Amazed to find myself here!

Deep breath, hold for two counts, explosive exhale.
K, think I'm ready now.

{{Flash-forward}}
So then he asked me a question. One I'd never thought to ask myself. "Are you gay?"

{{Flash-back}}
Guess my thread title (and orientation?) pretty much sum up where my head is right now. I just recently celebrated my 46th birthday, I'm two months away from celebrating (wrong word) my 21st wedding anniversary, and 20+ years from the point that I realized that I really shouldn't be married to this man. It's been a year or so since I stopped fulfilling his sexual needs and about two weeks since I told him that this time, we really are done and I just need to work out the logistics and how to tell the kids that we're getting divorced without irreparably damaging them. A week ago today I had my first session (ever) with a therapist, knowing full well that I have a whole closet full of crap to deal with, but getting comfortable with telling the kids so we can actually make the break is my first priority.

So. That's the background, now I'll finally get to why I'm still amazed to find myself here. Here as in writing these words on this particular website, not here as in the point in life I explained in that last paragraph.

Shortly after SCOTUS ruled on DOMA & Prop 8, I received a message on a 'social media' site from a friend in NJ (who I hadn't been in touch with for about 2 years), thanking me for my enthusiastic support of same sex marriage. My response was, "Hey, no thanks necessary when it comes to basic human rights. But since you mentioned it, on whose behalf - other than my own family and friends in same sex relationships - are you thanking me?"

He replied, "My own". WOW. Um, what?! Last I heard, he was a happily married man with three kids, the eldest two boys being the same ages as my own sons. So of course I asked him if he was willing to share, and he did. His overall unhappiness, his self-discovery, his split with his wife, and the joy and easiness he's found in a new - same sex - relationship.

My reaction? Tears. Envy. Awe. Inspiration. Fear. I replied to that message to tell him that he was the MOST courageous person I know and could I please call him to hear where he found that courage, cause I just HAD to get me some!

It actually took us weeks to both get privacy at the same time for an extended call - just so happened that his call came on the day of my 46th birthday. A day I was already deep into self reflection about the decades I'd been wasting in a destructive relationship and trying to muster the resolve to reclaim my life and finally put an end to the marriage. Little did I guess that this friend would cast a tidal wave of variables into that pool of self reflection.

He asked me what was going on, why I reacted to his news as I had, what I needed courage to do. I went on about our miserable marriage, explained that less than a year into it we discussed divorce and revisited the subject multiple times every year since, eventually making the decision to stay together until our youngest graduated HS, but that I'd reached the point that I just couldn't stand the thought of putting my life, my happiness, off any longer.

He listened, asked questions, dug a little deeper and somehow we got to the fact that I'd decided quite some time ago that I was asexual. I had never had any actual sex drive or desire, so to speak. He questioned if my husband was just a selfish or inept lover, but I had never achieved orgasm with any man unless I'd self-induced it during the act. My college boyfriend bought me a book on how to masturbate and told me if I ever wanted to experience an orgasm, I'd better read the book. (Despite losing my virginity to a boy at the age of 16, and having had at least a few different partners in the interim, by the age of 21 I still hadn't had my first orgasm.) The next nudge I got was from my husband about a decade into our marriage, when he bought me a rabbit for valentines day and told me I needed to masturbate more. Suffice it to say, with 25 years practice, I am VERY adept at self-fulfillment.

So then my friend asked me a question. One I'd never thought to ask myself. "Are you gay?"

Of course my immediate reaction was no. I'd have known by now if I was attracted to women, right? No, I was sure. I'm just asexual. Yes, there are a number of things that I find sexy. There are all kinds of things that get me hot and bothered, it's just that none of them make me want to have sex with men, any men. The thought was just nowhere on the radar.

Then he told me more about his own journey of self discovery, the impact of his parents' beliefs, values, expectations. He'd lost a homosexual brother to AIDS. His final realization that his personal version of homophobia had shut down/blocked out his own natural sexual response and as a result he had never even entertained the idea. This was the first time I'd ever encountered the concept and the thought immediately caused that famous, indefinable physiological response.

I've already read alot of the other 'later in life' realization stories posted here and know exactly that feeling that almost every writer tries to explain. Rapid pulse, gasp for breath, knot in the chest, flutter in the belly, hot flash, then cold sweat, almost like you're about to pass out, but not. Feels a bit like panic, but that word has too many negative connotations and while scary, this just doesn't feel all that negative, does it?

So, that's a whole new ball of wax. Or maybe can of worms, but I guess that has yet to be seen. Exactly a week and a day after his phone call I have that divorce conversation with my husband and by the time I finally see a therapist, my list of issues to deal with has grown exponentially. I've done a lot of thinking - far too much, I'm sure - and a whole lot of remembering. Things I hadn't ever really thought twice about since they'd happened, some back as far as age 13, that now in hindsight take on a whole new light. I'm just dying to get into this with that therapist, but I have to put getting out of this marriage first. That's a certainty and way way way over due. The rest has yet to come. So I tell the therapist that. Getting confidence in a plan for my kids and my short-term path are my immediate priority with her.

But I still have so many questions that I don't want to let wait! And so I find myself here. First lurking and reading everything that sounds even vaguely similar to what I'm going through, then posting this novella. Oops. Just noticed that. Sorry. Guess with that realization comes the next - it's time to stop writing.

If anyone is still reading at this point, I have to say thanks - you're a serious diehard. Other than my poor put-upon friend in NJ, I haven't shared a single one of these sexuality-based thoughts and questions with another soul, and just writing this, putting these words out there, is such an incredible relief. At the beginning of this post I had to take a bracing breath. Now I'm taking a cleansing one. Feels SO good!

 

Thank you aardvark, for the brilliant, warm welcome. I am learning so much here, and finding so many answers to my many questions. "Authentic life". How could you know how much that concept means to me?

---------- Post added 21st Aug 2013 at 11:49 PM ----------

Pete, thank you. You can't even begin to imagine how very many aspects of my true self I had buried so deeply over the long course of this marriage. It's amazing the lengths you'll go to in order to fulfill other people's dreams and expectations.

A recent conversation with my 14 year old son made me realize just how much I'd denied myself. As I've been trying to become truer to my authentic self, socially, morally, politically and maybe most noticeably vocally over the past few months, he commented, "You've changed so much."

It made me inexplicably sad because I really hadn't changed anything about myself, other than the fact that, for the first time in his life, I was expressing myself - my own thoughts and my opinions. Nothing changed other than the fact that I was making myself heard.

I liken it to coming out of a decades long coma. I'm finally feeling alive again. Experiencing emotions other than anger and frustration. Considering we're in the earliest stages of the divorcing process there's still plenty of those, but my emotional range has just exploded. I'm nervous, giddy, mournful, excited, sad, lonely, joyful and impatient, and that's just the beginning of the spectrum. No, not all good, but so much better than the numbness I'd been mired in. The thought of exploring sexuality - something I'd given up hope of ever personally possessing - is just the icing on the cake.

Not quite sure I'm emerging from the closet quite yet, but I do believe I have FINALLY set out on the journey that may lead me there.

And as you may read in a reply to another post of yours in a different thread, thank you for adding your brilliance to the light at the end of my tunnel.

 

Wonder - your post to this forum was one of those that inspired me to stop lurking and put myself, my thoughts and my questions out here and introduce myself and my story. It really is amazing, the comfort you can find in knowing you're NOT alone, even if maybe there's no one physically at your side.

Thanks so much for providing that comfort. I'm warmed by the thought of your virtual company on this journey.

---------- Post added 22nd Aug 2013 at 12:20 AM ----------

DUDE! Thank you SO MUCH for that HUGE compliment! You are totally pandering to my biggest dream. No, I'm not a writer, just a wannabe, but maybe someday, right? After finding myself here, I'm realizing that pretty much anything is possible!

So I've got a funny observation regarding asexuality, and your comment inspires me to share it. I know you also wrote that you are only interested in a long-term relationship, but should you ever decide you're in need of a hook-up, just try telling a guy that you're asexual. It's like waving a red flag in front of a raging bull, or throwing down a gauntlet. The testosterone surges and they immediately become hell bent on proving to you that you have just never experienced "good luvin'". :dry:

No bigger turn-off to me (actually provided the proof I was looking for, that my feelings weren't strictly tied to my husband but rather men in general) but might work for someone that actually desires the hairier sex.

 

Thanks Chip, and thanks for the warm welcome. I have got to tell you, with my mind in a spin and no one in my RL to talk it out with, and unfortunately no apparent openings anywhere near on my horizon, EC has already been a huge comfort to me. Not only the great people replying to my threads, but just reading other people's situations, thoughts, worries and joys is becoming a balm to my soul. So I'm offering an even bigger thank you to you, for being a part of that whole that is bringing me some much needed sanity and grounding right now.

I'm certain you'll be seeing me around.

---------- Post added 24th Aug 2013 at 09:46 AM ----------

Wow! You read them BOTH?! You truly are a diehard - or you were just having a really boring Friday.

Either way, thanks Big Guy, you rock!