Like most young girls, Anna Bryant always imagined that when she grew up she would marry a lovely man and have a family - and that's exactly what she did.
But what she never imagined was that at 35 her world would be turned upside-down when she fell in love with another woman.
"I had a really conventional upbringing," explains Anna. "I grew up in a village in Lincolnshire with my mum, dad and younger brother and wasn't very ambitious - all I really wanted from life was to be a wife and mum."
After leaving school at 16 she got a job in the accounts department of a garage and a few months later met Dave.
"Dave and I both played hockey for the county and one day after a game Dave, who was four years older than me, asked me out. I was thrilled," says Anna. On their first date, Anna says she and Dave began to fall in love.
"He made me laugh and I fancied him like crazy. He was besotted and he told me later he knew from our first date I was the woman he was going to marry."
Though madly in love the couple were shocked to discover, four months into their relationship, that Anna was pregnant. But they were convinced they made a perfect couple, so decided to move in together and start a family.
When baby Natalie came along, two months before Anna's 18th birthday, they were ecstatic.
"I loved being a mum," recalls Anna. "We moved into a cottage in a small village and I set about making it a home. I didn't go back to work and became a full-time mum.
"I cleaned the house every day and liked to make sure that I had
Dave's dinner on the tablevery night when he came home from work." And when Natalie was two, Dave asked Anna to marry him.
"I said yes straight away. There was never any doubt in my mind."
After three years, baby Jake along and Anna and Dave mo to a bigger house. "I had ev rything I'd ever wanted. Th husband, the children, the house. Dave was a real grafter and made good money so we never wanted for anything."
But then, around four years ago, things began to change. "Dave and I stopped communicating, we barely talked any more and didn't laugh very often," recalls Anna.
It was around this time Anna began to chat to Carol Priestley, a regular at the pub where shere she worked as a chef. "I knew Carol was gay but we were just being friendly," says Anna. "Carol had been married and had two grow-up up daughters but she'd been 'out' engs for for years. I'd never had feelin another woman so I didn't think of Carol that way." A few months later Anna heard Carol's partner had left her. "I told Carol if she needed a shoulder to cry on I'd happily pop out for a coffee with her."
Carol invited Anna to see Mamma Mia! at the cinema. "We had a drink before the film and talked. I couldn't believe it when she told me she was 60 - I'd thought she was 45 at most! I felt very relaxed with her."
Afterwards Anna dropped Carol home and as she made her way to her own house, she stopped the car. "I had this rush of emotion and thought, 'I enjoyed that much more than I should have'." That night, while Dave slept beside her, Anna couldn't stop thinking about Carol. "I lay awake, my heart pounding and all I could think was, 'I want to see Carol'."
Recent research has found that more and more previously straight women are realising that they are in fact gay later in life, and the next day Anna's feelings hadn't subsided so she texted Carol and asked if she fancied a coffee.
They arranged to meet at a cafe near where Carol worked as a social worker.
"When she walked in I could hardly catch my breath. I had butterflies in my stomach, the way I did on that first date with Dave - but this was about a woman."
Over the next few weeks they met regularly for coffee, talking for hours on end. "One day I realised I wanted to kiss Carol.
"I was frightened, not about the fact I wanted to kiss her but because I didn't know how to kiss a woman." While drinking tea in Carol's garden another time, Anna kissed Carol on the lips. "Then I just ran off!" recalls Anna. "I was shocked but knew that it felt right."
The next day Anna confessed to Carol that she had feelings for her. "Carol told me she'd always found me attractive but as far she was concerned I was a straight, married woman so off limits.
"She told me that during our night at the cinema she'd barely been able to concentrate on the film as she had so desperately wanted to hold my hand."
A week or so later the relationship became physical.
"I felt incredibly guilty but I was just overtaken by this desire to be with Carol, not just sexually but in every way. I was so confused; I'd always seen myself as straight. Carol was probably the first gay person I'd ever known - but it felt right. I loved Carol's intelligence, we laughed all the time and were on the same wavelength."
Anna knew there was no going back and she had no choice but to leave Dave. "A few weeks later when Dave came home from work I told him that I was leaving him," she recalls. "He was in shock. I couldn't bring myself to tell him I'd fallen in love with a woman. It sounds selfish but Carol was all I wanted.
"I was distraught, especially about leaving my children but I still came to the house every day to see Natalie and to get Jake ready for school," she recalls. "Then when Dave got home from work I'd go back to Carol. One day as I was leaving after cooking Jake's tea Dave asked me if I was with Carol. I said yes, and just walked out. I didn't know what else to do."
Dave told Jake, 14, and 19-year-old Natalie that Anna was in a relationship with Carol. "I felt terrible about what I was putting the children through." But after three months Jake decided he wanted to be with his mum and moved in with Anna and Carol. Natalie was still upset and angry. "But she eventually accepted it," says Anna. "She could see how happy Carol made me."
Understandably, Dave found it hard to accept his wife had fallen in love with another woman.
"Dave hadn't done anything wrong - he was a good husband and father and I could understand his devastation.
"We argued a lot initially and at points it got nasty but two years on things are calmer." Anna says her family, including her mother, have been accepting. "But I've lost quite a few friends who cannot understand how someone like me can suddenly become a lesbian.
"I can't really explain it - people ask if I was secretly harbouring feelings for women before I met Carol, but I wasn't. I just met Carol and knew I had to be with her.
"I see myself as a lesbian now - I've been to Pride in Bradford and Leeds and do find other women attractive now in a way I never did before," admits Anna. "Carol is the person I'm meant to be with - she just happens to be a woman.
"Sometimes I do think, 'I can't believe that at 37 I'm in love with a woman' but I'm happy. This is the life I was meant to live and I wouldn't change it for the world."
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