Dear Shohreh: How can I learn to trust myself and live freely as a late-bloomer queer person
Dear Shohreh is an advice column where I draw on my years of lived experience—as a person at the intersection of several margins, a professional coach and consultant, a reigning reinventress, and a sought-after advice giver from friends and family—to answer the questions keeping you up at night.
Please note that my answers to Dear Shohreh questions never constitute medical or legal advice. Additionally, I craft my answers based on the information given and my own experiences and values, which may look and sound different from yours.
Today is another Dear Shohreh double feature, but I’m handling this set a little differently. Both submissions were written by late-bloomer queers, and though their situations aren’t identical, they could benefit from similar advice. So I’m sharing each submission with you first and then providing one answer to address them both.
Dear Shohreh: At 40, I decided to end my marriage of 12 years because it did not feel like a good or healthy relationship. A few months after separating, I came to the conclusion I'm queer. Happening in that order saved me some of the guilt and doubt I see women who are questioning while in a relationship with a cis man go through. But I still have a lot to process!
Like you, I don't feel that I experienced a change in sexuality so much as a change in my perception of a part of myself I had very thoroughly and successfully repressed. I didn't have my first sexual relationship until I was almost 27, and then with the man whom I married. I was wondering if I was ace at the time I met him, and I was relieved I was capable of having a “normal” relationship. It never occurred to me I could be interested in women.
Looking back, I had managed to discount any attractions to girls at school/crushes on women actors—because women are just more attractive and I was straight, obviously. I've also realized now how much energy I was unconsciously putting into averting my gaze out in the world because women are so objectified.
Having made this shocking discovery about myself, I'm nervous about what it would be like to connect with someone as intensely as I now think I am capable of. I'm even more worried that I'm going to feel with women that gutwrenching panic I felt when men displayed interest in me.
My question is: how do I learn to trust what I think I know about myself now, having just realized how little that was?
– Trust Issues
Dear Shohreh: I am, at 49, a late bloomer. This has been a long process that started at least five years ago when I finally came out to my husband (as bi) and even before then during the years and years when I thought I would never come out to him, let alone ever be where I am now, which is finally separated. The man I was with (for about 20 years) is a very lovely person and I care about him forever, but the idea of staying in that marriage felt like a coffin.
It’s been about four months since we decided to separate. We still live under the same roof with our two kids for financial reasons, but we both want that to evolve this summer. And I’m dating a woman. She’s also a late bloomer, and she’s about a year ahead of me in this process.
My ex knows, along with all of my close friends, but I don’t want my kids to find out I’m dating her (which is reasonable, I think). What’s less reasonable is that I don’t want my parents to know I’m dating her.
They know I’m queer. I came out to my mom (as bi) when I was in my twenties. Her response was “I know.” I’ve never told my dad or stepmom, but I did come out on Facebook a few years ago. I think there’s a difference between my parents knowing—in theory—that I’m queer/gay and actually having to BE freely myself around them. Not ever feeling like I could be myself with my dad and stepmom is what got me into this position in the first place.
I know I’m a grown-ass woman. I know all of this sounds bonkers coming from a 49-year-old. I should be over this by now. It’s my life. I know all of these things intellectually, but that doesn’t mean I know how to become emotionally unstuck.
How do I do it? How do I level up? How can I be real with my family when I never have been? How do I feel—finally, in my bones—that it’s my life, that I’m free, that I can disappoint them and I’ll be okay?!?!?!?
- Late Bloomer, Still Trying to Really Really Bloom
Dear Trust Issues and Late Bloomer: I hope you don’t mind that I answer your questions together. While no late-bloomer experience is identical, they tend to have similar themes, and I believe my advice will benefit both of you in your individual situations. Primarily because both of your questions boil down to a lack of self-trust in putting yourself out there in a new way (connecting with and dating women for Trust Issues and telling your parents you’re dating a woman for Late Bloomer).
Let me be the first person to say that unexpectedly realizing you’re queer in adulthood is exactly the kind of thing that is bound to send your self-trust into a panic spiral! I can vividly recall post-divorce sessions with my therapist where I confided to her that I was worried not recognizing something so big and integral about myself must say something pretty horrible about me.
What I had to learn and internalize is that not being connected to my sexuality sooner said a lot less about me than it said about my environment. In a world of cisheteronormativity, compulsory heterosexuality (especially for women and people assigned female at birth), purity culture, religious values, conservative family, etc., there can be a lot of obstacles to figuring out your sexuality—even more so the older you are.
If anything, it’s a testament to your courage and trust in yourselves that you’re here now! You both did a formidable thing: you went against inertia to leave relationships that weren’t satisfying and discover something new and beautiful about yourselves in the process. That’s incredible. I hope you’re so proud.
As a result of those decisions, you’re now entering uncharted territory— actually being with a woman for Trust Issues and actually living out loud as a visible queer person to a public that includes your parents for Late Bloomer. So how do you do it? How do you navigate these new, murky waters?
You do it at the pace that feels right for you and with a life jacket or two strapped on tight.
Trust Issues—you’re worried about what it will be like to connect with a woman. Will it feel panicky like it did with men? Will it be really intense? Maybe! Or maybe not. Maybe you are on the ace spectrum like you thought before. Or maybe you’re a raging lesbian who will shed those fears the first time you kiss a woman. The only way to find out is to go on some dates and start gathering data, and once you have that data you can decide what to do with it. So what comes next for you is figuring out how to tolerate the discomfort of dating women for the first time. Would it help to exclusively date other late bloomers while you’re figuring things out? To avoid anything physical and build an emotional connection first? To do some journaling about the differences between how you feel about men vs women now that you’re opening yourself up to new possibilities?
Late Bloomer—you’re scared of disappointing your parents and how they might react to the real-world queer version of you that’s dating a woman. Maybe they’ll take it amazingly well and surprise you! Maybe they’ll freak out and disown you. Or maybe it will be something in the middle. It’s impossible to predict exactly how they will respond, but it sounds like it’s important to you to have the opportunity to be open and honest with them regardless. So what comes next for you is figuring out how to take the leap to share that part of yourself with your family while also protecting yourself. Do you want to tell them on a call so you can’t see their faces or send an email to allow the news to sink in before they respond? Do you want to drop hints about it first rather than turning it into a whole heart-to-heart conversation? Can you have your partner with you for support or have a session with a therapist lined up for after so you can process?
Both of you have experienced a rebirth of sorts over the last few years. It makes perfect sense that you don’t yet have full confidence in your new, still-tender identities, and I hope you’ll give yourselves grace while you’re taking the time to uncover the colors and shapes of your queerness.
But look back at where you started! At how many challenges you had to overcome to get to this point. You’ve each come too damn far to let “what ifs” stop you now (“what ifs” you’re capable of navigating should they occur!), and you both have deep experience with feeling fear and doing it anyway that you can draw on for the next steps in your personal journeys.
Staying curious about yourselves and listening inward is how you got here. It’s also the way you’ll keep moving forward, inching ever closer to living as authentically as possible.
Queerly yours,
Shohreh
p.s. If you’re a late bloomer looking for advice and resources, I made you a beautiful guide to help.
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