to introspect or work on the marriage...it's an easy answer rather than a tough, drawn out one. I'm sort of envious of bollette because this revelation, while bad, torpedoed the gridlock and removed all those feelings of uncertainty.
Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time
-Steven Wright
AltDave, Would your wife admit this? I doubt I would unless I was in a very open relationship (not open to others, just 100% honest). That would be bombshell, for sure. Geez there are people who won't even admit to themselves.
I noticed that both my ex and current W have checked out hot women, just like I would. I will watch my W's eyes run up and down their bods, and I wonder what she is thinking. Probably what HP is. Doubt she is bi, but yah never know.
If I wanted to be legalistic and technicql, I'd say she is maybe subject to epithumea but not porneia. She's fantasized some, but never done nothing. And I don't think that's grounds for divorce for anyone trying to seriously follow the Bible.
Why do we want to stay together? She's the witness to my life, the person I talk to instead of writing a journal, I'm delighted whenever I see her, when I'm gone I long to come home to her. I'm hopelessly in love with her.
So the legalistic discussion in the first paragraph may not be terribly relevant ;->
Very up and down and moody - happy or mopey or whatever. But I'm not hopelessly depressed now, and I can breathe again. Last week was really, really tough. Some weeks are like that.
I've gone from not having sex with a presumably straight wife to not having sex with a presumably lesbian wife, and still being just as hopelessly in love with her. Now if she felt the same way for me that I feel for her...
...and she's pretty clear that she doesn't, and never has. But she is loving, and caring, and can be flattered by my feelings for her as long as I don't try for sex.
I like to think of myself as fairly relgious. So how can a religious HD male survive in a sexless marriage? When a women forces chastity upon a HD christian male, she has just placed upon him an unbelievable burden and torment. Books have been written about the unbelieveable burden that men must carry. Women have no such burden, they have nothing in their body that PHYSICALLY drives them to sin in such a manner. I personally view my marriage as a very unpleasant test. How do you survive? What need is she actually meeting for you? The only need my wife meets is she cooks me dinner, and that is only worth about 5% of my overall needs, the remainder of my marriage is UNPLEASANT at best.
Yeah, sexless marriage is really, really tough, regardless of your belief system. I can't speak for all religions, or for all Christians, but let me try to say a few things about my own perspective on being a sexless and frustrated married Christian.
But let me also be clear that I have really messed up at times - I've already talked about the two brief affairs I had. There are plenty of other ways I've messed up over the years, by being harsh, demanding, etc., and I wish I could have been a better husband to my wife. I've been getting better over time.
I can relate to the 'unpleasant test', but it's not just that for me. When I put pressure on my wife to have sex, it does become an unpleasant task, because at least so far, she puts up a big wall to me in all ways. But you know, there is a lot of suffering in life, always has been, and it doesn't always make sense. Sexlessness in marriage doesn't make sense. Being married to a lesbian doesn't make sense. Job's life didn't make sense either. God never promises that we'll understand why.
I also think it's important to pay attention to what Jesus criticized in the Pharisees, that they "load men down with burdens too heavy to bear, and lift not a finger to help". I want to be careful not to load my wife down beyond what she can bear, and to be there to help her carry her burden.
He does call us to love and serve others - our wifes, our neighbors, our enemies. Frankly, there are times that I feel like my wife fits in one of these categories, times that I feel like she fits in another, but that doesn't relieve me of the obligation to love her. I don't think that Christian love thinks in terms of what needs another person is meeting for me, but what needs of the other person I can meet. When I listen to Esther, show concern, try to understand the subtext of what she is saying, that breaks down walls, and we do feel close. I don't know if you can relate to this, but I do feel that having someone who understands me, who I share my whole life, whom I have known for 28 years and intend to grow old with - that's a real blessing to me.
Of course, there's the sexlessness part. Ouch. That hurts. But I don't cut my head off because I have a headache. We're working hard on strengthening all the other aspects of our marriage, because we know there's a big challenge on the sex front. The rest of it has to hold together.
Don't know if this makes sense to you, but that's pretty much where I'm coming from. Hope this helps!
I'm not bisexual but I did have a very brief sexual relationship with another woman. My youngest sister is, as she puts it, "queer" and what she tells me is that sexual orientation has less to do with who you can enjoy having sex with and more to do with who you can "fall in love" with. Also, there is a difference between finding other women attractive and being sexually attracted to women as opposed to men. Women check out other women for a variety of reasons the most frequent reason being a sort of "sexual status" check, otherwise known as "cattiness". When I was single and in a situation that called for any sort of social-sexual interaction, for instance, Dave's nightclub example, I would on some level keep track of how attractive I was compared to the other women present. If there was another woman present who I felt was more attractive than me, there would be actions I could take in order to feel better about my status. I could "make friends" with the more attractive woman and thus sort of pool our attractiveness or I could "cut her down" in my mind by thinking something like "Yeah, she's beautiful but she's flat-chested and she's probably a b*tch.". Of course, I am far too mature and kind to think in that way anymore. My point is Dave's wife might have french-kissed the other woman at the nightclub simply because she knew that french-kissing another attractive woman made her look more attractive. It might have had more to do with ego than sexual orientation. I know this is true because, as much as I hate to admit it, I know that one of the reasons I had sex with my female friend in college was because I had a crush on her boyfriend.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
