Never Too Old: Joy’s Story

January 1, 2006

Just over a year ago, I ended a 35 year marriage because I had come to the point where a big part of me was dying inside, trying to pretend to be “a happily married heterosexual.” I was 57.

I’ve known I was attracted to girls since I was old enough to remember…like standing on the dusty playground at recess in the primary grades and watching the girls chasing the boys to kiss them, and wondering WHAT ON EARTH they were getting outta that! I fell pretty heavily for my best friend in the 7th grade, totally unbeknownst to her or anyone else, and that crush lasted for years, yet I dated boys because “that’s what all the other popular girls did”. The love, however, was never there for me. I married my “college sweetheart” thinking that it would change my feelings, once and for all. Well, as you probably know, nothing changes except your marital status! We were great friends, and the sex was good, but the love was simply not there. Baby number one came along, then number two, and finally, number three, and they became my whole world. They were the cement that held our marriage together.

Shortly after our youngest was born, we were assigned to an overseas military base. For the one and only time in my life, I had a maid one day a week, which was a common luxury over there. That gave me a bit of freedom, and that’s where I met and became best friends with a very special woman. I had had intensely deep crushes on someone at every base that we’d been assigned to up until this point, but never verbalized my feelings for them, much less acted upon them. But this was different! She was a “hugger, and kisser-on-the-cheek, and an ‘I love you’ ” gal from the South, with that sexy southern drawl. That was the catalyst to “bring me out of my pretend world and into the world of starting to face who and what I was so desperately trying to hide.

It took me many years of friendship with her, and frequent trips, for me to finally openly share with her just how much I loved her and that I had always been attracted to other women. She did the straight “thing”…she counseled me, reassured me that in spite of our deep friendship and love for me, she was straight and happily married, yadda yadda yadda, but by the end of the third day, I had mustered my courage enough to kiss her…and we both fell - HEAVILY!! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, and though she battled guilt after each of our trips, which became more and more frequent, the relationship continued for two years. Then one day, she ended it, for the sake of her marriage. It took me several years to heal but we’ve remained the best of friends and she’s one of my biggest supporters-but that was my very first time, experiencing what seemed so natural to me, and first times are hard to forget!

From then on, my marriage became more and more dysfunctional. Both my husband and I were extremely unhappy, and the kids were well aware of it. When he threatened to get custody at any cost if I left him, I vowed to stay in the marriage until they had all left home, and that’s what I did. It was like living under the same roof with a stranger, a control freak, and what little sex there had become totally non-existent. I began to realize that there were not only books in the public library on homosexuality, which I would read from cover to cover while hidden in a far corner of the room, but I also realized that there were actually both fiction and non-fiction books written by and about lesbian women, Christian books, etc. What a wonderful awakening that was! I read everything I could get my hands on.

The second year of our youngest son’s college days, my father died of cancer, and it was the final straw for me. In major depression from a failed marriage, a mother in a nursing home TOO early in her life with Alzheimer’s, the death of my Dad /mentor / my idol, and struggling with my sexual issues, I finally found a wonderful Christian therapist, whom I came out to almost immediately. For two years I saw her weekly.

After 6 or 8 months, I separated from my husband and moved into my own place. That’s when my healing finally began. I was able to come out to two dear friends, and the more people I told, the more I wanted to tell! I had told my therapist that I wanted out of my marriage but she encouraged me to try working on it to see if we could reconcile, so after much prayer, and my spouse’s pleading, I gave in and moved home. I eventually came out to him in therapy, and then to our three children. Needless to say, it was a huge shock but the kids all stuck by me, the daugher, initially, much more so than my sons, I guess for obvious reasons. Before a year was up, my husband had quit going to therapy and things were even worse at home, so I moved upstairs and found an online “Christian change ministry” group that I joined in hopes of changing. It didn’t work for me nor for anyone I’ve ever known personally who tried it. It seemed like a “temporary fix” at best, but I was in the group for almost a year. It was in that group that I met the second woman with whom I’ve fallen in love with! I became very convicted that I was not going to leave the faith that I had grown up in, and I saw no way that I felt I could change or that God was changing me, so I dropped out of the “change” group and within months, I’d found the Christian Lesbian group that Anita had begun. By that time, I had again moved out and into an apartment, and my husband filed for divorce, which became final a very stressful year later! My husband was a very homophobic man and could not and would not try to relate to my situation on any level. For me, it was a lose-lose situation. As it was, I felt that I’d waited “too long” to try to honor who and what I was, but I knew that if I stayed in the marriage just to please everyone, I’d end up dying too soon, which is what depression seems to “lead you to believe” is your only escape, a “permanent fix to a temporary problem”.

Since coming out, first to myself, and then to those I love most in my life, I feel freer than I’ve ever felt before! I feel like I finally have the personal integrity to look at who I am and be ok with it, and to be proud, hold my head high, and know that God really DOES love me, as I’ve always thought all my life, anyway! It is allowing me to start to “take a stand” for others like myself, and to try to make a difference for lesbians and gays, instead of continuing to hide.

Life is about choices. Each of us must choose the road we take, given all the facts that pertain to us, the desires of our heart and mind, and the guidance that we feel from God’s Holy Spirit. They are rarely easy choices but one seems to know deep inside which choices to make and when to make them. There are no guarantees in life, except that life’s not easy, that we’re all going to live and die (and pay taxes in the meantime), and that God DOES love each of us, AS HE made us! My involvement in the Christian Lesbian group has helped me to more clearly understand-helped me to come to my own conclusions about the various scriptural references that well-meaning Christians use to condemn our very being. I’ve been active in the Methodist, Baptist, and military Protestant chapel groups all my life, and have many dear friends “from my straight life” as a wife and mother, but there’s just something deeply wonderful about having Christian friends who are lesbian like myself!

I am presently living in a lovely apartment, content in the solitude, yet surrounded by loving family and friends. My two sons are now very accepting of me-their “new” mom, though they don’t really understand it, but I can live with that! My daughter has given me four beautiful grandchildren, and then a fifth that sadly, died of SIDS just under a month ago, which not only drew our whole family together, but also gave the Lord an opportunity to bless us all, amidst the sorrow. My ex-husband and his new wife came, of course, as did our sons. The five days together drew us all together in love and acceptance, and I really do like his new wife! After all, our divorce was more about me and my “stuff” than about him. He seems happy for the first time in years, and I’m truly happy for him! She is able to BE for him what I never really could be. And of course, our three adult children are much relieved that their parents can be “lovingly civil” to one another again!

I’m living proof that one is never too old to accept themselves as they feel the Lord has Lovingly created them. It does shock those who have always known us in the heterosexual world, but in most cases, they eventually come around to a deeper understanding, or at least acceptance, of who and what we are. The last thing any woman should do, while trying to accept herself and live her life as she feels she’s led to live it, is to give up her faith in Christ, the Almighty God who created her and loves her unconditionally!

Lord have mercy on us as we struggle to stand tall in Your love, with the dignity and integrity You would have for us!

This personal story of faith and reconciliation comes from the archives of www.christianlesbians.com and was originally posted in 2004.

Spread the Word!