Bi couple confusion

LegacyUser

Am bisexual female in relationship with a bisexual male. I lean much more towards to guys but fear he does too. Scared this may cause problems further down the line.

Advice?

Goodshape

Ask him how he feels about it.

Hmm_Messiah

erm my ex girlfriend is called Bibi ? (though she'd hate the gf tag) .....

And as it happends our relationship disintergrated in part when it was obvious I was going to explore more of the well ...."boy meets boy" stuff.

If you are in a relationship now he cares for you, the quality of his caring could mean even a strong attraction to men will not be a problem. But it has been my eperience that its difficult to be aware of strong desires and frustrating no matter how good intentioned you are.

I guess I mean, when I LOVED someone, then other oppposing aspects were unimportant.

Again being somewhat in the same situation once I can only say the hurt (in a bad outcome) is lessened if you can hold onto this being a conflict in his head thats different from just not caring for you enough.
And perhaps being to personal, I know I regretted making the choices I made at that time.

rsynnott

Hmm_Messiah wrote:

And as it happends our relationship disintergrated in part when it was obvious I was going to explore more of the well ...."boy meets boy" stuff.
.

Hmm, not surprised, really; did you tell her about this in advance or wre you just cheating on her? :S

Hmm_Messiah

rsynnott wrote:

Hmm, not surprised, really; did you tell her about this in advance or were you just cheating on her? :S

Sorry, by relationship I meant the entirety of our relationship, from her being my ex girlfriends friend, to being considerablymore, then to a friendship that when it didn't work she chose to blame on a gay friend I was close to. She didn't think the fact that her life was "unusual" as being any art of the problem, hence the "in part" bit. She empathised with my lack of money as if we were the same, while she was some one who holidayed abroad each month, built a house, drove a spacewagon, all while being a nonworking single mum

"obvious I was going to explore..." suggests my intentions were clear not covert, and was going to happen. So no I didn't cheat on her, though our rship was not defined that way.

I am slow to continue (sounds like a diary entry !!) but I guess it might be relevant to OP, and yours : at the end of the day "my" bibi spoke late one night about how she could be falling in love with me. A sweet thing indeed, but also scary because i value honesty above all else. So i responded "that might not be such a good idea" and so it seemed I finally decided that aspect of my sexuality need to be "explored". It was not a secret, eg we both fancied the photographer at my brothers wedding !

Going back more to the OP question, I did "cheat" on my partner once , told her about an hour later.
The presumption that love conquers all, or if you loved some one enough you'd never hurt them is a little, not naive, but underestimating of the complexities of life. Sometimes love wins out by being able to get past what it can't prevent.

I guess best advice is "ask him how he feels", but I think Bibi realises that feelings change.

LegacyUser

We have discussed it and he assures me, as I do him, that if we're together we're completely together but are allowed same sex exploits here and there if all upfront. Since we agreed this, he has flirted outrageously with guys we've met out, so much so I now feel uncomfortable with this agreement. Theory vs. Practice I suppose. Things between us are serious but I can't help feeling insecure and worried he'll wake up one day soon and realize he does actually prefer men. I don't want him to sign up for one sexuality for life as I believe it’s a much more fluid thing than that but I'm getting the message he's more sexually ambiguous in this relationship than he thought and I'd hate to be in a situation where I was restricting someone or investing my emotions where I shouldn’t. Though the very fact I’m writing this means I have already I suppose.
I know no one but he or I can answer any of these questions but I’m just sounding things out.
Love, life and sexuality pretty hard things to figure out at times!!

Thanks,

Bibi

Boston

I believe there are two scales at least. One for how attracted you are to either the same sex or the opposite, and one for how attracted you are to individuals of either sex. Let me explain. Sure your boyfriend may be predominately attracted to males over females, but on the other scale he must be more attracted to you if he’s with you. What does it matter if he’s attracted to 1 in a hundred women or 1 in 10, once he’s with you? I swing up and down the first scale for general attraction all the time, but I’m much more rigid about how I feel about an individual person.

From your second post you indicate that you have alluded to “same sex exploits” What does this mean? Are you in an open relationship? Sounds to me like you need to talk more about this with your boyfriend. I don’t think a relationship can be both serious and open at the same time, though flirting can be fairly harmless, I often do it, without it meaning anything. So maybe your just insecure and jealous?

Bibi wrote:

I don't want him to sign up for one sexuality for life as I believe it’s a much more fluid thing than that

Asking someone to be exclusively with you, and only you, is not unreasonable if your relationship is serious, nor is it locking someone into a particular sexuality. Obviously you don’t feel someone needs to be continually playing the field in order to be Bi-sexual otherwise you wouldn’t be desiring an exclusive relationship. I think it comes back to a fear that if you push this, he’ll realize that he doesn’t feel for you as strongly as he would a male. Which doesn’t necessarily mean he’s gay, but it would mean you couldn’t have the type of relationship with him, that you seem to want?

So what to do, that is the question. Your not happy with the current situation, you want more. If he not willing to committee then you should move on. Irrelevant of what his sexuality is. Imho. But suppose he does committee to you, then you’re left wonder about

Bibi wrote:

worried he'll wake up one day soon and realize he does actually prefer men.

So now you’re back to should I let him explore his sexuality? But that’s something everybody worries about in some version or another. Has my partner seen enough of the world, will their opinion of me change if they meet someone, and so on and so forth, its life, and to a certain degree you have to accept the uncertainty of it.

qwertyphobia

I think you are starting from a useful place you are aware of your own fears and there seams to be some discussion between you's on the topic. Most people probably don't get that far.

One thing that stuck me and I am in a somewhat similar situation to you in that I am a bi guy in a relationship with a bi girl is that line you said about not wanting to tie him down to one sexuality for the rest of his life. I think this is where some confusion comes into it for me. I don't see sexual identity and sexual behaviour as being one and the same. I am no less bi/queer now because of being in a relationship with a woman for nearly 5 years then when I was in a relationships with guys. I still identify as bi and I still am part of the culture of gay/bi men and would never give that up. But I am in a relationship at the moment where we are monogous. I don't need to have sex with guys on an ongoing basis to confirm my identity.

Maybe it would be different if it was something i had never explored and had never had meaningful relationships with other men then I think it would be difficult for me to not to want to go there and try it to find out how I am with men.

But for me at this stage in my life I am happy to be with the person I love. But if i live to be an old man with her and never have sex with another guy in all that time I will still be as bi then as I was the last time I had sex with a guy, it won't have tied down my sexuality.