Adjusting To A Later In Life Lesbian Awakening

I am a lesbian mother of two. I acknowledged to my self that I was lesbian in my later thirties. I acknowledged to my husband that I was a lesbian in my early forties. Telling him has been, in my life, the most difficult confession I have ever made. My husband listened and after I had confessed myself to him, he asked me if I was going to tell my children, my mother.
Fortunately my father had passed. He cautioned me to keep my mouth shut, nothing good would come out of me saying this to anyone else.

Day to day nothing changed in my house. One day my husband asked me, now that our oldest was out on her own, if I intended to move out of our bedroom. He told me if I did I could never come back to his bed. Either I was his wife in every sense, or I was a 'sister' in my own house. I told my husband that I would not leave his side, I was his wife. The topic was not discussed, my children were never told, my mother is 95.

The bed went cold. He has his side I have mine. I realized that I could not ask him not take a lover. I only asked that I know first, that I be allowed to have an opinion of her. I told him I would not have a lover behind his back. I cautioned him about taking a very young lover, a girl. He needed to think about this, a younger woman maybe, but not more than five years younger than him, she needed to be my age. A young girl would never work.

He had several young girls. It took being with them for him to agree with me, and he settled for a younger woman at his work. Younger yes, but twelve years younger than me, still in child bearing age. She was never married, a very intelligent and industrious woman. She lived with her mother, who needed her to look after her, she suffers from a progressive case of arthritis and could not live alone. I told my husband she was perfect for the occasion, he needed to take her mother into consideration, and as she was now in her upper thirties he should talk to her about having children, before the clock ran out on her. It was only then that I really accepted that my sexual being had really changed, that my husband with a younger woman would not bother me at all. As long as he had a woman to sleep with him and be a 'wife'.

I have a woman with whom I have been friends since childhood. She has been the one person in my life with whom I have always felt comfortable, that she had my back. She married poorly and she had two children in the same age group as mine. I told her about my situation, and that I believed that I was a lesbian and that my husband was making arrangements with this woman who worked with him to be his 'wife'. My friend told me, she is a nurse, that it was no surprise to her that I was a lesbian. This happened to a lot of women, and nothing changed between me and her. She would be my 'friend', emotionally and with her time, but she was not a lesbian herself. But I could hug her when ever I needed that, she was always available to hugged.

I have never moved out of my house or my marital bed. My husband's relationship with his younger 'wife' is in full bloom, she has two children. Her mother's situation is progressive and she needs care from dawn to dusk. My husband has eased their financial burden, and provides for them with a home that is eased for living with mobility problems. He provides them one hundred percent support, allowing his 'wife' to take the time to be home with her children during their tender age. I have my friend with whom I can share anything. I have fantasized a million times that when she was divorced, right then, she should have moved in with us and she should have been my husband's 'wife'.