"That's not something I expected. But isn't that how life goes? One day you're baking sourdough and trying not to touch your face, and the next you're coming out to the world and losing half your family in the process. I'd been single for over two decades-twenty-five years of bad dates, some good therapy, and quiet Friday nights. I'd survived abuse, betrayal, and abandonment."
"I'd been struggling to make peace with my solitude. My biggest fear was dying alone in my apartment and not being discovered for days. It felt very possible. Trying to accept that this was as good as it gets didn't leave me in state of letting go but in a state of absolute dread. Deep down, I was aching to be seen. To be chosen. To feel at home. To belong to someone. Then I met her. And my life cracked wide open."
"This wasn't just a late-in-life love story. This was a story about becoming who I really am-about peeling back decades of shame, "am-I-gay?" denial, and internalized homophobia. It was about stepping fully into my own skin. And the price of authenticity? For us, it was being shunned. Neither of us had explored this path before, so when my now-wife came out to her devoutly Catholic family, they told her she was going to hell. They called her an abomination."
A person fell in love with a woman at fifty during the pandemic and simultaneously confronted decades of concealment, shame, and internalized homophobia. The relationship forced a reckoning with solitude, fear of dying alone, and a deep longing to be seen, chosen, and to belong. Coming out led to severe familial rejection: a devoutly Catholic family labeled the partner an abomination and cut off contact, leaving a lasting silence. The couple experienced invitations and exclusions that signaled conditional support. Authenticity brought liberation and love but also intentional betrayal and ongoing emotional pain.
Read at Tiny Buddha
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