Wife left her husband for a woman
Maria, 52, has been married three times. Her first marriage lasted 17 years and produced two children. Her second marriage lasted nine years, and her third marriage lasted five years. She left her third husband to live with Sophie, 28. Maria says she no sexual feelings toward women until she met Sophie.
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Maria: Over the years I have found out that each side, heterosexual or homosexual, is eager to claim you as one of theirs. I am sure there are people who fit neatly into one of the two categories. And there are bisexuals who fit into both.
At this point, I would not call myself straight, lesbian, or gay. Perhaps I'm bi-curious or heteroflexible. The labels don't matter to me. I think of myself as having fallen in love with a person, Sophie, who happens to be a woman. The fact that I love Sophie and have sex with her doesn't make me more interested in women in general, though I am certainly less interested in men than I once was.
Question: How did you lose your interests in men?
Maria: It was a long process. I'm from an old-fashioned, rural background. Back then, women got married not only out of love but because they wanted to leave their parents and have a home of their own. A husband was a way of providing you with that. I don't think I was especially in love with my first husband. I was very young. It was certainly a strong marriage that lasted a long time. He was a hard working blue collar guy that I lost interest in when I was in my 30s. I then married a civil engineer. He was a good looking guy with plenty of money. He'd traveled a lot, had a big house, was self-confident, which I found attractive. My third husband was a journalist, an impulsive and rather careless guy, but he was fun initially. We had some good times together. He was the first person I'd met who didn't take life terribly seriously. That was refreshing.
I went back to school in my 40s, did a bachelors, then got accepted straight onto a Phd program in linguistics. I read a lot of books, did a lot of theoretical thinking, and I started to question the role of men in my life, how much I had sacrificed to keep men happy. I started to resent men in general, not dislike them ... I lost interest in them without being interested in anything else to replace them.
Question: You had no romances or sexual encounters with women during your marriages?
Maria: No, nor did I have affairs with other men. I didn't think of women sexually. I had lots of women friends, I liked women's company, much more so than male company. I find men selfish and self-absorbed. Women spend a lot of time listening to men telling stories about themselves. Men don't seem terribly interested in listening to women's conversation.
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Question: You have a bleak view of men.
Maria: I certainly do. I don't think men understand women, and they don't want to understand women. They don't know how to satisfy women. When a man has sex with a woman he's incredibly selfish, caring only about his own pleasure and orgasm. If the woman doesn't mention her needs or doesn't complain, the man won't doing anything but take what he wants.
Question: Were your marriages sexually unsatisfying?
Maria: After 17 years of marriage, my sex life had become routine. I learned to live without it. In my second marriage, it was ok initially but my husband was in his mid-60s and had erection problems a lot of the time. It was a lot of effort getting him interested in sex and me. My third husband was better but it was still his pleasure that mattered. He said he was interested in satisfying me but he didn't do much to show it. I probably had no more than 10 orgasms in all my marriages. Men don't understand female bodies.
Question: Did you talk about sex with your husbands?
Maria: In my experience, men take any suggestion as criticism of their sexual technique, then they sulk, and you have to apologize and you're back where you started.
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Question: How did you live through so many years of unsatisfying sex?
Maria: I'm not saying every time was bad. There were times the sex was enjoyable, when there was genuine warmth and affection, but it was never deeply satisfying. I would make myself come if I needed to. I learned to please myself by masturbating. I diverted my sexual energy into other activities. I was a competitive long distance runner until my late 30s. That burned a lot of energy. Then I did a huge amount of reading, studying, and research, which was immensely satisfying to me. Children were a huge part of my life, but marriage never was. I understood early on that men could not make me happy. I had to do that myself.
Question: How did you meet Sophie?
Maria: My third husband was a foreign correspondent. He spent weeks and weeks on assignment. We had this big empty house. I advertised for someone to rent the ground floor and Sophie was one of the first people to answer the ad. She was doing graduate work at design school. She was intelligent, artistic, organized, tidy. I liked her. She moved in. I didn't see her that much the first few months.
One evening a few years ago, she was making dinner for a friend of hers, a gay guy who had just split up with his lover. He was terribly upset, crying. Sophie invited me to join them, I don't know why, to lighten the atmosphere I guess.
Question: What happened?
Maria: We spent the entire evening complaining about men. I whined about my husbands, Sophie complained about her boyfriend. Her friend talked about all the lovers who had broken his heart. We all agreed that men can screw up your life.
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I remember looking at Sophie and enjoying how she was dressed, her enthusiasm, her laughter, her ability to listen and really participate in a conversation. I liked her youth, too. I was in my 40s, she was in her 20s. She had that fearlessness that young people have. It was energizing. We touched a few times, I didn't pull away, but it was no more than that. We didn't sleep together that evening. I don't think the thought of sex with Sophie entered my head, but I liked her a lot. I wanted to spend more time with her.
Question: Did you invite her to see you again?
Maria: No. I was worried about being thought of as too old. I didn't want to be this old woman chasing a young woman. I kept my distance. Sophie pursued me. We went to movies together, restaurants, galleries, walks. When my husband was around, it was still easy to spend lots of time with Sophie because he didn't imagine that anything could be going on. He liked that Sophie and I spent a lot of time together, and he liked going out with the two of us. It made him feel good.
Question: But you were sleeping with Sophie while you were still married?
Maria: Yes. It was fantastic. For the first time, I found someone who knew what I wanted, who knew how to touch and talk to me, who could truly satisfy me. Orgasms were so easy with Sophie. It was bliss.
Question: You still don't consider yourself to be lesbian?
Maria: That's a label that can apply to some people, but it's not helpful to me. I fell in love with a person, not a gender or a sexuality. Sophie is the only woman I have had sex with, and she is the only woman I want to have sex with. I don't think I want to have sex with men anymore. I don't need long term relationships with men anymore. But nor am I drawn to the lesbian movement. I don't feel pulled in that direction.
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Question: Sophie had a boyfriend when you met? How does she describe her sexual orientation.
Maria: She says she's bisexual or bi-curious. She's had mostly heterosexual relationships but she likes women. You would have to ask her for details. As I say, it's all just labels to me. It doesn't capture the complexity of who we are as individuals. I am very happy with my life as it is now. It doesn't matter really how I describe my sexual activity.
Question: Did you tell your husband about Sophie?
Maria: Of course. I think he was relieved. He was ready to move on. I'm pretty sure he wasn't completely faithful during our marriage. There were no dramatics. We divorced cooperatively. He's living in Paris now with a woman he met there. We talk once in a while.
Question: What do your children think of your relationship with Sophie?
Maria: My daughter is only a few years younger than Sophie. They get along fine. The three of us spend a lot of time together. My son, who's 19, wasn't so understanding. His friends made fun of him, but he has nothing against Sophie. He thinks it's odd that his mom lives with a young woman. His father probably thinks I'm weird.
Question: Do you have any close male friends today?
Maria: I have never had that, so nothing has changed. The only difference in my life now is that I am not dependent on a man for my happiness, my security, or my future. I don't have to worry about keeping a man happy, looking after him, washing his clothes, cooking, all the stuff that men think women are born to do, even the good men.
Question: Do you have any advice for women who are going through what have have been through?
Maria: It's so individual. Don't accept the boxes that people want to put you in if you don't think you fit. It's ok to be attracted to me, to women, to both, or to neither. Do what is comfortable for you, what makes you happy. Don't expect men or women as a group to make you happy or bring you fulfillment. Happiness will come from important individuals in your life. They might be men, they might be women.
By Rupert de Borchgrafve
