I love this place, and I'm so grateful for all of the support I've received here. BUT, I really need to find a place where I can read about those on the other end....who've made it through coming out to a spouse and are living happily. Not just a year or two, but are well past the coming out stage and are just living "normally" albeit truthfully. People who no longer feel regret or who question or who go through phases of wanting their hetero family back together again. People who have gotten through the suffering and inner turmoil and are at a content and peaceful place....not just as a phase in the journey, but as their normal feeling in life. Does this exist somewhere? I need a boost. And....I need to know that it's a possibility.
Hi Valerie I only just accepted my bisexuality over a month ago, but maybe I've been lucky as my family is quite accepting of it, even my kids are fine with it (have not told my ex though, as she would most probably use it against me regarding access to my dear children). As for inner turmoil and regret, well I at first cried a bit, I thought about all the amazing experiences I might have had, had I accepted this when I was, say, 18, rather than in my 40's...but I think our lives unfold as they were meant to. I choose not to have regrets or to live in the past. I choose to live this one day, today being the only day we ever have, with gratitude just for being alive and being true to myself at last. Anyway, if I had 'come out to myself' back then, I would probably not have met my now ex, and would not have had those two very wonderful kids who I love as much as my own life. So as I said, life is very much a learning experience, the real question is, what are we going to do with this one precious day we now have, the day we are living right now? That is where I choose to place my focus. Hope that was the kind of positive story you were looking for beefree.
There is a book called "A Positive View of LGBTQ" by Riggle & Rostosky that is available via Amazon (also on Kindle). The stories therein are not necessarily orientated specifically to the later in life crowd, but it may still be helpful.
Hey Valerie. I'm happy to share my story with you - I think it's a reasonably happy one! I came out to my wife over 7 years ago now. We split shortly after that, and within a year I was dating a wonderful guy who had also come to realize he was gay 'later in life'. He also had 2 kids from his first marriage and together we came out to people and built a life together. We've been together ever since. We own a home together, are out to our family, kids, friends and coworkers. We have professional careers that weren't affected at all by our orientations and we're much more in love with each other than we were with our ex wives - because we're simply not wired that way. So while it is tough in the beginning, it really does settle down into a pretty great / normal life. I have no regrets with coming out when I did, and I'm happy with the life I'm living now. Hope that helps.
I've been out of the closet for 18 years now. My partner and I will be celebrating our 7th anniversary in July. While I can't speak to coming from a hetro marriage, I can say some universal truths work no matter where your starting point may have been. For me the first few years after coming out were a blur. I hadn't a clue where all that time went. Once I came out to my friends and family, my life went on as normal. I never think to myself "I am gay". I am simply "me". It takes time to work out the dating scene and work out to find your place amongst your peers. Once you land, you don't realize you've done so until some time has passed. Then you glance backwards and realize you finally are in a place you belong. My life now is quite plain to be honest. I work and commute, work on my house, enjoy my family and friends and try to live the best life I know how. Once in a while I do something crazy like climb a mountain (I almost died last year doing so). But these things help you feel alive and remind you not to get too comfortable.
Well Valerie, it has not been years since my struggle is over, but as Churchill would have put it: it is the end of the beginning... These past 15 months have been some of the most challenging, but also the most liberating that I have gone through in my life. It may appear to be not a long time, yet I have managed to make more new friends in the past year than I have in the past 25 years before that. I am rediscovering my passions.... and discovering other types of passion as well... My relationship with the ex is improving somewhat (though I fully expect some rough patches, I am nevertheless better able to handle them nowadays) and I am enjoying seeing my kids become themselves. I am still involved in their lives; because I have less time with them, the time I do have is richer and I am quite deliberately more attentive to them when they are with me. And yes, I had started a thread months ago where I stated simply that being gay is now part of who I am. I have become involved in the community, with involvement in the gay hotline and a gay choir, I am making connections and building a "family" of sorts. I am just a guy in a hurry to make up for all the lost time, and I'm having a blast doing it!
Hi, Valerie. As Greatwhale said, it's been a challenging time, but incredibly liberating and rewarding. I joined EC last July after coming out to a few people from work who I trusted. I was looking for support because I wanted to figure out what to do about my marriage--should I tell her? Or get a divorce and quietly start living a gay life apart from her and the kids? In the end, I opted for telling her (over Labor Day weekend last year), and she's gone through varying stages of anger and denial since then. Things actually moved along rather slowly after that, more so than I expected. I started out feeling guilty about what I was putting her through, but after several months I started to realize that we had bigger problems than my being gay, and some of her reactions and behaviors have made it very clear that regardless of my orientation, splitting from her in a fair and caring way really is the best thing to do. Since then, my day-to-day life hasn't changed much. I'm out to both of my daughters and both of my sisters, as well as several people at work. My marriage is slowly moving towards a conclusion of some kind, and although the movement has been painfully slow, it's gradually picking up steam. I joined a support group and had a few sessions with a therapist, who basically told me that I was handling things quite well, and didn't really need to keep coming unless I wanted to. And best of all, I met a guy, completely out of the blue and without even actually looking for anyone, who is absolutely wonderful, with whom I have an incredible bond of love and respect, and can see a long and beautiful future together. So, how's that for a happy story?
Thank you everyone for sharing your stories. I'm in a place right now where I'm not so certain leaving my marriage is the right next step. My husband and I don't have incredibly close friends anymore. It's much harder to find really close, deep friendships as an adult and so we really only have deep relationships with each other and casual friendships with everyone else. I'm not sure that my only deep and true friendship is worth sacrificing over this. Then I was coming on here and various blogs and seeing how difficult and lonely it is for years to come and it was feeling a bit hopeless. I know things can't stay the same. I can't stomach the thought of losing my closest relationship and not being able to find solace in his arms, but I also can't stand the thought of having an intimate, sexual, or even romantic relationship anymore. I guess I want to have my cake and eat it too. I've also never really been able to take things one day at a time. If I had just this one day, there is no way I would leave him. In any situation really, I would keep the status quo rather than make some huge change, so I don't really identify with only living for today. How does that logic work? I'm sure it would be comforting if I could figure that one out... Anyway, thanks for sharing.
valerie, have you tried joining a support group? I'm sure there are others in your situation that you might be able to befriend. Could you turn to family for comfort as well? There must be a way to carve out space for other people in your life so that your entire social network does not consist of just one person. Lauren Morelli, a writer for OITNB, just came out and she was married. She has a positive take on it; maybe it's because of her support network. But she seems to have struggled through darkness as well; worth a read. While Writing for 'Orange Is the New Black,' I Realized I Am Gay - PolicyMic
Wow. That was unreal. Her emotional journey and logic (or lack of logic, really) follows the exact same path as mine. Thanks for sharing. I have tried finding support groups and there aren't any nearby, they are all in the city (I am in a suburb outside of Chicago). With our work schedules, I couldn't make it to those with the travel time. In any case, the idea of meeting up with people still makes me really nervous to think about....even after I came out to my spouse, half of my friends, and my mom. Support groups make it seem more real, I guess.
