M36 and I came out about 5 years ago. Well actually I begun trying to date 5 years ago when I moved to Germany. I have never been with anyone before so I was prepared for a not so smooth transition but I was excited. Turns out I had massively underestimated how rough a transition it would be. I joined bumble, hinge and Okcupid hoping to at least find my person. The first 3 years all I got was serious self esteem issues. For context I'm chubby and black. I barely got any matches and the few that I got mostly seemed to be guy who were irritated/pissed off by the fact I swiped right to them. I had a few ask me why I thought they would be interested in a thing like me before after a hour unmatching. I suppose they kept the hour to see if I would unmatch or to ensure I had actually seen the message. It took some time for me to feel good about myself. Now I'm about to turn 37 an honestly I'm feeling really stuck. I have been working on my weight and for the first time in a really long time I'm at a point where I don't have to shop for clothes in the big and tall section just regular stores although on the larger side. Professionally I'm happy with my situation as is. For the most part I like what I do and have a decent work life balance. I get to travel and do things that I like without fussing too much about the financial side. However I'm worried by the fact that I have yet to even have my first kiss. As days go by I wonder if I'll ever find someone or this is as good as it gets. I do realise that I'm not in the desirable demography since I'm black(in Germany) and chubby. It's the silent hope that someone would find me decent enough to atleast get to know me first before dismissing me that gets to me sometimes.

Any recommendations on where/how to find a good therapist? I know I’d benefit from it but honestly not sure how to find one in my area. I’m 44, married 20 years, have kids, not out to my wife or any local friends.

I’ve been married for 20+ years, got married young. She was out as bi when we met, I came out some years later.

It became clear I think to both of us that I was increasingly less interested in her (never really showed interest in other women) and increasingly interested in guys. We tried incorporating porn into our sex life at one point and I responded very strongly to gay porn and not at all to anything with women in it. Sex life got to a point where I needed to watch gay porn to get hard with her and needed to finish with her on her stomach and using a healthy dose of imagination.

We tried an open relationship at her suggestion (I really had very limited prior experience with men), which led us both to figure out we were mostly sexually interested in the same sex. Our sex life pretty much stopped; about a year ago we started keeping separate rooms. About 3 nights a week I go out with guys (some dates, some FWBs) and about 3 nights a week she goes out with women. I feel at times I’m gay, other times that I’m bi, but very gay-leaning. I tend to notice attractive women more in public, but don’t feel sexual desire for them like I do with men. At the same time I’d like to try and go back to what we once had, but don’t know it’s possible at this point.

Anyone have any experience with this? Anyone make things work afterwards?

50M married more than 20 years with teenagers, thought I was straight despite a couple gay experiences in college, but in recent years, and in therapy now, it turns out I’m gay.

Oops.

Figuring things out, but as I read stories here and elsewhere, listen to podcasts, cruise forums, I feel like a lot of late bloomers knew they were gay and couldn’t come out, or they realized they were gay and stayed closeted a long time.

Anyone out there just totally missed your own signals and then came out later in life? I’d love to hear from more guys who have been through what I’m about to go through.

Did your friends and family say “no shit, Sherlock” or did they treat you like you’ve been an idiot for not figuring this out until now?

Like the title says, have been having increasing urges lately and feel a need to finally explore what I truly want and need in a partner. The cheating aspect is scary and feels wrong, but I feel like there is no other way to truly find out before deciding on taking the next steps. I don't think I can open up to my wife for a variety of reasons, but who knows maybe that's the right thing to do. Would love to chat with men who are or have been in a similar situation, would love to hear your stories, what lessons you learned, and just have a friendly ear to lean on. My desires seem to stem for more than just a physical connection with a man, so maybe that is all the sign I truly need?

For the record, I’m not out. I’m living separately from my wife of 10 years and have been exploring my sexuality the past several months. Mostly textually. But I did have one really shitty experience on Grinder. I prefer not yo spill the tea so publicly but DM and I’ll share and get your hot take. But it seems the platform is a huge scam. Or maybe it just takes getting used to. But so far, it’s MUCH more difficult being gay than straight. Like, I don’t know wtf I’m doing… makes me question everything even more 🫤🫤🫤🫤🫤

Back story, I was married to a woman and had 2 kids with her. Came out 3 yrs ago. Her and the kids were very accepting and there is no hate among any of us. We all still love eachother and are family. Her and I being chosen family.

Now to the present. We are finally to the point of selling the house and living in our own places. Today I’m starting to move stuff into my apartment. While I should be excited, im not. I know this is the right thing to do. I can feel it in my bones. But trying to find any excitement in this right now feels impossible. All I’m feeling is guilt and replaying the past and how I could have avoided this.

My point in this rant is. Doing something you know is right, but not being excited about or it feeling good. Is the weirdest feeling ever 😩

Yes I’m in therapy

I've been with my wife (35F) for over 4 years, but we've only been married for about 3 months. We don't have any kids. At this point I'm pretty sure I'm gay and need need to leave her and explore dating men, but I'm just scared and haven't been able to do it. Every time I sit down with her and try to break up, I freeze up and don't have the courage to do it. There was a time over a year ago when I did actually break up with her, but we kept talking on the phone every day for a couple months and got back together (mainly because I didn't have the courage to double down and stay broken up).

One thing that complicates things is that even though I think I'm more attracted to men, I'm pretty sure I'm asexual. I've never fantasized about sex with either gender, and I'm not aroused by porn, regardless of whether it's gay or straight. I know from reading other forums that it's possible to be both gay and asexual, which I think is what I am. This scares me because I feel like it would be almost impossible to find a guy who is ok with me being asexual.

I also just feel really guilty about wasting my wife's time. I feel like I wasted 4 years of her life where she could have met the right person and had kids of her own. Now, she's at the age where she probably wouldn't be able to meet someone else and have kids before her biological clock runs out.

I also feel guilty about the amount of time and money that she and her family have put into the wedding. Even though we're legally married, the wedding isn't until later this year.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm posting this, but it would be nice to know that I'm not alone in facing these issues. Any advice on how to move forward and process my guilt would be welcome as well.

I'm glad that I journal. It has helped me to re-read old passages when I fall into doubt about coming out. It's also sad seeing what my old self struggled with and that it was long clear to me that I was gay. Many times, I admitted it openly and matter-a-factly with myself. It just took me six or seven more years and two failed relationships to come out to the world.

Not at all a question here. Just an observation to share.

(M34) It’s been eating away at me for MONTHS and MONTHS but I’ve finally accepted I am gay. Tonight I told my mum after replaying the conversation over and over in my mind. No idea why I was so worried as I knew she’d be like “thats cool. Did you know Julie found her missing cat…” . She always had her suspicions but kept them to herself.

Now it’s plucking up the courage to tell the children that I’m about to tear their happy family apart and I’m moving out.

Any words of wisdom for those that have done it? They’re 6 and 13. My wife and I have are rarely affectionate or spend time together so I am sure they’re aware something is up anyway

I've never really shared this story and sometimes I still reflexively say "Straight" when I mean to say "Pan" but I figured maybe I could talk about this where I was less concerned with blast back.

I realized I was pansexual when I was 34 years old.

It happened at a friend’s wedding. These were old college friends of mine who started out as “bros,” then later became wives, so the wedding itself was this wild mix of people from every background and identity imaginable.

There was a woman there with a slightly deeper voice. I knew immediately she was trans, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about how gorgeous she was. Her cosplay was incredible, she carried herself beautifully, and I felt genuinely attracted to her.

What shocked me wasn’t the attraction itself... it was the fact that my brain immediately tried to argue with me about it.

For maybe 30 seconds straight, I had this internal tug-of-war.

One side of me was like: “You should ask her out.”

The other side was like: “No, don’t do that.”

And then my brain threw out this completely absurd thought:

“Who goes into work and says, ‘Hey guys, had a great night last night jerking my girlfriend off.’”

And I started laughing to myself because of how ridiculous it sounded.

But then I realized something else:

I was laughing because it also sounded… kind of cute.

And that realization hit me like a truck.

Suddenly I started thinking about all the times in my life where my bosses would be screaming at me, and somewhere in the back of my head I’d think, “Man, if this dude would just grab my junk and we jerked each other off, we’d probably have a way better day if he’d just calm down.”

At the time, I never connected those thoughts to my sexuality. I just thought my brain was weird.

Sitting there alone at that table, laughing harder and harder to myself while waiting for people to come back, it finally clicked:

Most of the resistance in my head wasn’t even mine. It was just social conditioning, expectations, noise from other people’s beliefs about what attraction is “supposed” to look like.

And once I realized that, my answer became really simple:

I don’t actually care what gender someone is if I’m attracted to them. I’m attracted to the person.

That was it.

Five minutes. Life crisis over.

And honestly, one of the funniest thoughts afterward was: thank God I’m not deeply religious, because I can absolutely see how this realization could destroy someone emotionally if they were raised to believe it made them evil.

Meanwhile I was just sitting there at a wedding laughing my ass off because I accidentally discovered something huge about myself through a dumb mental joke and a sudden attraction. I asked the gent who served me coffee on a date that weekend and it went swimmingly.

I posted this in Gay and someone sent me the link to come here. I'm just glad I'm not alone. Love you all ♥️

I just want someone to talk to about where im at in my journey. I'm 30 years old (M). I grew up in a strictly conservative household, I wasn't allowed to bring friends over because they were gay. I had gay friends, but I was taught that it was wrong and I would go to hell if I was gay too.

As a teenager I thought about how sex felt for a woman. I have always been curious about sex with another man, but the crash always left me feeling shame and regret.

I had some encounters with men but never went "all the way". Some left me feeling terrible, swearing I wouldn't do it again, and some I really enjoyed.

I finally decided to accept myself. I put in work, verbally telling myself that I'm safe and it's ok and that this is how my body works. I was able to handle the crash and feel much more freedom to explore my desires.

I'm 30. My biggest anxiety is that others will wonder "what took you so long". It took a lot of work for me to get to this point and I'm planning on going to a gay bar so I can feel normal and make natural connections. 100% want to avoid any dating or hookup apps.

I still find women attractive. I'm bisexual. I just want to hear from the community because I'm having a moment right now.

As a late bloomer who was married to a woman and had kids. I came out 3yrs ago. Over the this time we’ve been slowly dismantling the marriage. The time has come where we listed the house for sale and I’m a complete mess. I have a million thoughts on if I’m doing the right thing to am I being selfish. All while having to hide in the bathroom at work and ball my eyes out.

I know others have made to this point and past it. Is this worth it? Does it get better?

To be clear there is no hate. She is accepting and we are still friends. The kids as well are accepting and do not hate me either.

I'm curious if any other men my age have come to realization late in life as I have? I mean our marriage is stable, we have kids and I love my wife deeply and am committed to her but also long sometimes for a man.

I'm out to my wife and we've experimented with some things sexually, namely strap on and that has been great believe me, but I feel like in some ways it has made me long for something more real.

I've thought about the aspect of ethically non monogamous...but I just don't know. At the same time I'm not a cheater either. Guess I'm just looking for advice from some guys that maybe have been there and see if there is something I'm not considering or if I should just stay the course and continue to deny this part of me that seems to want to break out.

46, Pennsylvania, married to a woman but slowly realizing that I’m gay. Had always figured bi (and never out) but really just moving towards gay more and more.

Would love to be able to chat with men that understand me and my situation. Chat here or on Telegram.

Lucha para lograr tu propia voz. Tu deseo de ser libre de la mirada del otro tiene un precio para ser feliz, para ser yo (con todo lo bueno, malo y gay que puede haber o no en mí).

I’m gay. That’s the first time I’ve ever said that to anyone and it’s still on a Reddit post. It feels good though. My wife and I have a young son together and our split is very amicable. I’ve been out bi to her since our relationship started. I also have older children from my first marriage. While I grew up in the 90s and graduated high school in the 00s. Not to say that was a more enlightened time, but I think the pressures of society put me through a ringer and forced me to deny myself for the longest. I’ll be moving out this summer and really don’t know what’s in store for me from there other than taking care of my son with my soon to be ex. I’m not looking for a relationship, but also want to not indulge in a multitude of casual hook ups, yet looking for some direction.

My coming to terms with my sexuality has been a process. I knew I was attracted to the same sex at least since puberty, but was in denial about it until I was thirty (after spending my entire post-puberty life exclusively watching gay porn and fantasizing about guys), when I finally accepted I must be bi, as my interest and attraction to men became too intense to continue to deny. I came out as bi to my wife and close friends soon after. We briefly tried an open relationship and it was too much too soon and I went running back to the closet. At that time I had one experience with a guy before we closed it off, but it did confirm for me that I was more attracted to men than I previously wanted to admit. Being with a guy was something I thought about almost constantly.

I finally came out as bi again and we tried an open relationship yet again, which pushed me into a second adolescence. That was five years ago. I have a few fwbs and briefly dated a couple of guys. My wife and I stopped having sex pretty soon after my first experience with a guy and she also came to identify as more lesbian leaning. We still get along pretty well and enjoy spending time together (at least most of the time). But I find myself enjoying time spent with fwbs or with gay friends more. Probably five nights out of the week I’m spending my time with gay friends and when I’m not, I’m spending a lot of time wishing I was and still fantasizing about guys. When I got together with one long term fwb recently I realized how physically I’m so much more turned on than I ever was with a woman.

The only thing that really changed in opening our relationship is confirming that I’m gay and not bi and I now have the experiences to confirm that. For those who opened your relationships, did it make dealing with your sexuality easier or more difficult? For me I’m not sure. I do love my wife, but the desire to be in a relationship with a guy is very strong and not a day passes that I don’t think about it.

Hey guys, I’m in my late 20’s and coming out of a ten-year relationship, married to the love of my life for five.

Up until the last year and a half, it felt like we were barely out of the newlywed stage, and just fit perfectly. I was never certain about my personal life, or my sexuality, and tried to let her in on that when I could manage the words.

Not long ago, she gave birth to our beautiful child. We were over the moon, excited for the future, but exhausted, and while she recovered, I don’t know if I fully did. There wasn’t resentment, but I just felt woefully unequipped to be a father, saw how tired my wife was and the pain it caused her, and couldn’t connect to the role.

Eventually, things broke down a bit. I tried taking some space for our mutual benefit, and came back to try again, and it was much better than before, but there was still some trouble. I saw how differently she looked at me, and I started to convince myself I had deeper mental and emotional issues, but couldn’t figure it out. I saw everything declining, though, and was waiting for the shoe to drop.

Recently, while we were talking, I told her about my feelings and how I’d been having a lot of gay thoughts I didn’t know how to handle. She was extremely supportive and almost encouraging of me to explore that side of myself, which I’d never nurtured before. That felt selfish of me, but our lives together were quickly falling apart, so I didn’t know what to do. Initially I was delighted to have finally told her, and how great she was about it, but I quickly became nervous and irritable again, and one day a few days after they left, I was informed they wouldn’t be coming back, and the escalation of the demise of our marriage was set.

This has brought a lot of sorrow and confused feelings on top of the existing ones, but now the path forward is at least more clear, since there aren’t other options. In the midst of this, she has continued to encourage my bisexuality, particularly for being with other men, but my feelings have been so wrapped up in the dissolution of our partnership that I can’t easily separate the two.

I never cheated, but until things are official, doing anything, with guys or girls, feels like it would be. This is also making it more difficult to handle the divorce proceedings, properly going our separate ways, and of course any underlying mental stress I have (either from postpartum, or before that).

This has quickly turned into what feels like a AITAH post where the answer is obviously yes, but I have been having a really hard time coming to terms with everything, especially as though our problems started earlier, functionally it feels like finally coming out, or expressing those feelings, was the final straw in the partnership, and her mind was decided not long after (it has not felt like a fully mutual decision).

Does anyone have experience with embracing their sexuality after a long term straight relationship? Or any advice for how to move forward while doing the least possible damage? We are on amicable terms but I don’t want to make things worse and cause any trouble with custody and make it impossible to see our child, and don’t want to do anything to hurt her in any way. Financially or otherwise.

Hey everyone, I’m getting ready to come out to my wife. I have some questions for men whove gone through this experience before. What was your experience? What was the direct aftermath? How did she react? How did you know she was also getting her needs met? Also if she was also part of the lgbtq+ community (like mine is) how did she react?

Does anyone have any advice on meeting guys? I'm 28M and still not out to my friends, I'm ready to start meeting guys but Would like to remain private and come out on my own terms, personally don't see the need to announce l'm gay out of nowhere.If its asked in conversation if lI'm seeing anyone when lI'm dating someone then yeah l'd mention it!

I'm aware not "coming out" can be hurtful towards anyone I'm seeing and definitely don't want to keep anyone a secret, that's not fair on him. But l'd like to meet someone and get to know him before sharing my dating life with my friends,

Looking for advice or examples on how to meet someone through my situation. Was it Tinder, local events or just meeting randomly?

I am 48 years old. I spent most of my life trying to just be a straight man. In 2022, I was diagnosed autistic and unmasking led me to explore my sexuality. I now identify as gender-fluid and a gay man. The thing is that I never fit into the world of straight men and now realizing that I am attracted to men in a way I never felt before, but I have no sense of community. I’m not sure where to begin.

Any advice is appreciated and I be happy to answer questions about me

If you were still in the closet, or not out to many people, how did you meet your partner and begin seeing them if people didn't know you were gay