Confession: I Left My Straight Marriage And Finally Found Happiness
Hey, remember me? I’m the one who was a lesbian stuck in a straight marriage.
So the last time I wrote, I remember wondering to myself what I should do about my situation. It felt like I was going to sacrifice everyone’s happiness for my own. It felt like I was being a horrible, mother, wife and daughter for even considering leaving my marriage. So many of my fears were about what other people would think. The life I spent years building would have to be rebuilt. People would reject me, they would judge me, I couldn’t imagine the pressure. This was compounded by a lingering sense of denial about being an actual lesbian. What if it was all in my head and I was just confused? I am sure there are millions of people who would advise me to just keep persevering. Who’s to say they were all wrong? Why sacrifice a sure thing for the unknown?
I took the plunge.
I filed for divorce. I came out to my world and here are some of the things that I’ve learned in the few months or so that I’ve been out of the closet.
The kids are doing well. My fears about childhood trauma of divorce are mostly gone. I have a better relationship with my kids, we go out and do things because I am less depressed, I have more energy. I have more time for them now that I’m not constantly arguing with their dad. I am making big steps to becoming the mom I wanted to be, but never had the physical or emotional strength to be. Depression is real and because of it I was not the mom I wanted to be. For me it is clear, I was not a depressed straight woman, I was a depressed closeted lesbian.
Do it your way, everyone’s a critic, people say you don’t have to come out to everyone, others say you should stop hiding who you are. Do what is best for you, if you want to shout your gayness from the top of a mountain, then do it.
I stopped pretending.
I have a new-found peace of mind because I am not pretending anymore, I don’t feel like a fake. It’s a gradual process, some days especially at first I just thought who am I kidding, nobody is going to think I’m a lesbian, they all think I’m some confused stupid girl who is throwing away the perfect life. Interestingly enough, the more I came out and stopped hiding, the less I felt like a fake. And now, I don’t have the feeling like I need to prove something to anyone (most of the time at least). Its like I can finally breathe, I don’t need to fake it, I don’t feel like a fake. I had been feeling like a wolf in sheep clothing for so long, that when I watched openly gay people in the media or in real life, I would just want to cry, they made it so abundantly crystal clear that I was hiding, I was ashamed, or disappointed with myself for the ‘choice’ to be straight. The more that I knew I was hiding and my life was a lie, the worse things got at home. It was far easier to fake it when I was less self-aware.
Taking Things Public
It’s a slow process. Holding hands with another girl in public was very awkward at first. I thought people were all staring at me, waiting to scream at the top of their lungs ‘fucking dyke’ or something of the sort. After years of hiding, the sense of being so exposed, having this secret ‘me’ on display for the world, my mental state took a while to adapt. On the swing side, finding out how much PDA is the right amount is also hard. Sometimes it feels like I’m going off the deep end with PDA. I never used to be ok with PDA when I dated men. I had every excuse under the sun. Now, PDA is something I don’t think twice about, and I feel comfortable with it. Perhaps this is because deep down, I didn’t want people to view me as straight, or possibly because I didn’t want to be touched by men, or both. In the past I have not been genuinely proud of who I was dating, no matter how awesome they were, deep down I didn’t want to be in the relationship, whether I admitted it to myself or not, I stuck around because there was no reason to leave, not because I wanted to stay. I couldn’t imagine a relationship where I wanted to be there, there was always some sense of duty or obligation. I always viewed my self-sacrificing situation as an admirable characteristic. How noble of me of to lay down my life for the better of others. Its a crock of shit. I was miserable, and my misery was infectious. There was no honor in my ‘selfless’ existence.
I’m more invested
When my heart wasn’t on the line, I had all the confidence in the world, but as soon as my emotions got pulled into the mix, I was suddenly a scared kid, nervous, insecure, over excited. The one thing that kept up the momentum is chemistry, we have so much chemistry. The day we first kissed it was like I was somehow possessed and I pulled a huge bag of courage out of thin air. Walked over to her car, got in and kissed her, hands shaking, my heart felt like it was gonna beat out of my chest, and explode. In comparison, kissing boys was like trying on shoes, I had so much confidence, calm, cool, collected. I never had so much fear of rejection or fear of making a mistake. I never had much care for the other person’s wellbeing, if I broke his heart I didn’t care much, I don’t feel this way with her I want her to be happy, safe, taken care of emotionally and I could never imagine hurting her and not hurting myself far more.
Intimacy Has Changed
Intimacy. Sex always felt like an obligation, or a currency of some kind. I never had the feeling of wanting sex simply because it’s fun. More like riding a bike, or eating spaghetti, sex just existed, it was not good – not bad, just is something I did. I was told that I never smile during sex, I don’t look happy like I’m having a good time.
Now, when I am with my girlfriend, I feel happy, and sometimes I even smile. I honestly didn’t know it was a natural reaction to ever smile during sex. I have a newly discovered understanding what people have been saying my whole life about sexual desire, I understand it now. There’s this feeling of, god I’d love to get you in bed right now…. But we are working… an hour later, god I want to get you in bed…. But we are eating dinner…. OMG we finally made it to the bedroom! Mine! Lets do this, Hell ya! I’ve never wanted sex so much that it stayed with me longer than a fleeting moment, of hmm I’m feeling ‘in the mood’ but it passes and never would return. More often than not, when the mood would strike me it was when I was alone, but by the time I got home to my husband the mood would pass. I could probably count on one hand the number of times in our 5 year marriage I saw him and “jumped his bones” undoubtedly due to pent up sexual frustration and a significant amount of booze. Towards the end I could only get the stomach to have sex if I was drinking, and even then on occasion I could remember how disgusted with myself I was during it. It got to the point where he’d ask me to drink if he wanted to get laid that night. This is probably one of the biggest reasons I don’t like to have sex with my girlfriend if I’ve been drinking, I want to remember everything, I want to remember the feeling, and the way she smells, and the soft skin of her body, I don’t want to lose a single detail, I want to remember it all.
The part of sex before and after is something I seriously enjoy now for the first time in my life. There’s a whole world other than part A goes into part B and you move around a bit… I used to want sex to be as quick as possible that gets the job done. It was more like mutual masturbation but not really emotionally connecting. More often than not, it felt like I was doing HIM some favor like you should be grateful I let you do this cause you know it’s not my thing. (Yes we talked about just having a completely nonsexual relationship, we talked about being swingers, we talked about open relationships for finding a ’third’) Thinking back on this outlook of sex makes me sad I didn’t know better sooner, but I am so very happy to discovered what I can only assume sex is supposed to be.
I feel this deeply personal tie to her like I can feel what she’s feeling and vice versa. It’s beyond physical and so very mental, watching the way she moves it’s like the most beautiful art, makes me want to cry with joy that I have found anyone on this earth who can consistently move me so completely both physically and emotionally. In that moment, I know I love her and our love is beautiful. Feelings like that make me so grateful I came out of the closet. I know its worth it, all the bad that comes with a divorce, it’s worth it in the end. I have her, I have my smile back, I can breathe again, and I feel like finally, I am starting to know who I am again. I broke free of the trance-like existence I had living in the closet, It’s like the world has color again.