I admit it: I’m the “straight” girl who is coming on to you and your lesbian friends as I’m emerging into a queerer identity. My imaginary dating profile (“Fit and attractive, charismatic, successful professional woman,” all true, BTW) might make a desirable W4W personals ad—if only I were out. When I travel on business, I leave my wedding ring back at the hotel while I cruise lesbian clubs. Supposedly-straight suburban dads on the down low do this all the time, and deception in the bar scene—gay or straight—comes as standard as a Sex on the Beach with maraschino-cherry garnish. I feel like I’m violating not only my marriage vows (though I’ve never slept with a woman) but also some unwritten rules of the lesbian tribe—my future community?—when I flirt with lesbians.
I should have womaned up decades ago and come out of the closet. Now here I am: 17 years, two kids, and a $300,000 mortgage deep into a marriage that I want out of. In addition to crushing my husband’s faith in humanity and marring my kids’ childhood with their parents’ divorce and divisive joint-custody decisions, I fear that after finally reconciling my emotional life with my same-sex orientation, I’ll end up alone. Not getting a girlfriend is not an option.
Here is where you and your lady-
loving lady friends come in: I purposely go to events that draw a disproportionately high number of you in order to practice getting my flirt on. Is it possible to say that, yes, I’m auditioning with you but I also sincerely want you? I promise I’ll only be a girl tease until I meet The One.
—Anonymous
Damn, that’s my soon to be ex-wife…except it’s 18 years
Wow, this anon sounds like such a great gal. Fit, attractive, and charismatic too! And successful! What shame for her husband that she doesn’t want to stay married to him. Oh well, at least there’s all you lucky lesbians who get to be with her! Lucky lucky lucky!
The thing that raises the red flags here is your fear of being alone. It’s perfectly fine to flirt and test the waters until you find “the One,” but when you do, how will they be able to trust you not to do the same thing to them that you’re about to do to your husband some years down the road when you’re committed and entangled with relationships with your kids and property, etc? Go to therapy. Know thyself. Be the lover of yourself that you are seeking in another. Otherwise, it seems like you are doomed to heartbreak and heartbreaking.
Be sure to include the phrase “Sex on the Beach with maraschino cherry garnish” in your personals ad so everyone knows you’re a senior citizen. No one’s ordered that drink at “the bar scene” since Kirk Douglas fought in the Revolutionary War.
Also I know you’re torn up about being in the closet (damn those kids and mortgages for getting in the way of your hemming and hawing), but it’s not exactly uncommon for a woman to flirt at a club without plans to go home with anyone. Save your apologies for the time when you come out of the closet and turn into the preening teenage self-obsessed jackass that we all are when we’re discovering our sexual identity.
Leave the wedding ring on. You will get hit on a LOT more!
I’m beginning to reclassify this whole category somewhere between sheet size in paper toweling and auto vs. manual coffee dripping. There was a place and time for it, but I was sick that day.
Is there something wrong with me? Am I finally losing my compassion for my fellows? Has IA successfully filled by once warm and empathetic heart with a cold lump of ‘meh’? Prolly.
Here we have an anonymous confession from one who thinks highly of herself despite all evidence to the contrary, highly of her credentials and even more highly of her sins. One must follow the other. A pattern emerges, sordid and serial. I am asshole, hear me roar (no slip) this palpable lack of courage, under your door. Secret malfeasance. Postponed calamity. The accusers are lethargic, but still, they press the buttons like trained chickens for their little pellets of god knows what, maybe a brave struggle for a new and creative way to say, you suck, this sucks, we all suck. B’GAWK!, I say.
I wish this made me angry. Or sorry. Or sad. Or even sleepy. Instead it only makes me feel narcissistic. Neutrally narcissistic.
(Note @5: maraschino cherries have no expiration date.)
I am a professional woman, tall, blonde, and I’m an uncle, hairy and desultory, and I sit on frozen pizzas for a living, and I cheat on my goat, and went to school at, hell, I don’t know, and it was gay and it was hetero and my teeth are blinding white but rurally crooked and I’m married and I’m living in a big house and I drive a car stolen from hard partying nuns with a trunk packed full of kidnapped chipmunks and that’s how I’m finally, finally learning how to be normal, that is, I run into so many like me out on the what? Oh yeah, the down low.
There, bitch.
Happy now?
If lesbians are a tribe, does that mean they can build casinos?
Shouldn’t she have sent this to “Savage Love”?
From one lesbian to another:
The flirting is appreciated; we all do it, whatevs. The lying about having a husband and kids and a mortgage… not so cool.
That’s what puts you (us) “straight” looking gals who are actually vagina-loving lesbians on the outs with all those adorable not-so-straight-looking lesbians.
Look, you’re not the first, won’t be the last. If you’re truly gay and want out, you’ll find a way… if you have the balls/tits to do so. If not, enjoy that band around your “straight” finger the rest of us gays can’t enjoy…because ya know, WE will destroy the sanctity of marriage and all.
@8- I would change my citizenship to a sovereign Lesbian Nation.
And the anon here is going to have to actually date a few women before she lands THE ONE. Maybe she should work out a piece-on-the-side deal w/ the hubby.
@4:
>implying that suicide is less traumatizing than outing
I’m seriously tired of your faggotry. You give trolling a bad name.
Lesbians aren’t a tribe, they’re a trib.
Precisely the kind of woman I really dig. This is why my favorite lovers have been lesbians.
Dear Anonymous,
Thank God you are out of my sister’s target dating demographic because if you–or any selfish, self-absorbed bitch like you–hurt her with your duplicitous fuckery, this straight sibling would stomp all over your ass. And I’m short and 7 months pregnant. Stop being an amoral asshole. If you’re going to divorce, do it now. If not, stop being a dipshit and lie back down on the bed you made and try to be a decent wife and mother…if you can.
@7. Thank you.
I think she THINKS there are a lot like her, or a lot of men like her anyway, but I doubt if she’s met that many. She’s just making an excuse (and the lamest ass excuse EVER) for atrocious behavior.
@15 exactly.
OH DEARS! If you left your husband you might have to move to an APARTMENT! OH, the HORRORS! Children couldn’t possibly survive a DIVORCE and DOWNSIZING!
No… ’tis better to have them grow up witnessing a loveless marriage and unhappy, resentful, unfulfilled parents. Then they too can go on to live bitter, unfulfilled, loveless marriages.
Your duty is to put food in front of your kids faces, a roof over their head, and teach them compassion and honesty. Step the fuck up to the plate.
LAME and SELFISH! You know your husband would love to be involved in a threesome type relationship, you just want to keep the puss all to yourself…
Wow, anon, what a catch you are! What woman WOULDN’T want a lying, cheating, miserable wreck of a housewife? Do your husband a favor and leave him now. You’ll end up alone sooner, but just face it, you would have ended up alone anyway.
Wow, lady. You insist on leaving the man you deceived and the children you made with him, but OH NOES you might actually be ALONE so you insist on having a girlfriend waiting in the wings.
Dang. I think you should be “coming into your new identity” without forcing some poor woman to share the psychic blender on frappe speed that you would drag her into.
Grow some big girl titties and learn to be a decent human being. You might have to be ALONE!!OMG!!!1!11!! for a while, but you and the rest of humanity will be better off for it.
Your terror of ending up alone adds another quality to that imaginary personal ad: desperate. Desperate is not attractive, no matter how fit & successful you are. And if you were really so ‘charismatic’, you’d have the confidence to come out as your real self, girlfriend or no girlfriend.
I think you’re still very conflicted about who/what you are.
You say you are all those wonderful things but your insecurities ooze from every sentence.
Flirt away, the only one who really cares is the woman who thought she had a shot at getting in your pants.
You are in serious need of help. Even more so, the people who have hitched themselves to your wagon (husband, kids, friends) are on the waterboarding table.
But they also know full well how deep your neurosis runs. You are kidding no one, but best wishes.
“I fear that after finally reconciling my emotional life with my same-sex orientation, I’ll end up alone. Not getting a girlfriend is not an option.”
If all you want is “a girlfriend”, no problem, and good luck with what you get. If what you want is an emotionally stable, supportive and loving partner, you’d better start learning to act like one. I’m sympathetic but you’re going to have to be OK with being a single dyke if you’re ever going to be out.
We all die alone. Get over it.
You need to be single. You need to work out your shit before inflicting it on someone else. Not being able to be alone is how a person winds up married for 17 years with two kids and not an effing clue how to be themselves.
And have sex on a business trip. Out of town. After you tell your husband you don’t find his penis all that exciting. The guy should be set free to fuck someone who likes him. Sheesh.
@18: I have three things to say to you:
>implying that divorce is more traumatizing than suicide
As the dolphin follows the herring, as the jaguar follows the peccary, and as the eagle follows the rabbit, do I follow you.
You mad.
Anonymous – I want you to know that I empathize with you. A lot of these responses are pretty harsh and I know they must be a little hard for you to read because they’re hard for me to read as well. This is what happens when you put your situation up for evaluation by strangers on the internet – it’s tough love, you get told what you should do as though it’s the simplest thing, and as though it had not already occurred to you.
Even putting aside whatsbeckgottadowithit’s comments (he’s just a fail troll), you’ve been called a bitch, selfish, self-absorbed, an amoral asshole, and a lying, cheating, miserable wreck. I disagree with these accusations. If you were friend or family to the other commenters I like to think they’d be more sympathetic to your situation. I’m sure your personality is rich and complex and that you’re a nice person – you are, after all trying to do the right thing by people. It’s not easy to leave a husband. It’s not easy to leave the life you spent so much time building. Don’t let other people make you feel bad for having a tough time with this – you know it’s hard, you don’t need them to know that too.
The only real advice I have is already obvious: don’t let looking out for yourself overshadow being good to other people, but don’t be so good to people that it’s at the cost of your own happiness. For some of us, that isn’t an easy balance to achieve.
I echo Venom’s thoughts: anyone who’d say that suicide is less traumatic than divorce on ex and kids is just plain nuts. I had suicidal ideation the entire time I was married with kids; thought they’d be better off. Now that I know better, what an effing waste and emotional mess that would have caused thems I love (including ex).
To the LW: The rest of these hyper-critical commenters- fuck ’em all. They haven’t a clue the conflict you’re in. But you must be honest to yourself and your family FIRST, followed by your honesty to potential female mates.
My advice: if you’ve never had the lesbian sex, go. Get that over with asap on your next trip out of town. Until you do, you aren’t making a decision with all the facts. If you do, and it feels like you’re home, go home pronto, confess to your husband all you’ve felt for X years, and make plans to save your parental relationship (both of you) for your kid’s. PLEASE- try to save your parenting of your kids from what you describe.
IF you have the sex and it doesn’t feel like “home at last”, you might want to reconsider your sexuality before blowing up your home and marriage. I say “might”, ’cause only you can know. But also know this- you WILL NOT marry the first woman you have sex with, any more than you’d have married the first boy in junior high and high school you dated. Coming out puts us all back to age 14, with that same maturity level, no matter your chronological age.
For me, there was no question about what had to be done, despite the pain and misery that came after. You will get through it, your kids will survive and still love you, and if your husband was ever your friend, he’ll probably be more understanding than you think.
Good luck, IA!
“Fit and attractive, charismatic, successful professional woman,” all true, BTW
I STOPPED READING HERE
@30: You mad.
I ain’t even mad though.
Don’t worry about your husband. He’s boinkin’ the secretary. Seriously.
Jesus, what about your husband, bitch? He could be out there getting some poon, but instead he has to try to be faithful to this cold fish. At least tell him he’s free to play the field and you’ll watch the kids on Friday or Saturday nights. He’s not going to be young or early middle aged forever. Or are you just envious that he’ll catch more snatch than your fit attractive charismatic ass?
Looks like #27 wants a date.
I feel sorry for the ladies. Nothing like advertising what’s NOT for sale. However, let me leave you with one thought –
Karma’s a bitch.
My advice? Tell your man you want some girl action in your life and enjoy it with him. After 17 years, particularly if you were born before 1965, I seriously doubt you are lesbian and you should cut yourself some slack regardless.
If, however, you were born after ’65, shame on you. While the rest of us were busy watching friends die and carving out some sort of life you were ‘safely’ in the closet. Fuck you. Your weakness and indecision will now hurt people more than ever before. Because you were too f-ing weak to bear the brunt of social ostracism in your youth, your selfishness has multiplied the pain out onto others. I wouldn’t touch your lying pussy with a ten foot pole. Nor will any self respecting homo.
So, stop it. Come out. Just come out. It’s going to burn like you’re on fire. You owe your husband a hell of an explanation. Just do it.
Make the break now or shut the fuck up.
Being painfully in the closet is not an excuse to be evil to your husband and kids. This is not their fault. Do the right thing and leave him now so that you can all start rebuilding your new lives sooner rather than later. And you (and they, and everyone) will be better off if you are not trying to carry on a new relationship while you sort through this drastic rearrangement. Give your kids your full attention right now. Don’t be selfish and cowardly and someday you will deserve a great new girlfriend.
How are you supposed to find The One if you can’t date her? If you just mean the first one to sleep with, why would it really matter who it is? Have you run this by your husband at all? Why not?
Oh just get to licking some vee jay jay already.
Divorce doesn’t have to include divisive joint-custody stuff, but get some good professional advice about how to handle the kid situation and get on with it. Your husband will either get over it or not. If the lesbian thing is what would make it especially hard for him, don’t tell him about it.
By the way–and I do not in any way have any connection except as a subscriber–www (dot) sapphicerotica (dot) com has the absolutely best lesbian porn. Nicely filmed, high-quality, non-exploitative, long videos of gorgeous straight-looking women having all kinds of sex. I’m a straight man and can’t get enough. Dunno why I feel compelled to mention that–I guess the thought of you and one of those lesbian bar girls gets me all worked up.
Christ, people make mistakes. Especially when they are young … We have no way of knowing what her situation was, where she grew up, what kind of world she was exposed to, whatever. And then maybe they try to live with those mistakes and make the best of them and sometimes that’s the right thing to do and sometimes it only compounds the mistake.
But IA, you either need to decide to continue in your unhappy marriage (and then do your best to make it happy for the rest of your family) until your children are grown and stop auditioning potential girlfriends, or you need to be honest with your husband about what’s going on with you. If you and your husband decide to try an open arrangement (at least until the kids are grown) instead of a divorce, then you need to be honest about your situation with your potential dates. Either way, you need to come to some sort of resolution with your husband BEFORE pursuing any lesbianic action.
And as a couple of other commentors noted, you need to get okay with the idea of being alone, otherwise you aren’t really looking for a relationship, just a safety blanket.
@7 I love you.
And it’s 1955 all over again.
Ianon,
Been there – ignore all the crappy comments, except for the one about being 14 again and the advice not to blow up the family unless you are sure. Sounds to me like you are sure. Took a year for me to get over my self-inflated self and get real – before I came out I would cruise around hoping someone would find me fabulously irresistable and make the truth come easy. Hard and humiliating lesson to learn it doesn’t work that way. But what does work is being true to yourself, to the people you love and you will be amazed at how they love you back. Ya – I’m older – same length of time married, two kids, but everyday I thank God for the strength (some call it courage – its hard to call it that when you have a lot of wreckage in your review-mirror) and good counseling to realize I wasn’t doing anyone any favors by trying to ignore part of myself. It’s hard, it’s serious, and, ya, you will have to get used to being alone – cherish your kids during that time – and rent lots of lesbian movies! But that won’t last forever and before you know it, all your old straight friends will love setting up their new big cool lesbian friend with dates and you will have some amazing times and find true love that clicks 100%! Good luck!
Have you asked Hubby if he’ll make the switcheroo?
What @2 said.
Wait a minute. So you’re dying to sleep with a woman, you go to lesbian bars to cruise when you’re traveling alone, but you never bring any of them back to your room?
I’d think there would be plenty of women in said lesbian bars who would jump at the chance to have a one-night, no-strings-attached toss in the sack with a fit, attractive, charismatic, etc., etc.
So just get on with it.
Or maybe you’re just sick and bored of your life, and this is the narrative you’ve concocted to make it all make some sort of sense.
It would be just as unfair to any woman you will inevitably label with the fantasy phrase “the One,” as it was to the children you made under false pretenses.
There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. The. One.
Classic. Why is it that her attitude is celebrated, while a man itchin’ to cheat on his wife would be burned at the stake in Seattle. Lame double standard. She’s a b*879.
Grow up. You’re probably not gay, you’re not getting enough/the right kind of attention from your husband. Talk to him
Or leave, and fuck up your life.
Good luck, this can’t be easy.
“Because you were too f-ing weak to bear the brunt of social ostracism in your youth, your selfishness has multiplied the pain out onto others. I wouldn’t touch your lying pussy with a ten foot pole. Nor will any self respecting homo.”
This comment wins!
You selfish bitch, you are still thinking only of yourself, how much a divorce and joint custody will affect *you*. Your husband isn’t getting any younger, and because you’re a dishonest whore, you will be out finding ‘the one’ while he is doing his best to be faithful to you. He came into the marriage honestly, unlike you- why on earth do you think YOU deserve to be with someone, but he doesn’t?! Isn’t that EXACTLY what you’re planning to do- find someone on the down-low, and then leave him high and dry?
You disgust me. You deserve to die alone. I hope your husband finds a nice, honest woman who isn’t so into her fit-professional-narcissistic self and finds happiness.
Too bad you’re the only mother your kids will have, but you’re priority is your pussy, not them.
Is this story even a surprise? I don’t think so. My ex-wife fooled-around with her best friend & husband before leaving me for her future husband – who is surprisingly femish for being a guy. I spent 14yrs being married to her and her lies – a huge investment of time & energy that was wasted, if not for the exception of my 2 wonderful children. Most folks in this lady’s situation tend to pull the “I’m so confused” card as an excuse but really – she and all the others like her – is just plain selfish.
Everyone suggesting IA is a terrible person who just needs to appreciate her husband more, needs to think about what it would be like to have to stay with someone who’s inherently unappealing to them and have to pretend there’s nothing wrong. Straight guys, would YOU like to be stuck in a relationship with a man?
IA’s relationship is already dead in the water. She’s unhappy and not attracted to him, and even if she isn’t a Kinsey 6, she does not want to be in this marriage anymore. Saying she should have an open relationship is really unhelpful, because she’d still be in a relationship with him, and she pretty clearly wants out.
I do agree that her husband is being wronged here, though. She’s not being honest with him, he probably thinks the relationship is okay, and that at least she isn’t looking for a way to get rid of him. It also sounds like they agreed to be monogamous, and even if she’s not technically cheating, it sounds like emotionally she is. That’s not fair to him. But the way to fix it is by owning up to how she feels and ending the relationship, not by continuing to fuck him just to keep him happy. Marriages end sometimes. Nobody’s entitled to a permanent relationship, and nobody should have to stay with someone they don’t like just so their partner doesn’t have to be sad about the breakup.
This is really why straight people should support gay rights and stop being homophobic. If there’s no social stigma in getting your ass out of the closet and dating who you’re attracted to, then less straight people are going to end up in dishonest marriages with closeted gay people.
I’m kinda down with the whole Lesbian Casino thing. What’s the closest to Seattle?
There must be an easier way to meet this woman than hovering at lesbian friendly events. Are you out there reading this?
@40
“lesbianic” doesn’t exist. I guess you meant “lesbic”
God, there is a serious lack of empathy on this thread. People have called her an asshole, liar, amoral, cheater (when she hasn’t cheated!) without knowing anything about her or why she chose to get married. We still live in a world where people are routinely fired, harassed, assaulted and sometimes killed for being homosexual. 17 years ago it was worse. Add a small-town and/or religious upbringing to the mix, and the pressure is ENORMOUS for many people to repress the urge and hope it’ll go away if they “act normal”. How many of you have never lied to yourself or anyone else to maintain order?
I think the writer recognizes she’s living a lie and feels plenty of moral conflict about it, despite the blustering. I’m not a fan of divorce – but I think if any situation merits it, this is it. It’ll be painful, but this lie will damage your family more in the long run. Your husband deserves a partner who finds him sexually and emotionally attractive, you deserve a life that isn’t defined by painful secrecy, and most of all your children deserve a mother who is a role model of honesty and personal integrity. Also, your future girlfriend deserves a sane partner, so maybe stay single for a while and get some therapy to regain your sense of self before desperately latching on to the first lesbian you see.
I would say the same to every closeted married man cruising clubs and putting his wife at risk for STDs. You’re not a horrible person, you’re just a person who made a mistake – time to own up, grow up and move on.
boo hoo. fuck off.
So there’s this thing called a queer politic, and you don’t have it yet. That tribe of lesbians, they have it. And they smell straight lady from 5 miles away, and it’s not attractive.
Part of the issue is that you have a ton of privilege. Men dig this. Most dykes don’t. Your white picket fence issues don’t translate well to a group that’s been oppressed and denied basic liberties surrounding the ability to partner and create a recognized family unit.
You need counseling. Go to therapy, alone, be honest, and work out your shit. I can’t tell you if you’re gay, straight, honest, full of shit, or just desperate. But you need help, hon.
-Gold Star Dyke
@39 Wow the ‘bots are getting eerily articulate…
Jesus, what a class A cunt. Look in the mirror, you aren’t that special so grow some tits and do your husband the favor of telling him the truth. Most likely he’ll be overjoyed, relieved, and finally happy after putting up with such a self-absorbed twat for so many years. Failing that, please wander off somewhere desolate where you’re never to be found, slit your writs and die alone with the knowledge that your family will initially mourn the loss but then quickly move on and find another to replace you who is actually an authentic individual.
I’d love to see you and a hot lesbo do each other ass to ass with a double headed dong! I’m married but I’ll just watch.