Letters to the Editor
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This is why...
...churches and society in general should get out of the gay-hating business. This man is probably gay, but buried it because it is seen as so unacceptable. So he does the best he can, convinces himself he likes women, and goes and marries one and has kids. Eventually, his real self catches up with him, he finally comes to terms with it and feels a burden lifted. (See McGreevy, Jim, former governor of New Jersey.) Meanwhile, the wife's life is ruined, at least until she gets the divorce and spends years getting over it. I'm sure she now feels very secure about her own sex appeal and knowledge of the man she married.
All you guys who have not yet talked yourself into marrying as a "cure," do youself and your future wife a big giant favor and accept yourself as you really are. Forget the church, your family, and whatever other judgmental jerks are making you feel bad about being gay. I'm sure it is very difficult, but it only gets worse when you have to hurt a wife and kids down the road.
Good luck to the LW, and especially to his wife. Because while he is on the exciting road of self discovery, albeit with good intentions, her world is crumbling and she's headed for a single parenthood she never bargained for.
When he does leave her, and he finds exciting new love with a man and feels terrific, finally, after all these years, grant the woman a big kindness: don't tell her about it. Raise your children and support her as a parent. It's about all you can do at this point.
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Please ask yourself one question.
Are you really bisexual? In my limited experience, a lot of people in committed heterosexual relationships who come out as bisexual are actually homosexual and having a hard time admitting it. If that is the case with you, it might be best to figure out how to continue being father and letting your wife find someone who might be a husband to her if she wants to go down that road again.
If you're actually bisexual, why do you believe you can't be bisexual and in a committed monogamous relationship? A lot of people manage without feeling deprived. Their restrictions are the same as those of anyone who still feels attractions for people other than the spouse. I don't know where you got your stats on marriage failure. But I doubt that they're accurate for marriages in which one or both partners is truly bisexual.
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your commitment isn't different than if you were straight
So you had the personal discovery that you were bisexual. Sorry, but that doesn't mean you get your marriage and family AND personal experimentation on the side.
If you were 100% homosexual and had repressed yourself into denial, and now were finding that you couldn't give the love to your wife that she deserved, sexually and emotionally, then you would have to reconsider your marriage. But as it is, there's nothing in your situation that makes you different than every spouse faced with temptation. When you married your wife, you promised to forsake all others. That really doesn't differentiate between men, women, or any other subdivision of people that you could imagine. You certainly didn't promise to forsake all others if they're women but if you have a man on the side that's ok because heaven forbid you miss out. EVERYONE who gets married is "missing out" on other sex and relationships. Whether they're men or women isn't the issue, you gave them up when you got married.
I assume you didn't have an arranged marriage and it was your choice. So suck it up and honor your commitment. And try not to see sex with men as some potentially great part of your life that would have made you completely happy and fulfilled, because there are millions of life choices that you could have made and didn't, and none of them necessarily lead to a better life than you have now. Maybe in an alternate universe the first time you were on your way to meet another man for sex, you got broadsided by a car, never got the sex, never got to see your family again, and died at however old you now are. Not some cosmic retaliation against you being bisexual, just that path didn't lead anywhere. Live with where you are now, married with a family, and not in some alternate reality that you could have had.
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@ mattcable 7:03PM
Thank you, EXACTLY what I was thinking.
I couldn't believe some of the angry responses up here (to say nothing of all the free readings from psychics and fortune-tellers -- where were you folks when I wrote in for advice?). I actually clicked the link up top and read the letter again, to make sure it was the same one I thought I had read.
Some of y'all might consider doing the same. Really, is there nothing challenging or frustrating you wrestle frequently within yourselves? If you just read it as something written by another human being; if you take time to digest whole paragraphs, and not just words like "Christian" or "bisexual" that may set you off... I think you might see something different here.
It sounds like the guy is just doing the best he can with the hand he's been dealt to me.
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Some Christians proclaim a gospel of Glory
They would tell you that we're called to victory over sin. Please look into it for yourself, but I believe we are called to struggle, not to victory.
Martin Luther was a great spokesman for the "theology of the cross" as opposed to the "theology of glory," so perhaps his writings would be of interest. When asked about his own attraction to females, he said, in his prosaic, earthy German way, that "I can't stop the birds from flying over my head, but I don't have to let them build nests in my hair."
We are hard-wired to respond to others sexually; we can't stop that. We will struggle to manage it properly. There is an organization called Lutherans Concerned that might be of interest as well. I'm sure other denominations have equivalent special interest groups, too. (My sig is linked to their site http://www.lcna.org/). I'll pray for your struggle, and would be glad to know you're praying for mine.