I'm 55 years old, I'm married and today I realized that I'm gay and happy to be so

Email sent to us by Valentino, he replies Alessandra Bialetti*, social pedagogist and couple and family consultant in Rome

I would like to tell you about my experience as a homosexual. I am 55 years old and married and I discovered about a year ago that I was gay. To tell the truth, I've felt this feeling for many years now, but at first I was afraid to admit it to myself.

When I was young I was straight and to tell the truth I didn't like gays very much. I lived in a very old-fashioned family that taught me many positive values ​​in life and therefore I always saw the homosexual world as a shame. Then as I grew up things slowly started to change and I noticed it when I started seeing boys, with the same pleasure I felt seeing girls.

Little by little, a passion for the male body was born in me and the more male desire increased, the female desire decreased until I realized I was bisexual.

At the beginning I was very afraid because I absolutely didn't want to become 100% gay and therefore I tried with all my energy to only think about women. I got married, I lived well with my wife, but then one day I felt an enormous desire to become homosexual.

All those fears I once had had vanished and I understood that my life had to be in the name of love towards men. I respect women but they no longer interest me. I am happy and proud of my homosexuality and I would really like to find a man to love.

Being gay is wonderful and perhaps life wanted to teach me a lesson with this transformation. A kiss to all men with love.

The answer…

Dear Valentino, thank you for contacting us and sharing your life story. First of all, your serenity in this moment is perceived, a serenity that has had a considerable cost in terms of awareness and steps taken outside of an already traced and preponderant groove like the heterosexual one in which you have always grown up.

We certainly don't "discover" ourselves as homosexual but it is more correct to talk about re-appropriation of an orientation which, for various reasons, may have been hidden, removed, denied or rejected. And this seems like your story since you talk about sensations that you had perceived but then put aside.

It often happens that due to education, training and culture we end up overshadowing parts of ourselves that are less than acceptable, both personally and socially, and experienced as dangerous for one's serenity. But when orientation is rooted in one's essence everything re-emerges and often after having made important choices such as building a family and even parenting.

You say that you didn't like gays and this could also have been a symptom of something that wasn't accepted inside you and made you uncomfortable. It often happens that by not internally admitting certain realities we end up judging them. But this too is part of a journey that is often very long and troubled.

At a certain point you defined yourself as bisexual, feeling interest, attraction and pleasure towards both sexes but it seems that this reality did not correspond to what you really felt you were. It may happen that in the process of recognizing oneself one goes through a phase in which one finds it difficult to leave the known terrain to venture into something that is not yet clear and one may therefore experience perhaps even contradictory feelings.

Sexual orientation is certainly not a choice. You don't choose what to be (also because no one would have chosen an orientation that is still exposed to difficulties and complexity), rather you decide how to experience what you perceive. Whether with tranquility, serenity, authenticity or rather with shame, anguish, sense of guilt.

From what you express it seems that today you have reached full awareness of who you are and that the profound reappropriation of yourself has now taken place. So, for your benefit and that of many who experience the situation of married people, I reiterate that you do not become or try to become homosexual or remain heterosexual by forcing yourself to think about people of the opposite sex.

It would not be fair to oneself but also to the people involved in this type of path who could suffer from a lack of authenticity which would instead be good for everyone. I understand perfectly what you have experienced and all the stages you have gone through and your serenity now demonstrates that only by deeply welcoming yourself and clarifying what you feel like, can you achieve a new balance and build a compliant life. to your own desires and projects.

The transformation you speak of is the definitive acceptance of you, not the change of orientation, it is having given a name and voice to your essence and being proud of it today. You don't tell us if your marriage is still in existence or if a separation has occurred.

In any case, if you are a parent, you may be referring to Rainbow Parents Network, an association that brings together parents with children from previous heterosexual relationships who then reclaimed their homosexual orientation. From the comparison with experiences and experiences you can draw many ideas and help for your own path.

I wish you a good journey and soon a loving relationship in which you can live totally as yourself.

Alessandra

* Alessandra Bialetti, lives and works in Rome as a Social Pedagogist and Consultant for couples and families in various projects of various secular and Catholic associations and realities. He defended his Baccalaureate thesis at the Pontifical Salesian University, Faculty of Salesian Education and Training Sciences on the topic "Parents always. Homosexuality and parenting”. His website is alessandrabialetti.wordpress.com