Thanks for your question. It sounds like there are a tangle of conflicts here and I empathize with what I think I hear in your question, which is that you are having feelings which are somehow \u201cwrong\u201d to have, which I imagine is very uncomfortable, even painful. Holding a secret you feel you can\u2019t share with your spouse is often a tough place to be.<\/p>\n
In fact, I almost wonder what might happen to your curiosity about men if your spouse heard and accepted this about yourself\u2014or if somehow these feelings became less dangerous and more human. How do you<\/i> feel about this attraction? You say, \u201cI don\u2019t want to feel like I can\u2019t be myself when I am with her.\u201d What about yourself, aside from the literal idea of sex with a man, feels \u201cnot OK\u201d when you\u2019re with her? Is there some ideal sense of manhood you\u2019re trying to fulfill? Does this attraction for men symbolize something that is unsafe in the marriage or your social\/cultural circle? Of course as a society in general, we are given horrifically limited identity choices for manhood. Any whiff of \u201csensitivity\u201d can bring out the gay jokes, as if anything other than James Bond were unacceptable. (Of course, if you\u2019ve seen the latest Bond, you know even he<\/i> has some interesting inclinations!)<\/p>\n
The fact is, our sexuality falls on a spectrum and some of us develop attractions for people of both genders. It\u2019s normal to have fantasies of what sex with the same gender is like, at least occasionally, and some have them more consciously than others\u2014and the very idea is more accepted in some cultures than others. (In ancient Greece, there was no eros <\/i>more \u201cnoble\u201d than love between men.) I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s always a \u201cchoice,\u201d but for some of us it is; some folks are clearly attracted to a particular gender, while 3%-5% of us are more in the middle of the spectrum and attracted to both. In the latter case, it\u2019s important to note that we find ourselves attracted to people <\/i>rather than \u201cmen\u201d (or women). For instance, is there a particular<\/i> man you\u2019ve found \u201chot\u201d or fantasized about? (Our bodies are pretty clear about attraction.) Perhaps your curiosity about men carries some kind of psychological symbolism\u2014i.e., that you\u2019re hoping for greater emotional freedom and acceptance of \u201cunmanly\u201d aspects of you, especially if you feel pressured to be \u201cstrong\u201d or \u201ctough\u201d (like your wife, it sounds like) in a conservative environment. If your desire for men were accepted, you might have wider emotional latitude. Or perhaps the idea of surrendering that strength in order to feel protected is part of the appeal; sometimes it\u2019s nice for us guys to take off the Superman cape and let someone else drive, especially if we\u2019ve lacked close male relationships.<\/p>\n
Because us guys are so often prohibited from being vulnerable or \u201cemotional\u201d\u2014which we are; in spite of what culture says about Mars vs. Venus, we\u2019re just emotional in different ways\u2014<\/i>we can sometimes long for more intimate but not necessarily physical relationships with men, though sometimes that longing is physical; or we have sexual desires that contain emotional longings for connection. These are chicken-and-egg questions that are worthy of further reflection, I think, with the understanding that this might be frightening in the cultural context (and I live in liberal Los Angeles, so it\u2019s easy for me to say) but which are nothing but human at the end of the day. Have you considered discussing this with a therapist?<\/p>\n
As awkward and shameful as it might feel, each of us is unique in who or what we find desirable, and while sexual desire is often mysterious or even frightening, when you boil it down it\u2019s related to longings for love, affection, and safety. In a way, all the sturm and drang<\/i> about sexuality is a red herring and reflect our neurotic cultural bias; imagine if you substituted \u201cother women\u201d for \u201cmen\u201d in your question. I find it admirable that you\u2019re not willing to ignore something so vital in your psyche and are searching for answers, which to me indicates courage and integrity. Something tells me there\u2019s a conversation that needs to happen between you and your wife (perhaps with the help of a couples counselor), when the time is right. My sense is that you have a longing to feel safer and less guarded where you live, in a psychological, emotional, and possibly sexual sense. There\u2019s certainly no shame in any of that. You might want to do some research on bisexuality. There are some excellent online resources for people experiencing what you are.<\/p>\n
After some sifting, it might become clearer what it is you\u2019re needing from your wife, whether that\u2019s a more emotionally flexible relationship, or even the opportunity to explore this topic in an open, mutually respectful way. Sometimes deciding between commitment and sexual freedom\/ experimentation, regardless of gender, is a difficult choice, especially for men who marry young, as you have. And like it or not, our psyches, sexuality, and selfhood continue to evolve over time; thanks for writing, and bravo for having the courage of emotional self-assertion.<\/p>\n
Respectfully,
\nDarren<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thanks for your question. It sounds like there are a tangle of conflicts here and I empathize with what I think I hear in your question, which is that you are having feelings which are somehow ?wrong? to have, which I imagine is very uncomfortable, even painful. Holding a secret you feel you can?t share […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1061,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[625],"tags":[522,234,25,41],"class_list":["post-18991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dear-goodtherapy","tag-dear-gt","tag-lgbt","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-marriage-counseling-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1061"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}