This week on Coming Out and Beyond it is our monthly dating and relationship show, and Anne-Marie is joined by her co-coach Barbara Rowlandson, a psychotherapist and dating coach, and her wife Tonda McKay. Before the questions, the three of them catch up on a summer of kayaking, wineries, and a 2,500 mile road trip through Michigan that somehow ended without a single argument. Anne-Marie and Tonda talk honestly about what ten years together and five years of marriage have actually asked of them, because the falling in love was real and so was the work.

Then we open the mailbag. All of this month’s questions come from the Late Blooming Lesbian subreddit, and they are the ones so many women ask quietly when they are new to dating women. What is it like to hold your girlfriend’s hand in public for the first time, and where is the line between joy and scanning the room for other people’s reactions? How do you think about an age gap when you are coming out later in life? What does reciprocity look like when one person keeps paying and the other keeps apologizing for it? And when someone pushes for exclusivity after a single date, is that really the U-Haul, or something else underneath. Barbara brings the therapist’s lens, Tonda brings the honest one word answer, and Anne-Marie holds the pastoral middle.

If you are somewhere on this road yourself, you do not have to walk it alone.

Anne-Marie and Barb are hosting the 3-Day Clarity Experience on September 22, 23, and 24 at 7:00 PM Central. It is our most loved event, with 62 women in the room last time, and it is a warm, honest place to sit with exactly these kinds of questions alongside other women moving through this chapter too. We would love to have you there. Register at annemariezanzal.com and click the banner at the top.

If coming out later in life is your story, Authentically Us is a good place to land. Authentically Us is our online community of women who genuinely support each other through this time. We hold a minimum of three online events/week where you can learn, share, and connect with other women who are navigating the coming out later in life process. You can find it at community.annemariezanzal.com.