They laugh about it together. When social worker Laura Grimes gets on the phone nowadays to her old friend Sarah – who co-led a bisexual women’s support group with her five years ago in Chicago – they often discuss how each of them is now in a committed, monogamous relationship with a woman. And they tease each other about how their bi “credentials” may be slipping away.

It’s not entirely a laughing matter, however, for Laura, who has led several bisexual support groups and seen hundreds of women struggling with the question of identity. Single bisexual women may find the identity question a little easier – their options are more open. “Society supports non-monogamy,” Laura says, “if you’re single.” But serious coupling complicates matters.

A bisexual woman who is married to a man, according to Laura, is more likely to maintain her bisexual identity – which may or may not include bisexual behavior – than if she were partnered with a woman. “But it’s also more likely to be a secret that festers,” Laura explains. Even in a truly monogamous marriage, “your identity and desire don’t disappear with a commitment,” Laura says. But, to the straight world, calling yourself bisexual conjures up images of three-ways and infidelities, so bi married women tend to keep their bisexuality quiet.

Exploring bisexual behavior for a married woman is usually an even bigger secret. That’s because there is very little societal support for non-monogamous marriage and even less for what Laura calls “duogamy,” which she describes as an often “desirable” arrangement for bisexual women in heterosexual marriages. Duogamy consists of a separate relationship with each of two people, which distinguishes it from a threesome, where all three people are in the relationship together. A bisexual woman in a “duogamous” arrangement is most often in a sexual and/or romantic relationship with only two people: her husband/male partner and her female lover.

Laura’s been there. She spent two years living with both her husband and her lesbian partner. Trying to maintain both relationships demanded a lot of energy, Laura says, which ultimately contributed to both break-ups. In her support groups, most bisexual women who were trying duogamy also ended one or both relationships after wrestling with the daunting task of keeping two relationships afloat. Frequently, she says, the unmarried woman “gets sick of always being second” in importance and decides to leave.

For Laura, the difficulty in being a bisexual woman married to a man was the result of societal misperception. “I found it hard,” she explains, “because I didn’t like the way society saw me, as automatically in a ‘less-than’ or subservient role. People assumed things about my role as a supposedly heterosexual wife that they wouldn’t as a woman in a relationship with another woman.” In relationships with women, Laura says, people assume less about roles. “With Mo, I’m fine being a ‘wife,’ her spouse, because we define what that means.” Part of that self-definition has included Laura changing her last name to Mo’s last name. The two have been together five years and fully intend to stay together for the rest of their lives.

Laura’s decision to be in a same-sex relationship also arose from her preference for the GLBT community over “the straight world,” she says. Even when she was married to her husband, she felt she had more in common with their mutual gay and lesbian friends than with other heterosexually married couples.

But both “worlds” put pressure on bisexuals, she says. “Communities make you choose. We don’t like ‘gray.’ If you’re bi-racial, for example, people will ask if you identify as black or white. We need people to fit into our categories. It’s why we make it so hard on the trans community.” Even when transgendered individuals are in transition, Laura explains, “they have to choose male or female because of society’s discomfort.”