How I Came Out

For years, these feelings surfaced but I kept them to myself and never revealed to ANY ONE my "dirty secret".  The only that ever knew was still my wonderful hubby.

One day, I am at a concert with 3 good girlfriends of mine.  We're all married moms.  We got on the subject some how and I revealed that I am Bi.  We talked about it a little more and they pretty much told me I'm awesome and still love me...they however are not LDS.

That gave me strength and courage.  I finally told my mom a little while later.  Her response, "I'm not surprised." *whew*.

About a year later, I opened up to two close LDS friends of mine.  One gave a shrug and kept moving along in the conversation...the other asked me a lot of questions to which I happily responded to.  The next night, I went out with another friend in my ward.  I laid mention that I have a HUGE crush on Angelina Jolie.  Didn't think nothing of it.  A little later that night, I had an anonymous email sent to me.  It basically said, "Hey, I'm LDS and know your Bi.  I am too.  Let's hook up."  And it just broke me.  All those feelings that I had tucked away so deep and finally broke free.  It was a brand new email address, and the only people besides my immediately family that had it, was anyone that had access to it was the Relief Society in my ward.  And that's what hurt the worst.  Someone in my ward, who knows me, knows my family is openly asking me to have an affair with her.  She took something I said in confidence and went strait in for the kill.  It hurt.  It hurt bad.  After an e-mail response back and a rather heated one from my hubby, I never heard from her again.

I approached one of my friends that I told and talked with her about it.  She told me, "I wish it was me, that why I could say sorry and we could move on from this." We talked in depth about it.  I was so sure that it was the other friend, the one that had asked all the questions.  But I was assured it wasn't her because I was told she actually didn't know how to respond to it all with me and who I am.

After a couple of gut wrenching weeks, things started to settle...I started talking a little more openly about it all to more LDS people.  My RS President, even my Bishop.  I was actually greeted with a very warm response of love.  It made things a WHOLE lot better.

The one friend that I used to hang out with a lot (and mentioned the Jolie crush) suddenly dropped off the face of the planet to me.  She didn't text much, hardly responded back to me.  I went back to my friend and we talked...she knew her and knew her history.  She's inactive and has never been strong in the church and has a history of being Bi too.  I also found out that she has a very up and down marriage. We were 99.9% she sent the e-mail to me and it fit the timeline as well as the sudden drop off of contact.

My friend asked me what I would do with this info.  I told her, she is obviously in a very dark place, her marriage is broken, she's not active, never really has been active.  I forgave her and tried hard to re-friend her and bring her back to church.  So far, the efforts have not been fruitful about church, but we do talk more than we did, so there is still hope.  I do wish to some day approach her about the e-mail.

But in the end, I am thankful for the e-mail.  While it did break me for a while, in the end it made me stronger and made me more okay with my feelings than I have ever been before.

Much love,

Jessie <3