Louise McSharry has spoken candidly about how she came out as gay to her children and what their reaction was like.
The former RTÉ 2FM presenter made the brave decision to share the ‘difficult’ life update that she’s come out as gay and her marriage to her husband Gordon Spierin had come to an end.
Since the split, the former couple, who tied the knot in 2015, ‘have managed to transition to a beautiful friendship,’ while co-parenting their sons, Sam and Ted. However, the star also knew that telling their boys the news would be difficult.
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Joining Miriam O’Callaghan on her radio show at the weekend, the mum of two spoke about coming out and how it was a huge lift off her shoulders.
She remembers how her husband Gordon said to me, ‘Do you think you’re bisexual?’ She went on to say how ‘I think that made a question mark appear in the back of my head, and then that question mark, kind of, started getting bigger and bigger, and then as the years went on, I kind of started to realise that maybe I wasn’t bisexual, that maybe I was actually a lesbian, and eventually I just couldn’t ignore it.’
While her husband had come to terms with it, Louise knew she would have to tell her two boys.
Louise and Gordon’s boys are now seven and nine know that their mum is gay, but in the beginning, Louise didn’t break the news to them just yet.
‘We didn’t say anything to them for the first few years. It was only when I bought the house, and things were actually going to physically change, that we talked to them about it, because, at the time when we first had the conversation, they were much younger, and it just didn’t really make sense,’ she told Miriam.
‘They’ve taken it, kind of in their stride….they had a couple of questions, we were on the way home from school, and they were like, ‘But Mom, who are you gay with? And I was like, ” No one yet, babe.’
Throwing another question to her, he said ‘But then how do you know that you’re gay? And I just said, well, I just know that if I was going to be with somebody, and they have kind of accepted that.’
For the couple, their boys are the centre of their world, and while the last few years have been tough, nothing will break the special bond they have with their two sons.
‘We need to make sure that the kids still have time with us as a family. Those were the most important things to us. And we do that, and now it feels easy because we (Gordon and Louise) are great friends.’
