u/Ellmunny

I’ll try to keep it brief! I’ve been self-employed for 8 years—I own two restaurants and one retail food business. I had my first baby 3 years ago, and since then I’ve had to promote someone to director of operations because I just can’t do everything I used to—having a kid made me realize I truly used to work 7AM to 10PM every day, and that’s why we were so successful.

I just found out I’m pregnant again, and I’m feeling like there’s just no way to make it work. Business has been down the past 2 years, and the money I take home will likely be going directly to childcare and zeroing us out with two kids. I know plenty of parents quit their jobs for exactly this reason, but my industry is tough to drop out of and back into in a few years—once you’re out, you’re kind of out.

I already feel like I’m at capacity, and I can’t imagine what it’ll be like with two.

Do any other parents have experience with the self-employment dance? Would it be worth it to just break even for a few years until they’re both in school? I’m worried about having nothing left on the other side of this once they’re bigger, but I don’t know how we’ll make it through til then.

General advice and specific tips welcome!! Help!

This is gonna be a long one...

I've always identified as bi and knew starting in college that I was attracted to women. I grew up in the 80s in a rural town and was raised in a strict Catholic community, so being gay wasn't an "option" I understood until I moved to the city for college; even then, it seemed like something for other people—I had just never considered the possibility that I could be queer. After living and working around a lot of gay and queer people in my 20s, I finally accepted my attraction to women, but identifying as bi felt like the right thing for me at the time.

My romantic relationships were primarily with men, but I'm considering/realizing now that the dynamic was more about me feeling like I had control over the situation than true attraction—men were "easy" to predict and easy to get attention from, and I liked both the attention and the sense of safety being in control of the dynamic provided me. I was raised in an abusive home, and intimacy always felt pretty unsafe; being in a relationship where the stakes were low for me felt safer than risking any kind of real vulnerability. I'm realizing now I always dated people I didn't have a ton in common with and tended to hold them at arms' length—sex was about feeling desired for me, for sure. I had very little respect for myself as a young woman and put myself in a lot of dangerous situations and did a lot of things that make me cringe now when I look back on them.

I did also have relationships with women and "came out," but I realize now I was repeating my intimacy patterns (dating women who were in relationships/were unavailable or who I didn't have a lot in common with), so it's not like I can look back fondly on those and be "certain" of anything. I did have a yearslong serious relationship with a really wonderful woman, and there's a lot of good there, but I was a mess at the time and things didn't end well, so I carry a lot of shame around that relationship—it felt like I didn't deserve her, which is probably a whole other thing. I do know for certain that I'm more sexually attracted to women, and my attraction to women definitely feels more emotionally "risky" or something; there's some part of me that's definitely nervous around women in a way that feels unsafe because I'm not in control of the situation. I also grew up in a generation where most of the representation of queer culture was pretty specific, and I didn't identify with that expression of queerness, so I never felt like I "fit" in totally.

Eventually, I ended up repeating the pattern I was raised in and dated a very violent man; without getting into the details, I almost lost my life in that relationship. When I got out, I spent some time in therapy and didn't date for a while. When I did start to think about dating again, I approached it with a sort of pragmatic perspective; I had lived in chaos and instability for most of my life, and I wanted predictability and security (you could and probably should read this as me seeking relief in boredom). I met someone who was a very smart, well-educated person who didn't drink or do drugs, who worked hard and wanted a family, who didn't really see me fully but who treated me with respect, and I married him. We now have one toddler and another baby on the way.

This has been fine for me for the past eight years. I have a career that brings me a lot of fulfillment, and I do love being a mother; having a sexless marriage where I could kind of exist without being seen or feeling vulnerable truly worked for me, however sad that might seem from the outside. I wasn't gleeful about my partner, but I wasn't scared shitless every day, and he's so wrapped up in his own work that I can kind of have my interior life without a lot of exposure. We go on vacation, we raise our daughter, he's a good dad and a good partner, practically speaking. I've had absolutely zero sex drive basically since we got together, I think because I could finally relax and wasn't being pressured or pressuring myself to feel desirable the only way I previously knew how. I'm only now starting to question whether I have no sex drive or whether I'm actually just gay because...

A few months ago, my very best friend from college reached out. She's a lesbian—I knew she was a lesbian the night I met her, 6 years before she came out to me. We've been in and out of touch for 20 years—we both went through a lot of trauma in our 20s, and we dipped in and out of each others' lives depending on (I think) how vulnerable we were feeling. I think we both reached for a hid from each other in those really bad times, and I think we avoided each others' needs in the same ways over the years. At her graduation (she graduated, I dropped out), she wrote me a really long letter about how wonderful she thought I was, but I had such a low opinion of myself at the time that I didn't really know what to do with it and certainly didn't consider she could possibly have feelings for me. When she did come out to me, she asked me to fly to LA, and she told me in person. I thought there was maybe a part of her that was hoping something would happen between us, but, again, I had such a low opinion of myself I convinced myself that wasn't likely. I wasn't sure how I felt at the time and also didn't want to put pressure on what was already an emotionally challenging time for her, so we spooned for a few nights and I flew home. She kind of dropped off after that, and we had one or two more visits before not seeing each other for 12 years. In that time, I got into that awful relationship and she married her soon-to-be-ex-wife.

When she reached back out, it was pre- her asking her wife for a divorce, but she let me know things were rocky. We chatted every few weeks, usually for a few hours. Things started to feel like they were maybe getting flirtatious after a few months of this, but I wasn't sure. She eventually told me she asked for a divorce, and we kept talking through their separation, but I felt more like it was my role to help my friend through a hard time than anything else. Finally, she told me she was coming to town for another reason and asked if we could see each other for a day at the end of her trip. I said of course, and we planned for her to stay with us. In the weeks leading up to her visit, the frequency of our communication increased significantly, which I didn't really think was out of the ordinary; we hadn't seen each other for a long time, and it seemed like a normal way to re-enter a friendship. There were a few instances where she asked more directly about my relationship and my sex life, but again, we were friends and it wasn't beyond what I'd discuss with someone I was very close with.

When she did come to visit, we had a really nice day together, and fell right back in like no time had passed. It was a relief to be with someone who knew me before the life I have now, and who sees me as a whole person. We spent some time together with my family, and then we went out for dinner, where she got pretty direct about how she felt like I had chosen to be with my husband because it was easy and safe. I told her I didn't deny it and we had a pretty frank exchange about the choices both of us had made (she said she thinks she settled down with her wife because she provided financial stability she was afraid she'd never have otherwise). Nothing happened between us while she was visiting, but it felt like something in me woke up; I was suddenly feeling a very hidden part of me want something. She's attractive, she's smart, and we're able to talk to each other openly—I started to think about how it would feel to not be in the same dynamic I've always fallen back on. It was unexpected and exciting, but also pretty scary for all the reasons I've mentioned I've avoided intimacy in the past.

After she left, I started spiraling. I had felt what I thought was a connection, and I absolutely didn't know what to do about it, for the many reasons that are so complicated about the situation (old friendship, divorce, marriage, children, hormones, etc etc etc). I also started looking at my life and who I am and wondering how much of myself I've shut down out of fear over the years. It's been a pretty rough time, and I'm starting to feel like I don't know who I am anymore.

I spent a few days kind of tearing my hair out before I finally texted her and just asked whether I was right when it felt like maybe she was hoping something would happen between us when she visited. We got on the phone later that day, and it was a difficult conversation; she acknowledged up front that she had been hopeful, but that once she saw my life she realized it "was a bad idea." She went back and forth between reiterating that she thought we could be really great together/have a lot of fun together sexually and saying that she didn't have the emotional capacity for anything more than sex right now and that it was a bad idea—but she kept asking me, "Don't you think it's a bad idea?" I was honest and said I was confused; that I wasn't planning to blow my life up but that I hadn't had any kind of sexual interest in anyone for a really long time and I didn't know what to do about it. She started hedging and saying it didn't have anything to do with her, that I just had an awakening; I said I didn't think that was true, that it did have to do with her, which kind of changed the tone of the conversation. She stopped hedging as much as she'd been, but I think we were both trying to keep a kind of respectful distance, which has kind of always been the thing between us, it seems. She said this moment wasn't meeting us at the right time, and I said it felt like we should have gotten together when she came out to me the first time, which she said she appreciated me saying. When we ended the conversation, she described it as me "getting something off my chest," which didn't feel great.

I understand all the reasons why she wouldn't want to be fully vulnerable in this moment of her life, and why this whole situation isn't great. I don't want to lose her friendship, and I've missed it a lot when we've been out of each others' lives. I don't want to interfere with her discovering herself again after her divorce, and I certainly don't want to dump my emotions on her while she's going through this huge life change. But I've been pretty devastated since we talked, and I'm sort of questioning my whole life now. I realize that it's not fair to hang that on one person, and I don't intend to wrap her up in whatever is going on with me now, but I just can't stop thinking about it. I don't trust myself and my instincts when it comes to relationships enough to hinge any huge life choices on what I'm feeling right now, so I've reached out to a new queer-friendly therapist to help me sort through whatever this is. I just feel so stuck and confused and kind of like a dummy for bringing this up with her; since that conversation, she's kind of dropped off again. I understand why she'd want to take some space, but it just makes me feel so sad.

Since all of this, I've just been noticing women more; it's like I'm finally allowing myself to feel again or something? It's hard to describe. It feels a little out-of-body. It's exciting, but at the same time, because my life was so chaotic in the past, I have this instinct to shut it off, like I'm worried I'm going to blow it all up or something, or like tip into self-destruction again (maybe this is an intrusive thought, now that I'm thinking about it). I'm not writing about how torn up I am about ruining my partner's life or my kids' lives with whatever decisions I might make about the life I might want because that's a whole other thing I can't even begin to consider at the moment. I can't imagine a world in which I could choose being so selfish (or what feels like selfish right now) and justify it.

I guess that's it? I don't really have anyone I can talk to about this until I can get into therapy, so I thought I'd come here and just see if anyone can relate/offer advice, including how I can best try to maintain this friendship. I realize talking to her about it is the best thing to do, but I'm worried about maxing her out emotionally, and I realize it's not great to be the person in a hetero relationship dumping on her. I'm also aware that I might be projecting a lot onto her—I feel so confused at the moment, I don't know what's real. Maybe there's nothing for me to do at all but sit with the discomfort, but writing it all down helps. Thanks for reading.