The two most important things to find joy in later life are 1. Finding a sense of something that is meaningful to do, 2. Connecting with people who accept you.
The emerging science of 'bromosexual' friendships
Chapter 11 is all about aging and how to get through it. Neither of you are at all unique in what you have experienced. I had lost my mother, step-father, and a brother within six months, and some friends had died. I needed a knee and a shoulder replacement.
Middle-Aged Gay Men, Ageing and Ageism
My career had plateaued and I thought it was on the decline. I had some difficulty with erectile dysfunction.
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All I could see for the future was a series of continued losses. One of my favorite sayings sometimes attributed to Buddha is: Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. I began to re-focus my thinking on age as an adventure with opportunities I had never had and may not have again. I wrote about it in this essay in Psychology Today. Sometimes we think of coming out as an event, but it is a process.
Being honest about our sexual orientation is liberating for us personally but it can damage relationships that are important. They lived in an era when gay men and women were sent to prison and considered deviant and predatory. Coming out to them may have unintended consequences for them and for you. I appreciate your wish to be honest with them; they may even already suspect it. But once it is out in the open, it demands a response, and you have no control over what that response might be.
You have been considering this for years; they only just would begin to think about it. In considering a decision like this, where risks and outcomes are uncertain, we tend to magnify the negative and minimize the positive. No optimal decision exists, but each of us must decide for ourselves what is a satisfactory resolution, how far and to whom to come out. You have already experienced a lot of losses.
Financial and medical problems are one of the major source of difficulty for us as we grow older. I am absolutely convinced that happiness during our later years depends primarily after our basic needs are met upon having something that gives your life meaning and having friends gay or straight who accept us as we are. Doctors are just people and we are as diverse as the rest of the population. Two things are critical: Men less than women talk about their depressions, but a good doctor is one place to start. All medications have risks and the more meds you take, the higher the risks.
A doctor cannot possibly remember all the drug interactions and less frequent side-effects. Patients must advocate for themselves. A good place to check for drug interactions can be found here. I refer to it frequently when I treat patients. Having a companion go to your medical appointments with you will also result in better medical care. Depression could account for some; medications for others.
And there are other possibilities as well. This can make treating them somewhat complicated, but treatment is possible once the cause s are discovered. See your doctor about the prostate problems. While medical problems and medications can cause some of the problems related to ED, often the problems are psychological, too. At the first sign of some difficulty with erections, men often begin to worry that they are losing their ability to function sexually, and then the worrying about the problem becomes an even bigger problem.
I have addressed this in Finally Out Tips. But important research shows that while sex drive, ejaculation and erections may diminish as we age, sexual satisfaction can remain constant. The important message is that good sex does not demand that we have a world-class erection! Suicide sometimes begins to seem rational when faced with a serious predicament, but it is a permanent solution to what in most cases is a temporary problem. Having the right persons to talk to is critical.
Your primary care physician can be a good one, but is important that your doctor accept your sexual orientation. Here is a resource for finding a supportive health care provider. Younger physicians may be more open and affirming about sexual orientation, but not necessarily.
The same things hold true for finding a supportive counselor. Michael, most of us who are older have had the experience of either feeling we were sitting on the sidelines in the LGBTQ community or have been invisible to them. For many of us, dancing the night away and drinking excessively has lost its charm. We need gay spaces, where we can talk together and hear each other.
Many larger communities have options for that. One international organization that provides these opportunities is Prime Timers Worldwide , with about 80 local chapters; they also have an independent group for those who live too far away from chapters. Another online resource to find connections is on Facebook , which also might be a good place for you, BWright, to find someone to chat with. Notice me!
New foundations for friendship
Gay, straight or other, ageism is a factor because of stereotypes. But we are also the victims of those stereotypes because we have internalized them, too. I am 74 now. When I was young, 74 was considered very old. But now, I am considered a survivor, and I have a life expectancy of another 12 years. I feel an urgency of time, but it allows me to choose to do things I really want to and not do other things that I once thought I had to do.
The Phenomenon of ‘Bud Sex’ Between Straight Rural Men
Translation in English Punjabi. Previous Next Show Grid. Previous Next Hide Grid. Previous Next. Understanding your sexuality is a personal journey which can often be painful. For some it can be a lifetime of confusion and struggle. By Amy Chien-Yu Wang. Why am I feeling like I do?
Why are things going wrong in my life? Carmon's advice for those caught in such situation is to carefully weigh up the pros and cons. Also read. Rita Verma is a Melbourne based lecturer who specialises in the field of Law. With the postal surveys reaching our post boxes and same sex marriage debate reaching new heights, SBS Punjabi looks at the opinions of both sides of the debate in the Indian community. But both Jim and Steven say that men who end up identifying as bisexual in the long-term are in the minority — most husbands in their groups eventually come to realise they are predominantly attracted to men.
How is it possible for them to fall in love with a woman but still be attracted to men? I gay or am I bi, what am I? For men who have already married women, that self-acceptance is often tangled shame, betrayal, guilt and dread.
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A world of gay cruising opened up to him, he realised there were others like him, and that they were everywhere. Over the next year he had several sexual encounters with other men. He loathed himself for it. He became distracted.
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It was in one of those fights that he finally ripped off the band-aid and told her. His wife discovered her high school sweetheart was gay. He was her husband, the father of her children. For men, it can be the climax of a long period of turmoil.