Partners of bisexual fathers: Feelings about bisexuality and experiences of family life.

Abstract

Bisexual fathers have rarely been visible within psychological research, and the perspectives of their partners have not been studied. Exploring partners' perspectives brings into focus how fathers' bisexuality is experienced on a family level, incorporating a family systems lens alongside minority stress and resilience theories. This article draws from a larger multimethod, multi-informant study of bisexual father families. It reports on how partners of bisexual fathers feel about fathers' bisexuality, including how they respond to disclosure and how they experience family life. Qualitative, semistructured interviews with 10 partners of bisexual fathers, which focused on being a parent, family roles, well-being, social experiences, and fathers' bisexual identity, were conducted. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative content analysis identified that partners' feelings varied at the time fathers disclosed their bisexuality, and the majority felt positive about this at the time of interview. Reflexive thematic analysis identified three themes in partners' experiences of family life: Family life was "privately nonnormative" and moved between being "publicly normative" and "publicly nonnormative," depending on personal and contextual factors. Findings illustrate that while disclosure of fathers' bisexuality may be initially challenging, partners tended to feel more positive over time and incorporate fathers' bisexuality into their overall sense of family identity, engaging in what can be conceptualized as family identity management. This study highlights the need to further understand the impact of a parent's queer identity on other family members' experiences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).