What we might be...and what we become.

Apparently as people who are questioning come to an acceptance of lesbian/gay or bisexual orientation, they go through a phase of feeling angry about the heterosexism that exists in the world. I felt this acutely after a prominent sportsman came out and everyone applauded how brave he is. People keep saying I'm brave as I reveal that I have left a heterosexual marriage and embarked on a relationship with a woman. And although I acknowledge the comments about bravery are also about making big life changes overall, I felt angry that anyone needs to feel 'brave' about doing this. That the world may be such a hostile place to us that to reveal that you have any orientation towards the same sex is 'brave.' You also come to realise how strong heteronormative and heterosexist influence is. Indeed, it shaped my last twenty years and more.

Looking back, I realise that I experienced same sex attraction in my past. Not as an obvious sexual orientation at first, but more as an emotional connection. When my mother found out about a one off physical experience, she confronted me about being 'queer.' I have no memory of this confrontation, but did write about it in my diary in extremely defensive bullet points. Through my teenage years, I diarised about a desire to connect emotionally and physically with a particular person of the same sex, but much of my diary was also filled with idealism about marriage and babies and houses with white picket fences. Its what I aspired to and what I assumed my life would look like going forward.

The concept of being a housewife was not actually a prevailing social norm. Girls were encouraged to seek careers across the spectrum. There were not old fashioned attitudes about doing only nursing or teaching until you got married. But somehow in my mind I had made marriage and babies my career goal.  I was a smart girl, but I had steered towards arts subjects that I was good at but that didn't seem to have much value in the job marketplace. My self esteem was not great, and I didn't feel competent at sciences, which is where it seemed the careers were to be had.  Somehow, despite all the encouragement that meant that this was not the only option, I wanted to emulate my mother and live a life like her's.

I remember the speculation about whether one of our teachers was a lesbian. This was steeped in stereotypes - an older woman with short grey hair, a deep voice who never wore skirts. This was the only exposure I'd had with the LGBT world (and even then that was only assumed) but it wasn't very reliable because it was not based in fact. It didn't tell me anything about the experiences that exist for women who love women, so being with a woman was still not something that was considered an 'option.'

Around the time of my eighteenth birthday I wrote in my diary with the same level of uncertainty about my future that I expressed on this blog. I said "I don't really know who I am" and that I don't really know what I'll do with my life..." "What I am now scares me, but I can't help but believe its for a reason." Twenty years on I could have written the same diary entry.

I 'ran away from home' by way of going to Dunedin to attend art school. It was in my part time job that I met the man that was to become my husband. I was impressed by his family values. He fell in love at first sight, and I fell in love with the idea of fulfilling my destiny as someone's wife. He courted me properly with flowers and dinner and the promise of a home filled with love. It was romantic and at the time it was right.

He now questions whether I ever really loved him. I can say without a doubt that I did. I loved him with all the capacity for love that I had. But I know that part of what I was in love with was a concept, and a values system. Once I started to question the values and concepts under which I was conducting my life, the house of cards started to tumble. I will always carry a sadness that by escaping that life I broke his heart.  The paradox is that I do not regret the life I led with him, but at the same time feel like that if my world had been different as a teenager, things might not have turned out the way they have.

As I look back on the last twenty years, memories emerge of things that have happened where this latent attraction to my own sex bubbled to the surface every now and then. At the time I never explored it further, probably because the peace and comfort of my life as I knew it outweighed any need to know any more about the hidden parts of me. Some of the reading I have done in the last few months has shown that very often women make changes after traumatic events like the death of a parent, or at the time of major transition, like the youngest child starting school. Both of these have happened to me in the last few years. These life shifts can be the catalyst for a massive re-evaluation and time of discovery.

I was happy in my marriage for a long time because I didn't know what I didn't have. This wasn't anybody's fault. My former husband need not feel inadequate, because this was to do with me and to do with the culture we exist in. There was a huge amount of happiness and security to be found in fulfilling socially endorsed roles and coasting along on a socially acceptable course in life. Stepping outside the norms makes me reliant on my own tools of self examination, self awareness and communication because there is no institution to fall back on. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I can now see what was missing. I am so very conscious that the situation that we were in simultaneously suffocated me, but provided him with security.  I wonder if he felt for me what I feel for my new partner.  If that is the case, I will always hold a regret that I had to hurt him so badly to free myself. I can't do anything now other than apply the lessons learned to my future. I have no desire to turn back. Now I am experiencing a completeness and wholeness that I have not felt before, even though I am still on my own journey.

Being with my female partner feels like the most natural thing in the world. I have been very lucky not to have experienced any hostility. However, every now and then I experience a jolt that makes me realise how I am now part of a minority. The IRD officer who helped me apply for Working for Families assumes my partner is male. A guy at the service station asks if my partner is my friend or my sister. The landlord asks if we are sisters or just flatmates (and at the time we did say 'flatmates.')  The woman at the service desk at The Warehouse types "Mrs" into her computer when recording my name for a refund. While the world is not hostile to people in same sex relationships, the first assumption is that you are with a man - and certainly, by a certain age the assumption still seems to be made that you are married to a man.

My children have had their world shaken, and are having to reframe their ideas about family that they have come to believe, too. This has been traumatic for them, but they are managing very well. But in the long run I think this bodes well for the world they will live in, and in some ways I am grateful that they are discovering this now. In a world where homophobia and sexism is frowned upon, but gender role stereotypes and heteronormitivity is rife, my children can see that when they are grown, it will be ok to fall in love with a man OR a woman. That they could live with that man or woman, they could marry that man or woman, they could live alone, they can be what they want for a career, they can choose to have a family or not, and that all of those choices are valid. That they don't just know that academically, but actually see that in practice, and see that it can work.

My hope is that the heteronormative script in their head is rewritten. That they can actually see all the possibilities that exist for them, and not be blinkered by set ideas the way I was. If I could go back to eighteen year old me, I would tell her slow down and allow herself time to explore. To start to do that late in life is painful and hard and likely to hurt people they care about.

It was too late for me. Its not too late for them.

What has also occurred to me since writing is not just the impact this has on my children, but on other families we know.  I had not taken into account that my friends are placed in the position of explaining to their children - my children's friends - about my living situation.  To their credit, they do all treat it as 'situation normal' and I trust them to answer questions thoughtfully and factually.  Yes, it is difficult explaining the choice not to stay with my children's father, but the flip side is that they will see as an everyday thing a female couple who are not doing anything other than living normal and ordinary lives.  The heteronormative script will be rewritten in their heads, too.