Telling Him is Telling Yourself

Samantha Fox: From day one, we are told who we should be, how to live, and what's acceptable. Before we even have a chance to discover ourselves, our society has already drawn those lines for us. But what happens when those lines are keeping us from knowing and embracing who we truly are? Welcome to Unbox Yourself with Samantha Fox, a podcast about unpacking and unlearning everything that's kept you from living as your true self. Through honest conversations about your internal emotional landscape, sexuality, coming out later in life, relationships, and the journey to self-acceptance, we break free from the boxes we never chose. Hello and welcome to Unbox Yourself with Samantha Fox. Today I'm doing a solo podcast and popping on to answer a question that a woman recently asked me on social media, which was, How did you tell him? How did you tell him? And that is what I want to talk about today. So if you are here and you are listening to this podcast, it's very possible that you Have learned something new about yourself, which is you are not straight, possibly you're not even bisexual, and you're starting to feel like you're most likely gay. I've heard everything from women ranging from them having told their male partner. early in the relationship when they first met that they were bisexual or that they've had experiences with women. I've never heard of a male partner having any kind of issue with that, any kind of concern about that. They all seem okay with it. And, it's possible that you did not know and like me, you had absolutely no idea, you never told him anything because it was not coming up to a conscious level for you. So Everything across the gamut from I've been with women, I've dated women, I've slept with women, I like women, I'm attracted to women, I identify as bisexual, to nothing at all, right? I'm straight. in my case, when it came time to quote unquote tell him, in fact, he knew before me because I had a catalyst, I was married, I had three kids under five years old, and it was the first time, it was a summer after nine eleven, the first time my youngest child was also in camp in the summertime. So I was free. I had free time in the daytime for the first time in many, many years. And I used that time to start going to yoga. And that was how I met my catalyst. My catalyst was my yoga teacher. So cliche, I know. I was 32, she was 26. We became fast friends, or you know, some kind of connection prompted by me. And As soon as he saw her the first time, and granted, I had no idea I had any feelings for her other than being obsessed with her. I did not know I was attracted to her. I did not know I was gay. I did not know I would want to kiss her or anything. The first time he saw her, he said to me, Is she a lesbian? And I said, Not that I know of. She's only ever dated men, which was true. And so he planted that seed in my head that she might be gay. And still I was not coming to a conscious awareness about anything about me being gay. I just was magnetized, I was obsessed, I was in limerence, I felt like I just wanted to be around her, but I really didn't know why. And it wasn't until the first night that I went out with her for dinner when my husband at the time tried to call me. We did have cell phones back then. This is going back to 2002. He tried to call me about 26 times on my cell phone, and my cell phone was in my bag underneath the chair at the table I was sitting at with her in a Thai restaurant. We were having dinner. The dinner was probably four and a half to five hours long, very typical for a lesbian first date. If you have not had one, expect to be there a long time if you connect with the person. So I was at the table with her, we were chatting, there was no flirting per se, or saying that we were gonna be together or anything like that. I honestly did not know. She did not know we were both totally new to this. And he called me about 26 times and I never answered the phone. And then it was after 10 p.m., which was my bedtime. So at home, when he and I were home together, at 10 p.m. I went to sleep. If there was anything that he wanted me for, it had to happen before 10 p.m. Because at 10 p.m. my light was out and I was done. So now I'm out to dinner, which He knew I was out to dinner with her. It is after 10 p.m. I am not answering my phone, which is like there is no part of Samantha who would be awake past 10 p.m. and not answering her phone. My kids are with a babysitter. He's not nearby. He was in the city and I was out at the beach and he completely panicked. I looked at my phone after dinner. It must have been about 11, 1115. I looked at my phone and I saw there were 26 missed phone calls. And I called him back and he went completely ballistic on me. You know, what is going on? Are you having an affair? you've never stayed out this late, you don't stay out past 10, and you always answer your phone. and he started to become very suspicious. Now I still did not know what was happening. And I guess I had almost a block to it because I remember as I was getting dressed to go meet her for dinner, I was on a call with a friend. And I said to her, you know, we were talking about what I was going to wear on this date to go out with her. And I said, I feel like I'm getting dressed up to go on a date. But it wasn't registering that that could mean that I was gay. I mean, I was really, really blocked, clearly. So the next morning. He was supposed to stay in the city for the day and he was gonna come back that night or the next day. The next morning he canceled all of his meetings and came straight to the beach. He got there in the morning. I was in the bathtub. And he comes into the bathroom and he is completely distressed, deep in the bubbles in the bath, and he says to me, Samantha, are you a lesbian? And I was like, I was like shocked. Said, no, I'm not a lesbian. I'm not a lesbian. And he said, because you're you're really acting like one, And I said, you know, I met somebody, we had great conversation, we were having a good time. you know, how does that make me a lesbian? so I really dissuaded him from that, but It planted some kind of a seed in my head. And he was the one who said, Are you a lesbian? way before I ever even had to come clean with the fact that I had fallen for this woman. So from that point, it went about another five or six weeks. I then told him that I had fallen in love with her and that I was gay. So, you know, it wasn't the same as so many of you out there and so many women that I work with that are having this awareness. I mean, there is so much more representation today than there was when this happened for me in 2002. I thought I was truly the only woman in this world that this had ever happened to. today, there are lesbian couples, all over social media, you could watch any any shows, movies. I mean, they're everywhere, right? So we are much more exposed to this. And had I been exposed to that in the same way back then, it's possible I would have been where so many of you are, which is how do I tell him that I'm having these feelings? What I want to say about that question is It's like, how can you not tell him about having those feelings? and I don't say that in a judgmental way because clearly I was having those feelings. And I I mean, I wasn't able to to comprehend what they were, but I was not sharing them with him beyond telling him that I was obsessed with her. I did tell him that, but I didn't tell him when I started becoming actually. sensually attracted to her. I did not tell him that until a number of weeks had gone by and I realized there is no way out of this. I I have fallen off the edge of a cliff and there is no getting back up on that cliff again. And at that point I did tell him that I was gay and that we couldn't stay married. So I wanna encourage you to ask yourself a couple of questions about What feels so hard about sharing this information with him? is it that telling him that you're gay means you have to face that you're gay? Does it mean that you have to face that? There might be a lot of changes coming down the road for you and your life, that people might be really disappointed, your family might be disappointed, all the people that were so happy about the two of you getting together, what a beautiful couple you make, what a beautiful family you've made. That telling him that you're having these feelings means that you're the one that is going to be pulling all of this apart and, you know. changing the course of both of your lives when the dreams were that you would build a life together? does it have anything to do with your own Difficulty in seeing yourself as a gay person in the world and what would that mean about you if you were a gay person in the world? Meaning all of the things that are said in our homophobic society that now get pointed at you and you start to internalize those feelings of homophobia and hold them against yourself, right? you're disgusting, you're terrible, you're sinful, you're gonna go to hell, you're just a terrible person for doing this. are those kinds of narratives running through your mind? Are you hearing parts of you say these things to you? I guess what I'm asking you is, what is the main thing that makes it feel so hard to tell him this? What is it that feels so scary about telling him? the way the question gets asked to me is like I don't know how to tell him. And when I hear that, sometimes I think, I wonder if this is more about you not being able to hear this yourself, not being able to face the change and the uncertainty and the loss and the things that are going to happen. when he finds this out, not because he's gonna make those changes, but because you for the first time are going to be actually feeling the truth and the weight of this reality, of this truth that you're holding and that you haven't been able to say out loud. And so telling him becomes a way that you're actually telling yourself. And so when you say I don't know how to tell him, is it really I don't know how to tell myself this? I don't know how to make sense of this myself. I don't know how to come to terms with this myself. And that is so valid because this is huge and it is extremely difficult. I always say it's not for the faint of heart. The one thing that has really surprised me is that women have a best friend, so many of them, in their male partner, and that they are able to share this and actually talk about it and talk about the different possibilities because the truth is that there are many possibilities. And that might not be the case for the two of you because. You might not be open to different possibilities like practicing ethical non-monogamy where you're in a platonic partnership with your male partner, but you're also dating women or have a female partner. you might not be open to that. He might not be open to that, but that doesn't mean that those possibilities are not out there, right? So everybody has a choice, everybody has agency, all you have control of is yourself, right? So Doing the work to understand yourself and unpack the conditioning so you actually know what it is that you want. is one way to go about this where the two of you don't have to necessarily separate so quickly because there can be a space where everything is being held. And I see this happening all the time. I have multiple women in the Beyond Strait community that are. know living with their male partners. Their male male partners are either dating or have girlfriends. they have a platonic relationship, but they still have a family relationship with their male partner, these women, and they're either just doing the work on themselves and taking a little break from trying to, show up in the world in a way that makes everybody happy. and also unpack and unlearn the conditioning that got them into that place in the first place. and they're not even dating yet. maybe they had a catalyst, maybe they had somebody wake them up, but they're not really engaging in a relationship because they realize they need a break and they realize they need to do the work. And so there's a lot of space, and I've seen this like a million iterations of how this can actually work for so many couples that does not look like blowing your life up in the way that I blew my life up. In fact, I would say my situation is one of the more rare situations. And more people these days are able to actually share this with their partner. And the sharing of it might sound something like: remember when I told you that I was bisexual when we first met? Remember when I told you I was attracted to women? Remember when I told you I find women attractive. I've realized that. I'm actually more attracted to women than I am to men. And I love you, so much as a person, but in terms of my attraction, it is not toward men. I'm attracted to women. that's one possibility. Or if you've never ever told him before, it might just be, hey, you know, I have something that's been on my mind and I I want to share it with you. I can't keep this to myself. I am not straight. You know, I th I thought I was straight. And to my surprise, I'm finding myself feeling very attracted to women. And I'm not sure what that means. And I'm not sure what that means for us. I don't have any answers, but I don't want you to be in the dark about that. You know, I care about you. we've built a life together, and I want to share that with you. I want you to know. And I would love if we could navigate this together. And at that point, I would suggest joining Beyond Straight and also joining Unbox Your Sexuality, the sexuality liberation program that I have, because those will help you navigate this process. Another thing I want to say is there is no way to go through this process without so many conflicting feelings and so much. loss and there's excitement and there's new possibility and there also is so much loss and grieving and letting go of a life that you had hoped to live, that you had wanted to live, letting go of being loved in a certain way by somebody that has loved you for a lifetime, you know, and maybe had you up on a pedestal and really valued you and you know thinks that you're the best thing ever. and the idea of letting that go and letting him start to, you know, put his attention onto another woman, all of these things are difficult, all of these things are painful. and they all lead to your eventual freedom to be totally authentically woman-loving woman, which is why you're listening to this podcast. I'm gonna close it up here. I really just wanted to say, you know, that question, which is how do I tell him? I just gave you a number of different ways to tell him. The question is, what are you afraid of? And is it that telling him is making it more real for you? And that feels really, really difficult. And if it does feel really, really difficult to face, is that because even though you love gay people and you support gay people and you have gay friends and whatnot, the idea of you being gay feels really, really impossible. And if that is true, I would say you are struggling with internalized homophobia, which is very stealth and not that easy to decipher. and you need to do some targeted work around that. So you understand where that's coming from and so that you're able to soften it. Thank you for being here. Beyond Straight is the community that is here for you, where women are in all iterations of this process. And unbox your sexuality. A sexuality liberation program is the program where you're going to do the work to unpack, unlearn, and unleash your authentic self. So wherever you are on this journey, there is a place for you. Thank you for spending this time with me on Unbox Yourself with Samantha Fox. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a review. It helps more folks find these conversations. If you're ready to unbox from something that's keeping you stuck, I would love to support you. You can find the application to the show at unboxyoursexuality.com. Let's stay connected. Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at lesbiancuriositycoach. Give me a follow and join the conversation. Remember, we only have this one time through. Why not unbox yourself and let your true self shine in all its beautiful glory?