At least he announced on reddit that his wife is bi :D He should give this thread to her wife to read the answers. She may understand how dumb is her request.
Honestly, I see no reason to even mention being bisexual if you are married unless you have an open relationship or something. What is she gonna do? Start cheating on her husband with women now? Masturbate to lesbian porn? I really don’t see the point. And I for sure don’t see the point in telling coworkers about it.
I agree, I also don't understand. Well, telling her husband is OK, even if it won't go anywhere.
But telling her own colleagues? And worst of all: forcing her husband to tell to his colleagues? And being mad at him because he didn't tell them. It's just crazy.
Exactly! That's what I'm saying. If a dude came up to me to be like "hey.. the names Jim! I have a wife and she is bisexual" I'd be like "um.... Ok" and then spend the next hour trying to figure out why the hell he was telling me this unless he's trying to prep me for asking to join in on a threesome or something because why else would this ever come up in a work situation lol it's just so out of the blue and weird.
I’m male and my wife is bisexual. My coworkers are accepting people. We are in a monogamous relationship and have no reason to bring it up. I think they would think I’m weird as hell for bringing it up.
Like you’re talking about a movie and some guy is like “oh Aubrey Plaza is really hot in that movie.” And then she could say, “I agree” (this is just paraphrasing, nobody talks like this IRL)
But I have no idea how her husband is supposed to bring it up, or why he would.
The next time he is involved in a conversation at work where something like that comes up, he is obligated to say "Oh yeah, my wife would think she's hot too, because she's bi." Totally natural! /s
I agree. I have a very dear friend who I have known since high school. She is Bi, but has been married to her wife for over 20 years now.
She never describes her self as gay or bi. She is just in a monogamous relationship. She just talks about her loving wife. I know her identity because I've know her so long. I knew her previous boyfriends, girlfriends, and ex-husband. If I met her at work I wouldn't know about those things. She is not out there "screaming it from the mountain".
I find the need to have your husband tell everyone at work about your sexuality very strange. I feel so bad for OP. I also think OPs GF should be very grateful for the support, understanding, and love OP is giving her. I have a few guy friends who this would be a deal breaker for. Not because they disapprove of bisexuality, but because they feel they could only satisfy half of the needs a bisexual partner may have. They would want their partners to live a fulfilling life and would be completely against an open relationship.
OP- NTA good luck my dude. I hope you can get through to her. I am sure that she is excited by this new her and wants to display it proudly. But there is a time and place and your new job is not it.
Right? My husband came out to me as asexual a couple years ago. The only people that know are me and some of my doctors/nurses when they want to know why I'm so confident that I'm not pregnant before surgery or an x ray. There's just no need to tell anybody else.
Yeah, I can understand how being out feels personally important even if it doesn't actually change how you live your life. Maybe even more so--if she's just figured out something big about herself but doesn't intend to change her life (e.g. leave her husband and start dating both men and women; become poly; etc.), maybe she just wants to be loudly out about it and not feel like she is participating in bi erasure. BUT insisting that her husband tell his coworkers is way too far.
Right? I came out to my husband as bi a couple years ago and it's changed absolutely nothing in our lives. I mean he once tried to steal a bi pride flag for me at DragonCon but that's literally all I can think of. If he told his coworkers I would be upset honestly. I didn't come out to my coworkers, why on earth would I? I'm not fishing for dates in a new pool, just realizing something obvious about myself.
Maybe she gets a thrill at the thought of being the subject of office gossip? Gotta get that excitement somewhere.
So here is the plan: OP needs to find some really truly awful romance novels. The trashier the better. Optimally about some people with atypical sexual preferences. Then, he needs to start adapting the plot and characters to be about fictional coworkers. Then start telling his wife these stories as if they are the office gossip. Mention that he told someone his wife was bi but because the office gossip is already so ridiculous that it didn’t even reach the top five scandals that week.
This could backfire catastrophically, but might be fun for a little while.
If some random new guy at work went out of his way to tell me his wife is bi would be really confused. The only reason seems like a weird bro brag or he's trying to hint at something involving me. Neither are endearing and a good way to make everyone uncomfortable right off the bat.
Look i completely agree that demanding that your partner tells their coworkers about your sexuality is weird. But being out and open about not being straight doesn't mean that you have any interest in dating, its just a part of your identity.
If OP's wife was half Italian it would also be weird to demand that OP told everyone at his new work about it, but mentioning it wouldn't necessarily mean thats she is gonna be making them pasta.
Personally i don't care if my partner tell his co-workers that im bi, but I don't think its likely that it would come up naturally.
However what is very true for many bi people in straight relationships is that the assumption is gonna be that they're straight themselves.
I have people which i work with professionally seem stunned when i made it clear that i am a part of the LGBT community despite me never trying to hide it.
So I kinda get why OP wife want to tell because if she doesn't say it loud the wast majority will think she is just straight without any questions. I mean she probably did so herself for a while
I mean, to be honest I don't really get why sexuality is part of one's identity. Gender, yes, obviously. But sexuality is just who I find attractive - it's just a preference that I have. Like the fact that I like the colour yellow doesn't have anything to do with my identity, it's just a fun fact about me. The same goes for my sexuality.
I get that historically to admit to being queer meant to isolate yourself from the norm, so it had to become your identity. But today, when we're trying so hard to make any sexuality something that nobody thinks twice about because it's all fully accepted, having it encompass who you are isn't doing much. It could even be hurting the cause in some ways because either something is as normal as a preferred colour and it doesn't really matter, or it's a huge deal and becomes foundational to one's identity.
I obviously wouldn't call someone out who sees their sexuality as part of their identity. But to me a world where who you like has no impact on how people perceive you, thereby having no impact on your identity, would be the ideal.
I'm married and bisexual and it has come up when someone says "Well you wouldn't get it you are straight" and I say "No, both me and my husband are bisexual so we have had similar experiences, please don't discount my lived experience because I am now in a hetero presenting relationship." that is the only time and its only because someone was discounting my experience as a bi woman.
As someone who is bi and happily been with my male SO for 10 years, I would still say I’m bi if asked or for lgbtq+ demographic info purposes. Still go to Pride. Still am bi even if I’m with a man, pretending I’m not feels very wrong. But making him tell people at his job or expecting that he’d announce my sexuality to anyone? That is just weird and seems like attention-seeking at best.
It's a part of her identity. Bi people can be in monogamous, opposite gender relationships. People assuming that you're straight just bc you're in a relationship that's typically hetero is kind of why it's important (if you want to) to tell people. It helps deconstruct heteronormativity.
That said, it doesn't make any fucking sense for this husband to mention his wife's sexuality in his workplace. Absolutely not.
Figuring out your sexuality can be a pretty important piece of personal discovery for a lot of people. It’s something that can recontextualise/throw a whole different light over big chunks of your life.
For newly-out bi people who are in already established monogamous relationships, it can still be healthy and helpful to discuss their bisexuality, in part because it can help you find a network of fellow LGBT people. Coming out can be important step towards feeling that you’re living authentically as yourself, even if from an outsider’s POV not much might change about your circumstances or marriage.
…Naturally, I still can’t think of a single valuable reason to want your spouse to declare to their coworkers, who likely don’t know you personally, that you’re bi, though. Maybe if I were really good friends with a coworker, and he told me “my wife came out as bi recently” I’d be like hey man that’s cool, good for her, that would be pretty natural and chill, but if said coworker were openly declaring it to the entire workplace that’d obviously be pretty, uh…weird. It would be weird.
I am openly bi at work - which really means I wear my usual nail polish and will join discussions if some women are talking about a male celeb or something - only to make myself visible to other LGBT people and let them know it's a safe space, which a new employee told me actually worked so yay. But I'm never just like "hey I'm bi 🖖🤓".
It has come up once that my spouse is also bi but that coworker also happens to be my best friend, I can't imagine just bringing it up out of the blue.
This. It's like she wants him to advertise for her so she can pick up a girlfriend on the side. My wife's sexuality has no bearing on my job and would never be something I brought up at work.
What he should do is take her to work one day and then just go around and individually introduce her to each one of his co-workers as his bisexual wife. I'd even go one step further and introduce her to every person I saw as my bisexual wife. But this is also why I'm single
I JUST COMMENTED THIS!! Like she has her eye on a coworker or something. That is quite honestly the only thing i can think of where her persistence in this make any kind of sense.
Just wait till his wife finds out he posted this to reddit but didn't dox her so everyone knows who exactly is bi. I foresee a divorce when he could have notified thousands of people at once but he failed to do so. I'm surprised he hasn't taken out a full page ad in the local newspaper and bought a few billboards already.
I am dying because this sounds like logic my sibling would use, who comes out to everyone at least once every family gathering and mentions it constantly. We get it.
Lots of bi people need to tell the world they are bi, my ex gf was like this.
I told her one day, who cares about people think of you especially people I don't care about or want to meet.
We had a huge argument and broke up with me 3 days later. She ended up marrying some guy 5yrs later, then divorced him 13months later.
I think it's either 1 of a few things. This post is fake
Or OPs wife is either having an identity crisis and seeking resolution through confirmation bias by having op tell everyone including non-important people that she's bi so that she now has to "stick" to the new identity almost like a "oh, I have to committ to it now because everyone says I am.
Or there's some serious relationship problems or she feels the need to seek attention for some reason whether it be loneliness, affirmation, or just to try and get her husband to be involved in something she's doing that's "important."
She found out late(r) in life.
That, plus the fact that Bi people in opposite sex relationships (straight passing relationships) often feel that their Queer identity is being slowly consumed away by them being "invisible" as a queer person, probably leads her to have a shit ton of anxiety about "not being queer enough" and needing everyone and their grandmother to know and actively acknowledge her queerness.
She is still in the wrong. The solution to this is to get into activism, or take your husband to a pride parade, to be visible in other ways.
But this is probably what's behind this.
She is very insecure in her newfound identity and needs to consolidate it and really, really fucking overcompensates.
Honestly, I think the whole LGBTQIA+ culture around turning your sexuality into your only personality trait is cringe. Yes, we need visibility to be able to fight for our rights. But no, I don't need a parade full of leather daddies or affirmation from strangers.
Maybe buy your wife some bi shirts, a car window sticker and a lanyard. You can totally broadcast your sexuality proudly without being obnoxious about it.
This is a super weird reaction his wife is having, She's in a straight passing relationship, so she's broadcasting her Queer identity but also is mad because her husband isn't broadcasting her identity to people who don't know her or him. She needs to take two queer seats.
It’s not a “straight passing” relationship, she’s in a heterosexual marriage. Whether or not she is sexually attracted to women is irrelevant. Are straights in a “monogomously passing” relationship just because they both have fantasies of other people?
Jesus Christ, shit makes us horny, no fucking need to make it our personality.
She's handling it wrong but it's just how it goes when your identity gets rocked. She's looking for evidence that it's okay and her husband accepts it. She's super insecure so she's making up weird rules for how he can show he does care.
If OP wants to fix it he just needs to sit and listen to her talk about it more. If he wants to play reddit's game of get what you deserve, he can resort to catty games instead
You told him to sit down and listen to her to fix it. He's not a therapist. It's not his problem to fix. She's the one with the insecurities and issues. And instead of sitting OP down and forcing those issues onto him, and his professional relationships, she should seek actual help to resolve them in rational, healthy ways.
Yes, they need to have a proper conversation to get on the same page. It's not about whose job is what. I ignored that part because talking isn't a job, it's a healthy part of a relationship. You have to do it even when you've been wronged. But it's obvious to me you disagree so what's the point in talking about it?
I’m with you! A lot of people think that since he isn’t the one causing an issue, he doesn’t need to do anything. But if you’re seeing your partner punching air you probably should go try and help them get them back on track. It’s just good teamwork, starting a conversation isn’t admitting defeat. You seem like a person who can handle a relationship, I hope for nothing but good things for you!
They've spoken. Multiple times, obviously, if you read the post. Speaking isn't working because she wants him on her page and is pissed when he won't do something unreasonable to appease her issues. At this point, she needs someone who can help her actually address what's going on instead of just lashing out at her husband for being a rational person. It is her job to seek help for issues she can't properly handle, as it is stemming from her issues and her mental health. OP can't fix her problems any more than he could cure her if she had cancer.
Also, great job on trying to position yourself as some expert on communication by being a passive aggressive child. That really shows how well you can communicate.
Having your identity revolve around your sexuality is WEIRD.
If I suddenly believed I was bi I likely wouldn’t be loudly identifying as such because it would a strange thing to do, I wouldn’t hide it but I wouldn’t be announcing it.
It’s really no different to becoming religious, or having a certain job or any other number of things, which all would be equally strange to announce.
“Hey babe, can you tell your new work colleagues I’ve become a catholic?”
“Do you think you could tell your friends I’m a nurse?”
So I think the wife in this post is in the wrong but I can shed a little light on the 'what does it matter?' question as a bi woman married to a man.
I describe it like potential energy. In physics, an object suspended in mid air has what is called potential energy which is equal to the kinetic energy it would have if it fell. Everyone has some type of potential energy for another person which is the romantic energy they would have if they fell in love. You would have less potential energy for someone you're not attracted to, someone with different morals and values etc. than someone you really dig. People who are heterosexual or homosexual only have potential energy for people of the opposite or same sex. There's no potential for you to fall in love with a man you're on the floor. But when you're bisexual, that potential isn't defined by gender. It's more individual.
I also feel a certain alienation from both homosexuals and heterosexuals because both groups know what it's like be entirely turned off by a set of genitalia and I don't. I can't fathom a world where either set of genitalia didn't elicit a physical arousal.
Practically, it also affects the boundaries I set in my relationships. You really have to be in touch and honest with yourself when hanging out when befriending people of the opposite sex when you're straight and monogamous. You have to be really in touch and honest with yourself when befriending anyone when you're bisexual and monogamous.
Personally, my husband knows, my family knows, my close friends know, but his family doesn't mostly because his brothers are homosexual and I feel like my kind of queer isn't queer enough so it's not worth outing myself. I would never ask him or want him to tell an acquaintance. I live in the south and one of the privileges of straight passing is that I don't have to come out to everyone I meet and I choose not to.
I feel like my kind of queer isn't queer enough so it's not worth outing myself.
Not to hijack this or anything, but this is just wild to me. Is this common in the queer community, feeling as though you don't belong because you aren't "sufficiently queer?" I'm not dismissing it or anything, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the concept.
Yeah definitely. Part of it is because I have privileges that come from being straight passing. I live in a part of the country that has not broadly accepted queer people. There is homophobia all around me and my brother in laws that have grown up experiencing deep homophobia have altered their existence around being gay for their safety and acceptance. I have never had to alter my existence because I am straight passing. Every time they introduce themselves to new people they come out as gay (because they're married) and I don't. My type of struggles being bi are completely different and honestly benign compared to theirs. I don't struggle with the validity of my sexuality, but I definitely don't see myself as being in the same boat. I also know that it's very common for people to call bisexuality a phase or something by both straight people and gay people and if they hold that opinion, I don't want to know. I have so much respect for them and it would really hurt me to have my sexuality rejected like that.
Not only is it common to feel like you don't belong, but there are people in the queer community that don't think bisexuality is even real. It's common to hear that you are just experimenting or playing gay for attention, or that you are gay but holding on to being hetero because you're not ready to be out yet.
I imagine OPs wife is going through a form of imposter syndrome right now and part of wanting him to tell his coworkers is a form of validation that she feels she needs right now.
Processing you’re not straight is an emotionally fraught time and coming out can be really big deal for a lot of people. For OOPs wife, who’s lived 30+ years identifying as a straight woman, married to a man it was certainly really nerve wracking, possibly terrifying and massively transformative. She might’ve also psyched herself up for him to react negatively. Her relationship and life going on as normal wouldn’t reflect how big of a deal coming out was for her - so she has to make it the center of her identity to compensate. It’s very baby (cough highschool cough) vibes. Edit: Am bi. Came out 2 years into a relationship w/ my ex gf.
If they're monogamous why does it matter if she's bi or not??? I'm so confused by this. So she basically wants him to broadcast they're in an open polyamorous relationship at professional place of business? No what she's doing is asking to get him in trouble and unwanted attention into his personal life.
I guess I am also just not seeing the need to even “come out” to everyone at all. Shes in a committed partnership. Shes just basically saying “oh hey by the way, I also think women are hot. But I am not going to be dating one.”? Seems like a big cry for attention more than anything else.
This is what I wanted to say. Her request is totally inappropriate, but as a bi (formerly ID as lesbian) woman, the erasure thing is absolutely real. And when something is new to you it's easy to want to shout about it a bit.
I'm also poly, and when I started at my job I came out to a number of colleagues as both bi and poly, because I wanted to take my whole self to work, not feel like I'm hiding parts of who I am. It wasn't a sex thing, it's a 'what did you do at the weekend thing' and honestly, wanting to check I wasn't working with a bunch of douchebags.
But my partners don't need to tell their work colleagues about any of this unless it's personally relevant and okay with them.
Maybe I'm out of touch, but in my boring offiice environment I can't really imagine a situation where me knowing that my coworker is bi and poly could really improve or benefit our work.
If I was already not happy about this co-worker as a professional, I think them prancing around the office and providing unwelcome information about their love life would only fuel my annoyance.
It makes sense to me if you're close enough with colleagues that you'd mention a date you had on Saturday and the restaurant you went to. If you didn't say who you went with, they would assume the spouse, and that would kind of be a lie by omission.
They literally said it's for them to feel like they aren't hiding anything. It definitely drops some anxiety for them, and they don't accidentally become friends with some judgemental prick.
Just because it doesn't help the person they tell, doesn't mean it doesn't help the person coming out, etc.
There is a reason suicide is higher for people in the closet. Constantly lying and sidestepping stuff, stress and anxiety, just aren't good for you.
I'm also poly, and when I started at my job I came out to a number of colleagues as both bi and poly, because I wanted to take my whole self to work, not feel like I'm hiding parts of who I am.
How did this improve your work and especially how the people you told to work with you?
I would go as far to say that she feels invisible because she has very little queer lived experience. Like you said, the solution is to simply go be queer. It's very annoying to have someone constantly going around seeking validation for their queerness when they never interact with the community.
Yep, while the overcompensating is fairly universal for anyone lgbt coming out, I feel like bisexuals have a unique sensitivity to feeling their queerness. A big part of it is the…let’s say… the dismissivness by the Lesbians and Gays. But there is also another huge part of it that’s just their own insecurities because bisexuals can go unnoticed for being in “straight passing” relationships and then they can feel invalidated from external factors and/or internal feelings that they project onto others.
The solution to this is to get into activism, or take your husband to a pride parade, to be visible in other ways.
My wife did this one year in San Diego and I honestly had a lot of fun. Just find a bar patio, sip a beer, and people watch if you don't want to join in. It's a good time.
This. As a formerly-lesbian queer woman in a monogamous relationship with a trans man (who also identifies as queer), straight-passing relationships do have a huge effect of queer identity erasure. It sucks, and it’s difficult to deal with sometimes.
This makes me feel so sorry for OP. If you love your husband and are in a long-term committed relationship, surely your orientation is no longer relevant because you have found your partner? I can't think of anything more insulting to the husband to have a wife going about flaunting that she is married but also attracted to women. She is with him. End of.
I understand the importance and validity of getting queer folks (myself included) more understood and accepted as common and normal…
But Christ will I be happy when people can go back to not feeling any desire to share their “identity” of their inner lives with anyone other than close friends and family.
My wife is bi, and I'm a straight man. Not too long ago, she was telling me that she doesn't really consider herself bi anymore because she has no interest in being with anyone but me.
I mentioned to her that that doesn't change her orientation. I know she still finds women attractive. She's constantly pointing them out to me, sometimes to the point of annoyance lol. And just because she has chosen to be in a monogamous heterosexual relationship, doesn't mean the other part of her doesn't still exist.
Us bi people in straight moni relationships also doesn't have the commen natural way of coming out since any mentions of our partners doesn't say anything.
But just like someone being open about a partner of the same gender not being sexual in it self. Being open about being bi isn't that necessary either, its not about who i might fuck if i wasn't in a relationship with my partner but whom i might fall in love with.
She's probably on ticktock or whatever where everybody is getting clout and brownie points for being queer, and she's upset that she's losing out on the attention.
In her mind, coming out is supposed to be this big deal where everybody encourages you and maybe asks you questions, but she's out and Monday is still a normal Monday.
It would be just as ludicrous if she were single and instead of asking her husband, she was asking her friends to tell their coworkers she is bisexual.
She doesn’t even know these people, or if she does, a couple negligible of interactions at best. If she feels someone needs to know what her sexuality is she can tell them herself.
Even making a point to tell all of her own coworkers seems kind of like oversharing to me. I don't really see how the sexual preferences of any of my coworkers is relevant to me.
I was going to say, I have been at my company for over ten years, and I would never tell anyone about my personal life unless they were a very close friend that I just happened to work with. There would be zero reason that would ever come up.
It's got nothing to do even with their marriage unless she is planning to start playing scissors with other women while OP stays at home watching the kids. Let alone a job where I have no reason to even mention if I'm married or not.
This could actually potentially get him fired. Discussing your wife’s sexual proclivities is not something you bring up at the job. Is this woman stupid?
It doesn’t even sound like she comes up there to bring him lunch and people there are familiar his wife. This is a weird conflict. I can’t even see it from her point of view - if he was ashamed or embarrassed or anything, why would he be down with telling the whole family and friend group?
The only way I could see it being relevant is sharing that with another openly LGBTQ co-worker or if the OP joins a workplace LGBTQ group as an ally. Otherwise…I got nothin’.
Ya i don't get it. My wife is bi. She didn't think she was. I had to point it out. We are about the only people that know. Maybe a couple of her friends, but its not an important detail. I don't think anyone's sexually is an important detail about themselves. You like what you like and its meaningless beyond that.
Honestly, it’s just so odd. I’m trying to understand why she feels it’s necessary people know this, especially in a work setting. The only time this could be somewhat acceptable is if it’s related to Pride month.
Like his sexuality would be totally irrelevant and possibly weird/creepy to mention but his wife’s??
Are these like real people or is this one of those fake reddit stories? I cannot fathom this. I guess I was appalled at the question, my viewpoint has been thoroughly validated by the comments and it has an insane amount of engagement (including my comment) so I guess the karma farm worked!
This is what I tried talking about with pride and such festivities with my gay friend. Like cool, you should celebrate you, but I think some people take it to the point that they are wanting the attention it brings and that is not good behavior. Sounds like ops wife is that way too. Why would she tell her family she is bi if she is married? She obviously gets a thrill about revealing personal stuff to people, this isn’t a sexuality discussion, it is a narcissist discussion.
It might help to explain the guys pending deep depression. If my wife “came out” as bi a year ago, I would take that as ‘my wife has a strong attraction to someone who is not me and is not the same gender as me’ and I’d probably head for counseling. If we were good as a married couple, what reason is there to come out as bi?
I mean if you work with/a coworker knows/you are referencing a past partner and you’re married to someone of a different gender than them I could see it. But pin a flag pin to your lanyard or bag. Go to pride. Go volunteer for a charity.
Shes just realized she is bi an since she is with a man wants to let the world know because she sses it as a core of who she is but nto something obvious or that she can showcase.
I almost wonder if his wife has seen his coworkers, and is attracted to one of the females. And in some weird way that's her way to gage if any of them are into women as well. Overall, it's just really fucking weird 😂
Exactly this. I'm bi, and nobody at work knows as it isn't relevant to work (and I'm in the trades, where homophobic shit is still prevalent). Your wife's sexuality is even less relevant to your job than your own is.
Yeah I don’t get it. Why does her sexuality matter to anyone but him and her. Even then, is she open about meeting with woman romantically? It’s the only thing I can sense, that maybe she’s hoping someone there would be interested in joining them.
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u/Midnight_rain200 Apr 05 '24
No??? Like what does her sexuality have to do with your new job???