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My Dad's Regressing "Progressiveness"

Discussion in 'Coming Out Advice' started by Benway, Mar 28, 2015.

  1. Benway

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    So, unlike the last time I was on this site, I'm a lot closer to accepting my sexuality, now.

    But lately, my father has been acting increasingly... passionate about political and religious issues. I'll be sitting with him at lunch in the food court and we'll be talking about books or Star Trek or something and suddenly he'll make some weird association to whatever we're talking about to current issues. In the last five years he's become... unusually religious, not fire and brimstone but definitely apologistic and passive aggressively so.

    He seems to have this preconcieived notion that being gay equals wanting to marry another gay person-- all the time. And he's constantly struggling with the idea because he doesn't understand who's the husband and who's the wife, or 'the pitcher and the catcher' as he might put it. Now, I don't really care much about gay marriage or straight marriage or any of that, it doesn't really affect me unless someone I know is getting divorced and they come to me with their baggage and it becomes my problem.

    Anyway, lately he's been getting deeper and deeper into his fundie ways, at first he scoffed at the "young earth" people, but now he's so deep that he thinks there might be something to the world only being 6000 years old. I'm rambling, all I'm really trying to say is that he's gone off the deep end and he keeps bringing homosexuality into our conversations and how weird it is and his misunderstanding of it never ceases to baffle me. I really want to snap some sense into him, because his brother is gay (they're on good terms, but my dad mocks the guy ruthlessly, to which my gay uncle just chuckles because he's rich and my dad's not) and sometimes I just want to stand up in the food court and say "Yeah, well, I like guys but I don't want to marry one. Jeez."

    I'm not really sure where I'm going with this stream of consciousness thread other than wondering how to deal or redirect his little tangents?
     
  2. Chip

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    So... you like guys, and you identify as gay, but you don't want to marry a guy? I think your dad's comments/feelings might be connecting to whatever he's sensing in you.

    Perhaps getting a clearer picture of what you plan to do might help things. It's one thing to stay single all your life. It's totally another to acknowledge that you're gay and go and marry a woman. That's just wrong.
     
  3. Benway

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    I kind of doubt my dad 'senses' anything in me, he and I may look alike, sound alike, we may have similar tastes in science-fiction and music but intellectually we're on two totally different roads. And I prefer the single life-- I've seen enough of my friends' and family's relationships fail in my life to know that I don't want anything that resembles a marriage in my life.

    If two guys want to get married, that's awesome-- I got no problem with that, why would I? I'm just not into monogamy-- it seems kind of outdated and archaic, not to mention draconic. Also, I didn't say I married a woman-- why did you imply I married a woman?

    I think what I'm trying to say is that I'm frustrated with how backwards his thinking can be and I wonder if telling him I'm queer (again, I told him years ago but he seems to have forgotten, he's very forgetful, also I don't see him as often you might think) might snap him out of it. Or it might make him laugh and say "no you're not dude, don't lie."
     
  4. Chip

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    First, my apologies for the assumptions about who you'd marry (or not marry). I just assumed since you said you didn't want to marry a dude that you were considering marrying a woman. Clearly not what you meant.

    On to your dad: If you've already mentioned it, then that's almost certainly the germ of the ideas he has. It might be sensible to gently remind him you're gay. And if he does say "No, you're not", you can always say somethign like "Look, my truth is my truth. You can believe it or not, but if we're going to have honest communication, you need to acknowledge that I'm gay, and that it isn't going to change." You could also add that you need him to be respectful; the key here is, you get to ask for what you need, set boundaries, and he can follow them, or not. And if he chooses not to follow the boundaries, you get to exclude him from your life until he's ready to accept them. That isn't being unreasonable, just setting honest, helpful, adult boundaries.

    I think your views on monogamy and wanting to be single are almost certainly skewed by a cynicism which also likely manifests in a difficulty with vulnerability, which could, if addressed, make an enormous difference in your overall happiness and view of the world... but that's really a separate discussion, and one you may not be interested in having at this point.
     
  5. Benway

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    Well, don't get me wrong-- I'm open to monogamy, I just don't think I'm ready for a long term relationship. It'd have to be a special case, though-- like, somebody just really special. But to be legally bound to another human being? No thank you.

    As for my father, yeah, I hear what you're saying about there being a 'germ' planted somewhere in his brain, I think he just has... selective memory. Maybe he does know, maybe he doesn't, it's hard to tell. I know his brother's partner (who lives about 2000 miles from us) died about a year ago and there were some complications with the man's funerary arriangments and my dad did his best to help his brother (who is gay) to get them sorted out because I guess my uncle's partner's parents wouldn't let him attend the funeral due to some sort of odd paperwork in a palimony or something they hadn't signed and I thought it was cool that my dad, who's fairly homophobic got on a plane to San Deigo to talk some sense into these awful people.

    Granted, that might be because it's family, I don't know. I honestly don't care what my father thinks, but you'd have to hang out with him for a day to see how bizarre he is. He's absurd yet intense and if you're trying to have a conversation with him you rarely can get a word in, edgewise before he changes a conversation about what's on TV tonight to how he would solve the crisis in the middle east.