Don't be idiots with the people you love.

We went through an unimaginable amount of hardship in our relationship and somehow survived it all together.

A couple of years ago we moved to a different country (we’re from two different countries, lived in both at one point or another).

Life here was good. We bought a home, have friends, queer community. This is the easiest life has been for us, but somehow now we’ve reached a breaking point. We’ve had a rough couple of months, and can’t get on the same page.

Today Google Photos showed me memories from 15 years ago when we first fell in love. And today we decided to separate. So I’m going to move out. I have no idea where and what the hell I’m supposed to do with my life going forward.

I don’t want to talk to any of our friends so I’m writing here. I can’t believe this is my life. We literally bought brand new furniture a couple of weeks ago.

I guess wish me luck on my own? Crap.

Current or former, doesn’t matter.

I live in a country where “the pond” is rather small and I’m just not sure how to meet more lesbians. I did join a sapphic choir once which was nice, but they practice and perform in the city and my job is the other way across the fjord. It takes me an hour-ish to get to and from work, so I felt it was stressful to commit. But I would be up to engaging more with the community. There gay scene is a lot bigger in the capital which is on the other side of the country and I’m rather close to my family. 🫠

I’m starting to feel like I’ll not experience true love. 😕 I’m 36 and I’m kind of embarrassed by the fact I haven’t had a proper relationship with a woman before.

Learning/Community organizations which promise us lesbian/bi/trans folx better relationship skills, better sex, community, belonging, and even spirituality (which are also often quite pricey) invite us to become members with open arms. Does that mean we should invest our time, energy, money, and hearts? Having been through one of these organizations, there are some questions I wish I'd thought to ask before joining. I hope others can find this useful. Our hearts, minds and community connections are precious:

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If you’re considering joining a learning organization that works with people healing from heartbreak, trauma, loneliness, or other deeply personal life experiences, which seem to be ubiquitous these days (and typically quite expensive), I’d encourage looking beyond the marketing and asking questions about its structure, governance, and safeguards—not just its teachings. If policies are available, read them. Take the time to stand back and squint.

Looking back, there were questions I never thought to ask. I'm writing this with lesbian and queer relationship communities in mind, but I think many of these questions apply to any high-intimacy personal-growth organization.

The more an organization invites people to entrust it with belonging, identity, healing, or chosen family within learning or self-development opportunities—not just information—the more important its governance, accountability, boundaries, and repair processes become.

This checklist asks: If an organization asks you to trust it with your heart, your relationships, your identity, your trauma, your community, and your money, what organizational structures should exist to support those promises?

Are there other questions you’d add? Have you had experiences in personal-growth, coaching, retreat, or relationship-focused communities that changed how you evaluate them?

Governance & Accountability

• Who holds the leader accountable? How?
• Is there any neutral, independent oversight or grievance process?
• How are conflicts of interest identified and managed?
• Is there a clearly identified mediation or conflict-resolution process within the organization?
• How much responsibility for participant safety is placed on individuals versus the organization itself?
• Are documented policies and expectations explicitly applied consistently to everyone, including leaders?
• If harm occurs, is there a documented process for acknowledging it, addressing it, and learning from it?
• Can participants safely raise concerns without fear of social, financial, or community consequences?
• Does the organization distinguish between legal compliance, ethical practice, and relational repair?
• If a concern involves a leader or someone in a position of authority, are there safe, independent pathways for raising that concern?
• Does the organization provide access to one or more trained, neutral contacts (such as an ombudsperson, safeguarding officer, ethics advisor, or independent third party) whom members can consult confidentially about concerns, boundaries, conflicts, or questions before, during, or instead of a formal grievance process?
• If someone experienced injury here, would they have to rely on the goodwill of the very people they are raising concerns about?

Boundaries & Ethics

• Are romantic relationships between leaders (or contracted coaches and facilitators) and current paying participants allowed? If so, what safeguards exist around those relationships, especially to protect the person with less power?
  • Are roles (teacher, coach, facilitator, mentor, therapist, volunteer, friend, partner) clearly defined, and are transitions between roles handled with explicit safeguards?
  • Are power differences (experience, status, credentials, age, finances, organizational authority, neurodiversity, etc.) recognized and taken into account when making decisions about relationships and boundaries?
  • What happens when these relationships end? Are there practices that enable both people to remain safely in the organization, or is there expectation or pressure that the participant with less power simply leave the community?
• What happens if someone decides to leave? Or finds it necessary to? Is it easy to step away without losing important relationships or feeling pressured to stay?
• If there’s a spiritual component, what are the norms around inviting, declining, questioning, accepting, or rejecting particular teachings?
• Does the organization actively reduce unnecessary dependence on particular leaders or relationships, or does participation naturally become centered around them?

Community & Culture

• Are there expectations or explicit rules about what members can discuss with one another or with people outside the organization?
• Is equal attention (not just in material but also in community guidelines) given not only to building relationships, but also to helping people navigate endings, conflict, disappointment, and repair?
• If and when empowerment is discussed, does it refer to collective action and redistribution of power, or does it refer solely to lone individuals needing to work on themselves, while leadership stays put without any adaptation?
• Are dissenting viewpoints welcomed and discussed respectfully, or do people tend to self-censor?
• Are many different lenses applied to relationship complexity, or are there just one or two dominating lenses or approaches used to discuss most relationship issues?
• Do members meaningfully engage with one another across the organization’s various community platforms, or in just one designated area / does most communication flow through or from the organization’s leaders, around programming or membership events?
• Can members participate in various the online communities or sign up for events without having their identities made public?
• Do community platforms show just a handful of sign-ups or actual local engagement?
• Advertising: claims of being “family,” “unique,” or “trauma-informed” are not inherently problematic, but they carry an obligation to ensure that policies, boundaries, and responses to harm are consistent with the expectations those messages create.
• Are members encouraged to maintain meaningful relationships, communities, and sources of support outside the organization, or does the organization become a “complete support system?”
• When conflict arises, is curiosity encouraged, or are people presented with and expected to quickly adopt a preferred interpretation or framework?
• Does the organization acknowledge the limits of its own approach and encourage learning from other perspectives?
• Is power examined, but only outside of the organization, ie towards national politics, but not inside of it? Is the enemy always outside?
• Are participants ever expected to make commitments or decisions based on things no one can reliably know in advance, such as how they will feel months later or how future relationships will unfold?

Organizational Capacity & Participation

• Does the encouraged time commitment seem proportionate, or does it become difficult to keep up without making the organization a central part of your life?
• Does the number of members seem proportionate to the organization’s ability to meaningfully know, support, and engage with them at the level of care it promises?
• Are events designed to be accessible to members with different needs, both online and in person?
• Are there multiple meaningful ways to participate (such as speaking, chat, reactions, or hand-raising), and are those forms of participation genuinely acknowledged and engaged with in real time?
• Do events begin and end when promised?
• Are meetings facilitated with the whole group in mind, or do a small number of interactions consistently dominate the available time?
• Do leaders have sufficient time and capacity to follow through on the level of individual attention, support, or accessibility that is promised?

Transparency & Business Model

• How transparent are the organization’s intake or screening processes? How is “fit” assessed, and who makes those decisions?
• After joining, are there multiple opportunities or expectations to purchase additional programs, memberships, retreats, or services? How clearly are those pathways and their costs explained upfront?
• Are paying members encouraged or incentivized to volunteer, recruit others, or help promote the organization or its materials?
• How transparent are the organization’s finances or business model, to the extent appropriate for its structure?
• Is marketing language proportionate to what the organization can realistically provide?
• Do logos for sources where the organization claims it’s been featured link to reputable, balanced reporting?
• Are testimonials and success stories presented alongside realistic information about limitations, risks, and situations where the organization may not be the right fit?
• If swag is sold and members are encouraged to purchase it, does it all include prominent organizational branding?
• If the organization is for-profit but claims to benefit a community as a whole, does it partner with or contribute to nonprofits which are already engaged in some of the most needed and important work and outreach?

Privacy & Consent, Digital Practices

• Is there a clear privacy policy that explains how participants can maintain control over their personal information, stories, recordings, photographs, and other images, including how consent can be withdrawn where appropriate?
• Can participants easily request that their images, creative work, testimonials, or identifying information be removed from promotional or organizational materials?
• Are participants clearly informed about how recordings, chat messages, and online interactions on social media both within and outside of the org may be stored, shared, or reused? Is there a process for securing consent and attribution? Or removal?
• Who owns content created by members?
• Can members easily leave online platforms and have their data or content removed where appropriate?
• Is the organization explicit that participant data and analytics collected won’t be sold or transferred to third parties?

Alignment Between Promise & Practice

• How do the organization’s structures support the level of trust, belonging, safety, and transformation described in its marketing?
• Are participants told not only what the organization offers, but also what it cannot realistically provide?
• If the organization describes itself as a “family,” “home,” or “complete support system,” what safeguards exist to prevent unhealthy dependency or harm if relationships change?
• Do organizational policies reflect the same level of care, safety, and support promised in public-facing materials?
• Are participants encouraged to distinguish between community belonging and organizational membership?

Learning & Feedback

• How does the organization determine whether its practices are actually helping participants?
• Is feedback welcomed? Are there opportunities to give timely feedback on events, activities, experiences, ideally via a neutral channel?
• Is general feedback shared with members along with a strategic pathway for organizational continuation and improvement?
• Does it seek and publish feedback from people who had mixed or negative experiences, or primarily highlight positive testimonials?
• When mistakes are identified, are policies updated and communicated?
• Are significant concerns treated as opportunities for organizational learning rather than solely interpersonal conflicts?
• Are policy changes for enhanced member safety made proactively after difficult situations?
• Is feedback from former participants considered alongside feedback from current members?

Exits & Aftercare

• Are participants given support for healthy transitions out of the organization?
• Are friendships and community ties respected after someone leaves?
• Are former members spoken about and represented respectfully, even when they disagree with the organization?

Scope of Practice

• Are leaders clear about the limits of their expertise and credentials?
• Are participants encouraged to seek outside professional support when appropriate, rather than relying solely on the organization?

Evidence & Claims

• Are claims about outcomes proportionate to the available evidence?
• Are anecdotal successes clearly distinguished from established evidence?

Accessibility & Inclusion

• How does the organization accommodate different communication styles, neurodiversity, disability, language, culture, or financial circumstances?
• Can people participate meaningfully without conforming to one preferred personality or communication style?

Financial Ethics

• Are refund policies clear and applied consistently?
• Are participants able to make purchasing decisions without undue urgency, pressure, or scarcity messaging?

Repair

• When harm is reported, are both the process and the outcome communicated transparently (while respecting privacy)?
• Is there opportunity for participants to review and correct any records kept on incidents where they feel there is need for correction?
• Is repair viewed as an organizational responsibility as well as an individual one?
• Are lessons from significant incidents incorporated into future policies and practices?

Finally:

• If every leader followed every written policy exactly as written, would participants still be adequately protected?

When organizations invite people to bring their heartbreak, trauma, identity, trust, and need for belonging into a shared space, the absence of clear governance, boundaries, independent accountability, and meaningful repair processes can cause harms that extend far beyond an ordinary disappointing customer experience. People may lose access to community, important relationships, professional connections, creative work, or a sense of safety and belonging. They may also be left carrying the emotional and practical consequences of problems the organization helped create but was not structured to address. Good intentions, caring individuals, and useful teachings matter, but they cannot substitute for systems designed to recognize power, respond to harm, protect participant autonomy, and learn when something goes wrong.

In my experience, an organization I belonged to emphasized individual responsibility almost exclusively, even in a highly vulnerable, emotionally intimate environment where participants naturally developed strong trust and attachment. Over time, I came to feel that structural responsibility received far less attention than individual psychology.

There were many genuinely kind and thoughtful people in the community, and I learned useful communication skills that I continue to value. At the same time, I gradually became uncomfortable with the overall structure. The community itself was a tremendous source of value, yet I increasingly felt that authority and recognition for the value ultimately provided by community flowed upward, while responsibility for dealing with problems that arose flowed downward.

Not trying to tell anyone what to do or to discourage people from seeking community. It’s simply to encourage prospective participants to look carefully at governance, boundaries, conflicts of interest, accountability, privacy, participant autonomy, and organizational capacity before investing significant time, money, trust, or emotional energy in any high-intimacy personal-growth organization. It wasn’t until I experienced a difficult situation that I realized how little attention I had paid to these important questions when I first joined.

What would you add?

(you can also find and respond to or share this writing via its link on Substack): https://substack.com/home/post/p-207598242

I met a woman online and she is amazing but she lives in another state. If you’ve ever experienced this, good or bad, lay it on me.

Despite having a what my dad calls "great upbringing", I have quite a bit of trauma and thick thick walls have been built to protect myself. I have severe abandonment issues, big insecurities (which doesn't seem like it in certain situations), and I struggle to find someone who doesn't use me.

My past few relationships have been bad. Like financially destroying me (I'm almost in the black again...the only exciting thing in my life atm), or mentally abusive.

I go to therapy but I struggle to bring up these issues. I understand that I'M the problem and yes, I pick people who can see that I will save the issue at hand no matter what it does to me.

I don't get many matches on apps, my job keeps me away from going out just due to my line of work. I really struggle to want to meet someone or even try and bring down my super thick and basically impenetrable armour.

I won't let myself "feel" because I'm terrified that they're just going to leave. I met someone over the weekend after talking for weeks, it's been 3 years since my last relationship and I figured I'd give it a go. It was great and then it went all bad.

Do I just give up? I have a phenomenal job, I own my own place, my own car, I don't "want" for anything, I feel like I'm pretty cute, I have a great IQ, can cook, etc...

Is it safer to be alone after 37 years of constant heartbreak? Thoughts?

Seeking My Long-Term Submissive

I'm looking for a genuine submissive to build a long-term D/s dynamic with. While I'm happy to start online, my goal is to eventually find someone in California who I'd be compatible with in person, preferably around Fullerton, Stockton, or nearby.

I'm naturally dominant and looking for someone who genuinely enjoys pleasing their Domme in all aspects of life. Service, consistency, communication, and dedication mean more to me than empty words.

My interests include:

- Female-led relationships (FLR)

- 24/7 power exchange

- Service submission

- Financial domination (within mutually agreed boundaries)

- Discipline and earned punishment

- Consensual free-use dynamics

- Consensual non-consent (CNC) roleplay with clear negotiation and limits

- Slut training and structured submissive development

I enjoy training a submissive over time, establishing rituals, expectations, accountability, and creating a dynamic where serving becomes something they genuinely enjoy.

I'm not looking for someone chasing a fantasy for a few days. I'm looking for someone who values honesty, communication, emotional maturity, and long-term commitment to the dynamic.

If you're interested in starting online, proving your dedication, and seeing where things lead, I'd love to hear from you. If you're in California, especially near Fullerton or Stockton, that's a big plus.

( Attached ) just need some good advice as im in my young age having some troubles in love life , just wanted to share and talk with a mature lady.

I don’t date a lot, but have been on a few dates lately, and I’m reminded how hard it is to be “visible” in homophobic areas.

I’m in a small town in the US Deep South that is heavily conservative Christian. There are a few bigger towns about an hour from me that have more visible queer communities, but the homophobia is still so strong. The closest big city is about 2 hrs away.

It’s just so damn hard to know that there’s effectively a spotlight on you when on a date in public with another woman. The stares and scowls feel horrible when we’re just walking down the street holding hands or being flirty in a restaurant. That doesn’t even include the creepy guys who sexualize sapphic relationships. God forbid we should kiss in public.

I’d love to say that I don’t care and I’m just going to live my life. But it feels truly unsafe at times. I don’t want to have to hide in my house though.

I’m always struck by just how much privilege there is in being in a “hetero” relationship.

I think I’m mostly venting to people who might understand, but has anyone found a way to be more comfortable in these situations?

Hi! I have a little queer book club - we'd love to have new folks join our little community and participate in our monthly discussions. Today we're starting Tipping the Velvet and we'll have the main discussion for it on August 16th at 3pk EST / 8pm GMT. Comment here or DM me and I will send you the link :)

Happy Saturday everyone. I just have a question that I would like some advice on. Over the last six or seven years I've dated women that were about 7 to 10 years older than me. I am open to all women, butch, feminine, my age or older it all has to do with maturity and their sense of humor to see if we click. Anyway, my issue is over the last 7 months I've dated a few different women and they have been 50 to 55 years old. I am in my 40s. I thought that older woman would be more mature. I don't know if I'm having bad luck or what. But I’ve came across a series of women that act like teenagers and they're grown. I feel defeated and like I'm never going to find someone. I don't like the dating apps and I try to meet people in a natural way out in the world, but it's simply isn't working for me. I just want someone that is funny, has their life together, and also loves my dog. Any advice would be appreciated

🎀How do you guys find an older woman??wlw💗💗🎀

I know this post is going to get some snide remarks, but I'm just curious where are the websites or what places do you look?.... Where are the women that like to fool around with married women, and know that there's no chance of it being anything else but just a sexual thing. Does that even exist, because I would love that. I know people are going to hate that I posted this. My marriage is a long story that I don't really care to share. We both basically had to get married we do not have an open relationship, but we have no type of romantic relationship and I'm tired of being a lesbian and not doing lesbian things. Help!?

A few years ago, I shared a house with another woman who behaved strangely towards me, as if she hated me but at the same time felt attracted to me. Despite this, we got along well (we went out several times and even talked about traveling). I would drop hints to her that we would be good together, but she seemed a little uncomfortable. However, when I distanced myself from her, she would come looking for me to talk. I noticed that she was also jealous of me when she saw me with a guy she was seeing or talking about other women. Besides that, I noticed a tension on her part when I was closer to her, or a glint in her eyes when she looked at me. Other times, I caught her looking at me without saying anything. I sometimes felt a certain chemistry between us, but I always thought it was all in my head because she insisted she was straight and even made some homophobic comments that irritated me. It could even be that she liked feeling desired by a bisexual or lesbian woman, and that fed her ego. So I decided to distance myself as much as possible, only speaking to her when absolutely necessary. Since we lived with other people, we could minimize our interaction, which is what I did, especially because I started to like her, and whenever that happens with a straight woman, I distance myself.

But she kept trying to get my attention, and when we were already living in different houses, I mustered up the courage and sent her a message saying that I liked her and that I thought she felt the same way about me. She called me ridiculous, crazy, rude, said I bothered her, and even said that we were never friends and that she didn't want me in her life. I didn't understand why she was reacting like that. Anyway, the more I tried to talk to her, the worse the situation got… I haven't seen her since, but sometimes I still think about her.

I just want someone to take care of me

I'm trying to not come across too salty here ...

Those posts come up what feels like every single day and it's getting incredibly annoying. I checked and it's closer to every other day, but it gets old so fast because it's the same nonsense over and over: "I want to date older because I'm mature for my age", "I want to date a woman old enough to be my mum but I totally don't have mummy issues I just don't vibe with people my age", "I'm looking for an older partner because you're all so settled and put together and stuff", "older women are just more attractive", "I have interests that not everyone shares so the solution must be to date wildly outside my age group rather than finding community among those who do share my interests" ... come on. They don't even stop to think what an adult child like them has to offer to someone who has been an adult for longer than they have been alive. It's gross, inviting predatory behaviour, and fetishizing.

ok, yeah, that was salty as frick.

Pretty please no more "looking to date an older woman" posts.

So I made a new sub; I intend it to be a mirror of this one with just slightly more moderation so we dont have to wade through all the posts of the children looking for mommies.

I need help with moderation if anyone wants to help; I figure 2-3 more people will cover the subs needs, this sub doesnt move fast it just needs someone to clean it up and keep it maintained. Maybe a book club or weekly discussion would be nice

Go to Newolderlesbians

r/Newolderlesbians

Egyptian M30Y looking for a mature woman 😁

does any older women who doesn’t care about age wanna be my mommy ? :3 (please please please)