My partner (30F) and I (32M) have been together for 6 years. We’re engaged and have built a beautiful life together. A huge component of our relationship has been supporting each other in healing our past traumas and helping the other achieve emotional and spiritual stability. We are, at this point in our relationship, the happiest and most vulnerable we have ever been with each other. We are struggling, however, with our physical relationship.

I have been openly bi for many years and when we started seeing each other, I helped her come to acknowledge her own same sex attraction. I am still the only one of us that has had the space to fully explore my queerness. Over the last 1.5 years, our sexual relationship has dwindled significantly. Sex has become almost impossible for her to enjoy or even entertain. We’ve been talking about and working on it for a long time.

Today, while discussing this, we both agreed that the roadblock is her need to explore her queer identity. It’s become clear that this is deeply painful for her. I told her in no uncertain terms that, regardless of the outcome, I want her to open that door and give her self the chance to experience that unexplored part of who she is.

We’ve discussed ENM in the past and have done a lot of research. We ultimately decided that we didn’t have a strong enough foundation to explore it. I think we’re there now and I know that she needs this. She’s realizing this as well, but she’s frightened it will lead to the end of our partnership. Ultimately, we want the best for each other.

TLDR: I’m bi, my partner has realized she’s bi, how do I help her have the queer adolescence that she needs?