A few weeks ago, I had an epiphany which was long overdue. I realized that I'm a lesbian. I've been in various levels of denial all my life. Panic set in. What about my husband of nearly ten years? I don't want to lose him, but I have to tell him. So, yesterday we sat down to talk. He took it well. He wasn't even terribly surprised. He asked me what I wanted. I told him that I didn't stop loving him just because I had finally accepted who I am. We decided to continue our life together. Of course he's confused: he doesn't understand why a lesbian would choose to live a straight life. My best friend is also questioning the honesty of such a choice. Any thoughts?
It obvious that you love him alot. I'm glad you decided to stay with him. As for you're friends question: I think your decision is the right one. You're able to love someone deeply even if its not a person your attracted to. I don't know if I'm seeing it quite the way you are, but wouldn't it be just like living with you're best friend? Which is obviously what you've been doing the past ten years. I'm wondering this...Do you have kids together? If you do, how are they taking it? And what are your plans for the rest of your relationship with your husband? Are you staying monogomous, having an open relationship, etc? I'm guessing you're not sexually attracted to him so there probably won't be much in the bedroom? (Just an assumption. Correct me if I'm wrong.) You may want to sit down with him and talk about what you want with your relationship because he's probably wondering the same thing. Men are very physical creatures :rolleyes: and probably won't like having no sex life anymore.
I don't know you so I could be wrong but from the outside it looks like although you have accepted that you are lesbian you don't want to, or can't embrace it yet and so by staying with your husband you are delaying the inevitable. These things take time but you do need to be brutally honest with yourself and your husband and he with you. The love, affection, and complicity that comes with 10 years of marriage doesn't need to be thrown in the bin, your relationship can turn into one of very close friendship where you share your lives, hopes, fears give happiness and joy to each other but, again I don't know you, I can't see the marriage carrying on for very much longer under these circumstances. Take one step at a time, accept that this is not the moment to make long term decisions and talk everything through with your husband. He does seem a wonderful man and is taking this all very well. Well done him!
We have no kids together. He has two grown kids from a prior marriage, but we are not very close. It's not as simple as being attracted to him or not. When I said that we would continue our life together, I meant without changing the nature of our relationship in or out of the bedroom. I feel like it's going to come down to choosing the life I have, or being who I am. I don't believe I can have my cake and eat it too. (no pun intended)
Hi there Ducktress. Welcome to EC. I was in a similar situation to you a couple of years ago - also at the age of 35. I had been married 9 years and had slowly come to the realization over the prior 4 years that I was gay. Unfortunately, my situation was one where my secret sex life had gotten the better of me, and I had been unfaithful. I'm glad you've told your husband. Now that this is out in the open, you can both work on what is best for both of you. In my case, my wife didn't want to stay. She wasn't sure she could trust me to be faithful (and I don't blame her). But even if I was, she'd then never know if I was truly happy, or if I was actually longing to be with someone else. And she didn't want those issues hanging over her / us. At the same time, we have two little girls, and it was important that we didn't disrupt their lives by putting them through a traumatic separation. We kept getting counselling, and advice on how to work through this from the perspective of our kids. I think we did a pretty good job, and we remain best friends. She and I have both accepted our new situations in life, and we are each other's greatest fans. And our girls continue to benefit from our co-parenting and our positive relationship with each other. So give this some time. Don't make any important decisions in a hurry. Couples counselling would likely be VERY beneficial. Your husband likely has some very heavy, burning questions that he's not yet comfortable discussin with you, but he might want to talk to someone about them. So individual counselling for both of you as well might be helpful. It was for my wife and I - which is why I suggest it. Good luck, and welcome to EC!
I have recently been through that question (over the last 2 years) at the end of the day you are 35, you have roughly 45 years left to live, are you going to live it as you have done over the last 10 years or are you going to give yourself the chance to become the real you. The you who is attracted to women who has the right to explore this side of herself and her sexuality or are you willing to see each year pass by untill you arrive at 70 with 35 years of regrets and unfulfilled experiences. Please do not feel that I am pushing you to change your life or leave your husband, it is just that these are questions (not about the sexuality of course) but about life that, as I said, I have recently experienced.
Thanks everyone for your input. I am going to continue to have honest and open discussions with my husband. Louise hit the nail on the head: he is a good man and deserves my respect. I don't know how all this will work out, but I am glad that I know who I am.
:tears: It's over. No happy ending here. Everyone gets to share in the pain. I wish him future happiness.
(*hug*) I'm really sorry to hear that. :icon_sad: I think it's probably quite natural for your husband to feel like you both now need to move on separately. He had what he thought was a 'normal' relationship, and he assumed that you felt for him what he was feeling for you. But the reality is that there is no way for you to feel the same way for him. You may not understand that statement now. Let me explain... I 'assumed' that I loved my wife as much as she loved me. Although when we were first 'courting' I sometimes thought that she was going a little 'overboard' and that she perhaps had stronger feelings for me than I did for her. I just chalked it up to the male / female (mars / venus) thing. But I didn't. My current partner shared the same story with me regarding him and his wife. But NOW? NOW we understand how our wives felt when we first met and 'fell in love'. We understand because he and I now feel that way for each other. The emotions are MUCH stronger now than they were with our wives. For one thing, we're able to love each other completely - with nothing held back or buried inside. The feelings are at times almost overwhelming. And different from how we felt for our wives. It's always sad for me to admit this. My wife is a wonderful person, and she deserved to have someone love her the way she loved me. But I simply wasn't wired to do that. And now I hope that she finds someone that CAN love her that way. Regardless of the circumstances - this is a very difficult time for both of you. I still recommend counsellign so that you can work through this in the most positive and productive way. Communicating effectively is even more important through the bad times. Good luck. And PM me if you want to chat more. I've been there.
I'm sorry to hear that Hugs from everyone (&&&) Just realize that you now know who you are and accept it...and now you have the chance to fufill your true personality and beliefs .
