Mum said I’d be lonely after coming out – then I met my wife

‘You’re going to be a very lonely woman if you do this’, my mother said to me, as I sat with her at my newly painted home.

It was 1981 and at 30, I had come out as a lesbian after ending a five year marriage with a man.

It was painful to hear her words. She really didn’t believe I could be happy.

‘You’re not a lesbian, if you were, I would know’, she added, and over the following weeks there were more comments like this, as she continued to pressure me to just move past what she assumed was a phase.

I’m glad I didn’t listen to her, because 45 years later, at 75, I’m still very much a lesbian and I’ve been with my partner Linda for over three decades.

The last thing I am is lonely, and while my mother is no longer with us, my relationship with her wasn’t scarred by this moment.

I had married my ex-husband in 1976, and we had been friends before getting together. It wasn’t an easy marriage – we were trying to have a baby and had to go down the route of IVF. 

That ruptured our relationship, and unfortunately, ending us felt right. 

I thought I was heterosexual my entire life and had only been with men, but before my ex-husband and I married, I remember saying to him that I would like to have felt what being with a woman was like. We ignored it, and I never scratched that itch.

It took 12 weeks from the end of my marriage to come out, and that’s when I finally started to feel freer.

When I left my husband I walked away from a whole social network too – meaning I didn’t get to have any conversation with anyone else about how they felt about my sexuality. 

I moved out of the world I shared with him and entered a whole new, giddy and totally absorbing world full of lesbians. 

Luckily, I managed to maintain a relationship with my mother, and while she didn’t understand my life completely, she loved me endlessly.

After she unleashed all those daggers, stabbing me with her words one after another – telling me what a terrible mistake I made – we sat in silence. She understood in that moment how much she hurt me, and we started to mend our relationship straight away.

It took a few years to get back to where we were – we both stumbled at various times, but we became close again soon enough.

However, coming out in the 80’s wasn’t an easy decision to make, and there were a few things on the line for me like my career as a teacher, which I felt I had to give up due to discrimination. 

I wasn’t sure what my future held, but I was still determined to make it work. 

Then, I met Linda.

When we first met, we instantly hit it off.

We were at a party, stood in the kitchen, talking about music, and I just knew then that there was something between us. 

Initially, I didn’t do anything, but after finding out Linda was interested in me, when standing outside a nightclub one night, I locked eyes with her and said: I’m in the phone book, call me’. 

Since then, my life hasn’t been the same. 

I had just turned 40 when we started dating in 1991 and things moved quickly. 

In an unexpected turn of events, I even introduced Linda to my mum and they got on brilliantly. 

Mum thought I would be lonely, and then she was cracking jokes with my new girlfriend.

At one point she even said: ‘I have to say, I’ve never seen you so happy’. 

Up until she passed, she remained close to Linda and myself, accepting and loving us both.

In 1994, Linda and I moved to Manchester for my job and haven’t looked back since. We still live in the house we moved into when we got here, and we wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

The lively gay scene in the city was a pull for us, and we revelled in growing our community.

It was in the late 90s that I started volunteering at what was then known as the Lesbian and Gay Foundation (now the LGBT Foundation), and signed up to a counsellor training course to become a therapist, and couples counsellor.

In 2007, Linda and I had a civil partnership and she became my wife. It was a beautiful day – we had around 80 family and friends come together to celebrate us, in a townhouse just outside of Manchester. 

My mum came to our civil ceremony and, although she had started to become ill around that time, she still managed to flirt with some of our lesbian friends.

In 2009, mum died and my world crumbled. But I’m glad she got to see me happy, and got to see that I could never be lonely. 

Now, 35 years on, Linda and I have a great relationship and we do this by staying committed to each other’s happiness and care.

And importantly – lots of cuddles.

Looking back at what my mum said to me when I came out, I felt sad at first. But we grew from that moment, and became stronger.

Now, I could not be happier and full of life.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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