Regret coming out late in life

Hi,
I can relate.

But you never know. Maybe if you followed another path,your life would be unhappy. Maybe even shorter. Without the kids and so many good times with them.
No one can tell you which path is the best one.

After having all those experiences, you will probably choose a different partnert than you would have chosen without them. And maybe it will be the best thing that could ever happen to you

 

Hi -

Same boat, Sport. I get it and surely have done it, but this is a non-productive route. There's enough you're going through without beating yourself up over what might have been. Concentrate on what in the marriage mad you happy...surely there were things you shared the brought you some joy and comfort. Then there are your children, as you say.

Try to stay positive...tough task...If religion hasn't totally turned you off, find a compassionate church, usually Unitarian, but occasionally others, however, I'm in the Northeast. I know what it's like; I did grad work at Wake Forest.

Try and have a happy Christmas,enjoy what you have now.

 

Looking back and wondering what might have been is hard to avoid. Everyone has regrets, so you're not alone. Try to remember what you are grateful for from your past (kids, experiences, friends, faith?) and focus on moving forward. If you're caught up in the past, you won't be able to fully enjoy your present and future, and it sounds like you deserve to enjoy it. Good luck!

 

Hey OneLife2Live, welcome to EC!

The funny thing about memory is that it is basically a story. Every story requires a story-teller making certain selective decisions about what to emphasize (certain things that are more than they actually were) and what to ignore (other things that were more significant than you recall).

As Nick07 said above, things could have turned out worse had you come out earlier. In the eighties, there was no shortage of serious problems the LGBT community had to face.

I'm a big believer in things happening because they have to, and also in the idea that we have far less control over the outcomes of our lives than we think we do.

In any case, the past does not exist anymore. Regret is probably not the most useful emotion (I've done that and it really doesn't help much). I consider the fifties to be a wonderful time to finally explore who I am. I'm still in good health, and I have won certain privileges that come with this age, namely experience combined with the prospect of several good decades ahead.

Focus on now and on the future, it's far more interesting!

 

Onelife2live,

I have the same feelings you do, we even have kids the same ages. The above posts are right, things may have ended up worse, you never know. All i am going to do is try to live a happier life going forward and try to have as good a relationship with my kids and wife that i can. Im sure it will be a bumpy road, but hasnt it already been?

I am going to try to enjoy the holidays as much as possible, i hope you can as well.

 

Always remember:

• You did what you did in the past for a reason. However faulty you may think they are now
  
• The choices seemed solid decisions at the time
  
• Don't keep looking back and wishing for them to change. They won't change and you'll just go nuts
  
• You gotta take stock of where you are NOW and how you want your future to be

Regrets, and beating yourself up, could just result in stress and depression - you need to direct yourself in a more positive way now.

You may find some sort of therapy useful to work through these thoughts?

Do you have any gay friends.. thats a good way to get a support system around you ...


Blessings ..

 

Sage wisdom, spot-on, bravo!

 

Onelife2live -

Happy Boxing Day! Though the spirit of the day is lost on this side of the pond, and is just another excuse to be at the mall, apropos to nothing. Just wanted to see how you were doing today and hoping to find you in better spirits. If there is don't hesitate to to write. You know where to find us.

 

My usual response to posts like yours is this.

Say you wake up at around 2:30pm outside the gates of Disneyland, holding an all-day pass in your hand. You can either sit outside and curse the fact that you've missed half a day in the park...or you can get your ass through the gates and start having a good time. I know which one I'd recommend.

Lex

 

Take some advice from pilots: Worry about the runway left in front of you instead of the part behind you; it can do you no more good but it did help you get up to speed where you are now.

 

I read your whole post. In a more liberal part of the country, it was not that much better with regard to the criteria you mention above.

I knew I shouldn't have gotten married and I didn't. For me, it was more than a couple of episodes between the sheets with guys in my 20s that made me think I had no business walking down the center aisle of a church in a tux.

There's no right or wrong. You adhered to the constructs that were relevant to your time and place. I take it you are now on your own. If so, is that making you breathe a little easier? If everything else in your life, such as work, health, and your relationship with your kids are ok, slowly work on everything else. There's no itinerary.

 

Hi OneLIfe. ... . you asked for advice regarding your regret and you talk about your inability to stop looking back. Rather than advice per se, I'd like to offer a sort of a tool that I use a lot in my job (coaching) Under most things that we struggle with is some sort of a longing. One longing that I hear in your regrets is a longing for authenticity and to use your time in this life well. The tool I'd like to offer is a simple shift. . . when you find yourself in this pattern of looking back, allow yourself to feel what is really there and ask yourself what am I longing for? The past, you can't do anything to change but if you are going there again and again then there is clearly something you are looking for there. When you find the underlying longings THEN you have something which you can do something about today. Only you can find what they are. . .perhaps for example you might long for a more authentic relationship with people you care about being able to know you as the true you . ..it surfaces as regrets from the past but is something you can actually do something about now. (just an example) When you find yourself in these moments of reflection, try allowing yourself to REALLY be with what comes up in you and with a sense of curiosity and that question. .. .what am I longing for? Let yourself see the beauty of what you long for and then allow yourself to consider what other ways you have to move towards the life you truly want to have. All my best to you! Soleil

 

I'm currently married to a woman, I don't regret it though, I believe in destiny. And things happening for a reason. I have two people that were born for a reason like we all are.

Don't live in the past it will make you depressed, live in the now. Right now your gay you can be with anyone you choose and you can be happy now.

Peace

 

I'd love to see your thread title turn around in 2014 ..from

Regret coming out late in life

to

Joy at coming out late in life

 

You situation sounds very familiar. Age 52 here, married 20 years, with two kids, age 16 and very nearly 13, and finally figuring all this out.

We spend our lives arriving at new forks in the road, and we have to decide at that moment which path to take. There's no way to take them both, and every road not taken also leaves experiences missed, both good and bad. You can make yourself crazy thinking about what might have happened, but the simple fact is, it didn't happen. Other things did--things that you would have missed if you had gone the other way. I could have been out for the last 30 years, and then what? Perhaps I would have met the perfect guy and be living a life of bliss. Or perhaps I would be wondering how wonderful it would have been if I had had a couple of kids. Perhaps I would be wondering if my life would have been better if I had walked up to that guy in the bookstore with the nice smile, instead of whoever I was currently with. Perhaps the woman I married would have been beaten to death by her alcoholic ex-husband because I was with some guy, and never convinced her to leave him. Just because you want to be out NOW, doesn't mean that everything that resulted from you NOT being out was bad. It just....IS.

What happens if you walk down the sidewalk looking backwards? You hit a wall. Or a No Parking sign. Or you wander into a busy street, or you step on someone's dog. Or...you miss the incredible person crossing the street right in front of you, all because you're looking behind you. Keep looking forward, my friend. Regret can't change the past. It only casts a shadow on the future.

 

Choirboy certainly has said it best, and Lexington the wittiest, but end story and close quotes...what's done is done...it's over...my wishes for you are the same as Bingostring's...Joy at Coming Out Late in Life. There's a line from a song in Wicked that goes, "I don't know if I've been change for the better, but because I knew you, I have been changed for good." Think about that when you think about your marriage and your timing. Believe me I know where you're coming from, but move on. it's all you can do.

 

I really appreciate reading stories like this. It seems that we are not allowed to change or minds or to stand up for who we truly are. That we must follow a life where pretty much everything is already dictated like "born, grow, study, get married, have kids, dogs and so... until you die" because it seems to be no other way to live life.

Well, nowadays as the LGBT community struggle to fit into that "model life" in order to fully gain rights that must be granted and not requested. I take it only as a mere suggestion for those clueless about who to put their real self into life.

Dramatic, but when I am not enjoying something I ask myself "what if I had 3 months left in this world, will I be doing what I am doing? Will I be settle for the life I've chosen?" So with that in mind it is neither late or soon to come out. It was just the right moment in which even you had the right time to fully accept who you are and how you are going to make your life worth it from then on.

So, my advice is, stop pleasing no one but yourself by just offering love to those around you. Nothing is sugar and flowers but it comes to be yourself... trust me, it is absolutely worth it!!

Hugs!!(&&&):eusa_clap(&&&):eusa_clap:eusa_clap

 

Hi,

As part of looking forward... A number of gay men who married woman have posted here and I have a question for you regarding a happy future...

Now that you are out of the marriage do you find you instantly relate with other men who had the same experience? Along the same lines do you feel some degree of lateral discrimination from gay men who never did the marriage route?

I was recently at two different meetup potlucks for gay men. One group much older, all retired, average age >=70. The younger group had an average age 35-45. Two very different mind sets.

The older group understood the marriage paradigm and why it happens. The younger group does not understand it.

Being in my 50's I feel caught in a generation gap. Add to that our generation lost a great number to AIDS.

I strongly suspect I will end up with a great guy who was married (>10 years) and came out later in life. He will have relationship skills to get through the worst of times. He will also understand my choices intuitively and not reject them or question them. We will be able to support each other emotionally through shared life experience.

That is how I am seeing the future. Life does throw you unexpected events though.

What do you guys think about your futures?

Tom

 

Interesting question....Being as how I'm still with my wife for now and not really out and about, I haven't had the opportunity to socialize and so haven't yet encountered the kind of attitudes you describe. It makes total sense, though, that there would be a pretty significant segment of the gay community that wouldn't really understand someone being married and in the closet well into adulthood and even middle age.

When I think of my future and all the who's and what if's, what always seems to pop effortlessly into my head is the idea of ending up with someone who was either previously in a straight marriage, or someone who came out late. It seems to me that the concerns that kept us in the closet are things that are a pretty significant part of our experiences and personalities, and something that we would likely need a partner to be able to understand on some level, and unless you've gone through it, it wouldn't make a lot of sense.

I did have a peculiar kind of "flash forward" recently--we have a touch of the second sight in our family, and every once in awhile we get "feelings" about things. Not lottery numbers or anything concrete like that, just little ripples of what might be. (Years ago in high school, I dreamed that a co-worker at the grocery store was killed when a bakery cart fell over and hit him, and I felt the need to tell him, just to be safe. He looked at me as if I had fallen out of a tree, of course, but he did watch out after that!) The other day I had an overwhelmingly strong sense that things would work out the way they were supposed to, it would be a positive thing, and I also vaguely flashed on myself with a guy slightly younger than myself who was only somewhat recently out. I also had a sense that we would end up with a child that was ours together, and not brought into the relationship by either one of us. (It would have been nice if I had seen what he LOOKED like, of course, but oh, well!) It was very strange, like when you hear a song in your head a couple seconds before it starts playing on the radio.

Whoever it is, I know it will be someone who is very self-sufficient, very aware (and fond of) his own space, who does not need to be with someone. I have that now. I don't want to be needed anymore. It's too emotionally exhausting. I want to be wanted and enjoyed and appreciated. And I want to have fun!