Member-only story

What It’s Like to Be Married, Monogamous, and Bisexual

I hid from myself for years. Now, I’m ready to be honest.

IvoryDesk
6 min readDec 26, 2018
Illustration: Yoko Nakamura/Imagezoo/Getty Images

Earlier this year, I finally admitted something I’ve ignored for a very long time. I started to notice it in high school, where I felt a deep discomfort when I looked at other women. At first, I thought it was jealousy. I thought I wanted to look like those women or have their confidence.

In my first year of college, the feeling grew more pronounced. Being around women made me angry. I wasn’t sure why. Throughout my college years, I avoided women and rejected any implication that I might be attracted to the female body.

I had a string of relationships with men and eventually settled down with my very first boyfriend. We got married in the same church where we’d met in high school. Our first two years of marriage were difficult for me. I still felt like something wasn’t right, but my husband lovingly helped me through. As I slowly confronted every skeleton in my closet, he turned out to be my biggest supporter.

I continued to struggle until, one day, I had a long talk with myself in the bathroom mirror after work. My boss had gone on a homophobic tirade, accusing gay people of ruining our community. It wasn’t the first time he’d said horrible things like this, but this incident…

--

--

Responses (30)