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Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by Thirdtimecharm, Mar 26, 2017.

  1. Thirdtimecharm

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    It has been a while since I have been on here and just about everything has changed for me. I feel lost, broken, and totally overwhelmed.

    Things began when I was 14 and going to a Catholic high school. I met her. We were fast adversaries, but then for some reason I became the object of her focus. She went from teasing me and poking at me to trying to be my best friend. She sought me out. I pushed her away at first but then fell...fast and hard. My 14 year old self had no idea what was going on but I knew I loved spending time with her, I knew that being with her with unlike anything else I had ever experienced. We grew close quickly, sharing the most intimate details of one another's lives and then suddenly she decided it was too much and she created distance between us. She told me we got too close too fast. So ensured years of this push and pull between her and I. We would grow crazy close, an obsession, could not stay away from one another---constantly either with one another, on the phone, always together. Last year of high school after a trip I had taken with her family to the East coast (we were together for a week) she decided to cut me off. She began to ignore me, pretend as if she didn't know me and pushed me away. My life was hell. I was broken and in such incredible pain. I didn't know why but now I know It was because I was in love with her and she broke my heart.

    About a month or so into college she contacted me to hang out. Pretended as if nothing else happened. we spent time together, saw one another a few times, got into a fight about something trivial and I was done. She was very immature. We parted ways and didn't talk for seven years. Until she came looking for me again.

    She contacted me about two or three months before my wedding. we picked up where we had always left off. She was married with two kids and living in a different state, there was distance between us. We talked for two three hours at a time catching up. I had missed her.

    She moved back to IL, we began hanging out, our kids became close. For a span of nine years we grew close again. Sleepovers at her house, late night talks, flirting. She and I were both married. Both with kids. Tension was high...I didn't know what I felt about her at the time but now know it was sexual tension...my feelings. It was crazy intense between us. Another fight ensued about her giving her time and attention to another person and she cut ties with me. Told me she could not deal with a friendship like mine. My marriage was strained...had always been from the start. My husband is verbally and emotionally abusive and has been for years. She told me the relationship was too stressful for her and couldn't deal with it any more. She needed to walk away. She left me again.

    Two years later, She reached out to me to tell me something about her family. She wanted me to know. By this time i had been in therapy and had admitted that I was in love with her. I had to honest with myself and accept that I was in love with a woman. I had to work with something that scared the hell out of me. Good Catholic girls were not supposed to love women. They were supposed to marry a boy, have kids and live happily ever after.

    Two years of silence went by and she contacted me about something about her family again. she wanted me to know. I was determined to tell her about my feelings for her and I did. She brushed them off and told me she never felt anything for me. It hurt. But I had to accept it or accept that she would never admit to or own up to what existed between us.

    Two more years went by. I began to explore my sexuality. I found this forum, began to talk to people. Became more comfortable with who I was, more accepting. I began to realize that maybe I wasn't straight, maybe I was a lesbian. The fact that my husband was not nice to me, that he was verbally and emotionally abusive, that I have been beaten down for so many years----and me being in therapy and working through all of these issues I was finally able to see maybe a light at the end of the tunnel.

    I discussed everything with my husband. He has known that I was interested in women since the beginning of our relationship (may I add that he was the only man I ever dated, my only boyfriend, the only person I had ever been with intimately) He looked at my attraction as a situation he would benefit from---having a threesome. Tried to set up an escort for me, wanted to go to a brothel in Vegas---it wasn't about the sex for me. It was about so much more. He didn't understand that. He gave me permission to flirt with women online, to sext...to explore things. He began to change the rules, he wanted to become involved and I didn't like his terms. I ended up meeting someone really special on line, we talked and became fast friends. It has turned into more and for about year we had this amazingly close relationship. I loved her.

    Meanwhile my marriage was continuing to deteriorate despite my efforts at couseling, etc.

    Then last September the girl that started this all for me when I was 14 came back into my life. She contacted me again after two years of silence. She reached out to me to tell me something about her family again (she knows that is her way in with me). She told me that I probably had nothing to say to her because she had been a jerk to me for so long. But I loved her, unconditionally. Of course I talked to her. At first i tried telling her that I couldn't just be friends with her...that it was too hard. I told her I couldn't, for her to go, to please go. She pushed, and pushed and pushed. She began opening up to me and admitted she thought she was bisexual....she then told me that she was very very sorry for how she has treated me over the years when we got too close...things were too intense...that she was scared. She told me that she wanted to see me, begged to see me and told me she wanted to give me a hug. This girl who was skittish to any physical contact for the entire 25 years that I had known her now wanted...needed to hug me.

    Reluctantly I met with her mid-October. We were just going to talk. We sat in my car, she pushed for the hug and as i pulled back from the hug she kissed me. SHE KISSED ME. It was crazy. She kissed me several times for the next hour and a half. Didn't stop. She didn't want to leave me. And so began three crazy months. I told the current woman I was with that I needed time and that I needed to just be friends. She knew my first love was back and she was amazingly respectful and giving me space to figure things out.

    My first love, K, and i began to see each other alot. We spent alot of time with one another. It was the first female experience for either one of us. It was crazy because it was something I had wanted for 25 years and had given up on. It was something I had fought for so long with my feelings for K and the fact that she told me she didn't feel the same way for me ever...and now she would not leave me alone---texting non stop, phone calls, occasional facetime, seeing in each in person. Per both of our husbands we were forbidden from seeing one another and talking to one another because they both sensed four years ago there was something between us so it was difficult to meet up sometimes but it was something I wanted to do I wanted to know what was between us.

    Every once in a while she would get upset, feel guilty. Tell me that she couldn't continue...told me that she could not have a middle ground with me. She told me that she either had to be all in or not be around me at all. We talked about everything that had ever happened between us. She apologized profusely to me for hurting me, for leading me on and pulling back...told me on several occasions that she loved me and that she wanted me. She called me her constant and told me that she wanted me in her life but that it was hard to keep things a secret.

    We agreed to try and just be in one another's lives because life is too short and we have lived so many years without one another. This quickly escalated into her telling me that she could not just be friends with me that it was like torture....and then she tells me that she is actually in love with a close female friend that she has been friends with for ten years. She told me that this friend is one of the only good friends she has, that she is safe to hang out with (because K and I were forbidden from seeing one another...). She told me that she loves me and worries about me and that all the time we spent together was "fun" but she is not in love with me . She told me she never meant to hurt me. She then told me that she wanted me to delete all of the photos and writings she ever sent to me. For both of our protection. I told her, as I had many times before, I never wanted to talk to her again and that she has hurt me more than any other person in my life and I told her not to contact me. She told me she will respect my wishes now but knows that she cannot ever say goodbye to me. Once again she broke my heart and f----- up my life.

    I almost lost my girl who I had been with for a year. I have spent the past few months working on trying to repair a relationship that I have allowed to become so fractured. She has been beyond amazing and supportive to me. She has been kind and selfless and I don't know what I did to deserve her because she truly has been my rock. We have been continually working out our issues, talking through things. She understands I had to figure out things with K, and is upset and hurt by all that happened between K and I...but she says she loves me, that it is worth it to work things out and has been truly the most amazing support I have ever know. I do love her a lot and am so grateful for her in my life.

    At the same time that I ended things with K because of her behavior with me...because of her beginning a physical relationship with me, telling me she loved me, telling me she was falling for me fast and it scared her because an "us" couldn't happen---and my heart was breaking, my husband and I have decided that we are going to stay together for financial reasons to raise the kids. It makes sense to me. Plus he has temper and argue issues and my first priority is my kids and I want to be with them as much as possible when my husband is around them because i have more control over the situation. My husband and I don't fight anymore once the sex was taken off the table. I couldn't have sex with him anymore after having been with K, it was obvious to me i preferred women and also and MAINLY because of the way he talked to me. His verbal and emotional abuse and narcarcissm finally pushed me over the edge and I was done.

    So now here I am. My first love came back, sought me out and then broke my heart in a million pieces in the cruelest of ways. My marriage of 13 years is ending. I feel like a failure in so many ways.

    I am so beyond grateful for my girl that is now currently standing by my side and holding my hand through it all of this. She listens to me and comforts me, she holds me up when I feel like I cannot stand anymore and she pushed me to keep moving forward. I adore her I truly do. I am just having the hardest of times just trying to keep my head above water at this point---out bursts of crying, depression, sometimes things are so heavy.

    I am sorry for this rant. I needed to vent today as I had a horrible breakdown in front of my kids crying---my four year old, my little baby, looked at me and said "momma, now take a deep breath and talk to me, tell me what is wrong, tell me what is going on" It breaks my heart. I am so tired, so very tired of the heart break and betrayal.

    I feel lost, I feel hopeless and rejected. I feel lied to and disrespected. I don't understand how when someone loves someone they can treat them the way that not only my husband but that K treated me. She had cut ties with me four years ago...why seek me out and kiss me only to leave me and turn on me....

    Thanks for reading. Needed to get things out. Hoping to let go of things....hoping to move on but trying to move on from two major rejections has weighed me down more than I have ever been weighed down in my life. There are some days I feel like I am drowning...
     
  2. nbd

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    This is such a heartbreaking story. I feel so horrible for you that you were so badly treated and jerked around by K, even after you told her that you loved her. Between your husband and K, you've been terribly burned by narcissists, and that's something that will take so much time to get over. I really feel for you.

    I'm glad that you are in a relationship now that is fulfilling to you, and that you're able to make it work while staying married to your husband. I wish I could get to that point, but I don't think that he is wired in a way to feel like he can stay with me and not be physically intimate.

    Are you able to take some time to get away and clear your head a bit? Find a good therapist to talk to and help you work on some mindfulness and meditative practices?

    Thank you for sharing.
     
  3. Worker Bee

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    Wow! Your story made me cry. I'm sorry you were hurt repeatedly by your first love and that your husband was an asshat.

    I'm so glad you've found someone who gives you the love and support you deserve.
     
  4. scouse

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    Woah this woman is truly a nightmare. People who push/pull are the WORST and my heart breaks for you. How selfish of her to treat you this way. She called you her 'constant' whilst being nothing of the sort for you. This is, sadly, the kind of person she is. You know, she may say she can't ever say goodbye to you, but you can say goodbye to her, with a single decision and take back that control she has had. Make take time for yourself, heal, just look after yourself as best you can. One day at a time. It's very rough. You are here fighting and you can get through this.
     
  5. Thirdtimecharm

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    Thank you all for your kind thoughts.

    I am actively in therapy and have been since four years ago when K left me so abruptly and I fell apart. I began taking pain pills to sleep at night that was left over from a recent surgery. My head knew it was not the right thing to do but I just wanted to be numb from everything, from her and from my husband.

    With both of these relationships ending at the same time I have really thought about things. K I had true intense love for, I was madly in love with her and could see myself with her. Sometimes I think that I chose my husband because I felt I was supposed to...to get married and have kids. I was supposed to be straight and I couldn't have her. So I married him. I think I am so far into the abuse with him, so beaten down that there is now this relief that I don't have to have sex with him anymore. If I didn't have sex regularly with him he would keep track of the last time we did and hold it over my head. I would have to psych myself up to have sex with him and then when I did it was mechanical and...a chore. I didn't like anything about it.

    But with her, although we did not have sex, we did kiss and held one another and it was amazing. We talked over what has happened between us over the past 25 years and she said she was so so sorry. She said she never meant to hurt me but then near the end told me that she felt that she would do this again to me, seek me out and hurt me for the rest of my life. She could not tell me why...just that I was her constant. That I was always there for her and she could not believe that I loved her unconditionally the way that she was...she told me I was home to her. She told me I was and always have been her home. But then this. This destruction, the rejection. The reaching out to me, pulling me in and kissing me, pushing to spend time with me, obsessively...she would call me at night from bed because she wanted to go to sleep to my voice----but yet she tells me now that there was someone else. The thought disgusts me.

    And yes, thank you. The new woman in my life is amazing. Things are long distance between us now currently but we talk of a time when our children are grown and divorces are final and we can be together.

    Also...when my husband and I discussed being in the partnership for financial reasons only it was also agreed upon that he had permission to go out and fulfill his "needs" as he put it. I certainly cannot and will not fulfill those needs any longer.

    thanks again for listening.