I’m now in my early 40’s, married and have children. I suppose that I have known that I am lesbian (or suspected it) since my adolescence. However, it isn’t something that I actually acknowledged to myself until a few years ago. It wasn’t until about a year ago that I said anything to anyone else. I was fortunate enough to have a friend that I could openly talk to about it. I came from a small, backward town that did not accept people that were different. It didn’t matter if it was sexual orientation or something as silly as a different accent. There was no need to cause undue grief to my family who would have to deal with every day from their friends and other family members. So, I took those feeling and buried them. Over the years through middle school, high school and even college I always found myself more attracted to my friends than my boyfriends. I have never enjoyed sex with men. I dismissed it as “some people must just not have the same enjoyable experience” or “there must be something physical wrong or different with me since I don’t like it”. Once again, I buried it. I stuck with the path of normal and married the boy that I had dated in school. It didn’t take but a couple years for that to implode. It fell apart for a lot of reason but looking back I think that my disinterest in men played a bigger role than I admitted. I still found myself drawn to girls but never acted on it. I think it was mostly that the opportunity never presented itself. I have so many gay guys as friends but never any lesbian friends (at least none that weren’t in a long term relationship). I continued to ignore any of the signs or temptations to make a move. I was probably confused and lost because I wanted kids but still didn’t enjoy intimacy with men. I decided to try the marriage thing again because the desire for kids was growing and I wasn’t getting any younger. Fast forward 11 years/2 kids and this is where I am now. I have been able to keep it in check for most of the time but over the past few years I found myself back in the same place. I am even more attracted to women. That is where I’m drawn and that is what sexually interests me. I have been attracted to a few of my friends but I have never acted on it because I know they are truly straight. I occasionally go out to some of the local gay bars. I would like to just get the physical curiosity “out of my system” so that I could know more definitively. I have kissed several girls before but it never went beyond that point. I don’t want to make any drastic decisions or declarations that can ruin my family or negatively affect my kids if it isn’t right. Unfortunately, I have found that there aren’t that many women that go out and that the ones that do are 20 years younger than me. It makes it even worse that I compare everyone to my best friend who is my example of my “perfect type”. I want to figure this out before I’m too old and feel like I have missed out on an opportunity to be truly happy and fulfilled. I guess more than looking for advice I just needed to get my thoughts out there because they have been swirling around in my head for too long causing chaos.