No way!

“Over 40 and Over Men?” reads a headline gracing the cover of this month’s MORE magazine.  I’m intrigued.  I look inside and read: “More and more women are living the ultimate do-over: falling for another female.  Meet the gay and grey generation.”

That’s me.

While not feeling particularly grey, my family and I have been living “the ultimate do-over.” I buy the magazine and bring it home, compelled to devour every word of this narrative – a narrative that my family and I are living out, that is just now beginning to make its way into the cultural conversation.

“A normal part of coming out as an adult is the feeling of being an adolescent on fire, caught in the body of a 40 to 50 year old,” says my friend and colleague Joanne Fleisher, author of Living Two Lives: Married to a Man and In Love with a Woman.  Ah, the memories…I was that adolescent on fire (my friends will attest!) in my mid-40’s.

AND married. Just like the women profiled in MORE.

Together with Joanne Fleisher, I have since facilitated groups and weekend workshops for heterosexually married women who are struggling with their attractions to women. The emotional agony is palpable as we sift through the consequences of these feelings – particularly as they impact husbands and children.  In my own experience I came to use the term “autobiographical rupture” – it so aptly described the abrupt tear I felt in my life story.

The fact that this story is being told in a mainstream women’s magazine is of great significance: it familiarizes the public with another narrative of sexuality, and decreases the isolation women so often feel in the process. Perhaps too, it is the harbinger of a future in which we will focus on the quality of relationship rather than the gender of the partner.

I related to the women in the MORE piece, but was keenly aware that it was ultimately not an individual process; particularly with young children, the entire family becomes engaged in the unfolding story and decision making that ensues. I didn’t feel really ‘out’ until I told my children. Come to think of it, I found the entire ‘coming out’ process rather bizarre – I didn’t have to claim my heterosexuality, after all.

While the MORE piece had a focus on sex and dating, I would have liked to have more discussion about the reactions women can anticipate – they are a window into how we think as a culture about sexuality and identity.  In my case, the reactions were (a) that my marriage somehow wasn’t ‘real’ and (b) that I must have had these feelings all along and just didn’t acknowledge them.  Neither was true.  But the rush to categorize obfuscates the real questions: Why do we need these categories in the first place? What are the consequences of being a member?

Ok, ok, so those are big questions for a small article in MORE magazine. But that article tells a big story – one that apparently, we are ready to hear. I think mostly of the woman who reads this month’s MORE magazine and does not live in or near gay friendly places, who faces this crisis alone and confused; for her, this small piece can become a lifeline.

Thank you, MORE.