Married Women Who Love Women (Paperback)

Until I was forty-three I would have said with absolute certainty, "I am not, nor could I ever become, a lesbian. I know exactly who and what I am." One year later, after 25 years of a contented heterosexual marriage, I fell in love with another woman. I experienced more passion, pain, isolation, and turmoil than I ever thought possible and I began to question who I really was.

My journey from denial to self awareness, understanding and acceptance was not an easy one. In Married Women Who Love Women, (MWLW) not only do I reveal my own personal experience but the frank responses of more than 100 women I interviewed, as well as those of their husbands and children. What I learned through my interviews and through my additional research, is that the phenomenon of married women loving women is not as uncommon as I had believed. And no woman, single or married, is automatically exempt from the frightening possibility that she too might one day realize a dormant sexual awareness that she is a lesbian.

MWLW addresses issues that have never been freely discussed before: Why do women turn to other women for emotional fulfillment? What would make a married woman cross the invisible line that turns her best friend into her lover? Why do some women struggle with identity while others easily embrace their sexuality? What do married women do when they realize that a large part of themselves has been missing? What kind of men are they married to? How do these women and their spouses cope? MWLW also answers intimate questions that have crossed the minds of all women such as: What is it like for a woman who believed herself to be heterosexual to suddenly find herself enthralled with another woman? How is making love with a woman different than making love with a man? And finally, where do straight women fit in?

MWLW is a look at how such conflicting human desires as change and stability, companionship and sex, commitment and passion, social acceptance and personal happiness are handled by one little-studied group. It is an honest exploration into the secret life of married women, the power of female attraction, and the mysterious bonds between women.

I feel that MWLW is a book for all women and the families and friends who love these women. It should also be a part of every Women's Studies program.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.