I’m 62. A girl in my primary school class married in her late 20s, had two children, divorced and remarried. Divorced again and had a couple of other long-term heterosexual relationships.
I found out a couple of years ago that she’s now with a woman, the love of her life. I have no reason to think she was in the closet all those decades.
Hm… do barber quartets and all-male chorales count?
I don’t know any “late in life” gay men, or woman, but I do know one man who’d been in a relationship with another man for years and years, at least ten years, and then one day just up and ran off with a woman.
That’s the only instance of late-in-life heterosexuality I’ve ever heard of.
A good friend of mine was very definitely gay - slept with women, wore comfortable shoes, Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival “See You In August” bumper sticker on her small, sensible car, and in general personal style was a shorter version of Rachel Maddow. Yet she somehow wound up marrying a very nice man. Shocked the hell out of me.
Ha, those wacky Basque customs! Completely unlike women everywhere else amirite? 
My girlfriend in high school? Her mom switched teams in her 50s. So did a male co-worker of mine more recently. It happens.
I know tons of people who came out very late, though only a couple where I know that they actually changed their identification from straight to gay (not bi in the couple of cases I know of). I don’t thin it was always about being closeted for the others, either, more not knowing yourself well enough, and also being happy enough in the straight marriage to keep it going at least until the kids were grown.
Some of these people are the kind where you’d never have thought they could pass for straight, too.
Men in some not-so-far places, actually. I’ve known guys from Madrid who could put breakfast together if the ingredients were already arranged on a buffet; the notion of actually purchasing them from a supermarket made them dizzy.
There may be some study that says this, but there is no such consensus among scientists and I have never seen any survey about sexual orientation that had these kinds of numbers.
You are not in any position to determine the true sexual orientation or innermost feelings of a woman you’ve never even met.
Yes, I know a man who was in a heterosexual relationship, had a child in that relationship, then realized that he was gay. He ended up splitting up with his ex and moved in with a new boyfriend. He somehow ended up with full custody of his daughter (this is in a very liberal state) and settled into the role of the stay-at-home “wife” of the family.
Coworker started coming to work with makeup and eventually a dress. He was divorced with kids. I have no idea how all this came about, but it was unusual to see him walk around in a dress. He was about 50 when he came out.
My evil, alcoholic stepfather, who was viciously homophobic towards a gay coworker, moved in with a “cousin” no-one had ever heard of in his last years (long divorced from my mother by then, thank Og. My mom could really pick 'em). The gay co-worker, who was one of the nicest men I ever met, only remarked "it’s always a ‘cousin’ ".
The family who lived next door to me when I was growing up was fairly “normal” – dad, mom, three kids. My sister and I were friends with the kids, and even when I was a teenager, it was clear to me that the dad in the family was kind of a creep. He was very controlling of his wife and his kids.
By the time I was in college (all three of the kids were a bit younger than me), it came out that the dad had been having a series of affairs. His wife had finally had enough – she divorced him, and wound up declaring that she was a lesbian (she was in her 40s at that point). AFAIK (my sister has kept in touch with one of the kids), she’s had a lesbian partner ever since. I have no idea if she (the mom) considered herself to be bisexual or lesbian before the divorce, but she clearly had a very bad experience with her husband.
I have another one. One of my best friends was gay for years and years until he fell for a woman in his late 30s. That relationship didn’t work out, but he’s getting married to another woman next year.
He described himself as a 93-7 split. 93% of him is gay, 7% is straight.
Is 7% straight enough to eat pussy?
Do you know if the affairs were with women, or men, or both?
When I first read your post, I interpreted it that they were with men. :dubious:
I know many women who got married to men and had kids, then later in life realized they liked women and separated. I don’t think I know any men in my circle like that, however.
I also know a FTM transgender man who had thought up until his 50’s that he was a lesbian, but then realized he was a heterosexual trans man and went through the surgeries. Now he is happily married to a straight woman.
Yes, I have known one. I think he was about 40 when he realized his homosexuality. When he announced it to me, I was completely taken by surprise because I had assumed for years not only that he was homosexual but also that he was in a relationship with his (male) associate in a small business (he was in fact in a long term relationship with a woman).
I was (and still am) completely puzzled that someone could not have realized his own sexual orientation at 40. Especially since I (and others) had realized it (and assumed he was closeted).
It happened when he met some 20 yo homosexual guy who pursued him, and he eventually fell in love (which also mystified me, since besides not knowing he was attracted to men and twice his age, my friend was also really very unatractive. Also poor and in bad health. That this 20 yo had pursued him with such insistence was completely puzzling too).
That sounds like Chastity/Chaz Bono, although AFAIK he didn’t realize he was really a straight man until he started going through gender transition.
I saw a Discovery Channel show about f-to-m trans people, and one of them also identified as lesbian, until he went to college and got involved with their GLBT group and realize that while his lesbian friends were attracted to other lesbians, he was attracted to straight women. At the time of the show, he had been taking hormones and was living as a man and dating women, but had not undergone any surgeries.