Straight and happy?

[Lonelyasacloud9]

First time posting so sorry if this is in the wrong place.

I grew up in a very misogynistic family. My mum, aunties and grandma were all in abusive relationships with men and this had a profound effect on me. I developed anorexia as a teenager and was very distressed at the thought of becoming a woman.

My first relationship was with a lesbian. This ended after several years. I was in long term therapy and I realised that I was straight but very frightened of men and had been avoiding relationships with men.

Fast forward several years and I am in my early 30s and have been in a relationship with a lovely man for 2 years (no kids). He proposed to me very unexpectedly and I said yes. Part of me does want to marry him but another part of me feels very afraid that I will somehow end up 'trapped' like my mum was and like the other women in my family were. I feel similarly about having children. Part of me wants it but part of me feels scared of losing myself and becoming unhappy and trapped. Although I want to be closer to my partner, any step in the directions of being closer to a man fills me with fear and dread.

I know that I am not a lesbian but I do miss the sense of freedom I had in my lesbian relationship. The sense of equality and understanding we had. The freedom of being away from the male gaze.

I think I have really struggled with a lack of older female role models. Are there middle aged women in straight relationships who are happy?

The out of the blue proposal would trigger me I think. The sense that he decides he wants to marry me and offers it up as a reward?

But I'm straight and middle aged and not happy in my relationship for different reasons 🤷

He did say to me yesterday that the lesbians he has known have been a lot calmer than straight women, I laughed my arse off

I’m 52 and happily married to a man, with a thirteen-year-old. It’s an egalitarian, mutually-respectful relationship that I think enhances both our lives. We were together for more thsn 20 years before we married, though — I’d always said no, because I wasn’t keen on the patriarchal baggage of the institution, and I only finally said yes because we’d decided to have a baby. (Which we’d also planned to not do.) I suppose what I’m saying is that you don’t need to marry or have a child if you fundamentally don’t want to. And that saying yes to marriage isn’t saying yes to a child. Two very different things. Think very, very carefully about what you want. Don’t rush into anything.

And yes, I hear you on looking at other people’s marriages and thinking ‘That’s not for me’. I can assure you that my marriage is nothing like my parents’.

It sounds to me as if you’d really benefit from talking all this through in therapy.

And yes, the unexpected proposal made me think ‘Hmm’, too.

The proposal was two years in though? So was it really that unexpected?

I’m 42, married with 2 kids and couldn’t be happier. I am a complete equal to my partner and we earn about the same.

Well, that’s how the OP describes it, so presumably she didn't see it coming at all?

I relate to your background story OP, everything but the lesbian relationships. I'm also very insecurely attached to men. I didn't have any healthy model relationships growing up, and basically every woman in my family was in some kind of abusive or miserable marriage apart from 1, whose husband eventually turned out to be a sexual delinquent after 20 years of marriage. So my faith in men was practically zero. More so, I think I started motherhood with the underlying belief that it was my job to protect my children from the harmful impact of their father. Which is actually pretty absurd if you know my husband. He's not perfect, but who is. He's a great, caring, loving man who takes his responsability as a father and as a husband.
We've had our ups and downs, but I can say I'm happy.

On a side note... The most safe and secure relationships I've ever been able to form, were with men who weren't 100% straight. I don't know what it is exactly, but being around bisexual or transgender men (both in romantic relationships and friendships) makes me feel so much more at ease. I think I connect with the feminine side of them, which makes me feel very safe, while also having the physical attraction to their male side.

Thank you for your responses. Yes I agree, I think more therapy would be good. I think my partner thought a surprise proposal would be more romantic but it ended up making me feel a bit alarmed. I would have preferred to talk about it together first. Although I have said yes, I won't be moving ahead with wedding plans until I feel more confident about being married.

Sorry, I realise the role model thing is a separate issue but I'd really like to work on feeling more positive about being a woman and I think it could help. Inter-generational friendships seem so hard to come by so I'm not even sure where to begin.