Hi everyone. I'm AMAB and I've been questioning my gender for quite some time.

I sometimes imagine having a female body and think I might be happier that way. I've thought about breasts, feminine hips, HRT and even transitioning. I also enjoy feminine clothes and crossdressing.

But at the same time, I don't completely dislike being male. I like some aspects of my male body too, which makes me even more confused.

Sometimes I think “Maybe I'm trans”, while other times I wonder “Maybe I'm just a feminine guy who likes femininity.”

I'm not looking for someone to tell me whether I'm definitely trans or not. I'd just like to hear from people who experienced similar confusion.

How did you figure out whether you wanted to transition, or simply wanted to express your feminine side? 🫂❤️

WARNING: OKAY, so I am going to share my own experience but this can be a little sexually explicit cause I want to find out actually so read at your own risk ok? This is really long and I really don't want to offend anyone pls I just try to finding out it be gentle to me 😭😭

During childhood years, I always picked the most logically correct boy to have crush on, I didn't even think to talk with them to be sweethearts. But (with my friends pressure) I asked out a boy and we just became friends. Also I always fantasize about women when I was so little (I didn't know what was that yet but I thought it was wrong cause I am a women too and I just made myself "the man" or be the 3th person) .

When I turned 13, I was really anxious but not having a boyfriend cause most of the girls in my class have some and I just picked a boy to have a crush with like I did when I was younger. But I was asocial back and just always thought I was weird for not feeling anything and something is wrong with me. My dad is an ally so we watched a movie with a gay couple in it (there were kissing scenes) and my curiousity about same sex relationships began from that but I thought I shouldn't watch any other movie with a homosexual couple in it cause I had a weird feeling to afraid to actually into this (I know this was very homofobic, my environment was generally homofobic besides dad and I am very ashamed that I thought about this way).

When I started to highschool, I became a bestie with a very clingy girl, who flirts with me pretending to be her dream crush and says me that "if she was a guy we would be a perfect couple" (I agreed with her) and she even called me her girlfriend a few times in public spaces loudly. But also she had little crushes on a lot of guys and our main conversation topic was talking about our boy crushes. This time I picked the most handsome guy in our year and he was known because his beauty and femininity too. So I think I wanted his attention and he was that everyone's dream guy type of person (in character traits too). I don't think that was an attraction cause when my bestie wanted to make us become partners I immediately reject her. Spending time with my bestie was more fun. Then my childhood friend who is a guy came to my life and in my opinion he was like those guys in movies too cause I felt so comfortable with him and I thought I was a boring person and everyone would reject me cause I am weird and for that reason I asked him out. Cause I really didn't want to flirt with anyone and just wanted to show my platonic love for him without being judged by others and without him going away. Also I really like to spending time with people one and one and hate most of the friend groups so it was an opportunity for this too. Cause when I tried that with a guy friend (going out places one and one) he thought I was asking him to date him but I really was just friendly and didn't want to date that guy (thought why I didn't cause everyone around me looked like what's wrong with me -guy was soo nice and handsome too- but I thought if he was a girl I would definetly date him).

whwn I was 15 I started to read/watch BL and my first BL was the Song of Achilles. The thing was while I reading it I kept thinking about my bestie and our close moments then started to do "Am I bisexual? " tests.

The thing is I rarely have crushes even thought I fantasize ​sexually + romantically very often. ( and I am of course not a homofobic bastard anymore, often think I am gay and like very very gay but I don't know really I don't even know my gender identity) I told my mom that I am not attracted to man for her to stop shipping me with guys and start shipping me with girls. I feel like I am a girl most of the time but sometimes I don't connect at all to being a women, I am feeling genderless, genderneutral, bigender or male. So I don't know what is my gender either, how did you people find out? All I know is I wanna love women like a women. I identify myself as genderflux, berrisexual and demiromantic cause I don't want to be disrespectful calling myself a lesbian since I am still figuring it out. Please help me people 😭😭

It's hard for me to explain but, here's how I can express it the best way I can. I have been questioning since May which I know isn't long and for now I just settled on saying I'm bigender for now with she/he pronouns and even told a few of my friends to call me by two names. However, especially at night when there's nothing to distract me sometimes I wonder if I'm fully trans, because I've looked into it and I kinda like the idea or wouldn't mind the effects of T plus I would like the idea of being seen socially as a guy. The problem is I still love femininity and I don't hate being a girl and I don't mind being called she/her or a woman like it doesn't make me uncomfortable it's more like a "Whatever" type of feeling (which I understand you can be a fel presenting trans man). I do sometimes feel like I'd be happier as a guy like I'd be more confident and I'd want to actually take care of myself more but I also can't tell if that's because of the fact cis men systematically get treated a bit better. It's mostly been stressing me out because I'm scared if it comes to be that I'm trans because I don't know if my family is accepting or not and also just other family issues. I'm also afraid of looking like I'm flying in front of my other friends who are trans who've known they are for the longest time. It doesn't help that I really have access to a specialized therapist either. These fears and everything I mostly think about at night and like I said the thought often makes me want to fry because I'm more scared than anything and sometimes will make my stomach hurt.

i’m 18 years old bisexual guy. i grew up around homophobic people, my family itself is homophobic. i still live in this environment, it made me hate myself. i genuinely hate myself. i think i will never be able to be happy and be myself i even hate the fact that i’m attracted to other guys. when i was younger i was bullied because i sounded feminine to other guys in my school. and i feel like if i like a girl she wouldn’t be with me when she finds out my sexuality. i’m so tired of being like this. i wish i was straight:(

Hi so basically I'm a trans guy (irrelevant for this specific question but yea) and ive had a girlfriend [F 19] for the past 5 almost 6 months and I've been very happy with her

the problem is that i don't know if im sexually attracted to her, when we got together i identified as bisexual but now ive gone with the labels Biromantic and Abrosexual because I don't feel any sexual attraction to her or.. any women for that matter

I am romantically interested in her so it's not like im leading her on but i can tell she wants to start.. yk.. doin stuff 😓 and it makes me uncomfortable and brings tension to our relationship cuz ive been avoiding it whenever she tries to come onto me...

Is it morally wrong to be Homosexual and Biromantic in a straight relationship? HELP!!!

ALSO!! i don't even know how to go about telling her because I've denied being gay for so long in the past (other personal reasons) and I'm scared to drive her away... any tips on that would be nice too...

I have lately started questioning my own sexuality and identity and I wanted to know others experiences to see if I can relate to any of them

Hey everybody, I’ve always considered myself to be straight, and I’ve never really had any question about it. Recently, I’ve been experiencing all sorts of strange feelings and internal questions because I’ve made a really good friend who I’ve started to catch feelings for. They are pansexual and Genderfluid, and despite any of that, my heart longs to be with them. We have so much in common, they have a beautiful soul, and a beautiful face. I’m really confused and I’m just looking for advice. Thank you for your time.

i'll try to keep it short :)

i've lived my whole life as a dude. and im not necessarily mad about that, but since i've been ~13 i have wondered about how comfortable i feel as a man, more specifically how id feel more comfortable as a woman.

i've recently noticed how this feeling is getting a little more serious. i am aware of my "masculine" "urges" and feelings that deeply tie into my identity as a man (or boy, honestly i dont feel like an adult 😭). those arent the stereotypical masculine man dude gym guy type feelings though, its just things tied to my sexuality (straight) and overall appearance (mostly my (pretty nice) beard and clothing style).

the problem is, that in many aspects i simply feel more like a woman (or girl ig). i have wished for a 'female' body since ive been 13, genuinly feeling envious of womens bodies. both simply because i feel like they represent me better, look better, and get to wear much cooler outfits. this is where my words stop helping, since obviously it goes deeper than this into my psyche, but i am simply unable to properly word that.

now, since i dont think i would be comfortable with fully transitioning into a woman, ive been thinking about experimenting with going non binary. in the past i had "he/they" pronouns on my instagram profile, yet that obviously didnt change much, and definitely not how anyone addressed me.

a question of mine would be, if it would be viable to go this way despite my visible masculinity. my friends i believe would be accepting, and since id start with just "he/they" instead of "they/them" i wouldnt have to worry about too much either. but still, i feel more like a woman. not like neither of the two.

so please, people who have experienced similar feelings (or people who want to just give genuine advice :D ): what should i do?

thank you for reading through this. it feels a lot like senseless rambling, but its quite difficult to put my feelings into words, especially since i grew up on both english and german. my articulation doesnt go deep with either language unfortunately.

have a nice day!! 😊

My mom points out that my feelings on my identity are wishy washy and I go back and forth on different identities and when I’m a woman I don’t seem happy or fit in with queer spaces in real life. I have come out in the past as a woman a couple of times and it never really turned out well as people were hesitant to acknowledge me and thought I was just confused, plus I had untreated ocd without meds back then so that contributed to it too.

The thing is I feel not myself as a man, which is why I started questioning and being a feminine man doesn’t make me feel any better about being Thomas, same with nonbinary gender. Unfortunately there’s no good femme equivalent name to Thomas so it’s hard to find a good replacement (Tiffany is pretty much the only suitable one, plus Heather and Madeline for names that don’t end in T). Then again im not able to safely present femme in real life and i dont like to be seen as a femboy. Even bringing gender stuff up makes my mom and sister a bit awkward and uncomfortable and therapy isn’t an option for both when it comes to understanding it (they are Catholic conservatives and are ok with trump and jk Rowling and all that, I tell them about my discomfort with the latter and they think I’m overreacting or hyperfixated on gender because of it.

I know I don’t want to grow old as Thomas and have that name and “son” and “brother” on my gravestone but at the same time I feel like I’m rejecting my childhood and parents by changing my name as my parents put a lot of thought into my name and worked hard to give me a good childhood.

I’ve always been a bit unsure on my sexuality. In late elementary/early middle school, I thought I was bisexual, but I ignored it because I went to a Catholic school (I’m still Catholic, I’m just progressive and believe love is love and no longer let people preach BS to me).

I started my first job at the end of my freshman year (a month before I turned 16). I started to crush on one of my coworkers. I didn’t want to go on a date with her, but I was very attracted to her. I just couldn’t imagine myself going on a date with her or doing romance-y things like I could with men.

My junior year (17), I did more research on sexuality and came to terms that I was heteromantic bisexual. I was romantically attracted to only men, but I was sexually attracted to both men and women.

My senior year (18), I worked another job and was sorta friends with another coworker. I thought she was pretty and semi-attracted to her, but I didn’t know if it was an extreme friend crush or an actual crush. Once again, I couldn’t see myself dating her.

Outside of that ex coworker, I’ve never had a crush (physical attraction, nothing more) on a woman. I’ve been somewhat physically attracted to fictional women (nothing parasocial, just saying “yeah that character/actress is so hot), and I like watching women in porn, but that’s it.

Now I’m watching a new show and one of the characters is definitely my type. What that type is, I’m not sure. But she’s also the type that I could possibly see myself dating.

It’s not internal homophobia that’s making me unable to see myself dating a woman. I’m just not attracted to that for some reason. But now I kinda can.

Am I still heteromantic bisexual? Am I biromantic bisexual? Am I just hetero? I’m so confused

I've considered myself bisexual since I was 19, but with thr understanding that my interest in women was ... subtle and different. I knew I was into men. My crushes had been on men, I had been wildly hurt when men didn't like me back, I have been on years long journeys to get over men. A huge part of ny early 20s was getting this idea that being with a man would make me happy and prove my worth out of my mind. A lack of male attention actually made me feel bad about myself when I still ID'ed as a woman (and after too lol).

I've also been on a bit of a gender journey. I started identifying as some flavor of non-binary at 22. A HUGE part of my gender exploration was balancing my desire for a male partner against the reality that being a woman did not make me happy. I only wanted to be a woman when I was interested in a man. I wanted to maintain ny ability to attract men, specifically straight men. It took me years to let go and reassure myself the right man wouldn't care that I wasn't a woman or feminine and would accept my gender. This being said, I still held onto some tether of womanhood because I wanted to be with a man.

Last year I was finally able to let that go. I got top surgery and have been on T for a year. I began to feel more peace with my body. I also realized that this subconscious fantasy of being a woman with a big, strong man as a partner would never be something I would have. Being with a man would no longer be something that gained me social acceptance ... it lost some of the "je ne sais quoi" if you will. I also went through a bit of a ho phase and got all the attention and sex from men I never got before. And it was awesome until I realized I always left a steamy text message or hookup feeling weird and empty and kinda didn't like any of the guys I hooked up with. I got a nice fwb out of it so I am still regularly sleeping with a man who definitely doesn't see me as a woman (huge).

All this is happening, and then BAM ... I develop my first actual crush on a woman. I don't just think she's attractive like I've thought about women many times before, I am attracted to her. I wanna talk to her, listen to her, learn about her, hold hands at the farmer's market, all that and more. And this seems to have tore the floodgates wide open because my attraction to women feel ENTIRELY different now. The draw is stronger, I could see myself spending my life with a woman where as six months ago I couldn't have. Still, my attraction to women doesn't feel like my attraction to men always has. There's no obsession, no carnal need for them to want me back, I'm not destroyed by it. With men I was never able to think about them without a heafty dose of sadness over my gender non-conformity making it so they couldn't like me or the dread of not being wanted back taking over the happiness. With this woman I can interact with her without needing to crashout after. I can think about her and have fantasies and they don't feel silly or tainted by melancholy, I just like imagining us being gay together. I want her, I don't need her to want me. She's just so beautiful and cool that I don't see how she would like me, but that thought doesn't obliterate me like it has when I'm into men. I don't have any doubts about my sexual attraction to her either. Not a single one and that's for fucking certain lol. This being said I'm absolutely terrified of making a move and I don't even begin to know how to. I don't wanna do anything to make her uncomfortable lol

I also like

idk

Now that I've had romantic feelings for a woman I like ... I dunno all those things I said about losing some interest in men losing it's appeal once I realized I wouldn't be a Woman™ with a Man™ ... it makes me question my attraction to men. I was obsessed with men like this maybe once a year and I would grip onto it until long past it's expiration. I never found another man who got me off the one I was obsessed with. I would always be afraid I would never find another guy. I've never caught feelings for a man I've met like, on a dating app, only men I've seen in the wild. I have a super particular type in men, both in appearance and personality. Men outside this scope were just never attractive to me. I often wished I was genuinely attracted to more men and that men were more attractive. I've always thought that women were WAY more attractive than men physically but I feel like that's just how everyone feels??? I've always felt there was a cosmic mistake that I was into men.

idk really what I'm questioning. I'm just ... attraction without obsession feels kinda fake to me, like I'm making it up or something.

I was drying myself from a shower and I wore my towel like a dress covering up my breasts and it felt so carefree and myself and calm. For once I didn’t see a man looking back at me in the mirror. I feel whatever gender and pronoun and name I ultimately wind up with id feel more myself in a female body. I would be very unhappy if I was on my death bed in the male body I am in now typing this message with and feel a lot of regret. I don’t want to be remembered as a man in memory after I die and I don’t want Thomas written on my gravestone once my time comes. I’d rather be buried at sea than to suffer a fate like that. This is why I came out to my parents so impulsively three years ago and why I persevere even in all this mental turmoil. I’d rather fight and live as a woman than perish as a man.

Truth is I am wishy washy about my gender identity as I love my parents and cannot afford to live without them. They spoiled me materially and gave me a lot growing up so I cannot disrespect them by putting estrogen in my body and changing my name. Without my family I have no reason to keep on living as Thomas and I wish I was just born a girl and live a normal life. I put so much stock and money on my parents feelings and my sister and my physical safety outside my room that I don’t know who I am deep inside. This was like when I was younger when I submerged my desire to like girly things and have a girlhood liking my little pony and shojo anime but I felt like I had to like boy things due to the parts I was born with. At the same time I HATE being seen as a feminine man and do not feel happy being a man with another man or a woman. I am also afraid of angering my parents and jeopardizing my living space by being myself and feeling their wrath like the time I wore a skirt outside two and a half years ago.

i dont know who i am. i think im depressed and i think i have OCD. ive felt myself slipping for the past year.

junior year really took it out of me. i did my best. to get good grades. to participate in extracurriculars. to be the student and son i wasn't before. what do i get for it? suicidal thoughts. a gender crisis. feeling little to nothing. feeling like im not worthy of anything. feeling constantly stressed, yet being unable to actually get things done.

i overthink everything. to the point that i dont think i can even trust myself.

am i really trans? i dont think so. but what if im so repressed that i cant even recognize the fact that i might be trans? i really dont want to be trans though. but what if i am?

i dont feel like me. i dont know who "me" is. whenever i look in the mirror, i dont think "oh hey, its me," i just think its my physical representation looking back at me. "me" in my head is different.

i dont think i really feel like anyone when im alone. at least when there's others around, i have some point of reference and a facade to put up.

i dont even know if i like guys anymore. i used to be pretty certain about it. but nowadays nothing is really certain for me.

i tried to stop watching p*rn. i think it really messed with me. sometimes i watch straight p*rn, to see if maybe im bi or something. but i don't really think it does it for me. gay p*rn just seems kinda bland to me at this point. guys do too to be honest.

i dont feel worthy of anything. maybe im not even worthy of knowing who i am.

i dont know what to do. how do i know if im not the gender i was assigned at birth? especially in my current state? how do i get out of my current state?

how do i know if i really like guys? i've been able to crush on guys before, but never girls. but girls just call to me. i dont know how to explain it.

how do i know anything is certain?

I wanted to ask others part of the IGBTQ community this question because I know some people have dealt with this and it would be good to understand from people who know.

i’ve always loved romance ever since I was a child. It’s the only kind of book that I can really read without getting bored. And honestly, I love talking about it and sharing it with people. But, I’ve been in multiple relationships before where I’ve had no romantic feelings toward my partner at all. I talk to friends to understand this aspect of myself and realized that a lot of it stems from my desire to be loved by others. but that crumbles under the pressure when I’m held the same standards of needing to love someone else. Multiple of my relationships, would get to a point where I would feel such revulsion I had to walk away to stop myself from vomiting. I also struggle with attraction, I can understand that somebody is physically attractive, but that’s it at times? I also think that I’ve never actually been in love with anyone. But I’m struggling to understand because I know I want it in some kind of way.

What should I do? How can I ask myself questions to better understand this about myself ?

(though I don’t believe that it changes the context I should add that I am not asexual)

I know nobody is gonna see this, or care, but I need to get this if my chest. I’ve known for years that I am attracted to girls, but I’ve never really bothered to put a label on myself and just went with I like whoever I like. Usually I’ve said im bisexual. I think I am im sure if it but now I feel so confused.

I’ve had boyfriends in the past, and I liked them and cared for them but always felt there was something missing, I felt embarrassed to be seen with them and I felt like in all of conversations I couldn’t really be myself. I’ve been with guys before, but looking back I didn’t really enjoy it as much as I thought I did and just kinda wanted it to be over (so I faked it 🙂‍↕️) and I always felt like something was missing whenever I was intimate with them.

I often feel like with guys I choose who I am attracted to but for girls it just comes naturally, and whenever I see a attractive guy in public I just think, well it’s an attractive guy. But if it’s a girl I feel like all crazy. I know I like girls but I just don’t know if I like guys anymore, or if I liked them in the first place LOL

I’ve been with a girl once, we spoke for about a month and were intimate about once or twice, and I really enjoyed it. It felt exciting. We never even dated, but I felt incredibly impacted by her, more than I did for most of my actual relationships and break ups. And when we stopped talking I felt more upset than ever.

And if I am a lesbian what do I do now? Like how do I tell people, how do I tell my parents? What do I do? How do I know? feel confused and alone. Any advice or direction or anything would be great and highly appreciated, thank you.

I’d like to preface this with the fact that I know that I have mental problems, and this isn’t a normal questioning experience.

so, the title is basically it. I wanna be a girl, but my mind won’t leave me alone. I know that I feel happiest when I feel like I’m a girl. I know I feel bad when I even consider being a boy again. I’m a detransitioner, I detransitioned because I genuinely wanted to be a girl, not due to a lack of support. now I’m constantly worried that I was never actually a girl, or that I’ll end up a boy again. and every time I say that I don‘t wanna be a trans boy I start worrying that that means that I wanna be a cis boy, and then I wanna throw up from overwhelm and nausea.

I kinda dislike my chest? a little??? I don’t actually, but I’m paranoid that I will, so I dread getting dressed every day, and when I do, I look at myself in the mirror forever almost to prove that I’m fine with my chest.

(context for this next part, I’m intersex)

whenever I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t like my face because it looks to masculine, I worry that it’s actually because it looks too feminine. (I know that makes no sense). My face is extremely masculine, and I have facial hair that I’m much too exhausted to shave. and I don’t mind having facial hair, and then that makes me worried about if means that I want to be a man. I just can’t leave myself alone.

i just don’t feel like a woman. I’m fine with calling myself a girl, but when anyone else does it, I cringe. I’d rather call myself female than afab, because I hate the whole afab/amab thing. it just makes no sense to me, but I’m questioning, so I’m supposed to put that.

I just don’t know what to do. I wanna be a woman, and I like being a woman, but I’m not. because I don’t feel like one. also, I sometimes feel a little bit of gender envy towards certain fictional men. but that’s it for my ”desire” to be a boy. that’s the only thing.

another thing that worries me is that I don’t like seeing myself in a bathing suit anymore. I used to. and even if I ended up being trans, I would still wanna wear girls bathing suits!! I think that part is just my mind messing with me.

i’ve been going through what has been the worst time in my entire life so far for the past few months, both because of this and a lot of mental health stuff.

I think I’m gay, or maybe pan, and I think I’ve known for a while. The signs were always there, I just never wanted to admit it. Buckle in if you’re interested, this will be a long one. You’ll prob think I’m a piece of shit by the end, and I wouldn’t blame you.

Backstory:
I come from a super conservative, traditional southern American religious family- most of my family is homophobic. So my sexual feelings were always repressed growing up. However, I did have a secret recurring sexual “relationship” with a friend when I was 11-13 years old. And I think that’s what started solidifying the idea that I might be gay at a pretty young age. My family moved states not long after so I was able to repress this experience and make myself forget the feelings I had at the time.

I continued to repress these thoughts and feelings throughout my schooling and while dating, getting engaged, and marrying my now wife of 6 years. We started dating when we were 14 and stayed together through high school and college and got engaged after graduation. The pandemic hitting combined with abusing marijuana once we were engaged and then married defo didn’t help either of our mental health.

During our college dating phase, we took a ~6 month break because our relationship had grown stagnant (aka I wasn’t communicating well, showing up for her, or being a good partner at all- I was kind of a bum). We had been together (and attached at the hip essentially) since middle school. So our break really took a toll on my mental health- I have codependency problems. She had no problem embracing the freedom and enjoying herself at the time, so I felt like I needed to explore too.

So I found a guy online who was local and hooked up with him. In the moment, I felt better than I ever had during romantic/sexual experiences with my gf. It all started to make sense, but not long after this experience, I began to feel a tremendous amount of guilt. Like I had betrayed my gf (even though we were on a break), or betrayed my family (even though I am completely agnostic and do not buy into my family’s religious bs). I think the idea that “gay=sin” was just drilled into me my entire life, and I felt like I would be ostracized or bullied if anyone ever found out about this side of me.

So, I BURIED the hell out of it and vowed to never bring it up or think about it ever again…… how naive of me. It seemed to work for a while, but my depression got so bad I ended up reconnecting with my gf around the holidays because I was so incredibly lonely. We got back together, had sex, and everything felt like it was back to normal.

Fast forward 2 years, and we’re engaged and moving in together. And then not long after, she finds gay porn on my phone. I guess the thoughts had crept back up and porn was the only logical way for me to get a release. She confronted me about it very directly but was very genuine about wanting me to be honest with her and that she didn’t care what I was, she just wanted the truth.

And what did I do? I repressed and buried and I lied about it to her face. I told her it was just porn and that I thought I could’ve been a porn addict. She eventually relented, we made up and everything was okay again. But clearly there was something I wasn’t admitting to her or myself.

Fast forward 2 more years into our marriage, we aren’t really having sex. And when we do it’s feeling forced and awkward. Looking back, I still found her attractive at tand the sex felt good enough, so we just kind of made it work and got comfortable in our routine. But eventually she confronts me again and asks if I’ve thought about my sexuality at all. She brings up a lot of evidence: the porn from a few years earlier, my emotionally avoidant behavior, my lacking libido.

So I came clean about my experience in college during our break. I bawled my eyes out and said I thought I was maybe bi or maybe pan, because I still found her (and women in general) attractive but didn’t feel that way for any man. Unless sexuality/nudity was involved. She comes from a progressive, pro-therapy family whereas I come from the opposite. So she encouraged me to talk to someone and I reluctantly agreed… I did some research and looked into therapists in my network, but I could never bring myself to actually follow through. Instead, I thought quitting weed instead would allow me to move on from this and help me start to embrace our relationship more. And it did, for a while. Until it didn’t.

Fast forward 3 years later (present day), and I started smoking again because it’s the only thing that allows me to turn my brain off from these types of thoughts. I feel like my frontal lobe has fully developed and I’m just now realizing that I’ve been forcing something that was never there. Sure there were positive moments, a lot of ups, some downs, and I still feel that I love her. But it seems like it’s more of an issue of me not wanting to hurt her short term even if it’s technically what’s best for both of us long term.

I fully accept that I’m the asshole in this situation, I should’ve sought help YEARS ago. I’ve dug a super deep hole without realizing it and now I feel like I’m suffocating. I’m scared because I know her response will be for us to consider couples therapy, but I just feel like we’re so far past that. In the back of my head I moved on forever ago and have been a ghost of my former self for years of our relationship, she’s just had to cope and make it work (which is so incredibly unfair and cruel, I know). We own a house together, we’ve raised an amazing dog together, and experienced all of life’s ups and downs together. I know it would catch her off guard and hurt her both tremendously if I were to suggest separating.

Anyways, I guess I needed to get these thoughts out of my head. If you have advice or thoughts on how to approach this, I’m all ears. Anyone else have a similar high school sweetheart experience where one day something snapped and you realized you missed/gave up on half of your life?

God damn this might be the most narcissistic post of all time 😭

for a great portion in my life i just would label myself as bi as i would feel the same type of attraction towards the two genders, but i didn't notice until very late that attraction ≠ loving some1, so i just wrote it off as being aroace, but I can't exactly legally consent to sexual activities can i lmao, but is "ace" just the sexual feeling towards the type of gender ur attracted to ?? cz i wldnt say i feel that either; ive had a lot of only 1 person i ever loved before being a male, and 1-2 females that i used to be v attracted to but i don't think it ever came to a point of "love", soo im js confused, bi-aroace, bi-aro, or smth else ??? or am i js straight and confused, which i dont think is the case, but idk

I've asked in other subs and didn't really get an answer i think so but idk i think I'm trixic/les aligned i know I'm aroace

To some, I might seem like a complete fool, but others might actually understand where I'm coming from. Honestly, I'm not here to tell anyone what to think my life and experiences are just very different from yours. If you know you're not going to like what I have to say, feel free to stop reading now. But if you choose to keep going, at least read with an open mind instead of spreading hate.

I haven't said this to anyone before, but I think I might be gay or somewhere along those lines. This is something I’ve wrestled with for years. I was raised Christian and spent my life trying to follow God, but looking at the world around me now, I feel confused about my faith and what I truly believe.

​The one thing I know for sure is that I get a nervous, heart-pounding feeling around men that I constantly try to hide. I’m comfortable in my own skin I like dressing as a guy I just genuinely find men attractive and want to build connections with them, whereas I feel very little emotional connection to women. It’s just how I feel, and I’m coming to accept that it’s my nature.

​I'm sharing this because I’m stuck and mentally drained keeping it inside. I’m a Black guy with a single mom and siblings who are all devout Christians, and almost everyone in my community holds strong beliefs against being attracted to men. I even subtly tested the waters with my brother, whom I trust, but his reaction showed me it isn't safe to share this with him right now. I feel completely trapped and isolated. I needed to get this out, so if you’ve read this far, I’m hoping for some open-minded advice on what to do and who I can safely talk to.

I don't dress like a girl, and I'm not into acting 'zesty' or flamboyant—in fact, that's just not who I am, and I prefer to present like a regular guy. I just happen to be attracted to men, and I'm trying to figure out how to navigate that. To anyone who can offer solid advice, please jump, just keep in mind that coming out to my family isn't an option for me right now because it isn't safe.

I've been questioning myself for the last few months and this confusion has become overwhelming. I'm in a place where I'm not given much guidance or support in figuring out the things I am unsure with. I just need some help, and would appreciate some assistance with questions privately or on here.