Tag: later in life lesbian

Therapy

October 5th, 2022
One of the greatest acts of self love that I ever gave myself was seeing a therapist.

I remember the first time therapy was suggested to me was by my sister back in 1990. I had just ended a physically and emotionally abusive relationship with my first husband. This relationship was my first love and although it was extremely toxic, I was missing the attention that I received from it; regardless of it being negative. It was a heartbreaking time for me, and in desperation, I relented and made an appointment with a therapist at a local Women’s Center.

At 19, I thought I’d go to a session and tell the therapist what my issue was and they’d have an answer or exercise for me to do and I’d be cured. What I didn’t realize was that this therapist was going to ask common questions like family history, upbringing, etc. When it came time for me to reveal that my mother abandoned me at 1 year old; showing up just a couple times in my life until her suicide when I was 13, I knew I didn’t want to talk about this. Nonetheless, my therapist pressed on, almost shocked at my apathetic and emotionless response. Luckily, my session was about up and she ended with “I think we need to talk about your childhood. That’s where I feel we’ll have some success in getting to the root of the problem.” I told her I agreed. That I’d go home and see when I could schedule another appointment and call her back to set that up. I never did. I was petrified of opening up the vault I had created around my childhood experiences. All my life up until that moment, I was told that my mother was an alcoholic, mentally ill, weak woman who chose to leave her children. She couldn’t handle life, so she took the easy way out. I had such an anger toward her but didn’t show it because in my family you were only allowed to show happy emotions. Crying, sadness and anger were unacceptable and I was quickly shamed, so I just refrained from feeling any of these. I became numb.

Fast forward to the Fall of 1996 when I remarried a wonderfully decent man. He was kind, family oriented, stable and safe. We both wanted kids right away and after a miscarriage in 1997, I was able to give birth to my son, Sean in the Spring of 1998.

Having my son brought me so much joy. A feeling of love that I’d never experienced before. I remember looking at him and thinking to myself, “How in the world could a mother ever leave her child?” I just couldn’t wrap my brain around it. It also exacerbated the anxiety I felt all of my life. I was clueless at how to be a good mother. I was so afraid that I would do something detrimental to my son, from the lack of not having a maternal role model. This is when I decided to give therapy another chance.

I decided to go back to the same Women’s Center I reached out to before. The therapist I spoke with years previously had retired and I was given an appointment with someone who took her place.

This therapist changed my life. I will spare you all of the details where she helped me over the next 10 years. Ten years I spent on/off with this therapist. That may seem like an incredibly long time, but there were many times I only went a few times a year, I’d go for tune-ups, as I called them, and when issues would arise where I needed assistance, I’d go back.

When I moved away from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, I stopped going to therapy. It was an incredibly stressful and busy time in my life that I just felt I had no time for myself anymore. I had just bought a home and was trying to sell another, started back to work full-time after being a stay at home mom of 2 kids now for 10 years, and a lot of my years were just consumed with just being a mom who was in constant motion. Being busy allowed me to avoid many personal issues that were going on. One of which was that I was miserable in my marriage because I knew I was gay.

So what I started doing was applying band-aids to these issues. I started drinking. Binge drinking specifically. Drinking made me forget why I was sad. When I was drinking with friends, I was numbing out. Always laughing about anything in the moment and just having an all around great time…until I’d get home. Then I was miserable again. Several years of doing this took it’s toll on me. What turned into one night on a weekend drinking, turned into 2-4 days a week. I knew I had a problem. And I wanted to change.

I wish I could tell you that I went back to therapy right away when I had this realization, but I did not. What I did do was go back to old journals I’d written, books I’d read previously and realized I needed to change. I stopped drinking for a while, started working out, and eventually came out. Although I was caring for myself in some ways, I was neglecting myself in others.

I suffered from extreme guilt at breaking up my family. My kids were displaying signs of depression and anxiety that I thought was the direct result of my actions, and I was in a relationship with a woman who turned out to be abusive and controlling. I thought it was time to try therapy again.

I saw a different therapist this time. And she really made me start to work on loving myself. Putting me first didn’t mean I was selfish. It meant I wanted to be the best version of myself so that I could offer that to others. I have read so much over the years about self-love that I really didn’t have an exact definition or understanding of what that meant until recently. I work on achieving this daily. It’s a very tough task for me and I fall of the wagon from time to time. I understand the term people-pleaser all too well. Especially when it would come to relationships.

Because of being abandoned, and my subsequent needs not being met by my father throughout the remainder of my childhood into adulthood, I have brought these fears with me into other relationships. It has also made me select partners with whom I tend to form trauma bonds. I felt needed by those who made me their savior, and rescued by those who swore to be the things I never received as a child. This lead to me denying myself of my own wants and needs at the expense of theirs.

This. Does. Not. Work.

Getting back to therapy made me explicitly aware of this once again. I need to love myself. And I need to surround myself with others who have this same mindset. Those who can not love themselves enough to face their fears, make significant changes that will better their lives or those of their loved ones, will never know how to fully love another. We must first show ourselves this empathy, compassion, and forgiveness before we can ever offer this to another. I know there are some people out there that say therapy does not work for them. In all honesty, I believe it’s not that therapy doesn’t work for them, but that they haven’t found the right therapist. Sometimes it takes seeing some different ones, before you find the best fit for you.

Therapy is difficult. You are asked to talk about uncomfortable things. Things that you purposefully avoid. It breaks down walls that you’ve so carefully constructed over the years. No one really wants to go to therapy or enjoys it, but I believe it’s an important part of growth. A therapist will hold you accountable…something that we can’t always do for ourselves.
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Unconditional Love

September 5th, 2022
I’ve heard a lot about this term my entire life. Particularly when it comes to family and a life partner.

Looking up various examples of what this meaning is, I’ve found that it’s mainly defined as “to offer love freely with no preset conditions, expectations or payment of love in return.”

But how realistic is that?

When it comes to my children, I would have to say that I’m pretty damn near close to having this type of love for them.

There’s something about that maternal bond that seems to grow stronger the more time has passed. If I let my brain go off on a tangent, I could think of some awful things my kids could do that could make me not like them very much, but I don’t think I would ever stop loving them. That to me is unconditional love. The love that endures and is constant throughout time.

When I first started dating way back in high school, I remember having these romantic notions of what love should be. And unconditional love was a term I would often say and profess to my partners. That led to some really dysfunctional emotions and excessive heartache. The truth is, constant hurt can diminish love between two people who have come together by choice. Resentments form, hurtful words continue to replay in our minds. We can not expect to keep love alive, when we’re assuming it will always be there.

What I’ve learned, is that when it comes to a relationship there must be conditions established between both parties in order for it to work, be fulfilling, and grow.

I can not expect to treat or be treated by my partner with disrespect, withhold emotions, take out anger, and expect to have that love still be there.

If I want a fulfilling, long lasting, loving relationship, I must put conditions on my love. Set boundaries. Mend past indiscretions, and learn from mistakes.

This does not mean withholding love. Quite the opposite. It means discovering what is needed from our loved ones to create, sustain and grow love and getting the same in return.

Love is such an amazing gift that costs absolutely nothing. We can give it, receive it, but it’s also fragile and must be handled with care and nurtured, much like a child in order for it be healthy and grow.

Conditional love is not something we just want to give to others. It’s required for ourselves as well.

Learning to love and respect ourselves, and quiet self deprecating talk, will ultimately teach us to expand that onto others. It’s a constant practice though; one that isn’t easy by any stretch, but loving just feels so much better than hate. And that’s what keeps me pushing on.
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Happiness

August 28th, 2022
Wanting to reclaim my happiness again was a huge part of me coming out. I had many years where I put that aside for several reasons, and was in a constant battle in my mind over what I felt was right and what others wanted me to do.

I recently finished the book The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. If any of you have not read it and are looking to expand on your personal growth, I strongly suggest it.

After having a relatively horrible month, I decided to read this book as was suggested by a friend, as well as hearing about it on a podcast. I had seen some unhealthy patterns arise in me that I was not happy about and knew that I needed help in getting back on track, and to learn why I was once again, falling victim to these ways.

In this book, there were so many topics that stopped me in my tracks and made me feel incredibly overcome with sadness and grief, mainly because they rang so true to how I was living.

The one that stuck out the most was the only way to experience happiness to its fullest, was to have your heart open. Because it’s been a really trying time for me emotionally, I told myself I just needed to stop feeling so much. I wanted to close it up so very tightly, to keep out any pain from ever affecting me again.

I started to think back to the days before I had kids and how strong I was emotionally, or so I thought. I never cried. Nothing could rock me. It didn’t matter what someone did, I could separate those feelings of hurt and tuck them away and not think twice about it.

What really happened is I was hardening my heart. I had a dark soul. I disliked myself, and therefore had no idea how to like or love others. I had mastered the art of sweeping my emotions under the rug so well as a child and teenager, that when I lost my mother to suicide at the age 13, I felt completely numb to it. Never shed a tear and didn’t mourn her death until almost 14 years later. I was raised to not cry. My father equated tears with physical pain and often mentioned if my sisters and I cried “that he’d give us something to cry about”, insinuating that we’d get a whooping if we didn’t stop. This is where I learned that happy emotions were OK to share outwardly, but anything sorrowful needed to be kept inside.

The avoidance of expressing many sad experiences of my adolescence caused me to become so very angry and develop severe anxiety.

It was only when I became pregnant with my son did I decide to go to therapy to learn how to change. Thank goodness I had the sense to realize I was terribly flawed, and had no idea how to be a good mother. I had to be taught.

This brings me to my topic of happiness. When I was in therapy, I learned I had surface happiness. You know the kind, the upbeat positive face you show your friends, family, and co-workers, but deep down inside I was so very sad. I hurt so much. This is where the work had to begin to get to the happiness that was on the other side. I had to look under the rug at all the stuff I had swept under there. It was a long, brutal process.

Many years of therapy helped me to deal with all that unpleasant stuff. It was excruciating at times. The hurt so immense, but then I started to realize something. My heart was growing. I felt lighter, happier. Simple things brought me joy instead of anger. I could breathe calmly and not be filled with constant anxiety. I learned that feeling the hurtful things was OK. That these feelings didn’t have to stay with or consume me. I could acknowledge that the unpleasant things happened and were a part of my life, but they didn’t have to linger inside of me. I learned the art of acceptance and letting go.

Just because I had learned this doesn’t mean that I don’t have moments where I forget and want to go back to what’s easiest; not facing the pain. But carrying that is a really heavy load that I worked so hard at overcoming, that I just can’t go back to that dark place, no matter how painful life gets.

I’ve always said that life is a series of balances; you can’t have extreme highs without deep lows. In fact, I believe in order to experience the joy to its fullest, you have to break through the despair and feeling that intensely in order to bask in the feelings of love and happiness.
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Codependency

August 23rd, 2022
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, codependency is defined as “a psychological condition or a relationship in which low self-esteem and a strong desire for approval has an unhealthy attachment to another person and places the needs of that person before his or her own.”

There are so many ways that a person can become codependent, and often times not even realizing they are. As a child, I can remember having to present myself in a certain way and behave according to how others wanted me to be. Being a child, I felt like I didn’t have much of a say in the matter, but being groomed from a young age to put others feelings, wants and needs ahead of my own, sets up a foundation of codependency for my formative years. What happened is I would repeatedly seek out others opinions and approval instead of trusting my own judgment. If my opinion was different, I would have to hear why it was wrong and basically suffer the repercussions of being different. When this happened, over time I just learned to go with the majority as to not upset anyone; neglecting my own sense of self.

As a woman I believe this is more prevalent than it is with men. I was raised in a family that had gender specific roles, and was taught traits and behaviors that my gender should adhere to. Men were typically strong, stoic and the breadwinners of the family. Cold and distant with their emotions, and worked a lot of hours outside of the home. The women were homemakers; raising children, cooking meals and cleaning the house. Keeping the peace and quiet even though they weren’t content, because the men were the ones who gave us a safe place to live and food on the table. We women should be grateful.

I could take you through the stages of my youth, adolescence and early adulthood that would give you an enormous amount of examples that show just how this codependency fit so easily into my life., but I’d be here for a very long time. There was a time when I couldn’t even make a decision without conferring with a relative first. I always felt the need for others approval and never trusted my own judgement.

This is why I never chose to come out earlier than I did. I never wanted to disappoint anyone, especially my parents. Repeatedly being told that I’d be disowned if I was gay, was certainly a way to keep anyone in the closet.

Wanting to be accepted and loved was a constant struggle for me growing up. My mother abandoned my older sister and I when I was one year old, so already I had a key component for codependency due to this. I felt as though I had to be exactly what my family wanted me to be so that they wouldn’t leave also.

That being said, let me point out that I was not the model child. I had a stubborn streak, anger issues, and would have moments where I wouldn’t talk to anyone for days. I joke around and tell people that I was grounded from the age of 13 until I moved out at 17, but it’s not all that far-fetched. I was always in trouble mostly for speaking my mind and questioning my parents authority. Nonetheless, this rebellious teenager wanted to be accepted, so I eventually developed that codependency with my peers.

Being a teenager in the 80’s and in a rural town, I didn’t see or know of any gay people, so I played the part of a straight girl really well. Conformed to all of what was socially acceptable and even won the acceptance of my parents by settling down and marrying a great guy.

When you are used to being the outcast, and then suddenly you start doing all the things that your family wants you to do and they start treating you nicer, it can be so rewarding. Here I was, married to a guy whom my parents loved, bought a house, nice car, attending all the usual family functions, etc…I’ll admit it was really nice there for a while.

I don’t think a child ever wants to disappoint their parents. And I did not want to disappoint my father. He and I developed a bond over hunting that none of my other sisters did. That made me feel special and wanted. The first sign of me letting go of some of that codependency was right before I had my son and I decided to no longer partake in what I thought was an unkind act. My father was disappointed, and I saw our relationship change from that moment on. Suddenly we didn’t really have anything to bond us anymore.

But what happens when you start to live for other people’s happiness and not your own? Constantly being the giver and never setting boundaries? I started to become extremely depressed and resentful. What I didn’t realize was that a lifetime of people pleasing was ingrained in me. I saw how I did this within my marriage too. Just settling for whatever just to keep the peace. With friends and family members; always asking for their approval and opinions and considering them over mine.

That resentment, anger and depression within me finally reached a point where I broke. The older I got, the more I realized I wasn’t living my life. How fair was that? How many people came to me and asked what my opinions were about their lives and adhered to it? I couldn’t think of any. That’s when I started to slowly stop living for those people and start living for me. Of course I had children that I sacrificed for, but no longer my entire self. When I decided to come out, is when I gave up a lot of that codependency. I set boundaries., spoke openly about what was important to me and my children. I no longer had any concern for what other people thought. I was finally going to take control of my life.

I lost some friends. Distances developed within my family, but I gained myself. I was called selfish and irresponsible for breaking up my family. That I was sick and mentally ill. Only a few saw that my actions had actually saved my life and made this depressed, scared, anxiety ridden, self-destructive shell of a woman, breathe a sigh of relief and feel like she had been reborn.

I believe we all have forms of codependency in our lives. I still do. But I believe I broke free from the most destructive and constraining ones that were not allowing me to fully live. Breaking free from this behavior is extremely hard to do, as it’s learned behavior typically over a long period of time.

There’s an old myth that you may have heard about; the boiling frog. The story goes if you place a frog in a pot of boiling water it will instantly leap out. But if you put it in a pot filled with tepid water and gradually increase the heat, the frog will remain in the water until it boils to death.

Sometimes we become so accustomed to neglecting ourselves and pleasing others, that we don’t recognize when our own needs aren’t being met.

We’re all free to live the life we want. The life we deserve. Sometimes it’s not easy. It takes work and the ability to change. And change my friends is extremely scary, but not impossible. And SO very worth it!
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On Dating Women

August 18th, 2022
I’m not sure about every persons why for coming out, but mine was to finally address the emotional and sexual desires I had kept pent up inside of me for most of my life. The longing to act on pursing a woman romantically was exciting, intriguing, but also terrifying!

First, I must confess that writing about my sexual experiences makes me a bit uncomfortable. I’m not one who likes to kiss and tell, and I believe that my intimate experiences are to be kept sacred between the parties involved. That being said, I understand this is an important topic of discussion, so I will do my best to be as open, and adhere to what I feel I’m comfortable in divulging.

My first sexual experience was with a woman who was in a similar situation as me. Married, but in a sexless, unfulfilling union. We were both curious and after about a month of talking, our circumstances aligned that allowed us to be each others first. This was not a love connection, but there was a mutual respect between us that developed while talking. We both felt comfortable with meeting.

After that first sexual encounter, I told myself that I must be bisexual. Even though I knew deep down in the depths of my soul I was gay, how could I be? I slept with men. Was married to a man. (and married previously to a man). I had kids with a man. Built a life with a man. I was confused and scared. But, this sexual experience was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I was fully present. My body and mind felt things that it never had before. Still, it was unfamiliar to me, so I did what I do with just about everything in my life. I over analyzed it.

After a few weeks of trying to come to terms with what just happened, there was also an excitement that ignited in me. I felt alive. Like I had been wearing this heavy backpack all my life, and I finally felt like it was no longer there weighing me down. We decided to meet up again. It was after this meeting that I was legitimately, without a doubt – a lesbian. I remember telling this person my realization, and her immediately telling me that she still believed she was bisexual. She asked what I was going to do, and I told her I had to come out. I just couldn’t keep it inside any longer. I assured her that I was not looking for anything from her. Nonetheless, that was the last conversation we had. My texts were no longer answered, and I knew fairly quickly that this short lived encounter was over.

I didn’t feel any type of sadness from basically being ghosted. We both knew what it was. An experiment, if you will. A chance to safely explore. I look back on that experience as a great first time. Better than my first time being with a man. It stoked my burning desires, and fueled me to embrace who I truly was.

Since then, I’ve had relationships with a few women. I’ve loved and lost greatly. I do not regret any relationship I was ever in that ended, for it taught me so much about myself, what I want and don’t want. It also allowed me to become a stronger, more aware person. A really difficult lesson I’ve learned, is that love is definitely not enough to sustain a relationship. Sometimes, two people are just so far apart in their personalities, values and future endeavors that no matter how much love is there, it simply will not work.

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” ~ Sam Keen
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What about the kids?

August 17th, 2022
Whenever I decided to come out there was a question that arose from several friends and family members. “What about your kids?” This was also in addition to me telling them about me wanting a divorce. The double whammy. Not only am I divorcing my kind, hard-working husband and father of my children, but I’m gay. What could possibly be worse? The trauma that I’m going to instill in my children was apparent on my parents faces and heard in their unapproving words. Some friends even voiced their disgust. “How could I be so selfish?”

The truth is, I felt so incredibly selfish. And guilty. I had also reached a point in my life that I felt I could no longer survive if I continued to live in this make believe life. Sure my ex-husband was a great guy, but we never had the intimacy that I longed for. The deep conversations, the feeling like he understood me. The physical part as well. I remember when I would talk to him years prior to coming out, about how I wasn’t happy and I felt like we were just two mismatched souls, his response was that we needed to have more sex. I found this incredibly interesting, as I was the more sexual person in our relationship; always initiating, only to be turned down the majority of the time. Such a complex situation. On one hand I was relieved because I didn’t really enjoy sex all that much. I won’t say it was awful, but I craved intimacy and physical touch. It’s my love language, and I felt that the only time I had this with my ex-husband was when we were having sex. Sometimes I just wanted to feel wanted and have someone touch me softly. What was happening as the years went on, is that I was increasingly becoming more and more upset by having no emotional attachment to those physical feelings. I knew I was capable of giving and receiving more, and I was so very depressed by this feeling of unachievable longing.

It’s true what I’ve read in several books and articles about allowing your kids, and other people in your life to have as much time as needed to process all of this. The reality is, most times the person who decides to leave has had months or years to process it all, so when it’s time to tell the other spouse, kids, family and friends, we have to be cognizant of the fact that this is their beginning. I’ve already gone through the acceptance phase. That’s not to say that my grieving ended when I came to this realization. Different situations arose, and brought on more surprising feelings of hurt and despair.

When I told my kids their father and I were getting divorced, I did not mention I was gay. I also did not disclose this to my ex-husband at the time either. I truly felt that was only part of the reason for our split. I have been asked many times if I would’ve stayed together with him had I not been gay, and my answer has always been no. Refer back to the previous paragraphs in this post. I wanted more from a relationship than I was getting.

Both of my kids took the news of the divorce rather well. Although their father and I never fought or raised our voices, there was always a sense of tension in the home, and they mentioned this when we broke the divorce news to them. Kids are more intuitive than we give them credit for. My ex-husband and I made a pact to make this split as painless and less disruptive for the kids as possible. Of course there were tough moments from the split, and from what I chalk up to just being teenagers; my kids were 15 & 13 when the separation happened.

Leading up to my telling the kids I was gay, there were some moments where my daughter would become so very sad and ask if there was any chance me and her father could stay together. It broke my heart when I’d continually tell her no, but that we would always be there for her and her brother. I knew the time was going to have to come soon that I tell my kids the other reason why their parents couldn’t stay together.

I wish my story of telling my kids and ex-husband that I was gay, was a more uniform, perfectly planned out disclosure. I envisioned telling them together, but sometimes in life things do not go as planned.

Approximately 3 months after breaking the news of the split to just about everyone, I had been conversing with a woman, mainly via text. My daughter sensed something was up and unbeknownst to me, watched over my shoulder me entering the passcode on my phone. She found texts from this person whose name is an androgynous one, and confronted me. She wanted to know who this person was, and was I leaving her dad for “him”. As my heart sank and seemed to jump right into my throat, I knew now was the time I had to tell her. All I will say about that private conversation, is that I learned in that moment that my ex-husband and I had raised her right. She was kind, compassionate, and empathetic…all at the tender and volatile age of 13. Telling my ex-husband and my son was now imperative.

There is nothing like having a dreadful conversation knowing that you can’t put it off. I did not want my daughter to have to hold onto that information, so I asked to speak to my ex-husband as quickly as possible. I remember sitting down on the couch shaking, crying, and just trying so desperately to find the right words. I finally just said “I have something to tell you and you’re probably going to be shocked. I’m gay”. He looked at me, shook his head and said “That makes a lot of sense.” I assured him all of the things that many of us late in lifers do like “It wasn’t anything you did. I just always felt this way.” He hugged me, but only because I approached him and asked if we could. We never talked about it again.

My son came home shortly after that and I told him in his room, using the same opening line I did with his father. His reaction was typical for him; calm, cool, and reserved. He asked if I was happy. I said yes. “Well, that’s all that matters. I love you. You’re still my Mom.” And then he asked if we cold order pizza.

The road after coming out has been fairly smooth for me. I’ve heard a lot of stories where that is not the case, and it hurts my heart. I do realize how very fortunate I am. One thing I’ve also realized is that those who didn’t approve fell by the wayside. I quickly found out who my real family and friends were, and I hold them close.

The most important piece of me owning my truth is that my kids see their mother and father happier than they ever were. That they can choose their path, even if it’s not the expected one. They’re never stuck. They can be exactly who they want to be. To me, that is a precious lesson that I take great pride in having taught them, even though the road to getting to the destination was a little rocky.
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Tag: later in life lesbian

Therapy

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Unconditional Love

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Happiness

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Codependency

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On Dating Women

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What about the kids?

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