'I had a husband and four kids when I realised I was a lesbian. My family fell apart.'

When Jacinta Kretschmer was on the precipice of turning 50, she packed a bag and left her family home.

She didn't know if it would be for good, but what the mother of four did know was that, for the first time in her life, it was her turn to be selfish.

Her three oldest girls had already moved out of home, but it was her youngest daughter — freshly graduated — along with her husband, who she was leaving behind to stay with a friend.

Jacinta's reason for doing so? She'd recently discovered she was a lesbian.

Watch: You Can't Ask That: Lesbians. Post continues below.

"I was raised Catholic so I have always known I was different, I just didn't know how," she tells Mamamia. "You didn't see queerness around. You didn't hear about it around you."

By her mid-20s, Jacinta was a married mother of three, with no time to think about her sexuality. 

"I was so busy," she recall, adding that her fourth child followed 13 years after the third. 

"It wasn't until I was in my 40s that I started questioning why I had these feelings I didn't understand. I had to take myself to a counsellor who cleared everything. Everything that was inside. All of the questions I was asking myself and all of the things about me I didn't know."

At first, Jacinta thought she might be going through menopause, despite having a gut feeling that she was gay. 

"I had to be like, 'If I was having these thoughts at 10 years old then it probably isn't meno[pause],'" she explains. "But I had to make sure because this feeling was something I always carried with me and I couldn't put it in a box like I usually did. It was just getting louder and louder."

Jacinta waited until her youngest daughter graduated high school to come out as a lesbian to her family. Image: Supplied.

It was through discussion with friends and her therapist that she could finally accept her sexuality. However, she had a family — four daughters with one still in high school and a husband who she adored. She decided to wait for her youngest child to graduate before coming out. 

"I had a really lovely husband. He is a great guy and an absolutely phenomenal dad," she tells Mamamia. "So navigating through all this was not easy.

"I wanted to delay until my daughter finished high school because it was very important to me that nothing I did impacted her schooling and that she had time to understand," she explains. 

When Jacinta finally shared her truth with her family, they were devastated. 

"It was horrible and it was difficult at stages and telling my husband was hard. He's a wonderful man, but the marriage had to be cut off and that was not easy," she recalls. "And my youngest was definitely crushed in the beginning because I moved out and she was just with Dad, but she's been with me through everything after that. 

"All my girls have been great. They were more so just confused in the beginning. I'm lucky, I'm really lucky. They've all been so great."

Jacinta was thankful for her support network as well, who were incredibly receptive to her coming out. 

"All of this fear was mostly internal because I had actually come out to my mother through text and she didn't answer for... a week! I thought she had flipped into the grave but then I got a message from her saying, 'Sorry, I was camping and had no service. Whatever makes you happy, makes me happy,'" she tells Mamamia. "Which was most people's reaction. I've heard of other people coming out and they've not had it easy. I've just been so fortunate."

At aged 58, Jacinta has been out of the closet for more than six years now. It's freeing to be so open with her sexuality, but it was going to Mardi Gras in Sydney for the first time, where she got to walk alongside Natalie Bassingthwaite and other members of her community for the Mardi Gras Debutante Ball by Johnnie Walker, that she finally felt like she could celebrate who she truly is. 

"Walking in the Deb Ball was weirdest thing I've ever done and it was so much fun," she recalls. "I feel so different now. I feel just really joyful about who I am now."

Jacinta Kretschmer debuting at the Mardi Gras Debutante Ball by Johnnie Walker. Image: Supplied.

Jactina's relationship with her girls is also stronger than ever and things are great between her and her ex-husband.

"He bought me Pink tickets. He just knows me that way and we built a relationship based on the girls," she says. "We are lucky we were friends from the beginning and that's what has held our family together."

Reflecting on her journey, Jacinta encourages any other women or men struggling with their sexuality to be brave, to be selfish if needed and to put themselves first. 

"Sometimes you just have to be selfish, which mothers find so freaking hard to do, but for once in your life, you just have to be," she says. "You have to say, 'This is about me. This will make me happy.' And then you have to go and do it.

"There is never a perfect time to be selfish, so go for it."

For those worried about what the world thinks, Jacinta wants them to know that they will find their community if it doesn't find them first. 

"I just want people to know that it doesn't matter when you come out, just that you do," she says. "If you come out and people aren't happy, find people that are happy. I've got daughters and I've got an ex-husband and I've got a whole team that back me but sometimes your family isn't blood, it's the family you make."

Feature Image: Supplied.