Liking being gay?

I have accepted it about 5 months ago. I fell in love with and formed a relationship with my best friend. We are still together 5months later and we have an amazing bond and love each other very much, but we are both married and still living with our husbands and kids. Though the husbands aren't happy, they don't really try to prevent us from seeing each other. I LOVE being with another girl. I love the bond that we have and lets face it, after settling on a marriage with a man bc I wanted a family, and NEVER enjoying or wanting to have sex with him or any other man (only did what I had to) the sex is AMAZING and so much fun. There are a few ppl who know about us, we aren't really out to most ppl, mainly bc we are still living with our families. We took a vacation together just me and her at the start of the summer, and we didn't know anyone we were far far away from home, it was so nice holding hands and acting like a couple openly (we weren't like making out in public lol just little displays like holding hands). We loved every minute of that trip. I like it even tho we aren't totally out about it at home I like the part about actually being a lesbian.

 

I LOVE being gay! It is a part of whom I am, and I have embraced it. It has allowed me to finally understand more about myself than I ever allowed myself to before coming out. I have been extremely fortunate - support of family, friends and work mates. I have become comfortable with myself and my individuality. I have come to understand the struggles which prevented myself from fully embracing my sexuality previously, and feel accomplished to have overcome them.

Have their been difficulties and uphill battles, absolutely. Do I continue to face challenges, affirmative as well. But each challenge I face and get through builds my confidence further and further to continue the journey.

 

Your sexuality is a fundamental part of who you are and it cannot be changed. Accepting your sexuality is really about accepting yourself and learning to like yourself. When you finally accept that being gay is no more of a choice than your eye colour and you content yourself with that fact you can begin liking yourself (and like being gay).

 

I love being gay. It's the feeling of being trapped in an alternate universe of a heterosexual lifestyle f/k/a "me" that is so uncomfortable now.

 

Question: should I be offended by your feelings of what being gay means? Appears you have a very negative view.

 

I can't really say whether you will ever like it. I can say that a lot of people really do. I love being gay. Yeah, there were some rough bits at the beginning, but frankly I think that part made me a much better person--more empathetic, kinder and in the end more confident, outgoing and honest. At this point I honestly don't experience much negatively because of it and I think it has filled my life with the most amazing people and given me the most amazing opportunities.

I really sort of hate it when people make the whole argument about how it has to be hard-wired because no one would choose this for themselves. I certainly wouldn't have chosen it for myself in the beginning--I tried to kill myself my senior year in college. But looking back after being out for over twenty years I have to say that, knowing what I know now, I think I would choose it. In the end I think it's been an immense net positive in my life.

 

Perhaps it's the wrong question. Better question(s) would be: Do you like being who you are? Do you feel better for accepting who you could love?

To both of these alternative questions, I have an emphatic YES! (but I also LOVE being gay too! )

 

Having ended ltr with gf a couple months ago, I finally just said screw it, I'm tired of repressing things and choose to just embrace who I am. I have started caring about myself more than before, I am building more confidence, and every day I just feel like more of a person. Being gay doesn't change who you are or lessen your value as a person in any way. Being able to realize and accept that is wonderfully liberating. So yeah, I like it.

 

To build on greatwhale's comments....

I started going gray at 15. A tiny part of me thought it was kind of cool, but for the most part I hated it and ended up coloring it for years. Eventually I felt like covering it up really wasn't worth the effort so I stopped, but I still mostly hated it. But a lot of the hate was bundled up with an overall dislike of myself that made me generally dissatisfied with not only the gray, but so many other things about myself. Once I worked on my self-esteem and discovered I could like who I was, ALL of who I was, I found that I could look at the gray as one of the many things that combined together make me a unique and special person.

That's a very simplistic way of looking at accepting and liking and loving the fact that you're gay. A lot of unhappy closeted people assume that coming out is the magic key that will make everything right in their lives. And for some it is. But for others, it's more important to learn to love yourself, everything about yourself, because the closet is really about hiding who you are. Once you recognize your own self worth and uniqueness, it becomes so much easier to love being gay, because it's one of the many things that combine to make you a unique and special person.

So in effect--work on liking and loving YOURSELF first, and you'll find that liking and loving being gay will ride the same rails, as it did for me. (Some days I still have to work on the gray hair thing, though!)

 

Yes the first part is fully accepting yourself for who you really are, then comes the build and thoughts on coming out, then it's the build up to coming and then there's "coming out", let the situations settle and you'll know by reactions over time way to go. I once use to think "Oh god why me?" that seems so long ago and and I'd never thought I post that I totally love being gay especially now all the weights and drag downs and emotional strains and drains have all subsided, I'm also about to start dating too, It's gone from utter hell to very exciting times.

Hopefully you'll comes to terms with your situation and learn to accept and embrace it.

Good luck

 

That is absolutely how I feel and well said. Not only am I proud to be a lesbian, but I am very proud to have come out later in life because of the soul searching I've had to do as part of the "coming out later in life" process. It has given me a great deal of understanding and compassion for myself that I could not have developed otherwise-it was almost a life lesson I needed to learn. Many people go through life without having to fully examine how they got where they are, what has motivated them, their actions at times...no, not many people have done that. Instead, they may engage in shallow comparisons of so-and-so is higher up in the company, or lives in a better house, has more money, whatever. Not me-or anyone else on here. We had to get to the root of who we are, and for that, I'd say we're all better people and being LGBT may be the best life teacher we've ever had. Because of that process, I'm not only more comfortable with myself but I'm a better person to others-experiencing finally what they mean when they say "you've got to love yourself before you can love others." I have so much compassion for other people and their life journeys as well.

As for being taught that being gay is what you do, not who you are, I can completely relate to that. It's the end product of the harmful statement "Love the sinner, hate the sin." when applied to being gay. That line of thinking may work for a family or friend of a drug addict, because a harmful addiction is not part of who a person is and needs to be stopped, but who you are attracted to and love is part of who you are on a very deep level. It's not just an "action."

Coming to accept and love yourself is a wonderful journey. Be glad you were given the opportunity to take it.

 

I think that's quite normal, I too am not sure if I like it that much.. & I came out to myself, years ago, I'm still in a question mark phase myself actually.. so I'm still asking that question. There's no shame in not feeling comfortable, it's a process & also due to societies view of LGBT that makes one not comfortable with it, I'm in no way saying to conform for their approval, but if you need time to get used to it.. nothing wrong, it's no rush, as long as you're happy & not unhappy.

 

I'm not out yet, but when I saw this post, "I think I'm gonna like it here" from Annie popped into my head :lol:
It was my favourite movie when I was a kid.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_nM_-CFRBS8

Anyhow, I think, once I get to the other side, that I will like it. I have little moments of YAY! When I'm on my own, like I've figured out my best kept secret. Those moments make the shitty days manageable.

 

There is nothing wrong with being gay. In many ways it is a blessing as it gives perspective about the fallacies and illusions of society. The problem is not being gay but the bad behaviour of society.

Imagine if religion taught that having red hair was perverted and evil. That red hair was an abomination and all redheads needed to change their hair color.

That is the ignorance we face and religion has taught that for a millenia regarding sexuality. It has altered and wounded society in numerous ways. Society is healing, religion is dying (thank god) but it will take time.

It is time for religion to die, and personal growth to be born.

 

I always liked being gay and was happy when I realized I was. I had a lot of support systems available since I lived near a big city and was in college. Feeling part of a community made a huge difference.

When I later discovered I was bi, I wasn't all that happy about it. It's part of me and I'm trying to cope. It's not that I don't like ME, it's that I don't like the social situations I find myself in -- because I'm with a man (and some other reasons) -- having to be around people who wouldn't approve or understand if they knew. I feel like I'm doing myself a disservice by going partway back into the closet.