Tearing apart a life that no longer fits can be a terrifying prospect. But, to mark Pride month, one woman tells us why doing just that – to choose to live and love in a way that felt true – was the best decision she ever made
Speaking my mind
Glancing at my wedding photos now, I think, ‘Was that even real?’ The bride, wearing a white dress and walking down the aisle with a man, feels like someone else – but it was 23-year-old me. I met my ex-husband when I was just 17, having only known my very traditional home environment in Surrey.
I first realised I had feelings for women when I was at university. But rather than act on the increasing realisation that I was gay, I pushed those thoughts down. There was a sense of deep shame because I didn’t think it was okay for me to have same-sex desires. The world wasn’t as inclusive as it is now – there was a lack of self-expression and I didn’t have any queer friends to confide in.
With my secret in tow, I blocked out my feelings and tried to fit in by following a societally approved path. I started to tick off those things that I ‘should’ do: that I should settle down, that I should be a wife, that I should have children. Yet I couldn’t shake off the sense that I was being dishonest – including to myself – and those feelings I had cast to the back of my mind felt like they were shouting ever louder.
The noise became unbearable in my late twenties, when I developed a huge crush on a female colleague. Nothing ever happened between us, but it was clear to me that I desperately needed to speak to my husband about my internal struggles – to tell him that I wasn’t leaving him for someone else, but that I just didn’t want to be in a relationship with a cis man. By this point, I was crippled with anxiety about coming out because I worried about being alone, but I knew that I couldn’t continue living a lie.
That was one of the most difficult times in my life. My husband, who
I was living with at the time in the lovely four-bedroom house we owned in Spain, took it really badly. It was excruciating to break his heart like that, and he even suggested that we didn’t need to break up – that I could just have affairs with women. But I insisted that wouldn’t be good for either of us. It took my husband a long time to accept the breakdown of our marriage, and shortly after my 30th birthday we separated and I moved back to the UK to begin divorce proceedings. This was also when I told my family. After the initial shock wore off, my mum and dad told me they still loved me – but deep down, I know they were very upset, and certainly felt sympathy for my ex-husband. It created a dis
