Is a Heterosexual Marriage Sustainable After Realizing You're a Lesbian? 

A lot of people probably suppress their desires. It's similar to being single or being in an unrequited-love scenario.

If you're able to repress your desires yes, but it may still lead to a loveless marriage. If you are truthful with yourself, it would be almost impossible to fight your inner urges.

This is an exceptionally great topic. Knowing both of my great-grandparents on my maternal grandfather's side were secretly homosexual living in a heterosexual marriage, it got me thinking a lot back then. I'm not a lesbian woman, but a gay man, so please nobody take offense in case I say something weird :D I have seen dozens upon dozens of married couples who were very unhappy in the marriage. Some were even pathologically miserable, for several years. There are a lot of factors in play here, according to both psychology and what I've seen over the years: traumas related to narcissistic abuse, peer pressure, lack of self-awareness and of course what these all come down to, which is co-dependency (aka relationship addiction). It's completely similar to any biochemical addiction. Co-dependent relationship patterns are pretty much hardwired in many many many people's brains today. The fact that people glorify marriage and having kids more and more by the day just adds fuel to the fire I think. A big family is the desired way of life according to trends, and so people go above and beyond to make this happen at all costs. This is where it all starts to go downhill. People don't take the time to get to know themselves first, they rush into a marriage and parenthood and in their haste, they never truly learn what their own desires, wants and needs truly are. The human soul, however, can't be fooled and put on ice. Living a life other than what aligns with your inner self-image, your wants and needs, causes disharmony within the unconscious. It will eventually seep into our conscious self and begin psychosomatically manifesting itself in our bodies. It begins with a constant feleing of discontent. Feeling out of tune with your own self every second of every day may disrupt healthy sleep patterns, cause anxiety, mood swings, depression and even seemingly unrelated symptoms like occasional joint pain, migraines and sometimes auto-immune diseases. People only ever reach the point of "Sort of OK" with this way of living. It slowly enters their comfort zone, they develop coping mechanisms such as selective hearing and sometimes even complete numbness to the partner's existence. This is the point where they begin saying things like "10 years are 10 years, this isn't something we can just throw away", or "We've worked for years to get this house, I'm not giving it up", or "I'll do it for the kids' sake". These are ways of avoiding responsibility, blame shifting and just lazily sitting in the lukewarm piss that is one's comfort zone. All the while both partners know deep down that they want something else. They both feel the physical and mental pain that they cause by staying in the relationship/situation. What they don't truly know are their true desires in life and their real nature. They lack true self-awareness and that automatically comes down to the inability to properly see life and the world for what it is. If you can't do that, you won't be able to become whole and content with your own life. All in all, I'm in total agreement with you on this. A heterosexual marriage for a lesbian is completely unsustainable, just as it is in any situation that one or maybe even both people in the relationship don't want. Us humans have both a physical and mental need for living a life true to our nature. Clever people said back then: what plagues the mind will poison the body.

I know some people open up the relationship - or makes a polyamourous relationship but for me it's very hard to think this in my head.

It was difficult for me coming out as a trans woman. I literally lost everything. I tried dating men, but that wasn't for me. I am a Lesbian now, not because that's what I decided to do, but because I realized that men are not my thing. Besides I grew up hating men. I am learning about the Lesbian lifestyle and am doing good so far. I hope to have a loving partner one day.

I have seen a lot of people in RU-vid comments say things like, “I’m 70 yrs old and gay and have been in a heterosexual relationship for 45 years”. Which always makes me pause and wonder how they did it. For myself, I have been married for 25 years and maybe everything wasn’t amazing for all those years, but it was ok. Surely, I can keep being ok, even though I now know more about myself? Maybe some things would be better in a same-sex marriage, but I would have to destroy a lot to make those gains. And establishing a healthy relationship with some yet unknown person is not guaranteed, whereas what I have now in my hetero marriage is tried and tested. At this point, I think it is better to live with some longing and loss, than destroy the lives of all the people I love.

I always have wondered if people have happily made this work

How can I love lesbians if I'm male, can you help me