CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Mary Lou Fuller, 75, and Kay Amsden, 73, spent most of their 25 years together telling people they were just “roommates” or “good friends.”

When they moved into Havenwood two years ago, they counted as “a two-person household.”

All the titles fit, but now, in their twilight years, the women are calling themselves partners.

“I feel that advanced age has given me a new frame of reference,” said Fuller, sitting in front of the home she and Amsden share with their dog, Rosey. “A spiritual rite of passage, if you will, to speak up.”

Recently, the women started giving presentations at United Church of Christ churches around the state about their relationship.

They speak to congregations considering adopting an “Open and Affirming” policy, a pledge not to turn away pastors or lay teachers if they are gay or lesbian and to have blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples.

They’ve also been active in the fight for same-sex marriages, making phone calls and waving signs last spring to protest an anti-marriage equality measure pending in the state Legislature. The measure passed.

Still, the couple doesn’t spend all their time talking about the rights denied same-sex couples.

“We’re really just two normal women,” Fuller said. “And I think that’s what comes across to people.”

Fuller and Amsden go to church every Sunday. They’re involved in several Havenwood committees and open their home up to tours for prospective residents.

Every morning they take a mile-long walk together and they lead the dog on a stroll every afternoon. After so many years together, they’ve fallen into a comfortable pattern, one that includes a glass of wine at happy hour and apple slices wrapped in smoked cheese.

When they met 25 years ago, life was not so neat and orderly.

Fuller was raising two teenagers on her own after her second husband died. Both of her husbands had abused alcohol and her first had abused her sexually.

Amsden had been in a relationship with a woman for 20 years, but it had ended. She was living on her own in Durham, where she taught at the University of New Hampshire.

They ended up living together because of Fuller’s son, who was being bullied at school. Amsden suggested he change schools, so Fuller and her children moved to Durham.

For years, they didn’t speak of their relationship to anyone. Even when both the women’s mothers came to live with them, Fuller and Amsden were “just pals.”

Fuller recalls taking her mother down to Provincetown, Mass., for a day at the beach and her mother refusing to get out of the car at first because she didn’t want to be seen sitting on the sand with “those homos.”

On the other side of the generational divide, Fuller said her children somehow just knew the relationship was more than friendship. It never seemed to bother them.

Even up to a few years ago, the women didn’t refer to themselves as a couple.

Then in 2001, they wrote a book about growing older together, Sisters by Heart, Partners in Aging. Although there are passages that make it apparent they are involved romantically, that’s not discussed in detail.

Instead, the book talks about aging, the way people look at you if you insist on doing remodeling work yourself or empty the sewage tanks on your RV without the help of a husband.

People seem to be becoming more open to the idea of same-sex couples now, Fuller and Amsden said. While this is especially true of young people, Fuller and Amsden say their neighbors at Havenwood have been completely accepting of their relationship.

They say they expect younger same-sex couples to have an easier time, a thought that makes them glad. Until then, they’ll continue to show people what a same-sex relationship is made of.

“I think one of the things we’re trying to show is how erroneous the stereotypes are,” said Amsden. “Too many times people have this idea that gays and lesbians are flamboyant, or out there. But that’s not how we are, Mary Lou and I.”