A Dog Called Diversity
A Dog Called Diversity
Later in life Lesbian….with Anne-Marie Zanzal
We are so glad you are listening in and if you need some help or support with your Diversity & Inclusion work go to www.thecultureministry.com for more information.
Anne-Marie’s coming out process took longer than some, though as you will find many women are coming out later in life in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Anne-Marie lived the life that was expected. She married to a man, had kids and became a catholic minister before realising she needed something different in life.
It’s a super interesting story where she shares how at times in her life she thought she might be gay, why women are coming out later in life, and how she helps women with coaching and support groups to do the same.
If you want to know more about Anne-marie and the work she does you can access her resources on coming out later in life and order her book Authentic Peace: A Story of Courage, Change, Transformation & Hope
At The Culture Ministry we know how challenging and lonely it can be working in Diversity and Inclusion and how progress is often slow.
You might be just getting started in Diversity and Inclusion, or you might be on your way. The Culture Ministry is here to help you with your Diversity and Inclusion progress. Go to www.thecultureministry.com to learn more
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Combining a big picture, balanced approach with real-world experience, we help organisations understand their diversity and inclusion shortcomings – and identify practical, measurable actions to move them forward.
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Welcome to A Dog Called Diversity, a podcast from the Culture Ministry where we explore the themes of diversity, equity and inclusion through sharing stories of personal and powerful lived experiences, including how people have found their feet and developed their career in diversity and inclusion. We are so glad you are listening in and if you need some help or support with your diversity and inclusion work, go to wwwthecultureministrycom for more information. Anne-marie's coming out process took longer than some, though, as you will find, many women are coming out later in life, in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Anne-marie lived the life that was expected she married a man, had kids and became a Catholic minister before realising she needed something different in life. It's a super interesting story where she shares how at times in her life she thought she might be gay, why women are coming out later in life and how she helps women with coaching and support groups to do the same. Here's your host, lisa Mulligan.
Speaker 2:Today, I am so pleased to welcome to A Dog Called Diversity, anne-marie Zanzel. Thank you, lisa. I'm so glad to be here. Yay, and you're in Nashville, aren't you I am? Yeah, that's a place I really want to visit. I think there's been various tv shows that have come out of the US that I guess have glamorized Nashville for me, and so I would love to come there well, make sure that when you come here, yeah, you're ready to party, because when tourists come here they all go downtown and they have a wonderful wild time.
Speaker 3:But those of us who live here don't really actually do that, Like we don't actually do that too much, but the tourists people who come here as tourists love it.
Speaker 2:I'm sure, I'm sure, and I'm sure, many tourists come for the music. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And that's the most wonderful thing about Nashville is that, even if you're like, okay, so Broadway is the is the main part of the downtown where people go and the honky tonks and everything like that but if you decide to go to some random bar in one of the suburbs of Nashville one night, you will always find an amazing singer, because so many singers come here to make their mark and you, like you, stumble into any bar and you will find somebody who's an amazing talent oh wow, it's pretty cool. That's a good tip.
Speaker 2:That's a good yeah. Yeah, you don't have to stay downtown, no, but let's talk about you, because I know you haven't lived in Nashville your whole life, have you?
Speaker 3:no, I moved to Nashville in 2018. My now wife we were in a relationship then when I moved, but my now wife is from Nashville and actually so in Nashville they call people that have actually grown up here and lived here their whole lives a Nashville unicorn, because there are so many transplants here in the city. So she actually grew up here, so she really knows this town. Is she in the music industry? No, she's an architectural photographer. She's not in the music industry.
Speaker 2:So you've moved to Nashville to be with your wife, which is wonderful, but you didn't grow up identifying as gay. So tell me about growing up and you know, I guess your life up until moving to Nashville.
Speaker 3:So you know, people always ask me about my story because they believe it's so unbelievably unique. But actually it's not that unique. I can talk a little bit about that now. So I'm somebody who, like always sort of had an inkling that I might not be straight. You know, I noticed my attraction to women in bars when I was younger and you know, I always you know that old joke that every straight girl is three drinks away from a lesbian encounter Like so when I noticed that I was attracted to women, I was like, eh, it's nothing, and you know, the next day I would forget about it and stuff like that. I didn't really pay much attention to it, but it really wasn't until, like about when I was about 23, 24, I went out to lunch one day with one of my friends and she was very involved. She was getting her PhD and she was very involved in the queer culture at the college that she went to, and not that she, she was marrying her husband, soon to be husband. But I was just fascinated and like it was like I could feel something inside of me and like, god, I want to, I want to be a part of that. And how do I be a part of that, and so that was the first time that I ever really consciously thought.
Speaker 3:I remember walking out of that and I can still remember being in the parking lot and thinking to myself, maybe I'm gay and I, you know. And I remember thinking to myself, well, how do I find, like, okay, so just, it was also like what year was it? It was like 1988. So it was a long time ago. Aids was, the AIDS epidemic was in full bloom, and so you know, I really wasn't sure how to find gay people and like, and I know they're all, and now I know gay people are all around us, but I didn't really know how to find any lesbian women, like, how do I do this? How do I, how do I meet people that are openly, who are out and all that stuff? And you know, there was a local gay bar in the next town and I wanted to go but I was too afraid to go by myself and I did ask a friend to go and she turned me down. So, um, yeah, she didn't want to do it. So she's straight, very happily straight, and we're still friends and I. So I just sort of put it away.
Speaker 3:At that time I also was engaged to my now my now ex, but I also was engaged and I was like, well, you know, I guess I'll just put this away and literally put it away about and forgot about it While I was raising my children. My kids are now 31 to 19, but you know, they were all born in my late twenties, early thirties, and I was raising babies and I had four kids and it's busy. It's so busy now, and I was. You know, there's seven years between my third and my fourth, but I was working full time during that time. So, you know, my life was just super busy and my sexuality was really not on my mind at all. And so, like a lot of women which is the same for a lot of women, right, whether you're gay or straight yeah, I just didn't even think about it, you know.
Speaker 3:And then, about when I hit 42, I read this article in Oprah Winfrey magazine which talked about, talked about the fluidity of women's sexuality. And then, all of a sudden, I add a language to something that I only had thought about in my head and I had this an aha moment haha, oprah always talks about that I had this aha moment of realizing that, although I had started down this straight path. I didn't have to stay on it forever and it was like someone had given me a lifeline because I was happy as a mom. I was in an okay marriage. It wasn't bad, it wasn't good, it was good at sometimes and it was bad sometimes but it wasn't. You know, it wasn't horrible marriage. We were united over the love of our children. We truly were. And so, you know, all of a sudden I was like you know, maybe I remember at the time saying to my then 16 year old daughter, who's now the 31 year old, saying hey, you know, if dad and I don't end up together forever, don't be surprised if I end up with a woman.
Speaker 3:And I realized that my daughter was probably the first person that I ever came out to. She does has no recollection of this conversation, by the way, and none whatsoever. Yeah, Mom's just talking about something you know, so you know. But then again I got distracted. I went to seminary right after that. It was all about the same time, and I went to seminary because I felt a call to be a minister.
Speaker 2:And so in your forties.
Speaker 3:In my forties I was 42.
Speaker 3:I've always been a late bloomer, um, and that's the story of my life. And at um and I went to Yale divinity school and, um, I remember I was a really great ally, like a lot of people that come out later in life. Um, I was always a good ally, I was always very supportive of the queer community and stuff like that. And I remember going to a national coming out day ceremony because Yale is a very progressive, you know, progressive seminary and I and all of a sudden I started crying hysterically and I had this moment of realizing that, yes, I was actually gay. I had this moment of realizing that, yes, I was actually gay and I left that. I was at a beautiful chapel called Marquand Chapel and I left the chapel and I was on the quad somehow and I was crying hysterically because I knew that I was going to have to, if I was going to pursue this, I was going to have to radically change my life and I didn't at that point, didn't know how to do that and so, again, put it away but took it out frequently over the next six years a lot actually, you know. And I also went to several therapists looking for someone to tell me, yes, you are gay, went to several therapists looking for someone to tell me, yes, you are gay. And that didn't happen, because the only person who named my sexuality is me. But I didn't even get like really good guidance to no one said that to me. No one said hey, listen, amory, I can't name your sexuality, you have to name it.
Speaker 3:And so in 2016 was six years after that event at Yale Divinity School, I had been ordained and it was the morning after my ordination as a minister and I woke up and I had to take my sister to the airport and I said to her you know? I said to her you know, this ministry stuff is really, really hard. My, my ex-husband and I are not doing well again and I, I I'm going to. I need a soft place to land. And so I went back into therapy, thinking that, you know, I could fix something. And so, when I was in therapy, I told her about a recent event that happened to me.
Speaker 3:I had worked in hospice for about the previous six, seven years and I had been a chaplain in hospice and I had a patient that you know signed on the hospice and thought she was going to die the next day, because a lot of people don't, and sometimes people are on hospice in the United States anywhere from hours to years. I mean it's really amazing what happens. And so we visited together Her name is Mary for about eight months and she passed away at about eight months after I met her. And one time she said to me she grew very, very impatient with, like waiting to die. She was like I'm ready to go, like, please, I just want to get out of here. And she said to me something which said I have been waiting for something. I feel like I have been waiting for something my whole life. And when she said that to me it just rocked me to my core.
Speaker 3:And unfortunately, mary didn't die a good death in a hospice I'm going to tell you 99.999% of people do but she had a poor death because of something that happened and I held her as she died, telling her to go. You know you can go, you can go, you can go and so it was a little traumatic. It was traumatic for me because I, you know, I really cared about her as well. I mean, I cared about all my hospice patients, but I really got to know her really well, and so I brought it up to my therapist and my therapist, being the consummate therapist that she was at the time, said so, emery, what are you waiting for? And I said you know, I think I might be gay.
Speaker 3:And this time was the third time. Third time is the charm. Um, that's when it stuck. It stuck and what I did differently this time Lisa was I googled late in life lesbian and I found a support group. I found a. It was a Facebook support group. It was very, very secret and hush hush then, and I found a group of women that were going through the same thing that I was and all of a sudden, I had community. I had shared humanity with a bunch of people who understood everything that I was talking about and I didn't have to explain it to anybody. And that's how everything. I met my. I met my now, who's been out since she was 20 in that group, and that's a whole nother story. I met her in that group and that's how I ended up here today talking to you.
Speaker 2:So many questions. So was your coming out the end of your marriage or had your marriage ended before that it was?
Speaker 3:the end of the marriage, or had your marriage ended before that it was, it was the end of the marriage. At that point my, my ex and I really did have have a a. Really our marriage was based on the foundation of the of our love for our kids that we had together. But there was a lot of things missing in my marriage, including when I do a composite of the type of men women who come out later in life marry because pretty much we've married the same man. They tend to be emotionally unavailable. They tend to be seen as really good guys, people really like them, and they also tend to be really good dads too. They're very they can, they're pretty involved in their kids' lives and stuff like that. They they just struggle really to nurture the relationship between themselves and their wife, whether it's how they were raised or just who they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love that story about finding your community on Facebook, and only because I was listening to a podcast yesterday where where the hosts were talking about the evils of social media, but and of course there are problems with social media, but I think one of the most beautiful things is community, which you may not be able to walk out your front door and find, but you can find in an online community I wondered if you'd talk a bit about. I'm really curious, and it's something that I've noticed there seems to be more women that come out later in life. Of course, some people you know come out in the early twenties, you know around when they're in college and, you know, just starting their adulthood, but I have noticed more women, yeah, in their forties and fifties coming out. What's your understanding of why that is Well?
Speaker 3:that's.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of reasons. First of all, you know, I was like when, you know, before I came out, I thought that too. I thought everybody figured it out in their teenage years and I was the only one that I had missed the boat somehow. But then when I came out, I realized that women in particular often are often get married and have you know relationships with men and everything before they actually come out. So my wife, who came out 20, is more of like it's it's not the whole community, it's like maybe 20 or 30% figure it out when they're, you know, teenagers. But then a lot of people figure it out in their twenties and thirties. And you know, it's like a bell curve it goes up and then it goes down. You know, I'd say the majority of the women so, so later in life is self-defined. So the youngest people I work with are 25 and the oldest people are 75 plus. So, and I would say the majority of women who come out later in life would be between like 30 and 32 and 45. That's like the bulk of them right there.
Speaker 3:So there's several reasons. First of all, I think women are not taught to listen to their voices like boys are. Boys are taught to learn listen to their voices. So when boys like realize that they're not attracted to girls, they pay attention to it, you know. Or that they're attracted to boys, they pay attention to it. I also think women are told on the whole that relationships are difficult with men. So when they have a relationship that's difficult with men, it's just par for the course. You know, it's normal, right.
Speaker 1:It's just normal. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3:So you know, so they don't think about it in terms of their sexuality and and and I'm going to say that was me, you know, my relationship with my husband wasn't, my ex-husband wasn't wasn't easy, but it could be, certainly could be really hard sometimes and I just, you know, chalked it up to a bunch of reasons. You know. Also, to, like, when we find women attractive, like as women. You know, women are so objectified in this culture it's very confusing, like, because women are held up as the standard of beauty. You know, all the art is.
Speaker 3:You know, for every 50 naked women, you get one naked man, you know. So it's held up as the like and modeling and marketing and media and stuff. So you know, it's very hard to discern, you know, oh, am I attracted to that person Because that's what I see all the time, is what is defined as attractive, or because I'm actually attracted to them, you know? And so there's a lot of confusing messages out there for women, and so it takes women a while to figure it out, and a lot of times women do get married and have children before they end up coming out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so interesting, that observation about what's happening in society and the notions of beauty. And I was sitting with my husband on Friday night at the Auckland Writers Festival listening to an incredible Australian author speak. But there was a little guidebook for what was coming up at this theatre and there's a whole range of cabaret shows and you know quite a little quirky and you know we love going and watching those kind of shows. And there's a show with a lot of nudity of women and I'm like, oh, that could be great. And then there's a show with a lot of nudity of men. I'm like, you know, I don't want to see that, I'd rather look at the women. I think I'm, you know, I think I'm heterosexual, but I do find looking at women more attractive. But we have been conditioned, haven't?
Speaker 3:we, we have been conditioned Like that's like what we're used to looking at, and so you know. And then we haven't been conditioned to look at naked men all the time, though I've noticed in the media, and especially like on the streaming platforms, there's a lot more male nudity than there ever has been. So I'm really glad. I'm really glad for the equality part of it. I don't particularly want to look at it, but I'm very happy for the equality part of it.
Speaker 2:I so agree. I'm watching Uncoupling at the moment with Neil Patrick Harris and there have been some, and it's like, oh, oh, I wasn't expecting that. Because you're not expecting it, it's like okay, I'm expecting it now. Yeah, it's so funny. I wanted to also ask about you know you became ordained as a minister. How does the? In my head there's a tension often between Christian religions, or probably any religion, and identifying as gay. How do you navigate that?
Speaker 3:So in conservative theologies whether it's Christian, jewish or Islam, there is a lot of tension between being someone who's gay or queer, lgbtq, and the church. I happen to belong to a very progressive Christian denomination, so my come and I worked as a chaplain, so my coming out was literally a blip Like I think if I had been a pastor of the church, of a church, it might have been a little bit more challenging, but literally nobody cared. So. But the thing is is that a lot of times people, when they come out, often fall away from religion. There can be a couple of reasons they can be rejected. You know they, even if they've been here. You know huge members of a church are very active in their church community or synagogue and so they fall away. Sometimes they wholeheartedly reject it because they're just not interested in it anymore. And then there are those who look for alternatives, meaning they either start practicing some other type of faith or they look for a more progressive version of their church. So in all the major religions there goes conservative to very progressive. And so if you are a queer person in church and religious life is in synagogue and religious life is important to you, there is something out there for you and for me. I didn't really realize, like, how much.
Speaker 3:I grew up Catholic and then I was evangelical for about 10 years and now I'm in a progressive denomination called the UCC here in the United States. And for me, you know, I was taught as a young girl that any sex outside of marriage was bad and it was wrong and it was evil. And so when I had sex outside of marriage because I was exploring I was like about 19 when that happened Um, I, it wasn't very good, but I was also aware enough that, um, that I felt guilty. So I just sort of chalked it up for feeling guilty because I didn't live up to my mom's expectation that I remained a virgin until I was married, and so it became.
Speaker 3:Those messages became very confusing for me. But in my religious belief system, though, I can't reconcile a God that loves me with a God that would cast me out. A God that loves me and a God that I was I and every other being on this planet was created in the image of um. I can't reconcile that and casting anyone out Like, for example, I don't believe in hell Like, if you want to believe, if we have a loving God, then how can you believe in hell?
Speaker 3:You know, and so I don't believe in things like that. So, um, but a lot of queer people do have like real concerns about things like that and for me, when I had already done the religious thing, by the time I had come out I had worked through all my religious stuff, Um, but now in retrospect I realize like how profound of effect it had on me and probably prevented me from really exploring things. When you know, when I became aware of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I have a question. Yeah, I was thinking. You know that that sex at 19, which is should be amazing and fun and wonderful, yeah, when you've, you've either got the guilt of the church and the religion or it's just not for you. With the men, it's not for me?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's that's the thing. Is that, like you know, like this is all in retrospect really yeah, you know, it wasn't really super good or anything like that with anybody. It was so, I mean, you know, like women who like. So this is a, this is, this is something. Is that people think that people that are gay or lesbian, you know, absolutely hate sex with the opposite gender? And that's not true. Like my wife, who came out at 20, had a boyfriend and it was fine, you know, and this is the thing is like people will describe it it's fine, it was.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 3:You know, and that's how I describe my sex life with men it was fine, it was good, it was okay. You know, and that's how I described my sex life with men it was fine, it was good, it was okay. Sometimes it was fun, you know, and stuff like that. But my, my sex life with my wife, which is just a very small piece of who I am like, an incredibly small like, just like in my hetero life, it was a very small piece of who I am um, is just so much more meaningful than it ever was when I was with, with, with the wrong gender for who I was created to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so tell me, you do amazing work now. Um, I don't, you don't. Are you still practicing as a minister?
Speaker 3:Um, well, that's an interesting question. Um, I just, I was a pastor of a church here in Nashville for a little while and I and I'm not pastoring anymore, but what I do is a type of ministry. Um, because I work with people who are coming out later in life to the LGBTQIA plus community.
Speaker 3:I started working with them after my own experience of coming out, which was probably the most miserable and hardest thing I've ever done in my life just because of all the change I had to go through, from, you know, from leaving a long-term stable marriage, you know, to to, you know, moving to all the things, it's like blowing up your life, isn't it Leaving?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's literally marriage and the house and all the things and the children and yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it was a really, really challenging thing. So what I noticed when I first came out and so I'm a grief counselor as well is that everybody in that little Facebook group that I was in was really grieving, and it took me really six months into my own process to realize how much I was grieving. And so I like that's how it started. I started doing small grief groups, support groups, and then it sort of grew from there and realized it's so much more than just grief. I mean like. So, for example, like internalized homophobia, which I had mentioned in the beginning of this is that so many of us are great allies to the community before we come out, and this is how I describe internalized homophobia, and it's like I don't care if anybody's gay, I don't care.
Speaker 3:if you know, I will support the rights of trans children and trans rights and people who are queer and stuff. The only person who can't be that is me, and so that's what you know. That was. That's like working through internalized homophobiaophobia, working through shame and guilt. A lot of my clients come to me because they are coming out, but a lot of my work is based on working through shame and guilt as you get divorced, because most of my clients I would say 80 percent, 85 percent of them are either either married or starting to think about divorce or going through a divorce when I meet them, and so a lot of times the queer stuff gets put on the back burner while we deal with the more immediate, immediate needs of like getting divorced after being married 20 years or you know, which is very painful and very hard very painful, very hard.
Speaker 2:There's finances. There's like all these, like real things that have to be separated and sorted Right.
Speaker 3:And also, too you know, this is the thing is that anybody who's been through divorce that's listening to this will understand is that if you are the one who initiates the divorce, people think that you don't grieve.
Speaker 3:You're the bad person, right, so you're the bad person and so you can't be upset about it, right? And so it's something called disenfranchised grief. So a lot of times in our community, especially women who are, you know, women or men who are divorcing their spouse, women who are, you know, women or men who are divorcing their spouse, because of all of this, they are often, you know, so heartbroken but nobody will acknowledge their grief. And because it's a disenfranchised grief, other people that are going through this will. But it is a disenfranchised grief, people just it's. And it's also hard to talk about it too, because if you talk about it, people are like, well, you wanted this and it's like, yeah, but doesn't mean I still don't grieve and mourn the loss of it, yeah, so if you're going through this right now, it's okay. It's okay to grieve this, yeah.
Speaker 2:Is. Is there, um, is it worse to leave your marriage because you want to be with a partner of a different sex? Do you think, then I?
Speaker 3:guess that's a very individual. Yeah, yeah, for me, yes, absolutely 100%. I would do it all over again, even going with to what I went through. I would definitely do it all over again, even going with to what I went through. I would definitely do it over again, because my emotional, spiritual, psychological and intellectual needs are met by a woman. They will never be met by a man, and so I need to be in relationship with a woman to be able to, to live myself my most authentic life that I was created to live, and so that's how my needs are met.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and do you think that was worse for your ex-husband? That you weren't just leaving the marriage, you were leaving the marriage to be with a woman? Well, is that a problem?
Speaker 3:I don't know, you'd have to ask. I have no idea, you know so, but you hear that. I mean, I think you know this, but you hear the patriarchalness of that question, right? Yes, yes, okay. So let me give you an infer instance. So let me give you an for instance.
Speaker 3:So a lot of times when women are coming out later in life, they're trying the first thing. So if you think about grief Elizabeth Kubler-Ross did the did you know, the first real study of people who are grieving, and she did it on people who were dying, and so then she talked about the five stages of grief, and I always forget one. But there is shock, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance, and they're not in any particular order. What I have noticed is that a lot of times when someone realizes that they're not straight because I often I start that as my starting point with my clients, because you don't have to label anything you don't know at this point so what I've noticed is that they often do a bargaining process. So, for example, they try to keep their marriage together and yet still fulfill this part of themselves, and that is really challenging to do, because then you become a mixed orientation marriage. You're married, you're straight, and I mean you're, you're not straight and you're in, your spouse is. And what happens is that a lot of husbands you know, first one this is like like I've had clients say to me, like my husband said exactly what he said he was going to say and she goes. And I remember one said I almost I almost had to like not laugh, because you had said he's going to say this.
Speaker 3:So a lot of times husbands will suggest the threesome because they think it's just about sex and it's not. It is to a small degree, but it's not. That's not the main reason. Then they, then couples, talk about opening up their marriages so that they might open up their marriage where they both can date or they might decide to do polyamory. Or the husband says listen, I don't care if you date a woman, that's fine with me, you go and do that for you. You date a woman, that's fine with me, you go and do that for you.
Speaker 3:And inherently there's the patriarchal message that a relationship with a woman is not as valuable as a relationship with a man. The husband would never say to his wife hey, you go date that guy Ever in a million years. And I have found now there's always exceptions. I have found open marriages, like the switch to an open marriage, is just um for stalling. What's eventually going to say delaying the pain? It's delaying the pain, um, and it often opens up a complete can of worms that people aren't expecting, um. So, for example, like your husband starts dating and he meets someone and then all of a sudden you know it's just. There's all kinds of things that happen and then polyamory does work. But you have to be really committed to the concepts of polyamory and and be really willing to work on that and and again, not using polyamory as a way to solve a problem, but to you know, but as a way to figure out how you're going to live your life, so you can have your needs met, you know.
Speaker 3:So, there's a yeah so in that question about whether my husband was a woman or not, I have no idea. You'll have to ask him.
Speaker 2:I don't know so, um, tell me a bit about, I guess, navigating um your children and and how have they, I guess, worked through this transition? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I, I have four. I have one daughter, one non-binary child and two sons. Um, uh, it's interesting. I find my piece of advice is that your kids will handle this news and and you and a divorce, the way they handle everything, because they're individuals, they're not a unit. So just because one kid's doing really well doesn't mean the other kid's doing really well.
Speaker 3:I find that my kids really struggled with the fact that their dad and I got divorced because we had a very close knit family. They really really struggled with that, but they also see how happy I am with my wife. So I think it learned. It taught them a lot of things. It taught them that you know that it's important for people to be happy, because I always was.
Speaker 3:I was always less than happy in their relationship with their dad, and their dad was I mean, he's just different than I am, you know. And so my ex-husband would have stayed married the way our marriage was for the rest of his life and be absolutely fine with it. Um, but I'm not that type of person. I. I needed something more than that. Um, even even if I was straight, I needed something more. You know that it you know because I just needed someone who was more of a um in my life.
Speaker 3:Um, but my kids all did it. They all did it their way. Um, they are all very accepting of my wife and I. Um, they've struggled with the divorce. Um, I'd say one of them's more homophobic than he likes to admit. Um, and I and I, my bookends, did the best. My youngest, who had to go through everything, really did really well because he had to go through everything. And I, my bookends, did the best. My youngest, who had to go through everything, really did really well because he had to go through everything, you know, and he had to go through all the changes while my other children were all out of the house and so, like a lot of 20 somethings, they just sort of ignored what was going on at home and then would come back and be like stunned that changes that happened oh, mom had moved out. You know they were stunned, you know, while my at the time he was 14, he had to go through everything. So he was very aware and he's actually really super well adjusted with everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool, cool, cool. So you have this amazing business where you, I guess you're coaching people and supporting people to come out and to work through that grieving process. I really like that applying that grief concept to this process, because you know it's letting things go and saying goodbye and before you can do something different and new. So what do you want to build on from here? What do you want to do?
Speaker 3:that's, I guess, different and new in the future well, this is the thing is that I got divorced post 50 and, um, I was 52, I was like, well, by the time it happened I was almost 54, but the process started when I was 52, and what I would like to do next is to help women over 50 and, whether they're queer or straight, is to really like tell them that it's possible and it's not too late. I've been, as I said, I'm a forever late bloomer, so I want you know what I have realized is that, a lot of times, going through a process like this whether it's, you know, coming out and divorcing or divorcing, and you know, when you're post 50, it it's like you have this opportunity now in our lives to create a new life, and that can be magical and wonderful. That can be magical and wonderful, and I would really like to help people that are beyond the trauma of getting divorced and coming out and all that stuff like that Um, to and where, where they're like okay, what am I going to do next? What do I want to create and leave as a legacy to this world? Because you know we never stop growing.
Speaker 3:You know there's, there's adult, you know there's a, you know the, the, the child development. You know, we have adult development too and we never stop growing and, in fact, when people are in their late 50s and 60s, they're still really productive and really trying to figure out okay, what can I create? What kind of legacy do I want to leave the world? Because it's important to do that for our own wellbeing, and so my goal is really, you know, I will always have some, I will always work with people coming out later in life, but I want to do some. I want to be at the joy stage more. You know where people are, like, done, are done with all the messiness and saying, okay, what can I do now? I've created this new life, what can I do now? And like and help them create it? That would be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. I love that Work with people in the joy stage. I think that's.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be nice, I'm ready to do that. That would be nice, I'm ready to do that. I'm ready to do that Well.
Speaker 2:thank you so much, anne-marie. It's been such a delight to speak with you and learn your story and your journey and the work that you do now. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, Lisa, for having me.
Speaker 1:If you want to know more about Anne-Marie and the work she does, check out the show notes, where you can access her resources on coming out later in life and pre-order her book Authentic Peace a story of courage, change, transformation and hope. At the Culture Ministry, we know how challenging and lonely it can be working in diversity and inclusion and how progress is often slow. You might be just getting started in diversity and inclusion or you might be on your way. The Culture Ministry is here to help you with your diversity and inclusion progress. Go to wwwthecultureministrycom to learn more. Wwwthecultureministrycom to learn more. If you enjoyed this episode and maybe learnt something, please share with your friends on social media. Give a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and leave a comment. This makes it easier for others to find A Dog Called Diversity. Easier for others to find a dog called diversity.