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I have a good girlfriend who is bisexual, and married to a man. She sometimes vents to me about the dumb questions people ask her—or comments people make—about how she can be bisexual and married to just one person. How can she be happy with just one gender for the rest of her life, if she’s into men and women? My friend will roll her eyes and scoff at these comments. I usually just laugh along with her and pretend that I totally understand why that question is so stupid. But I finally just confessed to her, “Um, I’m sorry if this is annoying but, I’ve actually kind of wondered the same thing…” I didn’t doubt that she could be happy and faithful in a heterosexual marriage—not one bit. I was just curious about it. Luckily, she responded in kind, and we went over some of the assumptions people make about bisexual individuals in heterosexual marriages. Here is why those can actually be perfectly happy and healthy arrangements.
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Finding the one eliminates the rest
Finding your person—your one—suddenly makes all the other ones disappear. You have tunnel vision and you just see your person. This person, with his or her traits, is the person you want to spend forever with. You don’t want to shop around anymore.
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No matter your sexuality
That last point about finding your one and forgetting about the rest is true no matter one’s sexuality. It can be true of gay, lesbian, and straight individuals. We also all know, from some philandering individuals, that some people never manage to settle down and stop looking around—but that’s also regardless of sexuality.
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The packaging doesn’t matter
My bisexual friend says she fell in love with her husband as a person. He is a person who happens to have male, uh, stuff. But, to put it frankly, “I didn’t decide to spend my life with a set of genitals—it’s the person attached to them.”
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Bisexuality isn’t heightened sexuality
There is this misconception that bisexual individuals have a higher sex drive than everyone else, which could make monogamy tough for them. This simply isn’t true. Within every sexuality—gay, straight, lesbian, bi—there exists a range of sex drives. There are those in each group with low, medium, and high sex drives. There’s no correlation between the sexuality and the sex drive.
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In fact, married life calms things
Like with any married couple—no matter the sexuality of the individuals in the marriage—married life has a way of slowing down that sex life. Once a couple is deeply emotionally connected and has a life together, they don’t feel the need to connect sexually all of the time in order to feel close. There is another, deeper type of closeness there. This becomes trues for bisexual individuals, too.
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It calms things, in a good way
Don’t feel sad for married couples who have less sex. Don’t think that your bisexual individual in a hetero marriage is feeling like a caged animal. Most married couples enjoy the new pace of their sex life—it’s a part of a new level of intimacy. And this, again, can pertain to any sexuality
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The past is the past
“So, what about your past—does it bother your husband you were with women in the past?” is another question my friend will get often. To that she says, “It’s never pleasant to think of your partner being with anyone from their past, no matter their gender or sexuality.” Good point.
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You’re still part of the LGBTQ community
“Are you still part of the LGBTQ community” people wonder of my friend. She sure is. She participates as much as she wants, as does anybody who identifies as part of that community. Keep in mind that there are gay couples all around the world who really like to lead a quiet life and don’t even think of their sexuality as a big part of their identity, and don’t participate in the community at all. Marital status doesn’t have to dictate involvement in the LGBTQ community.
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Though, yes, they may question you
My friend has admitted that, on rare occasions, she has faced what felt like judgment from the LGBTQ community because she is a woman who is married to a man. And while this hurts her, she says there are more people who do understand her, than don’t. Ultimately, any bisexual individual who decides to get married will wind up spending the rest of their life with just one gender. And since there are many married bisexual individuals, there are more people in the LGBTQ community who relate to her than one might think.
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Being oneself is essential to happiness
“So, why tell your husband—or anyone—that you’re bisexual at all, when you’re married to a man?” This question upsets my friend a bit as she feels the implication is, “Hint, hint—you can pass as straight so, why not just do so?” Being bisexual is a part of who she is. We all have parts of us—our past, or our secret present—that don’t necessarily need to play a role in our every day lives of married life. But that doesn’t mean we would ever want to feel that we had to hide those things, from those that we love.
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Sure, you can discuss women w/ your man
In case you were wondering, yes she discusses women she finds attractive, with her husband. That’s kind of a fun thing they get to enjoy doing together—like a common interest.
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But you are married, so you’re “Safe”
One nice perk my friend admits to—of being married—is that other women no longer think she’s hitting on them. Look, it is what it is. Women shouldn’t, in general, feel that every bisexual woman is hitting on them. But the truth remains of every gender, of every sexuality: when someone is married, we see them as “safe” and not as someone who is hitting on us. My friend enjoys how easy conversation is now with any single individual. They speak openly and comfortably with her, knowing there isn’t some agenda there.
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Remember that hetero couples swing
When people think of bisexual individuals being married, they think that they must want to swing or be in an open marriage. Well, remember that fully heterosexual married couples do that, too. It isn’t specific to any sexuality.
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And hetero couples cheat
Some also think a bisexual may be more prone to cheating than a straight one. To that my friend says that straight people cheat all of the time, and the likelihood of cheating has everything to do with ethics, loyalty, communication within the marriage, and satisfaction in the marriage—those factors can waver in any type of marriage.
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Sexuality is just part of one’s identity
While my friend says it is important to her to be able to tell her loved ones that she is bisexual, it’s also just a part of her identity. The same way one’s ethnicity or religion or socioeconomic background is just a part of their identity—and none of those factors determine how one will be as a spouse.
