Late Bloomer Lesbians & Healing
This morning I was scrolling through reddit (a compulsive habit i am desperately trying to get rid of) when I saw a post title that is all too familiar, but still hits me in the gut every time.
In the subreddit r/LateBloomerLesbians someone had posted “Is 31 too late? I’m worried that it might be pointless for me to divorce my husband and come out as lesbian at this age.”
Putting aside for a moment the ridiculous question “is 31 too late?” in any context, I need to gather all my girls close for just one moment.
NO TIME OR AGE IS TOO LATE TO LIVE AS YOU TRULY ARE!!!!!
Ok, sorry, sorry. I gathered you close and then screamed. I’m sorry! It’s just something that I’m really, deeply passionate about to a level most people would find extreme. I’m passionate about it with every fiber of autistic hyperfixation in my body. I’m passionate in a way the neurotypical mind most likely cannot comprehend.
My Late in Life Lesbian (#LLL) backstory is:
In 3 year relationship with man, lived with him (awful)
Broke up August 1, 2024
Turned 31 September 8, 2024
Started EMDR therapy October 2024
Realized I’m a lesbian and came out November 19, 2024
I think this specific post hit me hard because I, too, was 31 when I figured out I was a lesbian and came out. But also because it hits on an issue that seemed to matter so deeply when I was in a relationship - will I be able to find someone else? Am I too old to start over in time to find a partner and move in with them and marry them and what if they want kids?
These were questions that pervaded my mind over and over in the months I spent living with my ex-boyfriend. We were in a loveless, sexless “roommate”-style relationship at that point. I have endometriosis, which is a terrible, painful disease, but also a very convenient cover story for why I was completely disinterested in having sex with him. We very clearly should have broken up long before we finally did.
When I read posts by women who have begun to realize they’re gay but are in relationships with male partners, this is where my mind goes. I am transported to the floor of my office in the townhouse I shared with my ex, where I spent most of my time sitting and wondering and begging the universe to make me love my then-boyfriend again, or at least to help me want to have sex with him. I go back to the sex therapy sessions my ex and I split the cost of, because surely the issue was entirely on my end and there’s nothing he needed to do differently. The therapy sessions where my therapist never once asked me, “have you considered you might be a lesbian?” even though I had told her I was attracted to women and identified as bisexual.
I go back to the ‘orgasm cream’ that my sex therapist recommended, prescribed from an online pharmacy. You rub it on your clitoris and vulva, and after a few minutes the ‘tingling sensation’ is supposed to turn you on. It’s a miracle!
This turned out to be, as many so-called ‘miracle drugs’ are, a huge letdown and waste of money. As it turns out, there’s not a cream on the market that can make a lesbian feel aroused by a man, especially not one who’s been abusing her for years. The only drug that was ever able to make me interested in sex with men was good old alcohol.
The above paragraphs describe a woman who was dead. I learned then that there’s more to being alive than a heartbeat and breath in your lungs. I was dead and I was trapped, as all gay women in relationships with men are. On one side of me was an impenetrable concrete wall, on the other a terrifying, swirling vortex. I call this the ‘vortex of change’.
You can push and shove the concrete wall as much as you want, it will not budge. You can stay in your relationship, insisting to everyone but mostly yourself that this is fine, you are happy, you live a comfortable life. You can slump down against the wall, cry and beg and plead and wait for divine intervention. You can spend years here, decades. The wall will not move or crumble. You, however, will.
The only way out - the only way to get unstuck, to move in a new direction - is the vortex of change. As I always tell my friends and clients, ‘will it be the comfort of misery, or the pain of change?’
My journey through the vortex of change was not pretty and it was not fun. It began by begging my ex on my hands and knees to stay, to commit to making it work. I was THAT devoted to a relationship that had been a living nightmare for years. Not to the man, I truly hated him, but to the place I occupied in society as a woman with a boyfriend of three years. I’m gay and autistic and have always felt different, but with my ex I was accepted by mainstream society. For once in my life I had a plus-one to every event, and I was part of a family that actually did things together. It was so nice to spend Christmas with my ex’s family on the coast in a California sea town, instead of flying six hours to my hometown in Virginia to sit near my parents and brother while we looked at our phones.
I’ve spent the past few days reading my journals from late 2023/early 2024 on a whim. I was not expecting this to be as painful as it was. Some lines of particular note:
“Win: pushed myself outside my comfort zone and let myself get fingered and didn’t stop sex stuff just because i was tired” - 12/15/2023
“Win: took steps to actually improve how i look in pictures instead of just staring at photos and wallowing in how ugly i think i look” - 12/5/2023
It astounds me now how clear I was on so many things, but just couldn’t find it in me to leave. I chose the misery of comfort over the pain of change, and in a remarkably self-aware way.
There are also some feminist rants sprinkled in these diaries where I’m like - so, I knew. I knew it wasn’t normal for heterosexual women to be completely uninterested in their male partner and wonder every single day “am I gay?”
Reading this passage, I was amazed. I was even fully aware that a big part of the reason I felt like I couldn’t leave my ex was that everyone loved him. It was the ‘you’re such a perfect couple’ and ‘keep him around, hard to find someone like him’ comments. It was everyone around me also being in relationships. It was long-term heterosexual romantic relationship as a required milestone to prove you’re an adult. It was the look of shock on the face of a guy who’d bullied me since college when I introduced him to my boyfriend of three years.
I was making myself miserable to prove I was successful. Aren’t we all? Can’t everyone relate to that? Why don’t people talk about it? Why are we all lying to each other?
You deserve to live as your true self
No, 31 is not ‘too late’ to come out as a lesbian, or to divorce your husband, or to pursue a career as a writer, or anything else. I hate the way society has tried to sell us that, women especially.
Every day you learn something new about the world, life, and who you are. Whether that’s trying a new food and learning that you love (or hate) it, or watching a movie and something in the story giving you new insight into a situation that’s been bothering you. Every day is a new day to figure out one of your main goals in this life: who you are, what you want, and what you were meant for.
If you’re a lesbian, you can’t be in a romantic relationship with a man. Every day you stay there and try to make it work, you die a little more. It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to him.
This pride month, remember that the kindest thing you can do for yourself - the purest act of self-love - is to be honest about who you are with yourself and with the people around you. Happy pride, everyone!
XO, JP