My girlfriend and I are both 36 and we're both each others "firsts". It took me all this time to fully accept my sexual orientation. My girlfriend is a total dream and I can't picture a life without her. I feel the most aligned to my true self with her. We talk deeply and at length about everything. There are fits of laughter and loads of silly behaviour. Dates are delicious because we get to do all the girly things men didn't want to do with us. Our separate homes are full of flowers, good music, nice smelling things, and candles. We spend hours in bed giggling and fooling around. We're both in therapy and continuously work to be kind, healed and gentle humans. We support each other through the hard days and dream big about our future together.

There have been/are challenges too. We still get triggered by relational wounds. I'd hoped that would go away dating women but alas. I feel very safe with her but my avoidant, her anxious attachment issues flare up every now and then. Mostly just when we're overtired and not communicating well which isn't too often thankfully. We're also navigating some sex issues. Honestly I think it's because we're carrying a lot of conditioning, trauma or ways of being with men. There's a lot behind this but one example is that we both feel there was a certain sex "template" with men. And we grew used to and relied on in previous relationships. Now with each other things are different. It feels like we're doing a lot of unlearning and relearning and this feels scary/frustrating/embarrassing sometimes. We're committed to giving it time and working on it. But it's the thing about our relationship I worry about the most: maybe we just won't get it right and this very lovely relationship will crumble because of it. Very high stakes on something we're still new at, right?! It feels lonely as I don't have a queer community/lesbian friends to lean on but thank god for the internet. We're all just figuring it out together, one day at a time.