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Later in life switch

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by Orchidea123, Apr 26, 2018.

  1. Orchidea123

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    Not sure what age late in lifers are considered to be.. Assuming you are a late in lifer, and have led considerably lengthy hetero lifestyle:
    Is there anyone here was heterosexual, and all of a sudden became attracted to same sex primarily. Meaning, there were no signs, and they just happened to switch?
    I liked my hetero life till the switch..
    I've read on sexual fluidity, and here on EC mostly read about people not realizing right away why they were not enjoying hetero relationships. I've enjoyed mine though.
     
    #1 Orchidea123, Apr 26, 2018
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  2. signmypapyrus

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    Hm, I can maybe speak to this, although I think there *were* signs.

    I did enjoy two of my long-term heterosexual relationships. One of them I genuinely loved and I had a lot of fun with the other guy. I believe that I was attracted to these men, although I felt like something was missing. I had a weird fling in grad school and this guy finally turned to me and asked me if I was gay, so I do think these men did pick up on it.

    For most of my adult life, I looked to men and felt I was attracted to men. I also didn't examine *why* I was attracted to men or, conversely, *not* attracted to men. There weren't any female celebrities that made me unglued. When I would start dating or enter into relationships (granted, I haven't dated in over five years and I haven't had many relationships), I would then become frustrated and try finding a way out of them. I thought I was a commitment-phobe. Finally, I met the person that did make me unglued and we had something going for a bit and everything made sense.

    I do firmly believe sexuality is fluid and cultural norms are that we need to fit into rigid boxes: identities must either be "straight," "gay," or nicely packaged so that the general public can understand them. Of course, I don't think straight people sit around and think, "I wonder why I'm straight?" When I told my mom that it's hard for me to be attracted to people and I don't particularly like sex, she said, "You know, I don't either!" And then she told me she went and researched asexuality and it made sense to her.

    The long of it is is that sometimes a person just comes along and it's okay that we don't have an explanation for it, and as José Esteban Muñoz says (this is distilling his theory A LOT), sometimes identity gets in the way.
     
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  3. LostInDaydreams

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    Despite every moaning post I've written about my partner on here, I wouldn't go as far to say that I haven't enjoyed parts of my relationship with my partner, particularly early on in our relationship. If we didn't get on at all, then we wouldn't have made it this far. Most of my best days out and holidays have been with my current partner. When we were first going out I looked forward to seeing him. Seeing him just made everything feel better. I wanted to spend nearly all my free time with him. I preferred his company over everyone I knew. I enjoyed and initiated cuddling. The rest of our physical relationship wasn't unenjoyable either. It was never amazing, but it wasn't terrible either. When I was pregnant, I felt perfectly content. Our relationship started to decline about a year after our daughter was born, but be before that I was happy and I wouldn't have changed anything.
     
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  4. SoulSearch

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    I've experienced a similar "switch." I'm 40 and have been in a hetero marriage for the last 20 years. I've been very happy with my marriage and spouse overall, though I've gone through periods of restlessness throughout the last years. I've always found women (along with men) attractive, but several years ago I developed a bit of a crush on a female friend and I've had dreams of being with women sexually. The feelings for my friend eventually faded (or maybe I pushed them away). I never really considered that I wasn't straight. Late last year the attraction to women became more powerful and I began to explore it and accept my feelings. A good friend of mine came out as lesbian last year and through talking to her I realized that I'm not straight. I don't really like the labels - I'm assuming I'm bisexual - but lately, I'm primarily interested in women. I can't say this came out of left field, but it's something I've realized I can no longer ignore or push below the surface if I want to live an authentic life. I've been working with a therapist and exploring the idea of a new lifestyle. My next step is talking to my husband. These strong feelings have only been present for about six months, so it's still very new and strange to me. I'm still unsure about whether to trust the feelings. While I'm content in my marriage, I feel like there's a piece of me missing that I need to find. I don't feel like I was living a lie my whole life or like I made a mistake marrying a man. I'm just different now.
     
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  5. BiBarefeet

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    Mine was a gradual thing, but there were absolutely no signs of anything other than heterosexuality in my life, feelings and thoughts...until I met a bi-les girl who became my fiance and started fantasising during sex with me that she loved the idea of me getting it on with another guy...strangeness slowly turned into acceptance and then anticipation of hearing her dirty homosexual thoughts...I was mid-20s then. By the next year I had tried it out for myself, and though not overly keen, every few months I would try again...it became the usual thing, repressed thoughts became urges, the itch that needed to be scratched...2 marriages and 20 years later and I know that I'm not straight, not bi curious and not equally bisexual. I prefer women in some ways but sexually, I find sex with guys more satisfying...sex with my current wife was good at first (12 years ago), then became routine within 3 years, then boring...it is at that point that we should have gone to a sex/marriage counselor and sorted ourselves out...instead we let it get worse until sex was sporadic (and still is) and the enjoyment is not there. Having accepted that I am bi-gay, I fantasize almost exclusively about guys, and my thoughts and deeds intensified when I found out that my wife was having an affair. Though we've got through that, it affected us a lot. We are still together and looking to strengthen our relationship again. But the waves of homosexuality are still strong...or rather than waves, it feels like a high tide of homosexuality now, the acceptance of myself keeping those thoughts and feelings constant but not rushing or overwhelming anymore. Reading some of the postings on this site, I could be forgiven for thinking that I may be gay...but as soon as I catch a glimpse of a beautiful woman and maybe a hint of a smile from her, I want to be next to her and seducing her. So I'm not fully gay. But for sure, I'm not far off polar opposite to how I was 20 years ago.
     
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  6. PatrickUK

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    What we describe as a later in life switch often isn't a switch at all. Many people have experienced latent same sex feelings for years before they finally reach a place of acceptance of what's always been there. In other cases there may have been same sex feelings during adolescence that were ignored or dismissed as a phase (maybe because a supposedly knowledgeable adult told us that we all have these phases), only for them to return years later. In these cases it might be reasonable to say that feelings were left dormant or even 'switched off', rather than to suggest that a switch from heterosexual, to gay or bisexual occurred.

    Some people are very aware of the suppression of same sex feelings, while others have to peel away some layers before they see it and have their own "oh yeah" moment. In reality, very few people switch with no prior inclination and I think we need to be careful about suggesting it's fluidity.
     
  7. Orchidea123

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    Thanks for all your input. It is comforting that some do enjoy their initial hetero lives.
    I can not say with certinty that my preference for a woman over man was hidden all this time. I never had to suppress any hidden desire regarding sexuality and was fine with heterosexual relationships..
     
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  8. LostInDaydreams

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    I wasn't aware of supressing anything either. In retrospect, I was but it's taken me some time to see that. I genuinely had no idea.
     
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  9. zumbaqueen

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    All I can say is heterosexual relationships just never felt right to me. They were kind of like meh, I just thought I didn’t meet “the right man”. I never understood when my friends would say their heart was aching over a guy or they couldn’t live without them. Then when I fell in love with a woman I understood. I think it was in my subconscious and it just never seemed like an option to me to be a lesbian.
     
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  10. justme2018

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    I was aware I had gay fantasies but I brushed them off, what has happened suddenly is being attracted to a guy in real life...
    It's comforting to know others have experienced the same thing.
     
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  11. BMC77

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    That was my own experience.

    I have never had any sort of relationship. I've never even had a single date. But I assumed for many years that I could do the "normal" thing and have a relationship with a woman.

    But after joining EC, I began thinking a lot about my past...and one thing I realized is that I had attractions to other guys at least as far back as when I was 12 3/4 years old, and maybe even younger than that. I'd just found ways to repress and deny those feelings.
     
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  12. Peterpangirl

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    I enjoyed my only long term heterosexual relationship initially. I fell in love with the man who was to become my husband and I am still able to get on with him. But the emotional connection felt unbalanced, like I was needing something more emotionally than he was able to give..and that he didn't need me... There were other issues such as feeling unappreciated and taken for granted and getting bored. I think that could easily happen in a homosexual relationship too. The main difference in my one and only same sex relationship seems to be that I am more relaxed sexually, more willing to experiment, excited about giving love and love making (as opposed to just enjoying the physical excitement of sex) and I am therefore better at satisfying my partner in an intimate way. Positive feedback from her encourages me to put out.... Looking back I can see that I was never straight and I do think my attractions lean more to women than men these days. However I genuinely didn't see this about myself until I accidentally fell in unrequited love for a woman...and had a mixture of feelings,some of which I hadn't experienced ever before. It was a shock - as prior to this awakening I had come to believe I was close to asexual.
     
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  13. Orchidea123

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    Thank you for all your responses. It is useful to learn how each of you came to realization / sexual orientation change.

    What I wonder is:
    Do you believe it's possible for someone to be hetero to the core, and then switch?
    I've enjoyed most of my hetero relationships, as well as my hetero marriage. Now I am mostly noticing females.
     
  14. Peterpangirl

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    No. And I personally think that very few people are totally 100% straight or gay anyway. But I think the predominance of your attractions can switch...
     
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  15. LostInDaydreams

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    I agree with @Peterpangirl. As well as predominance changing, I think it's also possible to be completely oblivious and then become more aware of where your attractions are over time.
     
    #15 LostInDaydreams, May 2, 2018
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  16. New2me

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    @SoulSearch I feel the same like there is a piece of me missing or that I cannot express.
     
  17. Bicchi

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    Can predominance really change? I don’t think I’ve heard about LGBT dominance to straight so far. It’s always straight to LGBT. Why would that be?
     
  18. BiBarefeet

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    Same for me really...been relatively happy in previous hetero relationship and my current marriage, but always felt there was something missing, though I could never put my finger on what it was, and my very occasional homosexual encounters over the years also did not fill the void, perhaps because I was not emotionally or psychologically ready to explore these aspects and internalised them. But recently I've managed to do so, and came to the conclusion that whilst I'm not fully gay, I am much closer to homosexual than heterosexual, and that the love and affection from another man was what I was probably searching for, for so long.

    I can totally relate to this, and this is how I feel when I interact with my lover on those occasions that we meet up. Glad there are others here who feel the same way that I do...that there has seemed to be a missing piece of the jigsaw in my life which I did not fully understand for a long time, until quite recently.
     
  19. BiBarefeet

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    I'm wondering how many years ago that was when you noticed that decline, and how you feel now about things...it's interesting how people's perspectives of their lives and relationships change over time.
     
  20. LostInDaydreams

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    I've not researched predominance going from LGBT to straight, but two possible reasons:

    1. It doesn't happen that often, so there's not much to hear about.

    2. Going from straight, which people are more inclined to assume that they are by default, to LGBT possibly causes more inner turmoil and confusion, resulting in people reaching out and talking about it more frequently.

    Or not. It could be a bit of both.