Late bloomer in self acceptance strikes again!

Howdy all.

35m here, married to a man. I recently experienced some revelations i thought I'd share, as it's been....illuminating trying to better navigate my own feelings on the matter.

I've always identified as a gay man. "Finding myself" and navigating my own self-growth was never easy for me, and I almost think it was an easy out to identify as Gay. I have an amaaaaazing human partner in my life and i don't feel any pressure to find love elsewhere; however, I've always maintained an attraction sexually to women also. (I dated some women prior to meeting my spouse) It's just...kind of always been there. My partner knew that and it's always just kind of been, "Oh, that's his thing". And I accepted that, almost as a joke. I had a good friend when I lived elsewhere some years back who always laughingly(but in a loving way) said, "If you wanted a more accurate label, it'd be Bisexual/Homoromantic" as I've really only ever emotionally/romantically connected with men. He'd say, but if you're worried about labels, just don't stress it. Have fun, life your life. But I did. Stress it.

Well this weekend, we took some time out in Tokyo, had a weekend out on the town. I ended up meeting someone(we're fairly open to a controlled degree) and I chatted with her and had some drinks, and just shared some good vibes street drinking. I'll fast forward through the more adult portions of the evening(morning?). I learned a lot about myself that weekend. She was aware of my identity as I briefly shared some of my experiences. She even asked if I thought I'd want to hear her opinion and I did. It was illuminating.

What I've learned is that I've always generally had a fear, albeit not an amazingly large one, of personal growth, or more accurately, navigating any uncertainties in my own self identity. It makes me feel, i don't know...vulnerable? Well, whatever it was, I kind of reached a breaking point recently and I just decided to dive in and search. I went with the flow, and didn't stress about who I was in the moment. I found out kind of what I've always known, but hearing it from someone else made it more "real" i guess. I think that's what I'm most dealing with now. The internal dialogues and back and forths I've always had almost seem silly now lol. I think i was probably the biggest barrier standing in my own way. I've also learned, and now thinking about it, it seems obvious; my identity is a lot more important to me than I realized. I'm Bisexual. I've always known it. But now, I'm really being honest with myself and it's been interesting navigating my feelings on the matter. They're more positive which i'm thankful for. My fears additionally i think stemmed from sharing that with my spouse. Will they see me differently? Will they have negative feelings about it? Turns out nope. I got mostly, "Duhs", "We knew that's" and "It's about F###ing time"s lol.

I've been fortunate to have good friends and folks close to me whom I've known for a long time to share this with and bounce things off of. There was a lot of older stories and bringing up memories, where they pretty much said, "See! Right there! I told you! You're you!", etc. I feel more "real" I guess, and it's almost a liberating feeling. My coming out as gay was overshadowed by a lot at that time in my life, to include active military service which made things.....interesting. Being able to more, if I can hopefully say this, self-actualize myself now has been more positive and I think I now have a better perspective about who I am and what's important to me. Anyway, didn't want to ramble. I just felt like sharing. Thanks for reading.