I Am Not A Shadow

Here are the words I got from someone in respond to my sexual orientation.

"You shouldn't tell anyone, because you are married to a man."

I live in the U.K. and I am tired of people's discriminatory comments.

I have been married since 1999, and though I did not come out straight away, my husband is well aware that I identify as bisexual

I spent my whole childhood, and young adulthood hiding it, because people were bullies when it came to the subject of sexual orientation. I spent years learning to accept, and embrace it without shame too.

I have come to terms with it now, and if people are uncomfortable with it, then that is their problem, not mine.

I can happily tell my husband that I'm attracted to a woman with no problems at all.

I do it all of the time, even just walking down a street. We even have giggles over who fancies her more, and my husband is well open about his attraction to women.

He is heterosexual.

He has always known that I am very strongly attracted to other women.

Emotionally and sexually.

He spent many years encouraging me to open up about it, and to start with, I closed off.

I kept it to myself because of other people's guilt-shaming, and I am not the only one who has done this.

I tell friends, family, and I talk about it with almost everyone I meet, depending on how comfortable I feel telling them.

There are still some people in my life who cannot handle it; and there are a few who refuse to believe me, or try to get me to change because I am married.

The truth is that they are uncomfortable, because it does not fit their moral values of what marraige or a relationship should look like.

In other words; they have set their values in stone, because they have been brought up to believe in the old rules of society.

"Men and women are the only ones allowed to love, and get married."

Look,

There are many people in this world who live by this rule, but I don't judge them for it, but here is a fact;

Marraige does not change a person's orientation, and there are plenty of men who married men, and women who married women.

There are also plenty in open relationships, plus other types of relationship.

We need to start changing the way in which relationships, love and sexual orientation are defined.

We have been living with the same old black and white rules for decades, and it's not a one fits all situation.

A human being does not have an automatic right to dictate whom another human being should be attracted to, and being human is not about the numbers either.

Being human means accepting, respecting, and acknowledging that another person's feelings for someone are real, whether it is another man, woman, or even a triangle.

It's not about imposing your own beliefs onto others, just because you don't like it.

I had a fall out with someone over this recently, and I refuse to talk to that person because she tried telling me that I was 'sexually confused,' because she did not like the idea of me being able to have sexual or loving relationships with a man and a woman.

I told her,

"I am not a shadow."

I have been told for too long that I should not tell anyone that I am bisexual.

The truth is,

I am not embarrassed to fully identify with myself.

The question is,

Are you mature enough to accept it?