Author: fluidmarriage

Trying to Find ‘The One’

With my husband openly expressing his interest in being with a man, it was time for him to find someone to explore with. 

It turns out that ‘finding a man to explore with’ is a little bit harder than we had anticipated.  I figured that once Jay posted an ad on craigslist that he would find someone easily, but it turns out there’s a lot of sketchy people on there instead.

We had a few rules starting out.

For Jay, he wanted a man who was beginning to explore as well, or had little to no experience in being with another man (mainly for disease control).  Obviously he wanted someone who was clean (no brainer there) but also someone that he could have his adult fun with and then have a beer with like nothing had transpired between the two of them.

For myself, one of my greatest concerns were the other married men.   I didn’t want my husband to be the ‘behind closed doors affair’ kind of man.  I didn’t want him (and myself) to break up any marriages along the way.   I wanted his potential mate to either be single/divorced/widowed or in a situation like Jay, where the wife knew of the bi curiosities, and was supportive of him exploring.

Jay asked me to ‘be there’ to watch or to participate with his first encounter.  He didn’t want to be alone.  Finding it ‘kind of hot’ I agreed, and we set out to find the perfect match to explore with.

Our first encounter didn’t go as planned.   We had a kid free night, and accepted one of the first men to reply to our ad.  He seemed ‘fine enough’, and we agreed that we couldn’t be too picky.

Turns out, we should have been a bit more picky.

The guy was nice.   But kissing him was like kissing a tight-lipped trout, his pre-cum was thick, stringy and bitter, and when he went to use his fingers on me, I had to direct him as to what to do to actually pleasure me…. otherwise he was merely scratching me.

As for Jay, he had a hard time getting it up.  Every time the guy touched him, his dick went flaccid.

We didn’t force anything.  After about an hour of me not enjoying myself, and Jay trying to get things to work on his end, we decided we weren’t a good match.

That slowed things down in the search for awhile.

In fact, it seemed that maybe the ‘bi curiousity’ had dimmed down, and perhaps Jay was just ‘straight again’.  

But the next time the urges came, about 4 months later, they were stronger than before.  Every day, Jay was looking for someone to connect with.

The problem with Craigslist, is it’s a lot of guys who are looking for someone to chat with, share dick picks with, and get off behind the screen.  Everyone seems a bit scared to meet up ‘in real life’.

Jay’s next encounter was with a man we will call ‘Chad’.   Chad was a farmer, with a great dick (from the pics that I seen) and was keen to move forward.  He was separated from his wife, and was curious to be with a man.   Him and Jay met for coffee, while I stayed home with the kids, trying to calm my nerves.

Jay wasn’t overly impressed.  Chad, being a farmer I suppose, had a dirt ring around his neck, smelled of feces, and had rotten teeth in his mouth.

Not exactly sexy.

The two of them chatted for another few weeks, but Jay wasn’t ready to move forward.  He told me the fit wasn’t quite right, and maybe he wasn’t bi curious after all, as the thought of being with Chad disgusted him.

Again, things died down a bit.

The journey of finding someone would continue over the next few years.   Jay would chat with people for a bit, and they were either wanting to come suck his dick right off the hop, or wanted to chat so much that the conversation would die off.

Jay and I were always open with each other when either of us had been looking for someone for him.

Imagine our surprise when we both showed each other the same ad, for the same person.  We took it as a sign that maybe this guy was going to be the one.

Jay sent off a message, included a few pics and some details about himself.

Him and ‘Ben’ started to chat, and agreed to meet for coffee to see where things may lead.

Again, I stayed home with the kids, waiting nervously for Jay’s return.   In one way, I hoped he found what he was looking for, in the other hand, I wanted him to come home and tell me I was everything that he had been looking for all along.

When Jay got home, there was something different in his eyes.   Something that I hadn’t seen in a long time.  A spark.  The same spark that he once held in his eyes when we had first met.  It had dulled over the years, and I often wondered how I could get it back.  Apparently this ‘Ben’ was the answer.

We got the kids in bed before we had a chance to talk.   My mind was firing off the whole time, but Jay seemed calm, yet excited, and the spark wasn’t going away.

Finally, kids in bed, Jay and I went out for a smoke.

‘So?’ I asked.

‘So, it was good.  He’s a great guy.’ Jay filled me in on the details of Ben.   What he looked like, his personality, what he was into, his marital status (divorcing) and the fact that he had once been in a porn (Jay had a link to it, and showed it to me).

The spark in his eyes got brighter, and I thought, well I guess this is it.

Ben agreed to meet me the following week, as Jay wanted my approval as well.

Call it woman’s intuition (although at the time I thought I was just being overtly jealous, or over-reacting) but I didn’t like Ben a whole lot.  He seemed to lie, over seemingly stupid things (like the points in the dart game we were playing).  His story didn’t make a whole lot of sense.   And the lying.  Yes, I mentioned it.  But it was a huge red flag for me.

At one point, we were chatting about traveling and I mentioned that I had a skin condition that prevented me from being able to enjoy really warm climates.   Ben revealed that he had a sister in a near by town that specialized in my skin condition, and she may be able to help.   I got business details from him and decided to message her the following day.

When I messaged, I mentioned that my husband’s friend, Ben, who was her brother, suggested I reach out.

She wrote back that she didn’t know a Ben… she did have a brother, but his name wasn’t Ben.

Again, red flags.

I went into detective mode, and delved deep into social media to find out as much as I could about this ‘Ben guy’.

Turns out his name wasn’t Ben, but rather Zach.  (***all names have been changed for privacy)   And Zach was married.   To a beautiful woman.   And he had four children.

Everything that he had shared with us was an incomplete truth, or a white lie, or a complete lie.

When Jay called him out on it, Ben stopped talking to him.

This past year, we seen Ben/Zach’s picture in our local newspaper.  He was wanted for robbery.  There was a country-wide warrant for his arrest, for stealing a truck, motorhome, sea-doo, and tools.  Funnily enough, he had always talked to Jay about all of this stuff that he had.  Turns out that the stuff wasn’t actually his…..

We are 6 years into our journey of my husband discovering his sexuality, and our messed up encounters with a few men are as far as we have gotten.

Jay has recently started to talk to a new guy— John— but I am unsure at this point whether anything is going to come from it, or not.

But to all bi curious guys out there:  If you’re going to go searching— be real…. be honest…. be worthy.   The more you can be authentic about what you’re actually about, the greater chance you have of actually figuring out what you want and getting it.  water

 

 

Stepping Past Boundaries

Now that we had established that Jay was bicurious, and wanting to explore what this meant for him, I told him that perhaps he should find a ‘boyfriend’….. 

I’m not really sure what I meant when I said that… I just wanted to be supportive.   I had no idea what it would be like for my husband to have a boyfriend, but surely I wasn’t the only one who had experienced this.

He installed a ‘Craigslist’ app on his phone almost immediately, and would often browse the mmf (male male female) ads to see if he could find anyone that matched what he desired.   As open as he was being with me, he would still hide the fact that he was looking.   I shamefully took to spying on him, and spying on his phone.

He continued to tell me that if he was going to explore, he would be exploring with me by his side.  He wasn’t ready to do this on his own, and yet, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be with another man.

We took to looking at ads together, to keep sex fun and fresh,  and one night, while getting ready to ‘get it on’, I suggested that we look again.

I’m not sure what I clicked on, however, I was met face to face with an ad that he had added to his favorites and replied to.

It was for a 36 year old man, who was looking for a ‘straight man’ to play with.  He claimed to be attracted, with no experience and wanted to find the right match for him.

With all of my openness and support, I learned that Jay had been talking back and forth with this guy.   Three messages in total.

Is he cheating?!  Am I not supporting him enough?  What about me?! 

Jay looked like a deer caught in headlines when I showed him the message.   I tried to calm myself.   Reacting at this point wouldn’t open the lines of communication.  I had to be sure of what the next best steps were.

“So you like this guy?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Jay replied.   “I only talked to him twice.   But I like the pictures.  And yah, it kind of turned me on.”

“Cool,” I replied, looking back at the ad.

To myself, there was nothing overtly special about the pics that he had included, but for whatever reason they got Jay excited.

In knowing that Jay was excited, it got me to feeling excited as well.

“Do you want to pretend I’m him?” I asked.

A flash of excitement sparked in Jay’s eyes.   He shook it away.  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

I kissed him softly.   “Well, we’ve got the strap on.   And you can only f*ck me in the back.   If this is what turns you on, then let me please you”.

Jay was stripping my clothes off at this point.   He was harder than he had been in a very long time, his bulge straining against his pants.   There was a desperation in him, as he threw me on the bed, and started to kiss me from behind.

I played the part that night.   Of the gay lover.  Wearing my strap on.   Being kissed in all the right places.  Feeling special.  None of my lady bits came into play.  The lady bits weren’t what he was after.   For the night, I could be the ‘man’ he needed me to be, to fulfill whatever fantasy was going on in his mind.  And, for the first time in forever, I felt wanted in our sexual entanglement.  I didn’t feel as though I had to ‘try’ to make him turned on.  He already was, just by the mere thought of me being someone else.

I enjoyed it while it lasted, but just like Jay, the shame and the guilt that rode over me when we were all done was hard to work through.

Jay felt guilt that he hadn’t bothered to please me at all.  And yet, as his orgasm reverberated through his body, and he cried out in ecstasy as he filled himself and filled me, none of that mattered.   He was where he needed to be.

I felt shame that my lady bits were no longer wanted.  I felt shame for feeling shame over this.   Again, I wanted to be supportive, and yet, how do you support something that is killing you inside?

Accepting a New Husband

Being in love with a man who is confused about his sexuality is a bit frustrating at times.  I love him…. and in that, I mean all of him…. but did I really sign up for this? 

If I were to ask my husband today if he were gay, he would say no.   He would just say that he is interested in being with a man… but because he hasn’t been yet, he can’t really decide.  Even though we have been on this journey for what feels like forever, he’s still unsure of what all of this means.

If I were to go back to three years ago, he wouldn’t even admit that he liked guys to me openly.  It was just something that he tried to keep to himself, and did a miserable job of doing so.  It was summer of 2015 that he looked at me with an openly pained expression on his face and said, “I think I might be bi-sexual”. 

“Yah, I know,” I replied.

The relief on his face was heartbreaking.   He was in some serious pain.  I had read about this on multiple sites…. the struggle that many men went through, in being honest with themselves, and in being honest with their wives, children and family.

And no wonder:  In my own research into this, there isn’t a lot of support for the men who admit they are gay/bi-sexual and the women who love them.

In fact, I had purchased all of the books available on Amazon by Bonnie Kaye, after being on her website : Gay Husbands, Straight Wives.   I had been hoping for understanding, reassurance, and maybe a guide line, or how to.

What I got instead was a bunch of stories of many men who had cheated on their wives, who had led 2 different lives, and really did some God-aweful things to the women they chose to marry.   Rather than feeling more confident about our relationship, it only brought up more fears for me.

I think the part that got to me the most was her statement that there was no such thing as a bi-sexual man.   He was gay, or he was straight and there was no in between.

And yet…. here was my husband, confessing to me one of his own biggest secrets, that he was attracted to both women and men.   Confessing that he was wanting to experience sexual acts with a man…..but that he still wanted to love me, his wife, and make love to me just as before.  

Would it be possible for him to have both?  Could I be open enough and supportive enough for him to experience it?  Would I be confident enough in myself to help him to move forward with his curiosity?

Because of my own inner work that I had been doing behind the scenes since my first discovery of his shemale porn addiction, I was able to sit with Jay after his confession, and discuss what this would mean for our relationship.

What made him come to the conclusion that he was bisexual?   Was it a ‘phase’ that he was going through or was this something that he had been thinking about and feeling for quite a while?   Was he wanting to explore outside of the marriage?  And if so, how often would he need to ‘get out of the house’ to satisfy himself?   Was there anything I could do to support him in his own sexual journey?

His answers were simple:   He wasn’t sure that he was bisexual, but he knew that he wanted to try having sex with a man.   He was bi curious.   The desire came and went….it wasn’t every day, but sometimes the urges to be with a man were stronger than he could control.  It had been something that had started prior to him watching the shemale porn, and the porn that he was watching was really just an opening door for him to see if it was in his head or pants or whatever.   He would like to explore outside of the marriage, if it was okay with me.   Perhaps we could have a threesome.  He wouldn’t know how much he wanted it, until he tried it at least once.   And I was already doing enough by simply listening to him.

It was a conversation that I will never forget…. even though for some it may tear them apart, I felt in those moments that our souls were bared to one another.  We were both standing on the edge of the cliff, and neither of us were willing to let each other go.

If you are a ‘straight wife’ wondering if your husband is bisexual, or gay, or some mix of the two, I invite you to open yourself to him.   Be comfortable within your own skin to help him discover and accept these hidden parts of himself.  There’s nothing wrong with him…. or with you.   Conversation and acceptance for both of you is key for your relationship to move forward.  This doesn’t need to be the end.

If you’re a bi-curious/bisexual/gay man married to a woman, rather than allowing your guilt to eat up at you, have the conversation with your wife.   99% sure that her woman’s intuition is already telling her something is up.  The more you can open yourself up to her about what your feelings truly are, the freer you will feel.

I understand that not everyone will be able to have these conversations, however, it is these conversations that can allow us to grow together as a couple.  Again, this doesn’t have to be the end.   Trust in each other.

 

 

The Struggle Is Real

Being in love with a man who is confused by his sexuality can be frustrating.  I mean… I love him… but did I really sign up for this when I said, ‘I love you’ for the first time?  

I am playing catch up here with these blog posts….. Jay and I started on our journey of his sexual confusion about 7 years ago, so I have a lot to catch up on.  I may jump around from one thing to another, but be patient.   It’s nice to finally have an outlet, even though I  have put it off for years.

Loving Jay wasn’t a difficult task.  He was a kind and caring man, sexy as hell, smart, creative, great in bed, and a great father to our children.  He is what I would call a ‘manly man’… there is nothing feminine about him.

But with his growing porn use, his hiding, and his growing anger at me, it was becoming frustrating.   He would drink with his buddies, and then come home and cry about having a mid life crisis but wouldn’t explain any further.  I tried to comfort him, I tried to be supportive, I tried to help him to see that he wasn’t a problem.

I started to not speak up about his porn use, or his sexual tendencies, trying to give him the space that he needed to explore what he wanted to on his own time.   I wanted him to know that I supported him, but I also didn’t want to make him feel pressured to figure all of this out right away either.

Even if I wasn’t saying it to him, I was still thinking it, and questioning it, and questioning everything about who I was in the relationship and what I brought to the table.   Was I good enough?  Had he always been bisexual, or gay?

It was a bumpy road for quite a few years, as we navigated around the issues of his sexuality and the emotions that this brought up for him.

I came to realize that I wasn’t mad at him.   I was mad at the world, and the society that we live in.  That something could cause so much fear and self rejection within one person because it wasn’t deemed as ‘normal’ of societal expectations.  

I was up late at night with my youngest son, breastfeeding him, when Macklemore’s Same Love came on the t.v.   It had been my first time hearing the song, and tears rushed down my face.    Regardless if my husband was bi, gay, straight, or some mix of all of them, I needed him to know, more than ever that I loved him, that I supported him, and cared for HIM more than the ‘sanction of our marriage’.

 

Because at the end of the day, regardless of his sexuality (or anyone else’s for that matter) he should feel free to express himself in the ways that best suit him… and his lifestyle.   He was so angry at himself for these parts that he was trying to hide…. for no reason other than it was ‘not what he was supposed to do’.

The next morning I showed him the song…. I said, ‘Isn’t it amazing how far we have come in society…. I love this song, and I love this message, and I’m so glad this is all being so celebrated…. I only hope it can continue to be celebrated for everyone’. 

He agreed that it was a good song, and we ended up having a great conversation about the LGBTQ community, and how difficult it must be to gain the courage to come out… and how the ‘straight’ people don’t ever have to face the fear of that.

Being a spiritual person I said to him, It would be so much easier if we were all just energy…. and we got rid of our physical bodies…then everyone would be free to connect with who they want to without any of the stigma attached to it.   It would just be energy connecting with energy.  

‘This is why I love you’, he told me and held me tight.   I cherished that moment.   His Soul open to my own, and his walls of fear being brought down.   He hated himself enough, and the more I could show him how much I loved him regardless, the more he would learn to love and accept himself.

When His Confusion Creates Tension in the Bedroom

Sex is a huge part of any marriage, and when one or both partners is struggling with their own sexual identity, communication (as always) is key to keep things going in the bedroom. 

When my husband, Jay (**alias, as it’s his secret too) first started to discover this new aspect of his sexuality, he tried to keep it hidden.   He was curious.  He was bored.  Someone at work told him to check out a porn on shemales.  He told me everything in the book as to why he was looking, and in many ways, I wanted to believe him.

This was my own by pass of a difficult conversation that I didn’t want to have, or wasn’t ready to have quite yet.

He began to talk about prostate massage and how it would be good for his overall health for him to give it a try at some point, but he wasn’t ready yet, and frankly, neither was I.

We were about a year into arguing over his growing porn use, when on a long drive, without children, we were talking about sexual desires, and what the porn use actually meant.

He told me for the first time that was hoping to have me ‘peg’ him (where the woman wears a dildo and has sex with the man anally).   I told him I was willing to give it a try, if he thought it may help him, or that he would enjoy it.

We stopped at a local sex store, bought the needed equipment and went home to give it a try.   The strap on wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, and the experience felt a bit awkward at first.   We were both feeling vulnerable, and turned on, and questioning whether this was the best next step.

After getting through the first painful steps, everything started to just flow.  For the first time in many, many months, I could see a look of ecstasy on Jay’s face.   While I was not receiving any pleasure in ‘giving it to him’, seeing him thoroughly enjoying himself in sex was enough for me.

But when it was all said and done, Jay recoiled and said that it was ‘okay’ but he didn’t think he would like to do it again.  

Sex returned to ‘male/female’ sex, and at the same time, it began to dwindle down.   Rather than our normal 3-4 times a week, we were lucky to get 1 or 2.

I questioned him on this.  His porn use was regular…..why couldn’t our sex life be as well?  As much as I tried to not make it all about me, I still couldn’t help but feel that I wasn’t attractive enough, I wasn’t feminine enough…. maybe I wasn’t ‘male’ enough…. regardless of what I wasn’t enough of, the answer in my mind was quite clear…. I wasn’t enough.

Jay would reassure me over and over again that it had nothing to do with me… he was tired…. we didn’t have time…. I was tired…. we had argued….. there was always a reason.  If I put the pressure on, we would have sex, if I didn’t, the sex would die off.

It was another year of this, before I really started to open up the lines of communication about this elephant in the room.  We had both danced around it, but neither of us was willing to truly speak out about what was going on.

One night I suggested for the two of us to watch a porno together, to get us in the mood and initiate some good sex.

We laid naked, as the porno began.  He remained soft as a woman was introduced, and the focus was on her pleasuring herself.  When a man came on the screen and he was exposed, fully erect, I watched my husband grow to a full erection as well.   The once soft, flaccid flesh between his legs was now rock hard and he started to stroke absently, slowly, then furiously.

I was shocked, and appalled and turned on all at the same time.  How could this even be?  How could he be with me when clearly what got him off was watching another man?  Was he even aware of what was happening?  Was he aware of how his body reacted differently to what was going on on the screen in front of him?  

And did this make him gay?  Or did his physical reaction have nothing to do with his level of gay-ness?  

And ultimately…. how could the two of this move forward from this, or with this… was it even possible?

 

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Let’s Get This Straight… or Bi…. Whatever

Just throwing this out there so that I am no longer being kept silent by the thoughts in my head, and the way my brain runs away on me. 

I’m Ruthie.  This is an alias.  Because I have a secret.  

 My husband is gay…. Or straight… Or Bi.

 I don’t even know.

 I’m not sure that he even knows.   He has yet to be with a man, and yet, the thoughts of being with a man consume him.  I can’t say it’s ruining our marriage, or the life that we are building together.  In many ways it has brought us closer in that we have to communicate with each other in a way that neither of were expecting at the beginning of our relationship.

 We started dating almost 12 years ago.  Together we have 5 children, 4 boys, 1 girl.  It was like many normal relationships… We met, we fell madly in love, and everything was absolutely beautiful.  I was for certain that I had met my soul mate, like what they show in the movies.

 But six years ago, that began to change.

 Looking at our computer history to try and locate a cool product I had seen earlier, I came across my first look of shemale porn.  I had never even known the terms transgender before that.   The video (to my mind at the time) was disturbing.  I couldn’t figure out if they were guys with boobs, or girls with dicks.

 Looking back now, I realize it didn’t matter.

 This was the beginning of our journey into a fluid marriage, although we didn’t know it at the time.

 When I brought it up to my husband, he just said that someone at work had talked about it, and so he thought he would check it out.  But it meant nothing.   He said that he was uncomfortable watching it.   That the thought of being with a man disgusted him.  I left it at that.

And yet, my intuition would flare off every couple of weeks, and I became quite an avidinternet historian, tracing all of his whereabouts on the web.  I would wake upin the early morning, when he was getting ready for work, and I would know whether or not he was looking at this porn that ‘disgusted’ him so much.   

 I would call him out on it.   I would ask questions.   He had no idea why he was watching it, and vowed that he couldn’t even get an erection while watching it.  Maybe he was bored.  Maybe he was tired.  There was no straight answer (no pun intended).

 Inside, I was dying.  I thought, am I not good enough for him?   I have a vagina, is that enough?  Does he even like girls?  Is he gay?  Is he bisexual?  What does that even mean?   I felt as though I couldn’t bring up to my friends, or to my family.  What if I was wrong?   What if they no longer accepted him?  Could I continue to accept him?  I love him.   Was I ready for my marriage to be over?  Did watching men and shemales ‘do it’ mean that he was gay?  Or was it just a normal curiosity that would eventually settle down?

 I searched high and low for the answers to these questions.  I learned that ‘Is my  husband gay?’ was one of the most questioned ‘is my husband’ questions on google.  Apparently I was not alone.  There were many quizzes that I could take to determine if my  husband was gay (does he work out at the gym?  Stay up late at night and answer hidden texts?) But no one, no matter where I looked offered support or understanding for what it was I was going through.

 It’s been six years of ups and downs, fights, arguments, understanding, compassion,  learning to play together, and learning to listen to the deeper meanings in our  conversations to get to where we are today.

 Whether you are a woman in a relationship with a man who has these bicurious  thoughts, a woman in a relationship with a closeted gay man, or a man who is in a relationship with a woman who has been having feelings about being with a man,  or you’ve already stepped out on your marriage, I invite you to take this journey  with me.   

 I promise to not judge you, or where you’re at… And ask that you give me the same respect, as I explore our journey together in a public format.   Sometimes the answer isn’t a simple yes or no.  Sometimes love isn’t black and white.  And sometimes, you’re not simply straight, or gay or bisexual.

 The answer isn’t always simple, but I hope to enlighten you on my own experiences, on my husband’s experiences, and how we came to be a fluid couple with each other, in our words, our sexuality and our relationship.  

xoRuthie