What bi-dad actually means in practice
The phrase "bi dad" sounds like an identity claim. For most of the men reading this, it's just an accurate description of two facts that happen to be true at once: you have children, and you have attractions you didn't ask for and aren't going away.
Most bi dads in the UK are partnered with the mother of their children, have not told her, and have done very little or nothing about the attraction. A smaller group are separated or divorced, and the question is now about how this fits into co-parenting.
A smaller group again are out, partnered with another man or single, and the question is mostly about how to talk to the kids over time. None of those are the wrong starting point.
If the parts of this that aren't about kids are the ones live in your head right now, bi and married covers the marriage piece directly. This page assumes the kids are part of the picture you're trying to think clearly about.
The "shielding the kids" instinct, and what it costs
The first move most fathers make when something feels destabilising is to shield the children from it. That instinct is decent, and broadly correct. It also has a cost, and naming the cost honestly is part of being a useful parent here.
Shielding the kids from your bisexuality, kept up across years, almost always means shielding them from a piece of who their dad is. Children pick up on the shape of what's not being said long before they have the vocabulary for it. The thing they tend to notice first isn't "dad is bi" — it's "dad has a part of himself he's holding away from us", and that's a stranger thing to live with than the actual fact would be.
Shielding has its place — there are ages and stages where the right answer is "not now, not in this much detail". The cost only starts mounting when "not now" quietly becomes "not ever".
Whether to tell, when to tell, what to say
There isn't a fixed age or a script. There's a rough principle: tell them when the silence starts costing more than the conversation would, in language that fits where they are.
Under about seven, kids don't need a label conversation at all. What they need is the texture: that families come in different shapes, that some men love men, some women love women, some people love both, and all of those are normal.
You don't have to apply any of that to yourself yet. You're laying the groundwork so the later conversation isn't a surprise.
From roughly seven to twelve, the conversation can become more direct if your situation calls for it — a new partner, a separation, a question they've asked. Honest, calm, short. "Dad is bi, which means I can be attracted to men as well as women. Mum and I have talked about it. Nothing about how much I love you changes."
Teenagers handle this better than most parents expect. They will ask precise questions, and the right answer is usually the precise one. They are also the age group most likely to be quietly relieved that you've told them — particularly if they're working out something about themselves.
If you're separating or have separated
If the marriage isn't continuing, the order in which you say things to the kids matters more than the exact words. Separations land first; orientation lands second, separately, when the dust has settled enough for it to land cleanly.
Telling the kids "we're separating because dad is bi" — even when the orientation is genuinely part of the why — collapses two big things into one and tends to make them carry the wrong narrative for years. The cleaner version is that the marriage isn't continuing, you both still love them, the practical arrangements are X. The bi part, if it needs explaining at all, comes later as its own conversation.
If you've already separated and the orientation conversation has been hanging in the air, coming out later in life is the page about the broader logistics of that arc. This section is just the bit about the kids.
The legal worry
The fear that a court could reduce your contact with your children because you're bi is almost always a hangover from a previous era of UK law and culture, not a description of the law as it stands. It's worth saying clearly, because the fear is what most often stops bi dads getting honest advice.
What courts care about is the welfare of the child: stability, safety, the relationship with each parent, and the practical arrangements proposed. If you're going through a separation and have specific worries, get specific advice from a family solicitor or one of the LGBT-aware family-support charities — Stonewall publishes families guidance, and FFLAG (fflag.org.uk) supports families and friends of LGBT people. This page won't recommend a specific firm, because the right one depends on your area and your situation.
Co-parenting honestly with a straight ex
If your ex is straight, or has read the bi part as a betrayal, the early conversations can be sharp. They tend to soften with time, particularly once it becomes clear that the orientation isn't a curveball aimed at the parenting.
The thing that helps most is keeping the parenting conversation and the orientation conversation separate. Schedules, money, school decisions, holidays — those don't have anything to do with who you're attracted to, and treating them as if they do tends to drag everything sideways. If the orientation is changing the practical picture (a new partner, a different living arrangement), that's worth flagging cleanly when it's relevant, not pre-emptively.
If the underlying agreement of the marriage is what's now under negotiation rather than ended, mixed-orientation marriage covers what those agreements can actually look like in practice — the glossary entry defines the term itself.
Modelling what you wish your dad had modelled
Most bi dads reading this had fathers who couldn't or wouldn't model anything like honesty about themselves. The version you can offer your own kids is different, and it doesn't require coming out on a particular timeline to count.
What you're modelling, ultimately, is that adults can hold complicated truths about themselves, talk about them when the time is right, and get on with the business of loving the people they live with. Whether your kids end up bi, gay, straight or somewhere else entirely, that's a useful thing for them to have seen up close.
Some bi dads find that a small bi event once a quarter — adult-only, low-key — is what their social calendar needs to keep them whole, somewhere they don't have to explain anything. Our partner Biphoria keeps a current calendar of UK events, run with that audience in mind.