Late Life Lesbians. Let's Discuss.

It has been a hot topic all over the airwaves lately - on Oprah, the Today Show, and The View. Women who had traditional marriages and families are leaving their husbands for other women.  

Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni

Okay, I admit it, this is a trend I'm curious about. I'm married, I'm a mom, I've always been attracted to men and I'm hot for my husband. Is there something about middle age that's going to make me start playing for the other team?


Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon spent 15 years with the father of her two children before falling in love with education activist Christine Marinoni in her late thirties. Had Nixon always been a lesbian? She says no.

"It wasn't something in me that was waiting to come out. It was like, this person is undeniable. How can I let this person walk by?"

Meredith Baxter, who played the liberal mom from the hit 80's TV show "Family Ties," was married three times and had five children. It wasn't until she was in her mid-fifties that she realized that she preferred being with women. She spoke with Matt Lauer about the experience on the Today Show.

"I am a lesbian, and it was a later-in-life recognition," Baxter said. " I got involved with someone I never expected to get involved with, and it was that kind of awakening.  I never fought it because it was like, oh, I understand why I had the issues I had early in life. I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships.”

While Elisabeth Hasselbeck of The View thinks women turn to other women in middle age because "all the older men are going for younger women, leaving the older women with no one" (click here to see her make her case to astonished co-host Joy Behar) I highly doubt desperation for companionship is the motive.

According to Shayna Goldstein, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, who specializes in LGBT issues at the Family Institute of Northwestern University,  women who leave their marriages for other women tend to follow two paths. The first group of women, like Cynthia Nixon, feel they happened to fall in love with a person who happens to be female. Their romantic feelings are specific to an individual and they don't necessarily identify themselves as lesbian.

The second group of women have known they were attracted to other women for a long time, but never gave themselves permission to act on those feelings. It isn't until later in life - when they'd developed more self-awareness and confidence - that they were able to admit and act upon their true desires.

When writing about this topic for an upcoming issue of Make it Better Magazine, I interviewed Maureen Watson, a dynamic gallery owner and former business executive who lives with her female partner of eight years in Florida. Maureen, 62, has been married twice - spending a total of 25 years with her two husbands. When she was younger, she liked men and had satisfying physical relationships with them, but in between marriages, she also had "flings" with women.

"When I wasn't with a man, I was with a woman," she told me.

But Maureen was brought up in a strict Catholic household and in her community it was inconceivable that a woman be with another woman. So, despite having had female encounters, it wasn't until she was 48 and divorced for the second time that Maureen allowed herself to fall in love and have a real, committed relationship with a woman. She she decided to tell the people close to her about her relationship.

"I realized, I'm older now, so who the hell cares what people say? And society had become more accepting," she said. Her conservative parents certainly had.

"My mother simply said, 'that's nice dear, you always did think differently, now what should we have for lunch?'"

Since then, Maureen has only been with women and has no intention of dating men - "Relationships with women are just much more interesting!" - but coming out as a lesbian has been a gradual process that even talking to me for this interview is a part of.

"It's an evolution of finding out who you are," she said. She thinks sexuality falls along a bell curve. "Some of us are probably born gay and some of us are born hetero, but the rest of us fall someplace in between. It's hard to label yourself."

Labels about women's sexual orientation may becoming a thing of the past anyway. There's a new concept emerging called "sexual fluidity." In her book, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire, psychologist Lisa Diamond presents a study of women who have had relationships with both men and women over time, but don't fit into any fixed definition of gay, straight, or bi-sexual.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this one, girls!