I guess to really give you the full story, I should start at the beginning. The problem is, I don’t know exactly where that beginning starts. Does it start with the childhood of emotional abuse, and how difficult it has always been to see the value in myself? Does it start with the sexual assaults that riddled my adolescence with so much confusion? Does it start when I had my first same-sex crush? Does it start with when I married my husband? Had children? I don’t know. I don’t know where the beginning is.

I’m going to focus on who I was before and during my marriage, up until about a year ago. Before I married my husband I really felt that I was only good for sex. I never enjoyed sex. I got off, yes, but I never let loose and experienced it. I sure did have a lot of it. I tried so desperately to fill the void that I needed filled, and I did it with sex. Then after I met my husband, it was so shocking to me that I was wanted and sexy to someone, that I immersed myself, and my identity in him.

When I realized that I couldn’t fill myself with him, that he wasn’t enough, so I immersed myself in my Christian faith. So much so, that I tried (and, unfortunately, succeeded) to conform my husband to my vision of what I thought marriage should be like, what our relationship should be like. I also am responsible for repressing his sexuality, because I was afraid of my own. Especially my attraction to women; I was most afraid of that. He tells me now that he hated himself for wanting things that I said were shameful, and I am so embarrassed and angry at myself for causing that in him. Perhaps if I hadn’t, he could understand, and be more open to, what I’m going through now.

All of this brings me to the past year or so. Something has been changing. I don’t know what it is. My Christian fundy friends would say that it’s “Satan” tempting me, that it’s a test of my faith. I find that to be garbage, personally, because I cannot imagine that God would want me to be as uncomfortable in my skin as I have been my whole life. But the truth is, I don’t think there’s any one thing to pinpoint as the cause. My views are changing. My sexuality is changing.

To be clear, I’ve identified as bisexual since I was 15. I’ve only had a few handfuls of experiences with women, and none of them were ever fully sexual. After I got married, I repressed that part of myself even further. While it seems that most het-norm guys would be ecstatic if their wives wanted to have sex with women, I’m almost certain that is not true. Perhaps they do in fantasy, but not in actuality. In actuality, most men want to find a wife, settle down, and have a happy calm marriage. If that’s not true, then I guess I got one of the few guys who want this.

But I digress. In the past year, I’ve realized that I want a lot more than what my husband can give me. I feel almost desperate to try a sexual relationship with a woman, but I don’t want to have a threesome or have my husband watch; not that he would be open to those things either. Really, that’s pretty unfair to the other woman involved. Like saying, “I think you’re hot, let’s go fuck for my husband!” Ummmm, no. If, and when, I am every privileged enough to be with a woman, you can guarantee that it will have nothing to do with my husband. Which is something else that my husband doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand that my attractions and feelings have nothing to do with how I feel about him.

How did I end up so free, mentally and spiritually, yet so bound physically? How do we work around this? Do I repress my desires for him and his needs? What about the kids? Is this how I want them to view relationships and marriage? Do I want to give them the hurt that is a broken home? Will my husband ever understand who I am? Will he ever accept it? Will he ever let me spread my wings? Do I have the courage to leave and walk away from 10 years of life together? Will it all change back? Who will I hurt and destroy along the way?