It's a fine between using labels to help define yourself and realizing that labels can also limit or restrict you. Ultimately, you need to find a balance within yourself where you feel comfortable being you.

I've spent years conflicted inside myself because I felt a need to fit within social standards. As a teen, I was gay because I actively had homosexual relationships, yet no one publicly would have guessed. In university, due to the environment there was no way I was able to act upon my homosexual side, I even tried to have girlfriends to follow the social norm. I tried again to pursue my gay side after school, and after some heartbreaking experiences I found myself with a woman. I had never planned on it, but I grew to love her and learned to be attracted to her. Where I'm going with this, it that for decades I have lived as a straight male, and identified as a bisexual male to some to at least capture my homosexual side. However, it wasn't until I was 46 years old and after some therapy, I came out to my family and friends as gay. I've been gay my whole life, I've just been wearing the guises of other sexualities to make others feel comfortable. Even after coming out as gay, I still have those that tell me I'm bisexual because I love my wife and have an attraction to her. Sure, if one were to take labels as absolutes, I'm not 100% homosexual, so can I be gay? Of course I can...I'm simply "gay except for my wife"...I have no attraction to any other woman...everything else is for men.

All this to say, that after decades of conflict, both internally and externally, I am comfortable saying that I'm "gay except for my wife". It's who I am...it's who I feel I am. I'm comfortable telling others that they can believe or label me what they want, but I know who I am. You need to find who you are comfortable being, what others believe is not a factor.

Good luck.