coming Out Age: 35

Story:

When I was in highschool, I always played sports and
 hung out with the 'team.'  I had felt attraction toward
 females, but got married to my best guy friend when I
 was 18 because I knew how my parents would react and
 I thought it would be best to try to forget that part
 of my life and try to live the 'expected' life of
 marriage and children.  I had many friends who were gay
 and stayed in touch and played summer softball with
 them.  

I was married for about 17 years and had two children,
 but my feelings and attraction to women NEVER went
 away.  I began to realize a huge void in my life that
 there was no way my husband could fill.  I began reading
 'Married Women Who Love Women,' and found that I was
 not the only one in this situation.  My difference was
 that I hung out with my lesbian friends, being naive
 and not really understanding until years later what
 the feeling I had for some of them were.  One older
 friend, made a move on me at 16 and it really freaked me
 out because I was afraid to feel that way with the
 religious up bringing and beliefs that I had.

So, bringing me back to the beginning of my
 transformation and coming out.  Around 2001, I knew what I had
 to do to be happy.  My life was no longer happy, I was
 living a complete lie.  I was living a complete lie as
 what appeared to be the perfect family with the
 perfect husband and children.  I was beginning to become
 physically ill. I worked out and ran every day but still
 couldn't get to the point I should be physically. I
 couldn't sleep and all I could think about was leaving
 my husband to live my own life, but on the other hand
 I couldn't imagine what it would do to my children.  I
 loved my children enough that I stayed in the
 marriage.

Finally, I went back to the girl who made the first
 move on me and told her I realized now what I was
 feeling toward her and wish I'd known that then.  She has
 had a long-time girlfriend and I was not looking to
 interfere.  I just needed to talk to someone.  She told me
 to consider what I might lose in the process of
 changing my life.  I knew the consequences, so I decided to
 'experiment' to see if this was what would make me
 'complete.'  

I worked for a company part-time as a sales
 representative and traveled to 7 different stores in our
 regional area.  I decided it was time to let myself be free
 to look at women...AND I DID!  I met a girl at one of
 my stores that I had a real attraction to.  For the
 first two months of visiting her store, I constantly made
 excuses to talk to her.  I had no idea how to date
 and what if I wasn't right about my gaydar?  So, one day
 near Christmas, I had to spend an extended amount of
 time in her store and finally asked her to go to lunch
 with me.  Surprisingly, she agreed.  

We talked at lunch and addressed our interests and my
 situation.  I was completely up-front from the
 beginning.  The entire lunch, I could not take my eyes off of
 her AMAZING blue eyes!  There was definitely an
 immediate attraction on both parts.  When I had to leave
 the store, I gave her my number and she asked me to call
 when I got back to my town, an hour away.

It was only a matter of a few conversations and that
 one lunch date that we began to want to be together as
 much as possible.  But, I was still married.
  Fortunately, my husband worked 4 days and was off 4 days and
 he had been use to me doing my own thing on his 4 days
 off while he watched the kids, who were 15 and 5 at
 this time.

Within a week, she came to my town, rented a hotel
 room and planned to stay the weekend spending time with
 me and finishing Christmas shopping.  The first night
 was absolutely wonderful, but we didn't have sex.  I
 had to leave to pick up my daughter, but wanted to stay
 all night.  The next morning I returned before our
 trip to another city to shop.  Before we could leave, we
 were in the bed again.  I was SO ready to have sex and
 find out if this was what was missing.  She was very
 sensitive and suggested I might not be ready, and that
 once we did, there was no going back.  I confidently
 told her that I was ready and had NO REGRETS.

To sweet, soft music we made wonderful, amazing love.
  In the  18 years of marriage I didn't feel like I
 had ever had an orgasm anywhere near to the one I had
 that day!  She knew the things to do to please me and
 satisfy my needs.  I knew for sure that this was what I
 needed and wanted.

My husband sensed that something was different with
 me.  No joke, I was finally feeling complete and happy!
 Finally, just before our 18th anniversary (bad timing)
 I told him that I could NEVER satisfy him the way he
 needed and he could not do that for me either and that
 I preferred being with a woman.  I had decided not to
 interrupt the kids school so I said I'd stay until
 the end of the school year.  

We agreed that we would keep this between us and not
 involve any of our families yet.  I talked to three of
 my closest friends about my decision to 'come out.'
  The scariest thing I had to do, but they assured me
 that they were still my friend and loved me no matter
 what.  This was true of all of those friends, except one,
 who decided to 'anonymously' call my in-laws and tell
 them that I had been seen with another woman holding
 hands and kissing and that I was divorcing their son!
  I had never done anything to her for her to have
 done this to me and confronted her.  She told me that if
 I didn't leave her alone, I would wish I had never met
 her.  At this point, I already wished that!

My husband never had questioned me going to work or
 going to the gym, but began to question every move I
 made.  It was then, I knew that I had to move on out!  We
 agreed on joint custody and no child support.  I was
 so ready to get out of the marriage to be free to do
 what I chose to do and when and not be questioned.

I moved out around spring break and I had the kids the
 four days he worked and he kept them the four days he
 was off. This was a very workable situation for us. 

I talked with my mother, my father was already
 deceased.  She couldn't understand why I was leaving such a
 good man who provided well for me and our children.  I
 finally had to come out and tell her that it was not
 him.  It was me and that I had been living a life that
 was not my own.  That being with a woman was what made
 my life complete.  She told me that she couldn't
 understand why and didn't support it, but still loved me.
  

I am an educator and did not flaunt my sexual
 orientation, but my first job after my divorce was in another
 town and hour away from my hometown.  My principal was
 different once school started.  My girlfriend worked
 in the town that I was now teaching.  It ended up that
 someone had made comments to someone the worked in my
 building and my principal was no longer seeing me as
 a person and teacher.  She had stereotyped me as a
 'lesbian' and didn't want me in her school.  Every time I
 turned around, she was calling me in her office for
 something petty to harass me.  At one point, she told
 me that I my want to consider  my lifestyle.  When I
 questioned what she meant by that, she said, "Well, you
 don't want to go to Walmart and fill your basket full
 of alcohol where some of your students or parents my
 see you."  This was not the issue she was speaking
 about because this was not anything I would do.  I could
 have fought the harassment, but chose not to put my
 children through any!
 thing else and resigned my position at the end of the
 school year.

Coming out was not an easy thing to do, but it was
 what I had to do for myself and to be a better parent and
 better person. I am not 'out' to everyone I meet or
 work with, only those that I feel that it's important
 to include.  I have no regrets about leaving my husband
 and we are still friends.  My children has accepted
 me and my life-partner, which is not the girlfriend I
 had when I left my husband.  We have been together for
 over four years and she is great at involving my
 children in our lives.  My daugher is almost 21, on her own
 and cool with my life.  My son is 11 and has asked
 questions from time to time, but makes no issues about
 it. He has chosen to live solely with us since his dad
 has remarried and has two 9 year-old step-daughters.