Same-sex relationship as 'settling'?

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Does anyone else feel like they end up in relationships with the same sex for the 'wrong' reasons?

I'm just off of my first serious relationship, first same-sex relationship, and first marriage (all one and the same) and part of what tore it apart for me was that I felt like I was with my wife for the wrong reasons. I would think about how it was probably best to be with her because I would never run the risk of having kids (I'm terrified of being a cold, erratic parent, which I think I would be), how I would feel less guilty about my low sex drive with her than with a male partner (as I, at the time, subscribed to the flawed belief all men want sex more than women), how she was less physically intimidating to me than a man might be...

Combined with that, and a feeling that I was using her to be mothered and caretaken, which left me feeling like my love was just desperate draining clinging, and with the conflict of still finding men sexually attractive (I'm bisexual, though I wish I was just gay or straight, it would narrow the options!) and knowing she still found them attractive (she was also bisexual, though more comfortable with it), I tore us both up with my doubt and anger. And left myself entirely uncertain what I really *do* want from a partner and whether my bisexuality is just the old cliche of not being confident enough to think I could withstand the pressure to be conventionally attractive and responsive that society (if not individual men) expects from women seeking male partners. The last thing I want to feel with someone I'm supposed to love is that I'm 'settling' because 'no one else will have me.'

Has anyone else had similar experiences?

Yes. Currently, I feel that way with my current partner. I'm in an opposite-sex relationship.

I used to feel the way you do. I am gender queer, but also biologically female. When it came to women, I often felt the exact way you felt. That is, until I met a woman I felt I actually loved. You can be bisexual, but if you don't really find the "right" partner, being in a same-sex relationship won't make the "bad" parts any better.

Could it be you prefer RELATIONSHIPS with men, but sexual attraction to females? I've met females that were the other way around, too. Sexual orientation is often composed of gray areas. This means one can be sexually attracted to both genders, but only interested romantically in one.

Another issue I see as possible would be since you were in a same-sex relationship that ended, you might be getting the idea that a relationship with a male will be completely different due to the different gender. However, if you tend to have relationship problems to begin with, these would transfer over to your relationships with males, too.

Have you tried meeting a woman with more aggressive traits? (I suppose some might consider this "masculine", if you go based off of societal gender roles.) Also, what about considering an open relationship? Were you just not ready to settle down with someone?

I'm very sorry about your situation.

I think both points are probably playing a role. There were a lot extenuating circumstances with the relationship; she was a foreign national, we met online while roleplaying (as male characters) (though we did develop a close out-of-character relationship at the same time and then in person, I was haunted by the feeling that I was being used as a way to have the male story I could tell, a sort of replacement man-without-the-threat, a source of m/m erotica), she was much more spontaneous, etc. I felt pressured to go forward with marriage because we couldn't be together in the same country otherwise (it turned out we never were, because I decided I couldn't handle going overseas) and felt we wouldn't be taken seriously as a couple without it. The thing is, I honestly miss the hell out of the friendship and the physical closeness, if not my confusion over if I actually 'felt' sexual attraction to her or if I just adapted myself to feel it.

I feel like there has to be something that feels better, but I also keep doubting that I'm capable of feeling more. Which is why I keep thinking, well, maybe with a man, it would be different. Maybe at least then I would feel physically desired as well as mentally desired and could feel certain I felt the same in return and wouldn't feel this weirdness about whether we're using each other to 'hide' from attempting relationships with a sex/gender we feel more threatened by.

My wife was actually quite aggressive. She made most of the decisions in our relationship, or at least led them (I think she didn't realize how much I felt she was taking control); did a lot of trying to shape me (though, again, I think she thought she was trying to negotiate with me or find ways to accommodate me--which would have been true, if I had been better at countering); and was not conventionally feminine (though also not at all male-presenting). I wouldn't want to attempt to diagnose her, but I think she wasn't quite NT, either; she hated social events and felt like most people were shallow and wasted times at parties, usually dressed down as far as possible, and most of her friendships were formed online, around her interest in TV shows. She also had all the tact of a slap to the face with a dead fish, when she felt challenged on certain issues. Part of why I liked being around her was that I often felt like the 'social' one, which is rare, like the one who was good at being tactful, reasonable, and open to people.

At this point, I want someone relatively simple and vanilla, who doesn't have intense interests that I can shatter a relationship by choosing not to share, who won't mind if I have to retreat sometimes, and whom I'm certain desires me and vice-versa! As I mostly run in geek circles, though, the men I tend to meet are as complicated as I am. And, hell, I likely wouldn't know what to do with someone who simply just loved me and wanted me around and couldn't talk to me about German speculative fiction anyway.

no - not why I am lesbian, I am only attracted to other womyn.

and as far as the children - really you mean - you never run the risk of UNINTENTIONALLY having children - I know a whole lot of lesbian couples with children, either by adoption or they have been inseminated. In fact more of my lesbian friends HAVE children than do not.

and as far as the drive, my partner had a much higher one than I did, so that throws that one out the window.

and the not physically intimidating? My first partner was abusive, to the point where she beat me until I bled, I learned to wash blood out of clothes and I learned to hide bruises quite well.

for me relationships are relationships and people just need to be who they are and accept their orientation.


also, with the right partner same-sex can be fantastic, not settling. many of my lesbian friends have far better relationships than the straight relationships I see and hear about and I was in one for 12 years.

No, because I've never even had a same-sex relationship. I would have one though and I wouldn't call it 'settling'. I used to feel like I was settling before in my previous straight relationship, but I don't feel like I'm 'settling' with my current boyfriend. I find that we really love each other and our personalities are quite compatible (not the same - but compatible.) If I was going to have a girlfriend, I'd look for the same things.

I one of the few bi people who like both genders equally in a sexual and an emotional way. I've only had long term relationships with men though, due to the low numbers of available and compatible bi/lesbian women compared to the relatively high numbers of compatible and available straight/bi men.

If you're intimidated by men, don't be. I used to be and the fact that I was badly physically and psychologically bullied by boys in my childhood made it worse. Then when I got older, I got sexually harassed and insulted by males as a teenager. Then I saw some of the nasty porn that some men like to watch. Then I had an absolutely horrible experience when losing my hetero virginity. Then my first boyfriend broke my heart. So I ended up being scared of men. But my last boyfriend wasn't anything to be scared of and my current one is wonderful. They're not all the same. My sex drive towards my current partner is huge, but it isn't lust directed at men in general. I feel like my heterosexual side needs an individual who makes me feel secure to really come into its own. Maybe your sex drive would increase (for either gender) if you met the right person?

Anyway, a proper relationship with a woman has always seemed like a distant dream to me. I feel like I have this emotional as well as a sexual need to be with both sexes...or maybe I just think I do? It might be something else. I'd like to give it a go if I met the right woman, but I'd want my male partner to be okay with it.

You might have been settling for your last partner, but that doesn't mean that all your relationships with the same sex need to be 'settling'. Just go for someone you really, really like, and cross your fingers that it all works out. That's all any of us can do. Only by knowing yourself can you decrease the risk of getting hurt; you can't eliminate it.

@GivePeaceaChance Oh, I'm sorry, I misexpressed myself. I meant that all of those feelings were my own personal feelings and justifications, not actualities. Women can, of course, be abusive, and women in relationships with other women can, of course, have children. The thoughts were just thoughts I had while in my relationship, and I point them out as being logically flawed--I just didn't see it at the time.

@puddingmouse A lot of what you've said makes perfect sense to me. I get that feeling of wanting/needing both sides of the gender spectrum ( ) in my relationships, too, which is part of what was driving me up a wall and making me feel bad in my marriage.

I think I overanalyze the impulse, though. I really, really liked/loved (it's both reassuring and very unsettling that, from what I'm reading about ASD, my difficulty defining and confessing love even internally is something some ASD folks experience) my ex, and being around her was precious to me, but I also felt bound (which, obviously, marriage, some bound-ness is the point). I would never have cheated on her for another woman, but I knew (or felt I knew) that I would for a kind and interested man. Self-esteem issues? Aspie lack of boundaries? I don't know. Probably both. Some of the time, I get Freudian about it and think I'm trying to bond with women and *then* with men because I'm trying to replicate my relationship with my parents: mother who's willing to support me in all things, to give me the confidence to approach men, because my own father didn't express love to me well or often. Then I get ashamed because I think I'm trying to recreate a situation where I'm not an adult and parent, but a child, the caretaken instead of mutual caretaker. (And honestly, that's the thing that most frightens me about everything I'm reading about ASD--the impression that, often, ASD people choose partners that can caretake them, even if the choice isn't deliberate. It mirrors what I see in my father's choice of my mother, and my choice in my ex. I never want to drain another adult. I would rather live a small, lonely, disappointing life on my own than do that.)

This is my hope. To decrease the hurt for me and for anyone I find in future, too! I'm hoping very much that I can learn to offer as much as I take from anyone in the future, male or female.

hey happens all the time on the internet, I prefer real life, easier to tell what people mean.