This is my first post on this forum, I just joined a few days ago. It's been over a year since I started questioning my sexuality and recently I said the sentence "I am gay" to someone other than myself. I feel completely flooded with so many different feelings and I'm writing this to get them out, and to be heard. Before I met my now husband, I had some experience with both boys and girls, and although I recognized I was attracted to women I didn't understand it such a young age. I was limited in my skills to express myself as a teenager and into my 20s after coming from an abusive childhood situation. I married at 21 and had 3 children in the following 6 years. Truthfully, I had never felt attracted to the man I married, even in the beginning, but I had consciously and subconsciously convinced myself this would make me happy. He was gentle and very much in love with me (still is actually) and I mistook security and kindness for love and attraction. I had always felt something was fundamentally wrong with me...how could I be so miserable and so terrible all the time without that being true. I had sex for validation, for duty, to escape the way I was feeling and there were times I even enjoyed it. Besides money, sex has always been a point of contention between us. We are both very sexual people, but for me, it just wasn't there for me. ever. I started to stray. Long before I actually had an affair, I began to make myself available to interests and carried a vibe of cruising along with me. I started to push the boundaries of my own, the laws of monogamy, and then heterosexuality. I started cheating with more frequency until a friend and I fell in love with each other. We had a passionate affair and when my husband found out months later, I was completely devastated. We both went back to our husbands, our families, our securities, our norms. My husband and I started really hard to "fix" our relationship and I thought for a long time that if I just work on myself, and be secure, then I'll be able to love him like he loves me. We began communicating and understanding each other in a more complex way and our friendship really has gotten better. I was still so unhappy though and the feeling of romantic and sexual dissatisfaction was still screaming in my head. I tried to ignore the feelings, shove them down, blame myself because I was horrible, kill my feelings with hard drugs and alcohol. I felt lost. I began questioning deeply if I wanted to be married any longer, and how does my sexuality play into all this. After that, despite the doubts and sadness, I kept coming back with clarity that I love women and OMG I can't believe I didn't know this before. As I look back, now it seems so glaringly obvious. As I begin to settle with the idea that the intimate part of the relationship with my husband is over, the eventual disruption of our children and try to feel comfortable in my own skin, I can't help but be scared out of my damn mind. I've come out to a few close friends and my brother and it was even hard for me to utter the words because part of me is still in disbelief as well as a fear of judgement/nonacceptance. The thought of coming out to our families makes me for a split second want to run back to this lie I've been living. Then I come back to that I have to be true to myself. I must.
I feel the same way... I am still living with my husband and son, as my girlfriend also still lives with her husband and kids. We were best friends and fell in love 7 months ago. Our husbands know, don't love it but allow us to have what we have together. Its so hard. I hope we can someday just be together, but for now it is what it is. I understand how hard it is though. Hugs!
Welcome!!! You will find many women in your situation here. I am relatively new here myself but have found it to be a very supportive place. Just keep talking and we'll listen and try to help if we can! (&&&)
I can relate to so many things about all this as for a long time I found myself saddled with using alcohol and pot to escape, and just feel something other than what I always felt. I chalked a lot up to the fact that I worked so much (tho I still do and even more), and I was just exhausted and overwhelmed. But I'd been feeling this division for quite a while and seen it wasn't going anywhere. Every now and then there would be bright spots where I thought we could work things thru but then we would have another of our fights and I would think a lot that maybe things were this way cuz I'm just not meant for a hetero relationship. She had given me permission in the past to explore that side of myself, but my feelings towards monogamy and being loyal would never let me indulge in that, not even with "her blessing". She thinks it is simply about sex and she doesn't get that I want so much more than that. I have to get to know someone first, I have to feel that spark of attraction with them, and now being a single father of 3 daughters, I have every worry that stems from that in regards to pursuing a future relationship. I feel too as my life has been on hold. I look back and it seems odd that I never was able to fully embrace my sexuality. I tried several times peeking out, yet only to scurry back in as I succumbed to the thoughts of what I felt others thought I should be. Had a one year train wreck of a marriage in my early 20's, and then got with my gf (ex now) and had kids. She doesn't understand that I truly did love her at one time, but I can see now how hard I was trying to feel a lot of things. Saying the right words, trying everything to be a good provider and such, but in the end it all feels like it was just some elaborate act. I feel bad for the hurt I have caused my ex, but also wish she would just see how bad things had gotten between us. But now, there can be no going back, I cannot "fix things", I don't want to. I have been waiting my whole life to finally just let this side of me be out and to not care what anyone else feels about it. Its hard as hell sometimes, and definitely scary but I feel more myself now than I have in years.
Hi there, and welcome! I think you will find that there are a lot of people here (both men and women) who have gone through or are currently going through very similar struggles. Many of us entered relationships or marriages because it is what was expected of us, and we pushed our true selves down and away only to find it all coming out and re-asserting itself all at once, with a vengeance. And that can be confusing and scary! I understand the fear. But just know that there are many people here who have gone through it and have come out the other side and can offer you words of wisdom and support. This is a warm and supportive place...you will find kindred spirits here! (&&&)
