Boyfriend with Secrets

Hi.....ok where do I start? Been with my boyfriend for 10 years....we have 2 children together. Recently I had been feeling like he was acting funny... distant. I thought he may be cheating with a woman, a man never crossed my mind at this point. So I put an app on his phone that would allow me to listen to his phone calls. I received a notification that he called a strange # I didn't know. I called it and a man answered....I hung up thinking phew he's not cheating. I listened to the phone call later in the evening and it was him calling this random guy using terms like glad u can host....asking him which positions he preferred....he was very explicit with his words. Told the guy he would love to meet up for sex.... that he was bisexual and he had a girlfriend (me) and he had to plan around me. I immediately confronted him. Told him I had him on record. He told me its not what I think and he was told by guys he works with if he called this guy and pretended to be gay when he got to his house there would be females there and he could pick one. He said he wanted one for a 3some for "us" -- a girl that is. So I called the guy and explained to him that I was his girlfriend and I heard the conversation between them. I told him what my boyfriend said about the guys at work giving him his number and asked him about these "girls" He apologized ,said he felt really bad and said he met him on an adult website and that there were no girls. He laughed actually and said that was completely untrue. When I confronted my boyfriend that I had spoken with him he got angry and denied being bisexual. I also told him he said he met him on an adult website he said a guy at work let him use his profile to talk to him so he could get "the girls".....I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. I know he's lying but my question to you is he is clearly caught red handed and still denies it, do I just accept this? He says I made it up. What scared me is in the conversation he said he had a 3 yr hook up and it was his first bareback experience.....he quoted it as "great....a whole 'nother ball game" and told this guy he doesn't even know that he'd like to have bareback sex with him and he said he's a bottom. That's scary with aids now a days. Why won't he just admit it???? I feel violated and deceived. I can't trust him. He did tell the guy on the phone that he is very discreet and "nobody knows and that's the way he likes it." Will he never admit this to me out of pride? Please help.....I just do not understand. :( 

What you've got here is a man who is attracted to other men -- and obviously acting upon those feelings -- and is deeply ashamed of it. There is often a disconnect between a man's true sexual orientation and how he identifies. [Some people have wrongly asserted that there are "straight" men who seek sex with other men, but unless we're dealing. on occasion, with victims of childhood sexual abuse, that's simply not true.] Your boyfriend probably doesn't think of himself as gay or bisexual because he has a girlfriend and children, is living a straight life [the one that's out in the open, at least], and sees himself as a man who can "pass" [as straight], not realizing that this is the case with most gay men -- most are not effeminate and flamboyant.

I obviously don't need to tell you that you can't believe anything your boyfriend is telling you, because you've already caught him in so many lies. Do you just accept this? Absolutely not. Guys like this often think they're not cheating if they're having sex with guys, but he is cheating, and lying about it besides. Why won't he admit it? In my experience guys like this usually tell the men they're involved with -- or at least having sex with -- that they like women [if for no other reason than to feel somehow superior or more macho] but they rarely if ever tell the women in their lives that they go with other men. Often these men are not truly bisexual in any case -- their behavior is bisexual [they go with both men and women] but they can't even allow themselves to admit that their preference may be men or that they are basically gay. They are full of self-loathing over their homosexual feelings.

Which brings us to the business with bare-backing, which is anal sex without a condom. This is risky behavior for a top, let alone a bottom, and again, it indicates a severe self-loathing, a lack of regard for himself, his sex partners and especially you.

This man needs therapy or counseling to help accept himself. You can not "accept" this situation if for no other reason than your own health is at risk, not to mention your emotional well-being. With the situation you've got now, it will be impossible to build upon a relationship with a man so obviously conflicted, dishonest, and apparently geared towards men if he's honest with himself. Insist that he be honest with you and discuss it in a non-judgmental way.

You have a right to be with a man who isn't keeping secrets from you. There have been women who let their gay or bisexual lovers have their little side flings from time to time, but count me among those who don't think that this arrangement, especially in this day and age, is fair to anyone -- especially when the man is into barebacking.