Families and relationships come in all shapes and sizes, but one mom is getting a lot of attention on TikTok after sharing the unusual twist her relationship has taken.
Nicolette Popa is a wife and mother of two. She married her husband and high school sweetheart, Ryan, when she was 19 and he was 20. Throughout their relationship, Nicolette struggled with a secret that she recently shared with Ryan.
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In summer 2020, Nicolette told Ryan that she is a lesbian. She'd known she was attracted to women for a long time but didn't figure out what it meant for her until that time. Most men would see that as the end of the relationship, but Ryan worked with Nicolette to figure out what next steps would be best for both of them and their two young kids.
"We're still married and we still live together in our house with our kids," Nicolette told South West News Service, per the New York Post.
"For right now, what we do works. We're trying to figure out our careers and trying to make sure that our kids have the best outcome."
Nicolette and Ryan are both still committed to doing what's best for each other and their family.
"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," she explained. "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," she continued. "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."
"It wasn't a shock when Nicolette came out. I started to have suspicions but I wasn't going to ask — I was going to wait for her to tell me herself," Ryan noted.
"My family were really supportive, and they still are. We still go on family holidays with them, we all get along really well."
Nicolette even confessed that she and Ryan seem to have the same taste in women. Both are focused on their family and aren't dating anyone at this time. Nicolette explained that coming out was about being authentic to herself and learning how to share that with her family.
"I think I knew I was gay growing up, [but] here in America it can be very conservative," she shared. "My family are definitely conservative, we're from the Midwest … We grew up hunting and fishing and all that stuff, Ryan's family are pretty religious too."
"It wasn't really a thing to be gay when I was growing up. But as I got older, it just felt like I had this weight on my chest. I knew that there was something that I needed to figure out," Nicolette shared.
"I'm now completely out and just kind of embraced it!"
