why is it so hard to come out to family?

It's most likely so because we are all afraid to get rejected and to lose the ones that we love and care the most. Family is propably the most important thing person can have and it would be immensely painful to lose it.

But still, it's better that they hear it from yourself rather than from someone else. It may take time for them to accept it, but I'm sure that even if they don't show it, deep inside they will.

Best of luck. I hope your family will accept it and everything goes well.

 

I think Oliver is right its precisely because you care about loosing them and that scares you. As you also say I have no problem in telling strangers, but it is because if they don't like it, well they do't need to befriend me.

Telling my parents was much more difficult (I did it yesterday) but at rhe end i realised that by not talking to them and not feeling comfortable around them I was loosing them anyway.

Good luck and do not assume how anyone will react, you may be surprised!

 

I think that's why it's scary!

I'm pretty sure that Oliver hit the nail on the head, though. Family has been there for you pretty much since you've been alive, and there are so many negative stories floating around sometimes it's hard to not expect the worst. That makes it very scary.

I'm with you, most people know I'm not exclusively hetero, but telling my mom and dad is super scary. I know they won't reject me, but part of me thinks so. I think it's the adjusting period we all fear.

 

I havnt told my family yet because I'm afraid they won't believe me and think its a phase, even though I'm 23. I have NO idea of how they will react. Actually I realized the other day by what my dad said to me he thinks I'm 100% straight :bang: they are so clueless it's fucking sad.

 

I want to tell my family too but it is the hardest. I live with my parents and see them every single day. If by telling them...they decide to reject me or things get awkward...its not as if I can move out straight away. I have to face them every single day.

 

I agree, coming out to family seems impossibly difficult.
I think partly it's the fear of losing people who mean so much to you and have been around you so much when you were a child. But I think (for me at least) there's also a sense that you don't want to be talking about anything related to sex(uality) with parents.
I don't know if that would apply to anybody else, but for me, I think of it as more natural to have a discussion with friends about who I like, what I want in my future (e.g. marriage, kids) than with my parents, and so it seems utterly terrifying to even bring the topic up.

But in the end, I think it's better to have it out in the open, otherwise it damages your relationship with your family anyway because you always feel like you're hiding something. Best of luck with your family, whenever you choose to tell them

 

After years of my dad trying to convince me that I'm just heterosexual....he decided to swap it into trying to force me into bisexuality.....it's a drag and it's painful to hear because it's indirectly telling me that he cares more about me being with a man than me being HAPPY.

Now that is painful.
Because you start realizing that there are some things more important to your family than your happiness; it's their image. You've been told since birth that they love you and that they'll support you no matter what...then the day you finally get the nerve to tell them how you really are they might slap you in the face. Also, by coming out to your family it becomes really serious. All that internalized homophobia and fear of being different needs to be confronted at that point. Some people haven't even got over that before they come out to family....so that is just really scary.

Let's be serious. Gay people start out wishing that they are straight. Transgender people start out wishing they were cis etc. And the story goes on. Realizing that you are a minority and people irrationally will hate you for it is not fun.

 

Rejection is a large part for most people, but also families tend to take people for granted. Since they're family, they don't care to really know a person because they already assume a strong familial bond -- which can be true or complete BS, depending on the situation. It's a difficult thing, to shatter someone's entire view of how they perceived you, and it exposes just how close the family is to you.

 

First of all, you are not completely comfortable with it, even though there is no reason not to be, probably because you think that THEY will not be completely comfortable with it, and these are people who are important to you, not easily discardable like friends and associates if things don't work out with them. We are all conditioned to think that sex and sexuality is not something to talk about, particularly with parents and siblings, so when this topic comes up, and when we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as "not normal" all our lives, then there is bound to be some tension about admitting to being "guilty" of the crime of being different from normal, even though there has been no crime at all and we are not guilty of anything.

The problem here is that what you need to happen is for your family to "come out" as accepting of you, just as you are, so that the burden does not fall entirely on you to take the risk of losing them; some people get lucky and have their parents do that for them; others are unlucky and get homophobes for parents. I would think that if you are 33 years old, they would have guessed by now that you might not be totally heterosexual, but they may not want to say that to you any more than you want to say that to them; you are both in your respective closets. My parents never asked me if I was gay even though I did not get married until I was 44; I don't know what they thought all those years. You never know what they are thinking unless they tell you, and vice versa.

So, my answer to "What gives" is that you have accepted your homosexuality, but that you have not fully accepted that there is nothing wrong with it and fear that your family hasn't either. What you do to move forward to resolve this stalemate is likely to be solely up to you, since they have shown the inclination to wait indefinitely for you to make your declaration.