26-year-old Nicolette Popa hails from North Carolina, USA. She was brought up in the countryside in a conservative family. Growing up, she realised that she was gay but was too scared to say it to her parents or anybody else. At age 19, she got married to Ryan, a civil servant. They now have two kids.
6 years after their marriage, in 2020, she came out to her husband as gay. What is amazing is that Ryan was incredibly supportive because even he had suspected the same.
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According to Daily Mail, Nicolette said, “I talked to Ryan about it and said, ‘Listen, I just kind of feel this way about myself and I don’t know if that’s weird, and how you’ll feel about it.’ He was basically like, ‘Okay that’s cool, women are great.'”
There were small signs in front of Ryan that she was gay, like Nicollete went from wearing T-shirts to button-down shirts – basically dressing more like a tomboy. But Ryan didn’t ask her anything about it. In fact, he was waiting for Nicolette to open up when she deemed it fit.
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After coming out to her husband, Nicollete started opening up to her friends and then her immediate family, who supported her in every way they could. But one would expect that the husband and wife would go their separate ways after the revelation. But no. It’s been two years since Nicollete came out as gay but the two are still together.
She explained that the two decided to stay together and co-parent their kids. Since Ryan is a civil servant and stays away from home days on end due to his job, they thought it would be best for their kids if they stayed together.
“Ryan’s often gone so he doesn’t get to see the kids often. I’m trying to figure out my new career, while raising our kids. We’re prioritizing family life over the dating side of things. It’s about making sure the kids are happy, making sure they know they’re loved and for them to have both parents around as much as possible.”
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Nicollette went on to add how Ryan is her soulmate:
“Me and Ryan have maintained this friendship, he’ll always be my best friend. We got married when I was 19 and he was 20. We’ve been together basically through all of our 20s, and he’s that person I’ve been around constantly. I feel like he’ll always be my soulmate, just from a different perspective. We know how to get under each other’s skin but we also know how to be each other’s biggest supporters.”
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Their relationship might not make sense to a lot of people, but it doesn’t have to. As long as they are happy and supportive of each other! 🙂