Married and bisexual

[Penrhys]

I know there’s a lot of no people like me, that’s a comfort in a way.
I’ve at last admitted to myself that I’m bisexual. I want to tell my wife but I’m scared of her reaction so I don’t tell her.
I want to explore sex with guys, safely and privately. She wouldn’t agree to me having sex with anyone else. So I can’t see the point in telling her, and I would hate her toting that every time I’m not home I’m having sex with men, which I am not. But i have done a few times.

[Heather]

Hi there, Penrhys.

I understand the conflict you're having, but we're never going to advise people in monogamous relationships to have sex outside those relationships without telling the other person, for a few reasons.

For one, it gets in the way of meaningful consent for any sex your wife has with you. She's thinking she is consenting to sex with someone who is only with her, without any additional health risks of sex outside the marriage, and she's also consenting to sex with the idea that it's sex with a monogamous partner. But instead, what she'd need to be agreeing to, for her consent to sex with you to be actually meaningful, is sex with someone who isn't monogamous, who is having sex with other people, and with whom she is then also sharing the elevated level of health risk involved when someone has more than one partner. That also doesn't allow you both to make agreements about, for instance, what safer sex practices you'll be using or how often you're testing.

Next, you're violating her trust by having sex with people outside your marriage without her actually agreeing to that. You made an agreement with her that you've been breaking, and that it sounds like you continue to break: that's just not okay when it comes to doing right y her as a human being and, ostensibly, someone you love.

You're also limiting her agency in her choices about this relationship because you are withholding information from her that it sounds like she clearly would want to know, because, as you've said, you don't think this is something she would actually agree to.

The theme with all of those issues and others is that there is a point of telling her, and the point is to treat her and your relationship with her with care and respect, to allow her to choose what kind of relationships she's in, and things like what health risks she is or isn't willing to take . The point of telling her is that she deserves agency in your relationship, just like you do, just like anyone does.

If and when we are in a monogamous relationship and we don't want to be anymore, we have two ethical options: we can tell the person we're in that relationship with and ask for a change to a consensually open relationship (and then work out our boundaries, limits and agreements) or you can choose to leave that monogamous relationship to seek out whatever it is we're wanting that that relationship doesn't allow for.

Do you love and care about your wife? Is this a relationship and a marriage that you cherish, want to still be in, and want to still be an active part of? Besides the sex with men you want to have and have been having, how is the relationship otherwise? Is it beneficial to you both? Are you happy with each other in it?