Confused Girl… On Being Attracted to Women

This is a response to Confused Girl's mail to Myne.

My dear lady, I read your dilemma with interest and find that rather than simply send you a one paragraph response, you require a well thought out and unbiased response to your dilemma. What I like to do is look at your situations from a variety of perspectives and then you get to decide what to do and how to move forward to deal with your situation.

And of course you actually have TWO unrelated problems rolled into one. I hope you realize that. Lets deal with one at a time. 

On your bisexuality

Let us start from the religious aspect. You are likely to get a number of responses from many Nigerians condemning your actions and behavior. This is not wrong, but is due to the fact that a large segment of Nigerians in and out of Nigeria remain strongly religious. As you have said this not an issue in your relationship, (but it could be, more on that possibility later). I suggest don’t take those critics too seriously, not that they are not to be heard, or might offer bad advice, but I believe to each his / her own. If you don’t hold / share those Christian perspectives and beliefs then you need not worry about them, or be held to them. And no, there is no demon or devil chasing you either! :) No one should not foster their beliefs on you, unless you are willing to freely embrace them.

Secondly, any true Christian will have only one line of advice for you. Go and find some solution or deliverance to your “problem” of bisexuality.  You can then of course freely and happily get married to your fiancé. However, if your fiancé is one who will intend to become more religious after marriage, (this tends to happen to many couples as they go on to have kids and realize they want their kids to have some religious structure in their lives). You might also want to consider that factor as you decide what to do next.

Next is what to do? Okay, well I have some suggestions and some things for you to consider. One is the end game. Suppose you can stop, think and fast forward ten or so years into the future of your relationship. Your bisexuality started in Nigeria so moving back is unlikely to put it in “check”. Hence,  you will potentially find a partner once you are back in Nigeria, now if those you had relationships are still in Nigeria don’t forget that the doors to those old relationships could still open up again.

So what will you do when you eventually start a fresh or restart an old relationship in Nigeria? This is something you need to consider carefully. How will your hubby take to you spending a lot of time with a particular woman? Would he think nothing of it, or something of it? And suppose he eventually finds out… Yeepah, Chineke… fire on the mountain abi (all hell breaks lose!?) ? Don’t worry there is always water to put it out! But you must think about that now. 

Lastly, would you then be ready to deal with the stigma and ridicule from friends and family should it become common knowledge that you are bisexual? (As you would probably agree with me that bisexually is yet to be accepted in the larger traditional Nigerian society) Are you strong enough to defend your behavior and stand up for who you believe you are? And subsequently ride the storm? How do you think this will affect the kids you might possibly have at the time? Again think on these things.

So what should be done now? 

And that end game brings us back to the present. Hence, I suggest you have a discussion with your fiancé now and not later.  There are benefits to dealing with this now and upfront especially as he has a serious marriage plans and also for you to go back to Nigeria.

I read through your mail again and found something terribly important to be missing in your submission. 

Do you realize and you probably do, in your mail, you say absolutely nothing about stopping being bisexual? You have essential told us you are, explained how it came about and what you have done since then and then STOP. This seems to me you do not plan to stop! If this holds true, you then have a number of choices, continue and keep this from your fiancé / future hubby, tell him now and face the fall out, positive or negative, which of course will include possibly ending the relationship. Or finally stop having bisexual relationships. You will have to choose. However don't make the decisions on you own and what you think he will think, tell him and then actually hear and listen to what he thinks. That is rather important. 

Can you honestly switch off these feelings and desires? 

Let me end with this. Let us do some math and some guessing! You have said you are 25 years old. You also have said you have known you current fiancé for three years now. So at 22 you had the last bisexual relationship, which had started in secondary school and continued till you left Nigeria. The average age range in Nigeria to be in secondary school would be anywhere between 10-18 years old. So let us assume halfway at 14 /15 you had your first relationship. Now this means this means you have been in bisexual relationships for about 8 years now or should we say 32% of your life on earth. You can actually plug in the real ages as those are known of course only to you.

So the question becomes are you ready to turn off that "switch" which has been "On" for 30% of your life permanently upon marriage? Yes indeed it might certainly be a “phase” you are going through and that is to also be seriously considered. Will you get older, say 40, 50, 60 would you still want to engage in bisexual relationships? You may not, and possibly should not, but I can verify to you from stories I know of personally, this might also not be the case. If anything the desire to be with a woman might very well increase.  

By the way, I hope you know you have already solved 50% of your problem. Hence you are on your way to solving the other 50%.