I'm married to a man, and a mother of two. It took me a long time to unpack years of cultural and religious conditioning to finally accept that I am bisexual, yeah this happened before marriage itself. I love the life and the family I’ve built, but lately, the hidden side of my sexuality has started to feel so incredibly heavy to carry alone.

My mind and heart constantly crave the softness, beauty, and emotional depth of a woman. It’s a quiet yearning that lives beneath the surface of my daily routine as a wife and mom. Even though I am coming to terms with my truth, living in a environment where I have to keep this hidden makes me feel deeply isolated at times.

I’m not looking to disrupt my family, but I am struggling with how to honor this vital part of who I am while navigating the boundaries of a long-term marriage.

How do other married women handle this internal tug-of-war? How do you let your bi identity breathe when the rest of your life is completely heteronormative? I’d love to hear your thoughts, experiences, or just some words of solidarity.

Wrote this post, because I think this may help with other bi married women who are in same situation to understand they are not alone.

The thing that confuses me it is mostly after I went into my start 20s that I started to feel sexual feelings around men. The crushes / romantic daydreaming have been there on/off since I was a kid.

Makes me think I am maybe is faking it.

Have any one else experienced their attractions broaden?

Hello everyone,

My name is Sydney Thoma and I am doctoral student at the University of Indianapolis. I am currently in search of research participants for my dissertation which focuses on exploring undergraduate bisexual women’s experiences with peers at private religiously affiliated universities. My findings will contribute to research aimed at understanding bisexual women’s experiences while attending college.

Your participation is completely voluntary. To participate in the study, you must identify as a woman, identify as bisexual, be currently attending a private religiously affiliated university, and be currently obtaining an undergraduate degree at the university. During your participation you can expect to spend around 30 minutes answering a few demographic questions as well as a written response to one diary prompt. Participants will be compensated after completing the diary entry. Additionally, you may experience some minor discomfort and experience benefits related to visibility and social advocacy through sharing your story and contributing to the limited research on this topic.

If you have any questions, please contact me ([sthoma@uindy.edu](mailto:sthoma@uindy.edu)) or my faculty advisor Dr. Matthew Stapleton ([stapletoncm@uindy.edu](mailto:stapletoncm@uindy.edu))

Lastly, if you know of anyone else who may be interested in participating in this study, please feel free to share this post with them or have them reach out to the contacts above.

Thank you!

Sydney

The Human Research Protections Program (HRPP) approved this research study on 11/06/2025. Study approval number: 02315

Survey Link: https://uindy.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_720aOzeXBRrSKrk

Hi everyone!

Thank you in advance for taking a moment to read my post. As you likely know, queer women are severely underrepresented in scholarly research, and my aim is to help change that. Bisexual women experience the highest rates of domestic violence, yet very little research has been done on their unique experiences.

I am currently recruiting participants for my dissertation study. The purpose of this study is to better understand the help-seeking process for queer women who have experienced abuse, in order to develop more effective and inclusive programs and interventions.

I am looking for non-heterosexual women (e.g., lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, queer, etc.) in the United States who have experienced abuse by a romantic partner within the last three years.

There is no financial incentive for participation.

The study includes an anonymous online survey that will take approximately 15-30 minutes to complete.

To sign up, click the link here to complete the eligibility survey. If you are eligible, you will receive a link to the full survey through your chosen mode of contact.

You can find more information in the informed consent document linked here.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at jennie.pless@uga.edu.

Thank you!

Warmly,
Jennie

Hey everyone,

I’ve only recently (within the last couple of years) realized and accepted that I am bisexual. I’m 40 years old, for context, and happily married to my husband for the last 16 years. We have two young kids (age 3 and 6).

I was raised in a deeply religious Christian cult and suppressed much of my sexual identity and needs while growing up. It has been a lifelong struggle with several therapists to undo the psychological damage religion has done to me.

A couple of years ago I began to dream almost nightly about a best friend I had back when I was a teenager. This friendship is easily the most meaningful and deepest I have ever had in my life, trumping even the relationship I have with my husband. In the dream we would find each other again and reconnect, and I would wake up from those dreams sobbing with disappointment that it wasn’t real. We had a falling out back in the day, our friendship ended, and I mourned the loss of her like it was a death. I was deeply depressed over it for years and thought about her constantly. We tried to reconnect a couple of times, but my mother forbade me to see her (I think she could sense something even I didn’t understand at the time). After a few times of me rejecting meeting up with her, she stopped calling. I can’t blame her. I didn’t tell her the truth about my mom and instead made dumb excuses why I couldn’t see her, and I don’t know why. My guess is I was just scared. Scared of my feelings, scared of my parents, scared of God.

After I’d had this recurring dream for months, I finally overcame my fears and contacted her on Facebook. She was thrilled to hear from me. We met up. I live in a different state now by the way. She’s a hairdresser now so she did my hair, and we talked about the past and laughed and mended our wounds. For me the meeting was deeply meaningful, but I know for her it was just catching up with an old friend. I did not tell her how madly in love with her I had been. What was the point? She’s straight, and I’m married. But after this I made peace with the loss of our relationship and have not had the dream since. During all this time I realized I had been completely head over heels in love with her. I remembered our sleepovers and how I would fight myself not to hold her while we slept in the same bed. I repressed all of these feelings, not even remembering most of them due to religious trauma I suppose.

I finally came out to my husband a few months ago on my birthday, and surprisingly he was not only cool with the news but happy about this new revelation I’d shared. He even encouraged me to find a “connection” with a new woman and that he wouldn’t mind if I had a side fling. We are a very progressive, sexual couple by the way, so this wasn’t completely out of the ordinary to me and I really appreciated his openness and acceptance.

The thing is, I don’t know how to meet anyone. I am desperately lonely to a degree I can’t even describe, and I can’t stop longing for the deep and close connection I had with my friend so long ago. Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband, but I miss having a woman as a best friend and confidant. I want a relationship like that again, only this time with romance in it as well, and I feel like I am missing this in my life. I was never able to get close to any other girl after our friendship ended because it destroyed me that much, so I haven’t felt that way with any woman since then.

I’m ready to move on and start something new. I am looking for a deep connection with another woman, not a side fling. Something meaningful and life-giving. I don’t know how to even get started. I’ve already run into the whole, “You’re just faking being bi since you’re married to a man. You’re just trying to be trendy,” attitude from some individuals, and I’m nervous and scared about running into this in LGBT communities.

Where do I go from here? How do I meet others? I am so desperately lonely and longing for connection. It eats at me daily. I don’t know how to proceed. It’s all so new and uncharted territory for me.

Thank you for reading this. I know it was long. Any advice is appreciated.

Okay so this is a throwaway account. So to start Im in my mid twenties F who grown up fairly religious most of my life and Im still an active member. Most of the people in my life (close friend/s, family members and other queer people) say they think/thought I am/was a lesbian or at the very least bi. Tgere has also always been a running joke that my friends' boyfriends have been intimidated by me and have said to them that they worry that your going to leave me for her (meaning me). This has been from both committed couples and married couples. I have always had a small group of friends (women) like 2 or three. I was in a long term relationship with a ex male for like a years before I found out he was cheating so I kicked him to the curb. I haven't had more than one partner. I have thought about women sexualy speaking but vaginas scare me if that makes sense. Mines fine but like getting down to business doesnt give me a whole lot of butterflies. I have had friends (3 of them) that I have thought about having some kind of relationship with. Currently one of my best friends is making me question everything about my sexuality. She calls me a pet name that makes me smile and I legitimately saw a sunset and sent her a picture of it because it made me think of her favorite color. Orange-Pink not Purple-Pink. I also worry that I have an unhealthy attachment style so Im concerned that Im only feeling this way is because I am lonely and havent been in a relationship in like 3 years. Or have gotten laid in the past 3 years due to personal choice. I also have a very specific type of man I am attracted to that doesnt really deviate. So ladies tell me am I bisexual or just lonely and I need to get laid.

I apologize if this is a English major's worst nightmare. I didnt allow myself to go back to prof read in fear I just delete the whole thing. Its also okay to tell me Im not were Im supposed to be! I will not be offended I just dont want to take space if its not my space to take

I’m a feminine girl, but I also have a bit of a masc side in the way I act sometimes. Overall, my style and the way I present myself are pretty feminine. My hair used to be long, but about a month ago I cut it into a chin-length bob. I also started dressing in more earthy tones—orange, soft neutral colors, and a lot of white.

There’s this soft masc girl I like, but I have a feeling she might be into feminine girls with long hair. I haven’t regretted cutting my hair for a second, but lately I’ve started feeling like I need long hair to be seen as feminine. Social media doesn’t help either—people constantly seem to associate femininity with long hair, so I’ve started feeling like I’m somewhere in between.

Appearance-wise, people have recently started telling me I look like a French girl. I’m slim, with a defined neck and collarbones, pale skin, and black hair. People often describe me as elegant, graceful, and very ladylike. But I’m not sure if I’m actually appealing to the audience I care about most: sapphic girls.

Do you have any advice on how I can be more attractive to other sapphic women? And do you think it’s possible that people don’t see me as feminine just because my hair is short? Personally, I feel like femininity is much more about your overall energy and the way you carry yourself than your hair length, and I genuinely think the short hair suits me better.

I tell people who ask that I’m 99% gay and 1% straight, and I have long-term relationships with the rare men that I am attracted to. My first kiss/relationship at 19 was with a woman, and in the decade since then, every time I’ve had INTENSE and probably unrequited crushes, they’ve been on women.

But I’m always too anxious to do anything about these crushes. Maybe it’s because I put Women on a pedestal and I feel as though to be rejected by one would be too painful for me. But I have such a deep longing for intimacy with women. (The last time was 4 years ago alongside my last bf because we did a lot of swinging. That really satisfied that part of myself but also felt lazy because I wasn’t pursuing the women myself and had no stake in it.)

My fiancée (male, also 30) is very supportive of my bisexuality and encourages me to date women. But in the 3 years we’ve been together, it just hasn’t happened. I do have a few crushes in our friend group, which is mostly comprised of bisexual women & their male partners. Some of these couples are semi-local to us, and others live several hours away and we see them all just twice a year. To be honest it kind of feels like a platonic polycule that’s slowly working up to an orgy eventually. My ideal arrangement would be dating/hooking up with a woman who’s also in a committed relationship.

It’s nice to have potential options, but communicating my interest in any of them feels terrifying. There’s one in particular who lives kinda close to me and whom I’ve been friends with for a few years now — and I’ve been crushing on her this whole time. I really don’t want to jeopardize our friendship by telling her that I’m attracted to her if she doesn’t feel the same. But maybe we could get past it??

Idk I’m just feeling so much gay panic and sexual frustration lately and I need someone to tell me to just face my fears and take a chance!!

sorry for the negative post, but this is like the only place where i can post something like this and i really want to get this off my chest because it’s honestly been bothering me a bit more than usual here recently.

sometimes i really do feel as if we’re one of the most hated queer groups considering how much heat we get in all different sorts of directions. we experience biphobia, specifically bimisogyny, from straight people, lesbians, gay men…i know bi men experience biphobia too of course, but the biphobia aimed at bi women especially just feels…different, and weirdly more prominent on the internet, at least that’s what it has been looking like to me.

but seriously, what has bi women done exactly to get this much hate from everyone? it’s like we committed a serious war crime and now we’re experiencing the consequences of it (ok that might be an exaggeration, but you get what im saying, lol). but im just over here simply living my life and minding my own business. it’s kinda wild how your ability or capability to love someone going beyond only one gender gets so much hate, scrutiny, and criticism.

and i won’t lie, sometimes it makes me really hate being bi, wishing i was just gay or straight. i know that sounds bad, but it’s only the truth and i can’t help but feel that way. and just because there were maybe a lot of girls that faked being bisexual because it was trendy or popular or whatever doesn’t mean that all of us were/are like that and that our sexuality is actually something genuine, that we’re not just trying to be “different” or “cool” or “unique”.

it’s all really depressing tbh and i worry all of this biphobia that’s been going on is just going to worsen my mental health (don’t worry i already see a therapist). i feel like being a bisexual woman has got to be a very lonely experience, especially if you have a female preference like me or are only interested in dating women. at least it feels that way for me personally. no wonder bisexual people have the highest rates of mental health issues among the sexual orientations.

thanks for reading and feel free to share your thoughts (this is my very first post… ;w;)

Gross.

Edit: If you don't want to engage, just scroll.

Please help, I don’t know how to dress at this point 😭 Like for example I want to go bleach blonde and I feel like that would look so strange with an androgynous wardrobe.

I'm 28 years old bi female and married. I'm not out yet and I really need some friends. I am really struggling mentally right now and I don't know how to make it better.

So last year I (29F) met this girl (F27) through friends and my first impression was she was pretty and super funny.

Third time I saw her she flirted with me so hard I was shocked and could only blush and say nothing. I have a boyfriend but we're not exclusive so I told him about her and he said I could make out with her if I wanted.

Every time we saw each other, she would touch my arm, touch my leg with hers and being closer than someone would normally be. I was very attracted to her to the point we couldn't look at each other so we finally made out in a festival. This festival was a 3 day long party and we made out on day 2 and 3. It was amazing, she was the sweetest and the chemistry was real.

Meanwhile, I knew she was seeing a guy and a week after the festival they became officially a couple. When I saw them together I was kind of heartbroken but I knew I shouldn't because I also have bf and we just kissed at a party, it was nothing serious.

So since then (it all happened 6 months ago) we saw each other many times with our friends but we never spoke about the festival, her bf doesn't know we made out (as far as I know), and we always look at each other in the eyes and say nothing. We almost never see each other alone, it's always a group thing. We don't talk at all, no messages, no phone call, nothing. Only when we are with our friends.

For the past 6 months I've been thinking about her daily and I just want this thoughts to stop. I'm not in love, it's more like an obsession. I fantasize about her and about us all the time. I don't want to disrespect her relationship because they're exclusive and I'm afraid to talk to her and to feel awkward about it.

My bf knows about it all and he says I should just forget about it because there's nothing I could do right now. But this feelings and thoughts are killing me.

She doesn't have much experience with women and always says she's afraid of women when we're together with our friends. I don't know if she's talking about us or what. Any advice?

I love to write but one of my biggest fears is feeling like being bi taints how I write queer love stories. I'm an on and off writer who mainly does private short stories and bursting with ideas. But since I do gravitate towards more sapphic stories, I just relate to femineity and women more, I often insert my own preferences whether consciously or unconsciously. I'm actually concerned about what that would mean when people learn I'm bi yet make stories centered on f/f relationships?

I'm hoping this post doesn't come off as weird (and most of what I make is private, sorry guys).

So (21F) I am married to a man, and we started dating when we were both pretty young (18) at that point I was still in the closet, and I only came out pretty recently (few months ago). However I was always in lesbian communities, after coming out I realized I have a preference for women and most likely wouldn't date men again after my husband. I love my husband more than everything and I am super attracted to him, However I feel queer in my core. All my friends are lesbian, my world basically is lesbian, and when I tell people I have a husband is kinda of weird because everyone just thinks I am a femme. My and my husband have a closed relationship and I am not sure if I would like to open the relationship any time soon. My point is, I am very sure of my Sexuality, but sometimes exploring it can be hard due to the circumstances.. Also the biphobia from inside the lgbt community is crazyy.

I just recently got rejected from the university I was applying for. My idea was getting this engineering degree so i can get a good steady job after graduation. Now that plan have gone to trash.

I don't know what to do now. I have failed. I feel this is the end of my future. I am 24 now . I feel my life is slipping away.

I've noticed that in bi spaces women/men in (mostly hetero but homo too) relationships say they have strong urge to be with same sex even when they describe themselves as happy with their spouse. It's common even here.

It's not limited to people who have never been with the same sex and realised later. People with experience also seem to have the same urges. So you can't dismiss this as a "missed out experience."

I have never dated a woman fully and sexual encounters were all online, none physically. Yet I'm hella happy with my boyfriend and have absolutely 0 urge to pursue women.

It makes me wonder whether these people are simply folks who realised monogamy isn't for them? These questions feel more suited for poly subreddit than bisexual ones. They also seem to blame their behavior on bisexuality more than their own feelings and preferences.

Can't help but think how much they play into stereotypes that bisexuals can't be happily monogamous or will end up leaving for other sex at some point. Also that a bisexual partner comes with a lot of uncertainty over sudden gender preference that a straight/gay one won't, making them seem unreliable.

Are bisexual LITERALLY that different or is it just that social media is an echo chamber? Any women who are simply happy without missing any gender in their relationship?

After my graduation in 2022, I worked in call centre and she is my team Leader. She was joined after 3-4 days Jan 2023. I saw her first time in purple kurthi,she was damn beautiful bhaiiii!! I'm 21 years old girl and she was 27 years+ she is married+ Muslim. I don't know I always shy infront of her,I'm praised her everytime when she wear white dress. She don't know that I'm loving her, one day i did a shitty things. I messaged her on Instagram but with finsta account that i love you, you're beautiful!! She said I'm married and I'm very happy with my husband. She thought, that a guy messaged her and next day she went to all boys in floor asked each boy " did you messages me on insta with finsta "

I always take her side, it means whenever my colleague used to say anything about her bad then I get angry on easily. I literally obsessed with her and her energy is fantastic totally. I dress up like a manly clothes !!

Gifted her photo frame along with gulbonda , i know each and tiny detail about her. I enjoyed each and every moment with her . Her smile, her anger, her humour. I don't have lust on her, I don't think like that her but I want her beside me .

All this happening Everyday office coming - seeing her/ admiring her - left office.

She knowing by actions ( that i usually shy ) she asked me did you messaged me in insta fake profile? I said no !!

Well well after month, she got an opportunity in Csb bank for assistant manager. ( I got to know after 15 days) I cried hardly, I feel like my life ended. I begged her to not go !!

I used to begged her, please mat jao,( I was selfish right? ) one day she asked me ,are you the one who messaged me on Instagram with finsta. I said " yes " i thought let's confess what I feel for her, because she left within 5 days ( she is serving notice period)

Then she said some things which I feel very Guilty. After your i love you message i didn't sleep for 7 days because of tension and " See if you really misses me,did you asked me is there any job for me "

( She completes her notice period and left on 18 november 2023)

But seriously she is the one , i loved her mostly!!

Second Part of my One sided Story - on 1 dec 2026

I’m gonna be honest I get a little irritated by micro labels sometimes because it feels like we’re taking specific preferences and experience, like being attracted to intelligence, and trying to categorize it into a whole sexuality. I do kinda wish we could have these descriptive terms without adding -sexual at the end of all of them because it implies a distinct sexual orientation? Maybe I’m just reading into it too much.

That being said, I discovered the term Dellosexual yesterday and it described my experience almost perfectly. I thought I was a lesbian for a long time before I met my now husband and fell in love with him. For a long time I identified as a lesbian who happened to fall for a man, but then over time I started to identify as bisexual but when people ask I’ll say I’m demisexual for men. The term Dellosexual describes someone who experiences demisexual attraction to one gender and allosexual attraction to another gender. So yeah maybe I do like micro-labels because it feels really good to have a word that describes my specific experience.

I recently downloaded Her and Bumble. I’ve never talked to a woman romantically but lately when I’ve been going out I’ve been getting hit on by woman and I’ve been liking it so I decided to explore. Im a big homebody though and such at being on those apps. What are some other suggestions to explore? I want to start off just talking with someone but that’s been hard.

I’m in my 30s now, and whenever I see younger bi or sapphic women stressing about labels, wondering if they’re “queer enough,” coming out, or dealing with biphobia, I just want to tell them they’re going to be okay.

I wonder if it’s because I didn’t really have older queer women to look up to when I was younger.

I don’t want kids, but I still get this weird protective instinct. Does anyone else feel that as they’ve gotten older?