Iâm a 45-year-old cis woman. Iâve been married to a cis man for almost twenty years. About a year and a half ago, I made out with a woman at a party, and everything clicked. I realized something was missing in my life, and I started exploring my attraction to women with my husbandâs blessing. I had always felt attracted to women but didnât fully acknowledge it, thinking it was normal for âstraightâ women to be attracted to other women while only dating men. (Iâve since learned about compulsory heterosexuality.) I met a wonderful woman, and we dated for over a year. While I was with her, I realized Iâm gay. We spent a lot of time together, I had the best sex of my life, saw shows, went out to dinners, had sleepovers, met each otherâs kids. It was a real relationship. But she ended things because I wasnât ready to make major changes in my life â she wasnât included in our large family gatherings, as some family members donât know about our open marriage. My husband has a girlfriend now, and Iâm happy for him, but he feels certain family members wouldnât understand. This made my girlfriend feel deprioritized, despite my reassurances and all the time I spent with her.
I love my husband dearly, but our relationship is platonic, and weâve stopped being intimate. We have three amazing young children, and our lives are deeply intertwined emotionally, financially, and where our families are concerned. While I feel I need to live authentically as a lesbian, Iâm terrified of the fallout â hurting my husband, my family, blowing up my life, etc. The plan was to keep our family together and slowly integrate my girlfriend into my life, but that wasnât enough for her. My husband wants to stay married, and I wanted to stay married. Should I get a divorce instead? What should I do?
Wanting To Live Authentically
You wanna live authentically, WTLA, I wanna respond authentically.
And if Iâm gonna be authentic â if Iâm gonna be honest â my first impulse after reading your question was to find you and your husband and figuratively slap you upside your metaphorical heads. On the off chance your email found me in an ungenerous mood, WTLA, I set your question aside for a few days. But I had the same impulse â the same metaphorical desire to do figurative violence â the second time I read your email.
Zooming out for a secondâŚ
Itâs totally fine â not a problem at all â that you didnât realize you were a lesbian until after you married and had a couple of kids. Compulsory heterosexuality is a helluva drug, WTLA, and lots of queer people donât figure themselves out until later in life. And itâs totally fine â not a problem at all â that you donât wanna get a divorce. Youâre not letting down the lesbian side by remaining in your marriage. Companionate marriages are valid marriages! If thereâs mutual respect and real affection, marriages like yours can work and even thrive. So, if you wanna stay together for the kids and/or stay together because you actually do (platonically!) love each other and/or stay together because divorce is an expensive hassle, you have my blessing!
Where you lose me, WTLA, is when you talk about not being able to âintegrateâ your girlfriend into your life because âcertainâ family members wouldnât understand. Oh, I get it. Youâre staring down some real fears here: fear of judgment, fear of rejection, fear of losing people you care about. But every out gay or lesbian or bisexual person that came before you â and every openly non-monogamous couple that came before you â had to confront those same fears.
And the people you and your husband are so afraid of â your families of origin â donât have any power over you. Yes, some of them might not understand. Yes, some of them might judge you. Yes, some of them might say shitty things to you and about you. But they canât throw you out of the house (you have your own place!) they canât cut you off financially (you make your own money!), and they canât force you into conversion therapy (you are not minors!). All your judgmental family members can do, again, is say shitty things to you and about you. But one of the best parts of being an adult, WTLA, is that you donât have to show up for Christmas or Kwanza or Hanukkah â you donât have to see your families on the holidays or at any other time of the year â if your family canât be kind to you and the people you love. You donât have to show up to get punched in the face.
I can understand why your girlfriend dumped you. She doesnât want to be abandoned on holidays for the comfort of people who donât fully know you â people you donât fully trust â but whose comfort youâve decided to prioritize over the safety and comfort of a woman you claim to love. And while she may be comfortable being with a someone whoâs married (companionably!) to someone else, your ex-girlfriend wasnât comfortable being lowest priority. Perhaps she shouldâve been more patient â youâve only been out for a year and change â but if sheâs close to your age, WTLA, she may not feel like waiting for your family (husband included) to come around is the best use of her time at this (grownup!) time of her life.
Look, your family might not understand at first â mine didnât â but if the gays and lesbians who came before you waited for our families to somehow magically âget itâ before we started coming out, no one wouldâve come out at all, ever. While some queer people are lucky enough to come out to supportive families â while some queer people are lucky enough to have families who got it before they came out â most families donât get it until after a loved one comes out to them.
If you wanna be who you are â if you wanna live authentically â you have to be willing to make some people uncomfortable, WTLA, and that may include your husband. Good luck.
Read the rest of this week's column here! And this week on the Lovecast:Â A female used to date âbad boysââthe kind of guy who turned her on sexually, but made terrible partners. Now sheâs with a sweet man who treats her well, but the heat isnât there. Can she train him to turn her on? Can she train herself to be turned on by him?
On the Magnum, what happens when you invite chatty, blabby podcasters to your sex party? Will they kiss and tell⌠everyone? Dan brings on comedian Ashley Ray to talk about this, and her obsession with the ancient JonBenĂŠt Ramsey murder. The plucky comedian has studied the case intensively and her long Substack piece about the crime and its coverage roped in a curious Dan Savage. Câmon amateur sleuths! Letâs crack this case already! Listen here.
