How I Lost My Wife

Love, Sex

By James Oliver Chapman

I was deeply in love with my wife. Sixteen years into our marriage, Molly confessed to me that she had once been with a woman during a threesome. My eyes bugged out of my head like in an old cartoon. Molly thought she was bisexual and wanted my permission to try sleeping with women. Being a big, dumb, selfish male I agreed, thinking it would lead to every man’s fantasy. Little did I know I was letting the genie out of the bottle.

I’ve been wondering if bisexuality really exists. That will anger people who identify themselves as bi. But don’t chase me with pitchforks and clubs like they did Frankenstein’s monster. I’m not a monster. And I don’t want to offend. I lost my wife to another woman and I’m trying to make sense of what’s happened. I’m also trying to understand her perspective.

Molly tried out her bi-curious feelings by going to strip clubs, and by going to a nude bar in Key West, but she never took it any further than a kiss. Then three years later, she began seeing other women, with my full knowledge and permission.

Molly reassured me that she loved having sex with me and I believed her. We were having a renaissance of sexual performance at the time and I had no doubt that she desired me.

Then Molly met a woman named Laura, a woman who was going through a divorce and had no significant other in her life. She thought she was bisexual as well. Very long and painful story short, Molly fell in love with Laura, and realized she was not bisexual, but was in fact a lesbian.

[Tweet “My world crumbled beneath me. In one split second, I lost my best friend, lover, soul mate, and sense of who I was in the world.”]

I had no idea how Molly couldn’t know she was gay. Surely there was a mistake. She said she was bisexual. I wanted to know how we could have had such a great sex life and now she could no longer have sex with me at all. It wasn’t just a preference; she was now repulsed. I had no answers.

My own story has me wondering about bisexuality and whether or not it actually exists. Both my therapist and Molly’s therapist said that many people who think they’re bisexual are actually gay and haven’t come to terms with their sexual orientation.

The Kinsey Scale says that not everyone identifies as straight or gay. Many fall somewhere in between the two. At different points in time, these people tend to shift their orientation one way or another.

It’s similar to the currently popular theory of sexual fluidity, which is based on the concept that men and women can shift their sexual orientation back and forth over time.

Is this bisexuality? Does the spouse’s orientation shift, and bisexuality is a stage between the two? Whatever the answer, the theory is sure to be debated by those who believe we’re hard-wired at birth.

This happens more often than most people realize. There are an estimated two to three million couples who have lived in, or are in, a relationship with a lesbian, gay or bisexual individual. I spoke with one man who was married twice, and in both instances each wife proclaimed to be bisexual. Not too far into their respective marriages, each came out as lesbians.

I have no idea if Molly’s declaration was intentional. Did she know all along she was gay, and this was her way of telling me gradually?

I’m sure that bisexuality exists for some people; but I don’t think it’s as common as we’re led to believe. It’s my experience and observation that many bisexuals are in an experimental or exploratory stage. The thing that seems to make the difference between bi and gay is the affection they feel toward the same sex. Once a relationship with love develops, the idea that they are bisexual often seems to go away.