Hey all, I've recently come out to a few friends and my sister, who was surprisingly amazingly supportive, but I have honestly been having doubts about my sexuality this whole time. To be clear, I've never done anything sexual with a female (I'm a male), but I've gotten quite attracted emotionally to females before. I've been attracted to males etc. There's a lot of family pressure on me to get married, and have kids etc (with a female) - I'm of East Indian descent (in the UK), and it just seems like not doing this is the worst kind of dishonour I could bring my family. And to be honest, as stupid as this sounds, I want my big Indian wedding. I like my culture, and Hinduism, and I want to keep the status quo, but it seems that all of this would never be compatible with me being gay, which is a part of me that I believe to exist, that I hate. It's gotten to the point where tears come to my eyes whenever I see my straight friends' wedding pictures, or couple-y pictures, because that's what I feel like I want in life, but can't have, and then I hate myself for it. Some days, I am ok with everything and at peace with my situation, and everything is ok. But most days, I am constantly contemplating whether I could make my life work with a wife (I just don't know...). Can it work? Sorry if this seems like its going nowhere. I would love to hear your thoughts on how you overcame or dealt with this if you ever felt the same way. Thanks <3
I'm sorry you're feeling this way, its a long road on the journey of self acceptance, but it gets better with time. (*hug*) I never had the feelings you are describing about letting your family down, or missing out. I could never really picture my wedding with a guy, it just never worked. The image is so much happier when I picture myself marrying a woman. You could live a happy life with a man, as you've imagined with a woman, and you would have the full attraction, assuming you feel strong emotional attraction to men. But doubting yourself after coming out I completely understand. I've gotten better over time, but coming out to my mom who wasn't all that accepting made it more difficult to accept myself. And as for having some strong emotional feelings towards the opposite gender, I know how you feel. For me, I'm not saying this is true for you, but for me, it took me a while and a lot of self reflection to realize that my feelings for men are mostly platonic. When I'm completely honest with myself, I see men as really, really great friends, like brothers, not lovers. This is just how I feel, I don't know if this is true for you though. You have to be painfully honest with yourself, do you think you would be happy being married to someone who you aren't very attracted to. Not to mention you have to think about the other person, would it be fair to her to be married to someone who wasn't completely attracted to her. If you found someone willing to be in a relationship like this, then maybe you could make it work. But is that really what you want? Living a half life and always feeling like there is something missing in your relationship . . . just food for thought. But, it gets better; it just takes time (*hug*)
I mean, it takes a long time for one to fully accept themselves. Heck, I'm not "fully accepting" of myself. I sometimes wake up in the morning thinking "wait, I like guys? I'm gay!". It's still weird for me to say. Trust me that it gets better. It'll become nothing more than merely something akin to your ethnicity, like you mentioned East Indian. You're a loving human being who is loved by many and that's all that is important .
Thank you both for your responses. I guess its just a matter of time. In a perfect world, I would just love whoever I love, regardless of gender, but in my life at least, imperfections like culture colour my perception, and mess with my head...
Hello! As an Indian-American and only child, I definitely understand the pressure to get married. I would say that you need to be very, very observant of yourself and whether you are actually physically attracted to women or just romantically. Even if you're in a conservative culture, you still live in the 21st century and a liberal Western country. You don't' have to get married to a woman. This is your life, not your parents or family or anyone else's, and you could be ruining it and a young woman's life by getting into an unhappy marriage. What I suggest you do is try and become financially and physically independent so that you can start making your own decisions. You already saw that your sister and friends have accepted you coming out, so you should build that support network.
You are not "bringing dishonor" upon your family by being born homosexual. If they choose to feel "dishonored", that is their own choice; you had no choice. That does not give you dispensation to marry a woman you do not care for just to please your parents at her expense, now that you know it would be wrong for you and her. I would suggest that you might want to separate yourself from your parents and live your life authentically as who you were born to be. If their culture leads them to blind themselves to who you really are of necessity, then let them bear the burden of that problem; you deserve to live your life in a manner appropriate to you, just as they have done for themselves.
You just have to remember that understanding your sexuality does not come instantly, nor does it happen for years with some people. It will be a tiring journey of questioning and doubting if you're in the situation that you're in but the true answer will always come out of it. While LGBT marriages are frowned upon in India, you have the comfort of knowing you live in a much more comforting environment where people aren't threatening you with imprisonment for your born sexuality. Understand that any persecution you may have heard about or experienced from your Indian heritage will most likely not hold the same consequences where you live. I would recommend that you just take some time, maybe quiet meditation, where you think about what YOU really want. Not your family or social expectations because, at the end of the day, it is what is in your heart that matters (as cheesy as it sounds). If you're eager to bring up children, then as within a civil partnership there is always the ever-increasing opportunity to undergo an adoption or a surrogate procedure to bring up children into your family (and I'm sure the partnering ceremony can be just as glamorous, if not more, that the ones you are envious of). Good luck with your situation staffOfCaduceus and I hope everything works out the way you feel most comfortable with.
