My boyfriend refuses to come out of the closet and it is starting to frustrate me

Well you see I am out to my family and friends they have known for years that I am gay and my family disowned me when I first came out and said I would go to hell. I lost most of my friends and had to get new friends who supported me. When I asked about his family he told me no one knows that we are together except for his mom and only his mom knows that he is gay and she is ok with it. All my friends and my parents know that we are dating cause I told them recently and for the most part everyone was cool with it.

I asked him if he ever plans to tell anyone else anytime soon and he said his dad would kick him out of the house if he found out and that he is scared to tell anyone else for the fear of being disowned or losing friends. But I told him you cannot hide forever eventually people will find out about us and if we ever moved in together someday then they would surely know then. I even assured him I would be right here to support him along the way.

But every time he said he will be ready to come out soon he pushes it away or tries to change the subject to something else and now I am getting frustrated. Yes I love him dearly but I hate that our relationship together is such a secret. He has to sneak around and hide me just to be with me cause his family and friends don't know. What was coming out like for you? Do you think it is fair that he is hiding me like this? I need advice on what I should do here thanks.

 

Well here is the deal I am 24 and he is 18 but he will be 19 very soon. We are both in college and still have a few years to finish up here. I ended up moving out early in life because I couldn't take living with my parents and all their anti gay views on gay people. Moving out has changed them and although they are more accepting of me today it took them so long to get to that point. As for him I am not sure how far along it is for him to move out. But I have told him if he ever wanted to move in with me at my place he can always do that. But the fear of people finding out we are together is what scares him into doing so.

I wish he would feel the same way and just not care what anyone thinks of him for who he is. It came to a point in my life where I could not handle what people were saying so I said screw this I have to be true to myself and that was when I took a stand and came out but lost all my friends for that time and was left feeling more alone and scared with no one to support me then I ever could and perhaps he feels the same could happen to him.

Every time I say the words "babe we need to talk" he tells me how scared he is and when I tell him not to worry he always worries and by the time we are done he tells me how he never wants to lose me and that each time I say the words we need to talk he thinks I am about to dump him because of all this and that his heart beats really fast and he gets nervous because he never wants to lose me. I always assure him I would never leave him ever.

All I can do is show him support here as it is and he knows I love and support him and as I tell him all the time when he is ready to make the commitment to come out I will be right by his side to support him and help him in the process. It is tough dating a closeted gay guy but I love him so much I could never leave him and knowing what I had to go through myself and how I was all alone and scared when I came out and had no one to back me up or support me I could never do that to him I wouldn't want him to feel alone for one second.

I told him I am stressed out in this relationship due to this situation. I told him I love you dearly you are my heart and my soul and you are the reason why I am able to wake up in the morning and make it through my day at both school and work. I tell him I think about you all the time and your always on my mind and your smile makes me happy and I know that I love you and would never change this for the world.

But even in then he acknowledged that I am stressed out and said he wishes things could be different so they could get better for us in this relationship. You asked why do I want him to come out? Because when I see cute young couples at campus or at the mall holding hands or being in love I always dream of the day when I will get to have that. We can't even hold hands when we are together in public.

It's not just that but the fact that I love him and give him my all and everything and when he keeps the relationship a secret like this it makes me wonder if he is truly committed to this relationship as much as he says. If he comes out what will change? The fact that we no longer have to hide who we are and we can be ourselves just like the rest of the world.

With all this we would no longer have to wait till we are in my apartment to hold hands we can go on nice romantic dates just like straight people without worrying about anything but ourselves and being in love. I would feel a much better boost of energy and confidence if this were to happen. For now I am just being as patient as I can be trying my best to make the relationship work for us.

At the time when I asked him to be my boyfriend he treated me so nice and I felt so in love with him and he did everything he could to prove we were meant to be together and that he loved me so I asked him if we could make it official because I was in love with him and just knew he was the one I could see myself happy with. At the time I was not aware that he was in the closet and now the situation is he is in the closet and I am just starting to have this all sink in now I see happy young couples on campus or even at the mall holding hands and being all happy together and I wonder gee why can't that be me and him? When I eventually found out he was in the closet I decided to stay because I noticed how difficult it was for me as a person when I had originally come out.

So I didn't want him to feel alone or scared like I was when I came out so I decided to give it a chance and give him all the support he could ever need but the coming out was not working since I have brought it up a few times and he is still not sure he is ready. But I am trying my best to make this work for the best.

Well this is not a case of being kicked out. Being kicked out is the least of his worries in fact I should have stated he is not concerned so much with that it's being disowned. Moving out is not going to resolve anything because then his family and friends will ask him who I am and why us (two guys) live in the same place and sleep in the same room/ bed together. If he got kicked out he knows he can come live with me anytime and I have told him I would never leave him out on the cold streets like that.

He is not concerned with the kicking out aspect of this as much as he is with the- what will my family and friends think of me for being in a relationship with another guy? aspect of it. He is terrified that they will disown him or that he won't have any friends left if they find out or that his family will cut all contact with him period. I brought up moving together a few times and he just changed the subject and said he didn't wish to talk about it so I said fine I respect that.

 

I guess the situations different for everyone. I came out to people when I was 17 and didn't even bother looking back. I was tired of people disapproving or trying to tell me who I was and wasn't and I was tired of living a lie to cover up who I was as a person I out and came with it and lost all my friends and my parents who are (should I say were) very strict Christians threatened to kick me out of the house.

I was so scared of being homeless or just having no where to go that I lied and put myself back in the closet telling them I liked girls and that, that was that. they believed me but eventually when I moved out about 2 years after I did I was outed by my ex all over facebook and that's how they found out and I couldn't lie anymore. I suppose perhaps you are right that is just the way it is with him he could be scared and just not ready.

I just wish there was something I could do to give him a boost of confidence to be himself and to make him feel comfortable around me and others about his sexuality. I already told him how much I love him and how I will always support him and when he is ready I will be right there to back him up but that seems to do nothing he's like a turtle who hides in his shell and the more I try and support him the more he hides in his shell and never comes out of it.

 

So yes to answer you the issue here is that he keeps pulling away from me further and further away as time goes on. I would think with time he would start to get more comfortable around me and that things would go well for us. We have gone from talking to each other every day to talking every other day or every 3 or 4 days. If I bring up any issues like about coming out he pushes away and changes the subject.

I keep asking myself if not now then when? He doesn't want to talk about it today and he didn't want to talk about it yesterday and tomorrows not looking good either cause that is what literally happens when we talk and I bring up the subject he ignores it. Do I think he will come out soon enough? No not any time soon. Eventually? Perhaps someday in a couple of years but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

I never came back out of the closet until I was 20 almost 21 and he is only 18 so he still has a few years to catch up to when I came back out. To be honest this relationship scares me more then it scares him and I tell you why.

I love this man more then anything in the world. It took me so many years to stop lying to myself and to accept who I was and now that I have I have finally met someone who means something to me and I would do anything for him and to be honest if it wasn't for the fact that we are both in school I would ask him to marry me now.

When I say that I am more scared them him it's because I am scared for the future like if he does not accept himself he could get up and dump me randomly someday and I am scared to lose him since I just love too much to let him go ever. But I am giving it more time to see what happens here.

---------- Post added 19th Mar 2014 at 06:07 PM ----------

I have been considering all options and that was one of the first that came to mind. Each time I say babe we need to talk this is important he gets scared and tells me. I tell him not to get scared cause it's ok and after we talk he sighs with a sigh of relief and when I ask him whats on his mind or why he got scared he tells me that "for a moment I thought you were going to dump me or leave me and I was nervous with my heart pounding very fast cause I don't ever want to lose you."

He says this and I assure him everything will be alright and we will get through this together. I have considered being his friend at least until he can come to terms with who he really is and his sexuality but it is so hard to just say goodbye to this when he means everything to me and I have so much love for him since the day we became an official couple.

 

Yes I should have posted something else which is there is a girl involved in the picture. His best friend from school is a girl and she has like this really big crush on him and because she has no clue that he is gay or that we are together every time we are together she assumes that him and I are just "buddies" and that we are just friends so she has been trying for the longest to convince him that they could be together and he has to keep making up lies so that he won't accidentally out himself or our relationship.

However he told me that a long time ago before we were even a couple he used to do a lot of thinking about what would it be like if he wasn't gay and what if he could be with a girl and make it work and at some point he even contemplated (before we were even a couple) that if he could date a girl he could somehow convince himself that he was never gay and that it was just some phase. He ended up partly accepting himself enough to make an official relationship with me.

I explained it to him like this- I have been there myself and it's not easy and trying to convince myself that this was just a phase never worked and you may think it is a phase but I have known you for a long time you just need to take the time to accept yourself. For him acceptance is a very scary thing to do but he is working on that part.

I tell him stop kidding yourself this is no phase for years I lied to myself and in the end hurt people emotionally that I could have avoided if I just admitted who I was and accepted it. Well for now I will keep posted on him I will have a talk with him and let him know what my feelings and thoughts are but I will use care and treat the situation delicate and see what conclusion we come up with. Thanks for responding