One thing I still struggle with is understanding the crushes that I've had on guys. I'm not looking for any advice in particular, but would be grateful for any insight. What confuses me is that whilst I've had crushes on guys, I've never felt any strong desire to act on them. The idea terrified me. I could never get over the fear of the unknown, until I met my current partner and thought that I might as well get it over with. Part of me thinks that if I didn't have any attraction to men, then those crushes wouldn't have existed. Another part of me thinks that whatever my friends had that pushed them past the fear, drove them to go searching for good looking guys, I never had. I didn't have Gareth Gates badges on my backpack, for example, because I didn't get what the big deal was. With later crushes (early 20s) I can see that it was the 'idea' and not the man that I was attracted to, and I sort of chose not to act because of it. I suppose, I don't know whether it was the fear, or because my attraction wasn't strong enough. It wasn't fear of making the first move; I was asked out by guys I liked several times, but always said no. None of my friends did that. Can anyone relate?
Part of coming to terms with myself as a lesbian was coming to terms with my history with men. I know now that I did love 2 men. But that there were major things missing from those relationships and true attraction was one of those things. I also know that I, like you said, was attracted to the idea of being married with a house and kids and all that. I think I wanted the kids more than anything in life, so being with a man only made sense for that. I now know there's a big difference between my ability to love and my sexuality.
Thanks for your reply, RosePetals. I'm with you on wanting children, it was the one thing I was sure that I wanted.
I also understand what you mean by not feeling true attraction too. When I was pregnant, and in the few months after, I remember being (almost) completely happy because I had everything that I wanted (partner, baby, house, etc.). I felt that I had my happily ever after. In retrospect things weren't perfect. I'd resigned myself to never having a fulfilling sex life, for example, but nothing I thought it was worth ending the relationship over. Admittedly that period of happiness only lasted for several months. Before then I'd always had this nagging doubt that something wasn't right, that I wasn't really into it. When my partner first asked me out, I only said yes because I didn't like to say no. I was always happy just to coast along, be able to tell people I had a boyfriend. It was always him pushing our relationship forward. I feel terrible about this. Since those happier months, our relationship has had other difficulties. I'd sort of decided that I wanted out before I started questioning, which makes things easier in some ways. I do think though, if I could go back to being in that happy state, I'd be tempted. It would be so much easier. If I could undo all the questioning and go back to ignorance, but then we'd still have other relationship issues. I don't feel like I'm handling this particularly well. I feel like I'm close to tantrum all the time. I don't want to leave, and I don't want to stay. I don't want to be doing this. Sometimes I think I'm completely losing it; that I've just made all this questioning up. I'm not sure that I'm ever going to have the strength to end my current relationship. Anyway, that was long. But good to get it down.
