After 11 years of marriage I discover lesbian at forty years. What do I do?

Email sent us by Claudia, replies Alessandra Bialetti*, social pedagogist and consultant of the couple and the family of Rome

My name is Claudia, I am 48 years old. I wanted an opinion and help both from the psychologist/psychotherapist and the priest. I have been married for 11 years with a man I had ardently at the time and of whom, unfortunately I am no longer in love, perhaps because I understood that he did not marry me because he is in love particularly as I was me, but because he had been left by a first of me with whom he was cooked to die for.
I understood these things only after the wedding. My husband denies them. But I know it's like that. We had a child we love. My husband, however, is a good man, and also a good father. He says he loves me and feel his good for me. But I no longer feel attraction for him, even if I love him. My love ended up for him, VSI is like everything suddenly when I understood that I had not been in his heart the woman I wanted and that I deluded myself that I was for a long time.
In the meantime, for almost three years now, I have been attracting for women. I also fell in love with a girl who did not pay, she recently married and went away from my country. I often think. Especially in the intimate moments with my husband, moments that he looks a lot, but that I try to avoid them as much as possible by adding a thousand apologies! Obviously he knows nothing, nor do I want to tell him anything because I don't want to hurt my son, nor him.
I suffer a lot, both because I am a liar, even if I do it for a higher good, and because it is Christian all this. Why did it happen to me, I'm messy? I am very practicing and close to the sacraments. My confessor says it is a temptation that I have to reject, this homosexual inclination. But he doesn't know that I already had this inclination as a child! Yes, because you have to know that I "born" lesbian, but then, after a deep spiritual path made together with the "best friend" of the time (with whom I had had a story, even if she was not lesbian) and led by an enlightened confessor father, I rediscover after a few years, at 25 years old to be exact, attracted sexually by men!
It was an unexpected miracle for me !! Also because then I did not accept my homosexuality! I was straight for 20 years, I attended men and then I happily and without deception engaged and then married to my husband.
Now, even if my newfound homosexuality makes me suffer a lot because it is in contrast with my family situation, strangely, after all, I accept it much more than I did as a child and girl! But now my homosexuality cannot live it! And I don't know if now it makes me suffer more the fact that I cannot live it to the bottom or because it puts me in a situation of crisis of consciousness!
But I wonder: why is she back? Why is the miracle ended? Has it perhaps exhausted? And wanting to give an explanation or psychological opinion of this event, why did it happen right now? Why did I return to being homosexual? This whirlwind of questions upset me from a spiritual and psychological point of view.
I would like an answer or an opinion from a psychologist/psychotherapist, but also by a priest, because this also puts me in crisis from a spiritual point. Thank you all and await your answers as soon as possible.

Claudia

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La risposta…

Dear Claudia, thanks for the letter you sent us and for sharing your experience with us.
What express is the source of various reflections as your testimony is full of many facets. You say you got married because you wanted him ardently but you feel you were no longer in love with your husband since you understood that his intentions were perhaps different even if your feeling is not supported by his statements. In any case, you say not to feel for him the same feeling of that time even if you take him a good person and a good father. You have a child that you both love, which can lead you to understand what importance and value your parenting has regardless regardless of everything else.
The marital link could also end but your being parents would remain forever. To this seems to be added your attraction for women for about three years with consequent falling in love with a girl although not paid. The thought of this affection still follows you especially in intimacy with your husband, an intimacy that you say not to desire anymore and that you try to avoid with various justifications.
In this experience your doubts, questions and considerations are grafted, but above all your suffering given both by the fact that you do not want to talk to your husband so as not to hurt him both from your faith that enters into contrast with what you feel and feel. Talk about a confession accompaniment in which, however, you have not been able to be clear about the sexual inclination that you feel you have from an early age. Sexual orientation is not something that is acquired over time, something that was not in itself and then added to one's being but something that is inherent in the person and constitutes his way of living affectivity (and not simply sexuality) and to design his own life choices. You say they were "born" lesbian and therefore always known even if your roads have moved away from all this.
So when you talk about being rediscovered sexually attracted by men and living it as a miracle perhaps you need to better understand in which direction your orientation was directed by a child and then as a young man. The awareness of the fact that you had not accepted your homosexuality is an element that can guide you to make clarity in yourself.

The education received, the training, the culture in which we grew up does not always facilitate the work of understanding one's sexuality as often this is made of discrimination, criticisms, judgments and prejudices that naturally lead to hiding or creating a different life life. Unfortunately, sometimes, after a life of removal of the "problem" in more adult and mature age, you can find yourself in front of the same unresolved questions and perhaps with life choices made in absolute good faith because it seemed the best way to manage what we felt. So it may happen that, to defend yourself from something that is perceived socially and religiously wrong, you end up hiding or removed certain parts of oneself that would be a source of suffering and pain.
Certainly your engagement and marriage, as well as your motherhood, have not been a deception but something that you feel just for you at that moment of your life and with the acceptance tools or not you had your orientation. Today, as an adult and mature person, you say that you have less problems to welcome all this but not to be able to live it fully because it would go suffering and would put you in crisis with your religious journey.

Why all this happens now, why the miracle has ended, as you call it, probably arises from the fact that now, after a life path, you are able to look with more lucidity, and perhaps less fears and doubts, to the integrity of your life, including sexual orientation. As already mentioned, but it is important to reiterate it for greater clarity, we do not go back to being homosexual but we regain something that is part of itself and that often cannot be more silent as it has been made in truth and for the completeness of a life that, at times, can be declined in a different way from what we would have expected.
The path of re -appropriation of a gender identity or sexual orientation is not easy nor without difficulty and suffering as well as the decision whether to live it fully or leave it in the shade. And this seems to me the crossroads on which you are dwelling: understand what all this to you in a moment in your life in which you are wife and mother means, the doubts of consciousness that this generates and the impossibility of living you fully for many fears, doubts and questions.
I perceive you a person sincerely on the way to himself and at the same time delicate and attentive to the people close to you who could suffer. So take your time to verify how homosexual to be an important dimension in your life, how much you make you feel in agreement with yourself and in a relationship of authenticity with others rather than hiding or lie. A further reflection possibly concerns talking to your husband and people close to you and that you think understanding and emotionally important as they could be a valid help to welcome you deeply.

A small practical advice can be represented by the possibility of coming into contact with the Rainbow parents network, an association that brings together homosexual and transsexual parents who have children from previous heterosexual relationships. All people who like you, have traveled a path of understanding of themselves, have experienced the same doubts, fears, questions and the same feeling "wrong" at certain moments of their path.
Sharing with their experience could support you in making greater clarity and above all in not feeling alone in this delicate moment of your life. At the same time keep in mind that in many cities you can find groups of homosexual believers who carry out paths of integration of faith and homosexuality and that could support you in facing your religious doubts together with the help and listening to valid priests. Thanks again for the sincerity and truth of your words and your courage in sharing your life.

A heartfelt hug. Alessandra

* Alessandra Bialetti, lives and operates in Rome as a social pedagogist and couple and family consultant in various projects from different associations and secular and Catholic realities.

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