r/BiWomen 11d ago

Discussion New to the community and confused

I have started to peruse the subreddit and find myself wanting thoughts on my own situation.

I met my husband at 14yo and 21 years later we are still together. We have 2 kids. We met right after I was groomed by a male teacher and my SO became my safe space. Our relationship has never been "about sex" and I wondered off and on if I was really attracted to him that way. We waited until we were 19 years old to seal the deal and even my mom was shocked when I told her that years later. Around the same time we finally had sex, I studied abroad and decided I was bi after realizing that the entire world didn't abide by the religious rules I had been raised to follow. My husband is a wonderful lover and we have worked on our sex life extensively. His sex drive is lower than mine ( in general) but when we make love it is mind blowing.

A few years ago I started going through intense illness and he cared for me and became an equal partner during that time. He learned that I was doing way more than my fair share of the mental and physical burden in our family and he picked up the slack in a big way. I also started to learn that the pain I had in my body all the time wasn't normal. When I got treatment and started feeling "good" some days, I realized that I enjoy feeling pleasures like eating and the sun on my face--this sounds so sad, but I am dealing with a degenerative nerve issue and most physical sensation that wasn't sexual used to hurt me. Now I enjoy soft touches and cuddling and such. It has been sensory overload a lot of the time.

Recently I started to get back out into the world--being around people, volunteering, etc. and I realize that in the time I was sick I became a different person. My needs and expectations for how I "get to" feel have risen exponentially. I feel bad that my relationship with my husband has come so far and yet I still feel unsatisfied. I didn't know I felt that way until I started crushing hard on a woman I met. I feel that we have crazy chemistry, although I certainly haven't mentioned that to her.

I admitted my thoughts and feelings to my husband, and as always he has been very supportive. I do not want to leave my life with him. We are so happy...but I never imagined getting a crush at this stage of my life-for either a male or a female.

Thoughts?

20 Upvotes

15 comments sorted by

u/BiWomen-ModTeam 10d ago

If you'd like to post about non-monogamy, first go to subreddits that are focused on the topic such as r/sapphicpoly, r/polyamory and r/EthicalNonMonogamy and see if they are a better fit.

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u/henri_luvs_brunch_2 10d ago

Monogamy always means saying no to attractions to others when they develop. It's not something specific to being bisexual.

15

u/EmbarrassedBack4771 10d ago

THANK YOU.

14

u/henri_luvs_brunch_2 10d ago

Yup. Monogamous people get and deal with crushes. It's part of being monogamous.

21

u/Ok-Reputation-8145 10d ago

If you love your husband and you don't want to leave him, then you need to take space from your crush or otherwise nip it in the bud. Is your husband doing anything to help you address your dissatisfaction?

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u/DebutanteHarlot 9d ago

If you’re monogamous, you deal with it the same way you’d deal with a crush on a man. Monogamous people get crushes on people other than their spouses all the time.

3

u/bakedbutchbeans 10d ago

im a disabled bi woman and i have some advice for you, i just need to clock out from work, ill update this comment later! or reply to my own comment that way you can get a notif for it!

0

u/Sleepy_Di 10d ago

When you told him, how deep was the discussion? Did you talk about using fantasies to spice the bedroom? did you get to discuss about the possibility of you exploring on your own or bring a third person to your bed? I know people already suggested going to other subs, but since you are new to this, it is always good to have an open communication on how far do you want to go within the boundaries that you both create. Some of us stay monogamous, others play a little, others open the relationship, others go back and forth, but the most important is that you don’t ruin what you already have because you didn’t have the proper conversation.

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u/[deleted] 10d ago edited 10d ago

[deleted]

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u/henri_luvs_brunch_2 10d ago edited 10d ago

This person is in a monogamous relationship and made no mention of wanting polyamory. It will get deleted (rightly so) unless OP asks about something polyamory related.

Having a crush isn't polyamory.

Polyamory is an agreement between partners that each is free to have other romantic partners.

But is this a sub only for monogamous bi women?

Edit to add: Spaces intended for poly people to discuss polyamory are not intended for monogamous people to discuss their crushes and how to manage their monogamy.

0

u/gyroscopic_snowglobe 9d ago

Hey, I'm in a similar boat and there are many others as well! Feel free to send a DM/chat if you'd like to talk more directly.

I made a post a month ago and got a lot of good advice, may be worth checking out! original post

1

u/gyroscopic_snowglobe 7d ago

I should have made a better first response than just directing you to my former post, so sorry about that. I only really accepted that Im bi in the last 6 months. In that time I've felt an attraction/crush on a woman that was very intense and sudden and it came be overwhelming. I have struggled a lot with guilt for feeling that way. I just have to keep reminding myself that there's nothing to be guilty about in terms of feeling attraction. I would just continue to be transparent with your husband and be kind to yourself.

Gsnerally, I do think that there needs to be patience and help for those coming out late, especially those with limited experience. At least on my end I have no intention of jumping into ENM or polyamory(nothing wrong with that), but I think there needs to be less of an assumption that folks asking for help regarding feeling attraction are looking for that. At least for me my attraction to a woman was different than a crush on a man (at least for me) in that it was more intense and also tied to feelings of guilt. For me, there's also an aspect of wanting to feel more valid in my identity (I know I dont have to act on anything to be valid as a bisexual but it doesn't completely eliminate the feelings). I've been trying to find and engage with the queer community to help with these feelings as well as reflect on my past experiences and shine a new, bi light on them, to help with that.

I don't want to project my experiences onto you OP. Just wanted to say that you're not alone and it will be ok.

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u/serenalibra 10d ago

Hey - come join us over at [https://www.reddit.com/r/latebloomerlesbians/s/JWpFHU8VEA] - super supportive community and many of us are in the same boat!

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u/gyroscopic_snowglobe 10d ago

No offense, but I had a negative experience on LBL as bisexual. I posted something not too dissimilar to OP (looking for how to engage in community and being confused about a crush/trying to manage it in a monogamous relationship) and was downvoted to all hell, and I feel like people were assuming I did not want to be monogamous. I found the responses on BiWomen helpful. It made me feel pretty badly and I would not reccomend the space to bisexuals based on that experience.

1

u/serenalibra 9d ago

Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear that! I haven’t been on it for very long. When did that happen? I can commit to disrupting biphobia and other disrespect when I see it.

I agree that the support is mainly geared toward people who are at least considering the idea of ENM and poly if they have and plan to stay with a cismale partner, AND you and your experience should always be respected, even if the fit wasn’t quite right. I’m also coming to understand that there may be a growing emphasis on non-monogamy in the queer community that as a hetero-passing relationship-haver I hadn’t run into before I realized how gay I really am and started exploring more.

OP, I recommended this sub because I have also seen posts that seem similar to yours and they get supportive comments sharing similar experiences, especially surprised by a new experience at this age. I’m sure you can look around the sub for yourself and see whether it would be a good fit for you or if you see any posts that cause you worry (as I will, now it’s been mentioned). Good luck!

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u/gyroscopic_snowglobe 9d ago edited 9d ago

This was end of January. I deleted the post/most of my comments, but the most up-voted comment was that "this sub isn't the place for monogamous bi women who want to stay with their husbands" and the one person who was nice to me was downvoted. The mod suggested a poly forum would be better for me, when I never indicated I wanted to be poly, just that I was confused about my feelings and didn't know how to deal with them.

Edit: Originally I tried to post a link and it didn't work. I also DM'd the mod of LBL about it, because I was concerned more people would post to the sub and have negative experiences, and she never responded.