Rough Draft of the last letter, mom... Almost ready for National Coming Out day...

Well, after much consideration, I have decided this letter being the most difficult and probably the most important to get right, I should put it in its own thread.

I still want to discuss my other letters, but that will be reserved for the other thread.

Just a little info before I post the letter... This letter will not be read out loud like with my dads. I dont think I can say what I need to say that way. I know a lot of people will understand what I mean when I say I am intimidated more by mothers homophobia than I am my dad. I wanted to mention this because it means there is little I cant put down. With my dads letter some things that people were suggesting for revision were getting emotional and it started making me nervous because I intend on reading it aloud. I have a hard time expressing emotion sometimes, and since coming out is hard enough, it is easier for me to keep it less emotionally charged... But that is impossible with my mom.

Anyways, that is enough explaining. Please let me know what you think. And if someone has already said your idea, say you agree... I am looking for as much input on this particular letter as possible.

[spoilers]
I remember not too long ago you telling me you were so, “afraid I was gay” because you didn’t think you could ever, “accept a son who is gay.” I am pretty sure you will remember the conversation. Well, I may not be gay, but I am not straight either. I have never been terribly confident in the past about how I felt. I never bothered researching how I felt, because I thought anything other than hetero sexual is just unacceptable to my family. The more time went by, the more I realized it was only really unacceptable to you. So I did research how I felt. For the first time I feel confident enough in how I feel to come out and tell everyone. I consider myself both bisexual and demisexual. You know what bisexual is. That is not what I researched. Demi sexual is an identity on the spectrum ranging from sexual to asexual, and everything in between. That spectrum has less to do with who you are attracted to, but what it takes for me to feel attraction regardless of gender. Demi sexual means that In order to feel an actual sexual attraction to someone I need a solid connection. Meaning while I am not attracted to everyone I get a solid connection with, for me to feel attraction I need a solid connection. One that usually means I am in the friend zone, hence the hard time dating. One example from my life might help explain, as it was an eye opening example to me… All my life I never found movie stars attractive. I mean, yes I could see they were attractive, but if I was put in a room with them and given permission to do anything, I would not be interested in them. In fact I started saying that I liked Abby from NCIS SPECIFICALLY because I could tell not liking actresses was not normal, and I was terrified of being outed as anything other than hetero… But even Abby doesn’t really appeal to me. But I had to pretend because when the topic of hot actresses came up, and I never had an answer, I could tell people thought I was gay. I knew I could not let you find out. So I picked Abby and since everyone seemed to agree, I stuck with her… Notice that is to this day the only actress you have probably EVER heard me say I thought was attractive.

Looking back for a long time you can see example after example in my life of what Im talking about. Remember M from highschool? I started hanging out as friends with her, eventually I developed feelings for her. When I finally asked her out, she said she thought I was gay. When I said no and asked why, he said because it seemed like I was only interested in friendship. Because before I developed feelings for her, I was only interested in friendship. Look at J, when I first met her she was destroying C and J friendship. Turning one on the other. I didn’t like her. At all. But because she was part of the group, I hung out with her. After hanging with her about 2 years, I developed a crush on her, despite originally wishing she wasn’t even in my group. Granted, it wasn’t till a few years after high school that we started dating, but you still see the point. Or how about A. You kept trying to force us to get together, but did it ever work? Why do you suppose that is? That is because we rarely saw each other so I could never establish a strong connection… That is also why I have dated every single ex more than once (with the exception of J) It was always easier to just step back into a relationship with someone I had a strong connection with previously, than to try and find new people to make strong connections…
You could also argue the same thing happened with J. That is why I was so angry about your comment. J had not been around for ages, yet you felt it necessary to explain that you couldn’t accept a gay son. I didn’t even fully understand how I felt at the time, but I knew you couldn’t accept me if I liked J that way, and I did. Regardless of if you were accurate about me being strictly gay. That was the worst part, thinking everyone was going to assume I was the all terrible “gay” because I wasn’t attracted to just any cute chick. Never mind that I wasn’t attracted to any cute guys either. Hell J is the only guy I have ever liked that way… This obviously made my head explode considering I was already confused why I had such a hard time being attracted to women. I had never really liked a guy that way before, despite obviously thinking some guys looked attractive…
I feel I am going off on the wrong tangent though. I honestly think that this can be a turning point in our relationship. I am almost painfully more self aware than I have ever been. I know you think I have always been faster to anger with you than others. There may be some truth to that. I don’t know if you will remember this, but a long time ago me and J and you, and maybe dad too, were outside playing football… I think this was before we even moved to CC, so before Texas. I got mad at J for something, I cant remember what, and I called him a fag. I was maybe 3… You heard me and almost instantly started screaming at me. Something along the lines of, “do you know what that means? That is when 2 boys have sex, do you know how gross that is? Do you think your brother is that gross?” I cant remember the exact words, but that was the idea; very negative implications for anything gay. Even more focus on what’s wrong with being gay than simply not calling J that… This was before I had ever even considered whether I was into guys, and you were already telling me it was wrong to you. That kinda scarred me… I always felt in the back of my mind that you would not accept me being gay, so I better not ever like boys. I honestly cannot tell you today if that was intentional. Not the scarring part, but the implications that being gay was completely wrong. But like it or not, the more I started realizing I feel the same way about guys as I do girls, I more I started resenting you. The reason our relationship has deteriorated even more here recently is because of your statement about me liking Justin. Before that, I always just felt like maybe you would not accept me, maybe you would, but why risk saying it if I like girls also. Once you said that about not being able to accept me if I was gay, that was when I started consciously distancing myself from you.

As you can see, I think there is a chance that the distance between us in our relationship may have all been caused by this. I am not sure what this means for our future, because I am not sure how you will respond to this coming out. With everyone else I have told I have made sure to explain I am the same person. But I think with you that may be a mistake. I see this as either the point where we will simply no longer be family, or where we try to fix our relationship. So I may not seem like the same son, even though I am… I can remember before I thought I was into guys we had a great relationship. It wasn’t until I thought I was into guys that I thought once you found out, you would not love me anymore, and I started subconsciously distancing myself from you. I suppose in reality the ball is in your court at this point. Your choices seem to be:

Refuse to accept/love me as I am, leaving our relationship worse than the status quo, if we have one at all
Accept/love me as I am and we can attempt to slowly repair our relationship.

I will be honest, I don’t know which I prefer. I would love to have you genuinely accept me and work on our relationship. But I cant see a world where that happens. All I can think about when I consider what you will do, is your statement about never accepting a gay son. I may not be gay, but I like guys. Can you accept that? I don’t mean you can ignore it because it is your son. I mean can you accept it to where IF I ever did become attracted to a guy and started dating him, I could bring him and introduce him to you and you could be friends with him like you were with all my ex girlfriends. Can you accept it to where you wont constantly be trying to set me up with girls to prevent me being with a guy? Can you accept it to where you could even try setting me up with a guy? Because I don’t know what the future holds, but now that I actually understand myself, I am not going to avoid or ignore potential boyfriends (girlfriends either) because I am scared of what my family will say. Or rather, what you will say.


[/spoilers]

I know its not perfect, so please do not hesitate to add your thoughts and suggestions. Its not perfect, but it would be helpful if it was at least closer to it. Thanks in advance to everyone who helps me out... I wont forget it

---------- Post added 14th Sep 2016 at 10:32 AM ----------

Sorry I messed up the tags this time, and I am not contacting the admin to fix something so small lol...

 

Re: Rough Draft of the last letter, mom... Almost ready for National Coming Out day..

Thanks for the support

I am hoping it goes well too... I will not be handing the letter to my dad though, I am going to read that one to him.... I feel I owe him that... Im not quite as close with my siblings (curse of being the one taking care of dad). So I am still deciding about whether I should read theirs or just give them letters and wait for a response.... I know im going to give my mom the letter to read on her own.


I hadnt considered the Abby explanation until I started this letter, and I considered adding it to the others, but I thought it might be better to wait and see how well they understand what I have already written.. Basically save it for the convo that follows the letter.. With my mom I want it there because I am desperately hoping I wont have to have a convo with her afterward that involves explaining myself... So I tried my best to explain myself in the letter... Hence being the letter where i thought of the Abby thing lol...

Someone else had said the ending sounds like an ultimatum and may turn her off to being accepting or something.... Im talking about the part starting with, "Can you accept?" I wrote it like that because as I am sure many bi people can relate, I am worried my mom will try to set me up with a bunch of chicks hoping I would end up in a hetero relationship... I wanted to be clear what she should expect and what the minimum I expect was... So there wasnt any confusion... But I can also see how it sounds very assertive, and could lead to a negative response, especially since its at the end... So the last thing she will read is that... Should I maybe revise it to something that will state the fact I want to be able to bring guys over and her get along with them as if it were a girlfriend, without being so assertive? I just feel like if she doesnt accept me, I dont care what she does, but if she plans on being in my life, she has to do this... if that makes sense...

Once again thank you so much for the support, this is what I am hoping for, people reading it and letting me know it doesnt suck or make me sound vulnerable or domineering... I will be posting some revisions later on, I have to run to the store to get some eggs for after my workout, and then actually workout... Then Im gonna do the revisions, with a nice clear head... Thanks again.

 

Re: Rough Draft of the last letter, mom... Almost ready for National Coming Out day..

I put off working on these after all was said and done yesterday.... Figured I have plenty of time still, and I wanted to get my mind off these letters for a day....

As for holding anything against me, you have not met my mother lol... I keep wondering how she is going to respond... good, bad, or indifferent, because of our past I am very nervous about telling her something so personal... I usually dont allow myself to be vulnerable when it comes to her...

Anyways, I appreciate the support, but amazing is an overstatement lol.. Im just an average guy who has a lot of life experience, tries to be well informed, likes to help out when I can...

All that being said, I am pretty sure I will be revising this letter today... So I should be adding a new copy in a bit...

 

Re: Rough Draft of the last letter, mom... Almost ready for National Coming Out day..

Thanks

Im really not that brave, because I am pretty damn terrified lol...

Spoiler

Mom, I have something I have wanted to tell you for a while now, but I didn’t want to provoke what I believed would be a negative confrontation. But now I know that I need to be able to live my life as the person that I am and in order to move forward, I need to tell you something very personal and private about me. Even if you believe you know what this letter says, please take the time to read it entirely.

I remember not too long ago you telling me you were so, “afraid I was gay” because you didn’t think you could ever, “accept a son who is gay.” I am pretty sure you will remember the conversation. Well, I may not be gay, but I am not straight either. I have never been terribly confident in the past about how I felt, or I was and wasn’t attracted to. I never bothered researching how I felt, because I thought anything other than hetero sexual is just unacceptable to my family. The more time went by, the more I realized it was only really unacceptable to you. So I used the time I have had alone, and I finally did research how I felt.

For the first time I feel confident enough in how I feel to come out and tell everyone. I consider myself both bisexual and demisexual. You know what bisexual is. That is not what I researched. Demisexual is an identity on the spectrum ranging from sexual to asexual, and everything in between. That spectrum has less to do with who I am attracted to, and more to do with what it takes for me to feel attraction regardless of gender. Demisexual means that In order to feel an actual sexual attraction to someone I need a solid connection. Meaning while I am not attracted to everyone I get a solid connection with, for me to feel attraction I need a solid connection. One that usually means I am in the friend zone, hence the hard time dating. Basically if I don’t have a true romantic attraction I definitely won’t have a sexual one, and a romantic attraction doesn’t just happen when I want it to.

Remember Hobby Lobby wondering why I wouldn’t flirt with those reasonably attractive girls? I just wasn’t attracted, not because they were ugly, but because I didn’t know them… I didn’t understand at the time what was up with me, otherwise I might have introduced myself and tried hanging out and getting to know them, but all I knew at the time was I wasn’t attracted to them. So I wasn’t going to flirt. Another example from my life that might help explain, as it was an eye opening epiphany to me… All my life I never found movie stars attractive. I mean, yes I could see they were attractive, but if I was put in a room with them and given permission to do anything, I would not be interested in them. In fact I started saying that I liked Abby from NCIS SPECIFICALLY because I could tell not liking actresses was not normal, and I was terrified of being seen as anything other than hetero… But even Abby doesn’t really appeal to me. But I had to pretend because when the topic of hot actresses came up, and I never had an answer, I could tell people thought I was gay. I knew I could not let you find out. So I picked Abby and since everyone seemed to agree, I stuck with her… Notice that is to this day the only actress you have probably EVER heard me say I thought was attractive.

Looking back for a long time you can see example after example in my life of what Im talking about. Remember M from highschool? I started hanging out as friends with her, eventually I developed feelings for her. When I finally asked her out, she said she thought I was gay. When I said no and asked why, he said because it seemed like I was only interested in friendship. Because before I developed feelings for her, I was only interested in friendship. Another good example is J, after hating her for almost breaking up the group, she remained a part of the group so I ended up hanging out with her and developing feelings… Granted, it wasn’t till a few years after high school that we started dating, but you still see the point. Or how about A. You kept trying to force us to get together, but did it ever work? Why do you suppose that is? That is because we rarely saw each other so I could never establish a strong connection… That is also why I have dated every single ex more than once (with the exception of J) It was always easier to just step back into a relationship with someone I had a strong connection with previously, than to try and find new people to make strong connections…

You could also argue the same thing happened with J. That is why I was so angry about the conversation we had about you being worried I was gay. J had not been around for ages, yet you felt it necessary to explain that you couldn’t accept a gay son. I didn’t even fully understand how I felt at the time, but I knew you couldn’t accept me if I liked J that way, and I did. Regardless of my actual orientation, and the worst part was thinking you were going to assume I was the all terrible “gay.” Hell J is the only guy I have ever even liked that way… This obviously made my head explode considering I was already confused why I had such a hard time being attracted to women. I had never really liked a guy that way before, despite obviously thinking some guys looked attractive…

I honestly think that this can be a turning point in our relationship. Whether it becomes much better or much worse is mostly up to you. I am almost painfully more self aware than I have ever been. I know you think I have always been faster to anger with you than others. There may be some truth to that. I don’t know if you will remember this, but a long time ago me and J and you, and maybe dad too, were outside playing football… I think this was before we even moved to CC, so before Texas. I got mad at J for something, I can’t remember what, and I called him a fag. I was maybe 3… You heard me and almost instantly started screaming at me. Something along the lines of, “do you know what that means? That is when 2 boys have sex; do you know how gross that is? Do you think your brother is that gross?” I can’t remember the exact words, but that was the idea; very negative implications for anything gay. Even more focus on what’s wrong with being gay than simply not calling J that… This was before I had ever even considered whether I was into guys, and you were already telling me it was wrong to you. That kind of scarred me… I always felt in the back of my mind that you would not accept me being gay, so I better not ever like boys. I honestly cannot tell you today if that was intentional. Not the scarring part, but the implications that being gay was completely wrong. But like it or not, the more I started realizing I feel the same way about guys as I do girls, I more I started resenting you. The reason our relationship has deteriorated even more here recently is because of your statement about me liking Justin. Before that, I always just felt like maybe you would not accept me, maybe you would, but why risk saying it if I like girls also. Once you said that about not being able to accept me if I was gay, that was when I started consciously distancing myself from you.

From all of this you can see that I believe the main reason for the distance between us in our relationship may have been caused by these interactions and a few others where I felt uncomfortable about who I was attracted to. Now the future of our relationship may depend entirely on how you respond to my coming out. Regardless of what you may think of me when reading this letter, I am the same person I have always been – only you now know something very personal about me that I never told you before. I can remember before I thought I was into guys we had a great relationship (games à la He-Man). It wasn’t until I thought I was into guys that I thought once you found out you would not love me anymore. That was when I started subconsciously distancing myself from you. I really hope that we can go back to having a much better mother/son relationship now that I can be who I really am in front of you. Where our relationship goes from here is really up to you. My choice would be for you to accept me for who I am – your son. Your bisexual and demisexual son, but still your son. But a relationship takes two people to work, so I guess the ball is in your court. I suppose the options you have to choose from are:

Refuse to accept/love me as I am, leaving our relationship probably worse than the status quo, if we have one at all
Accept/love me as I am, bisexual and demisexual, and we can attempt to slowly repair our relationship.

I would love to have you genuinely accept me and work on our relationship. But I can’t see a world where that happens. All I can think about when I consider what you will do, is your statement about never accepting a gay son. I may not be strictly gay, but I definitely like guys. Can you accept that? I don’t mean you can ignore it because it is your son. I want you to accept it to where IF I ever did become attracted to a guy and started dating him, I could bring him and introduce him to you and you could be friends with him like you were with all my ex girlfriends. I want you to accept it to where you won’t constantly be trying to set me up with girls to prevent me being with a guy. Because I don’t know what the future holds, but now that I actually understand myself and why it is so hard for me to be attracted to someone, I am not going to avoid or ignore potential boyfriends (or girlfriends) because I am scared of what my family will say. Or rather, what you will say.
I think if you consider what I have just explained to you will, it will make a lot of sense. I know when I read about demisexuality it was like the fog cleared… I have never been able to understand exactly how I felt or why I felt that way until reading about it… Now I can look back at almost every relationship and it just seems obvious to me. It has made me so much happier and more confident about how I feel that I decided that for the first time, I was confident enough to actually tell people how I felt. I have never been able to tell anyone at all that I was anything other than simply an average hetero “normal” guy. I really hope you realizing how much happier I am thanks to finally understanding myself, and it helps to accept me as me. I suppose all that is left to say is let me know what you think.

I am actually so nervous about my mom that I almost cant wait to tell my dad so I can pick his brain... He has been happily married to her 28 years so I am pretty sure he will have some insight..

Speaking of, I know this will sound weird, but I am a little worried about causing a problem in their marriage. I am pretty sure my dad had no idea about half the things in my letter to my mom... that is to say, I dont think he realizes she said that to me about not being able to accept me. He has explicitly told me he has no problem with anyone LGBT and all that. I am worried he will find out about all of this, and hold my mom accountable. I think if my dad honestly knew how bad she made me feel, he might be a little irritated... Does that sound like an irrational fear from anxiety, or something that is possible?

Anyways, thank you all very much for any support and suggestions. Reading the comments has been helping a lot with this "process" and really helps with anxiety... I always knew I wasnt alone and all, but for some reason seeing that fact and thinking that fact just is not the same

---------- Post added 16th Sep 2016 at 08:23 AM ----------

fyi there are 3 different people using "J" in the letter, in case that gets confusing.. It wont confuse her because I will obviously be adding the full names before I give it to her..

 

Re: Rough Draft of the last letter, mom... Almost ready for National Coming Out day..

I dont think your siding with my mom... That being said, I am a little unsure of what you are referencing specifically...

I am assuming you were mostly talking about the personal stuff from when I was a kid and not so much the dating history sprinkled throughout? Because a lot of the stuff from the past I am trying to use as evidence that she will remember, to sort of make her realize how much sense this makes...



I have to explain one somewhat sad fact... My relationship with her right now is one where if I asked her to sit and listen, I wouldn't make it 2 minutes before she as interrupting me or getting irritated... I know that sounds like an irrational fear, but it happens all the time. I know for sure I can not sit down and just talk to her as of right now. That is why her letter is so long and has so much history... If you look at the other thread I have with my dad and siblings letters, they are WAY shorter... Because if I need to add more via conversation later I can. I am not sure I will have that opportunity with my mom... She may read this letter and be amazing and accepting and then I will easily be able to talk to her... But I really dont like the odds of that. So I am trying to go off what I know. Sort of put it all out there in the letter so that she cant interrupt, cant refuse to listen, cant bitch and moan, etc... Even if it takes her more than one read through...

I really wish we had a better relationship... but with the relationship we have, I dont see how to come out to her with any chance of acceptance without laying everything out... I feel like if I am going to make myself feel so vulnerable, I should at least get everything out... I dont want to spread out the awkward and uncomfortable interactions... Besides how is this coming out suppose to help our relationship if she doesnt understand fully that it is a huge part of our problem... If I leave everything from the past out, she might not even realize that its the reason we dont get along anymore... Then its just going to cause problems when I bring it up to work on the relationship...

This sucks....

---------- Post added 16th Sep 2016 at 09:39 AM ----------

Sorry, I still appreciate the suggestion....

I just dont know how I can fix it so that it doesnt bare all, but still says what I need it to...

You know, before I read about demisexuality and decided to come out, I was prepared to have my mom go to her grave without ever finding out...

 

Re: Rough Draft of the last letter, mom... Almost ready for National Coming Out day..

I really dont know how to go about this now...

Thanks for those specific points, I went through and addressed pretty much all of them... In fact I think I did use all your suggestions

But I am starting to wonder why... It sounds like the implication is I should not be saying much of anything except the actual coming out. But our relationship is bad enough, if I do that, I can promise you she wont accept me.... I know she wont. She will just consider me a lost cause. I was hoping by admitting to my part in our problems and showing that i want to work on our relationship that she might have a double take and reconsider. Sort of like if she can come around about my sexuality, she could "get her son back." Is that wrong to do? Like... I didnt think it was wrong to illustrate that so she would have it in her head while she was considering everything....

I wish I could tell my dad without worrying about telling my mom... Just tell everyone in my family and not my mom, and then she sees me with a guy, and goes to one of my other family members freaking out, and their like, yea... so? that would be pretty funny... and hella easier... If only I trusted my dads memory I would consider doing that...

I think I am going to pick this back up tomorrow... Please keep posting anything you think might be helpful or supportive

 

Re: Rough Draft of the last letter, mom... Almost ready for National Coming Out day..

Ok... I will be honest... I was a little spooked by your suggestion yesterday... But after much discussion, thought, and deliberation I believe I have come to understand what you meant, which is not the same thing I thought you meant...

I worked quite a bit and I really think I softened it... I also think it flows better... I moved some paragraphs and all kinds of stuff, so there may be some editting typos... But I think it is pretty good for the most part... I think this does a pretty good job of making this into more of an olive branch..

I want to say, at first I really hated your suggestion, which is EXACTLY why I decided to just leave it alone for the rest of the day. But after reading this last post and rereading my letter, i could see some of what you meant. I didnt intend for it to sound like that, I was just laying out everything in a stream of conscience style and that was the tone it took.. I really did try and take that tone out wherever I noticed it... If you still see it, would you mind point out where? I did my best to fix it up, but I may have missed it... It is hard to see for me, I guess either because I wrote it, or I feel it lol...

Without further ado:

Spoiler

Mom, I have something I have wanted to tell you for a while now, but I didn’t want to provoke what I believed would be a negative confrontation. But now I know that I need to be able to live my life as the person that I am and in order to move forward, I need to tell you something very personal and private about me. Even if you believe you know what this letter says, please take the time to read it entirely.

I wanted to talk to you about something personal to me. I have never been terribly confident in the past about how I felt, or who I was and wasn’t attracted to. I never bothered investigating how I felt, because I thought anything other than heterosexual is unacceptable to my family. Over time I have come to realize it was you who I felt wouldn’t accept it. So I used the time I have had alone since M was hospitalized, and I finally did research how I felt.

For the first time I feel confident enough in how I feel to come out and tell everyone. I consider myself both bisexual and demisexual. You know what bisexual is, I can find men and women attractive. Demisexual is an identity on the spectrum ranging from sexual to asexual, and everything in between. That spectrum has less to do with who I am attracted to, and more to do with what it takes for me to feel attraction regardless of gender. Demisexual means that In order to feel sexual attraction to someone I need a solid connection. Meaning while I am not attracted to everyone I get a solid connection with, for me to feel attraction I have to be close with the person. Close enough that it usually means I am “friend zoned,” hence the hard time dating. Basically if I don’t have a true romantic attraction I definitely won’t have a sexual one, and a romantic attraction doesn’t just happen when I want it to, but rather only with friends.

Remember a while back at Hobby Lobby, you were wondering why I wouldn’t flirt with those reasonably attractive girls? I just wasn’t attracted, not because they were ugly, or because I don’t like women, but because I didn’t know them… I didn’t understand at the time what was up with me, otherwise I might have introduced myself and tried hanging out and getting to know them, but all I knew at the time was I wasn’t attracted to them, despite acknowledging they were attractive even at the time. Another example from my life that might help explain, as it was an eye opening epiphany to me… All my life I never found movie stars attractive. I mean, yes I could see they were attractive, but if I was put in a room with them and given permission to do anything, I would not be interested in them. In fact I started saying that I liked Abby from NCIS SPECIFICALLY because I could tell not liking actresses was not normal, and I was terrified of being seen as anything other than hetero normal… But even Abby doesn’t really appeal to me. But I had to pretend because when the topic of hot actresses came up, and I never had an answer, I could tell people thought I was gay or weird. So I picked Abby and since everyone seemed to agree, I stuck with her… Notice that is to this day the only actress you have EVER heard me say I thought was attractive.

Looking back for a long time you can see example after example in my life of what Im talking about. Remember M from high school? I started hanging out as friends with her, eventually I developed feelings for her. When I finally asked her out, she said she thought I was gay. When I said no and asked why, she said because it seemed like I was only interested in friendship. Because before I developed feelings for her, I was only interested in friendship. Another good example is J. I hated her for almost breaking up the group; she remained a part of the group though so I ended up hanging out with her and developing feelings… Granted, it wasn’t till a few years after high school that we started dating, but you still see the point. Or how about A way out in SPECIFIC LOCATION. You kept trying to force us to get together, but did it ever work? Why do you suppose that is? That is because we rarely saw each other so I could never establish a strong connection… That is also why I have dated every single ex more than once (with the exception of J) It was always easier to just step back into a relationship with someone I had a strong connection with previously, than to try and find new people to make strong connections…
I think if you consider what I have just explained to you, it will make a lot of sense. I know when I read about demisexuality it was like the fog cleared… I have never been able to understand exactly how I felt or why I felt that way until reading about it… Now I can look back at almost every relationship and it just seems obvious to me. It has made me so much happier and more confident about how I feel, I was confident enough to actually tell the family how I felt. I have never been able to tell anyone at all that I was anything other than simply an average hetero “normal” guy. I really hope you realize how much happier I am thanks to finally understanding and accepting myself.

I honestly think that this can be a turning point in our relationship. Whether it becomes much better or much worse is mostly up to you. I am almost painfully more self aware than I have ever been. I know you think I have always been faster to anger with you than others. There is some truth to that. I don’t know if you will remember this, but a long time ago me and J and you, and maybe dad too, were outside playing football… I think this was before we even moved to CC, so before Texas. I got mad at J for something, I can’t remember what, and I called him a fag. I was maybe 3… You heard me and almost instantly started screaming at me. Something along the lines of, “do you know what that means? That is when 2 boys have sex; do you know how gross that is? Do you think your brother is that gross?” I can’t even remember the exact words, but that was the idea; very negative implications for anything gay. Even more focus on what’s wrong with being gay than simply not calling J that… This was before I had ever even gotten into guys or girls, remember 3 years old, and I already felt like it was wrong to you. That kind of scarred me… I always felt in the back of my mind that you would not accept me being gay, so I better not ever like boys. Now I didn’t have, or even know about, physical attraction for a few years after that. However I am sure you will remember when I met M at the SPECIFIC LOCATION. I believe you will remember me playing “doctor” with him… I realized that at the very least, I like boys too. Like it or not, the more I started realizing I feel the same way about guys as I do girls, the more I started resenting you. I didn’t really even realize until this hospital visit left me with so much time to think… In fact right after I graduated high school, and maybe a little before, you used to say something to me. This took me a while to recall, but you used to say that you think I am keeping “something” from you. And the only way you could seemingly describe this “something” was that it was something I blamed you for and wouldn’t let go and would tell you about. You said it had nothing to do with the graduation fiasco, because you knew there was “something” bothering me before that happened. But you didn’t know what it actually was. I think it was me subconsciously blaming you for “hating me” because I always felt you would hate me for who I was if you found out. I think you picked up on it, even though I didn’t.. I honestly did not know it at the time.

The reason our relationship has deteriorated even more is because I was hurt by something you said more recently. You told me that when J was around, you were worried I was gay because you couldn’t accept a gay son. J hadn’t been around for ages, and I still didn’t even understand how I had been attracted to him, but suddenly I knew you couldn’t accept me because I was. J is the first and only guy I have ever even liked that way… I was already confused because I was never really attracted to that many women, liking J just made my head explode. But before I could even really figure out what was going on with my feelings, I felt like you were warning me to “make the right decision” or something… As if it is a choice. Trust me, I would not “choose” to be attracted to J, that only amplified my fears. I was already worried about people thinking I was gay; always afraid of you finding out and me letting you down. But once you said that about not being able to accept me if I was gay, that was when I started consciously distancing myself from you as a defense mechanism. I did it because while before I had always felt you would not love and accept me this way, once you told me you couldn’t accept a gay son it removed all doubt.

From all of this you can see that I believe the main reason for the distance between us in our relationship may have been caused by these interactions and a few others where I felt uncomfortable about who I was attracted to. Now the future of our relationship may depend entirely on how you respond to my coming out. Regardless of what you may think of me when reading this letter, I am the same person I have always been – only you now know something very personal about me that I never told you before. I can remember before I thought I was into guys we had a great relationship (games à la He-Man). It wasn’t until I realized I was into guys that I thought you would not love me anymore, if you found out. I really hope that we can go back to having a much better mother/son relationship now that I can be who I really am in front of you. Where our relationship goes from here is really up to you. My choice would be for you to accept me for who I am – your son. Your bisexual and demisexual son, but still your son, still your baby boy. But a relationship takes two people to work, so I guess the ball is in your court.

I would love to have you genuinely accept me and work on our relationship. Can you accept me being bisexual? If I ever did become attracted to a guy and started dating him, I want to be able to bring him home and introduce him to you and dad… Hell, I even want you to be friends with him like you were with all my ex girlfriends. I want you to accept me and respect me enough that you won’t only set me up with girls to prevent me being with a guy. I don’t know what the future holds, but now that I actually understand myself and why it is so hard for me to be attracted to anyone, I am not going to avoid or ignore potential boyfriends (or girlfriends) because I am scared of what my family, or anyone really, will say. If this is something you think you need some time for, or want to research, or anything like that, there are support groups and information available through Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays (PFLAG, which is at www.pflag.org)… Also, after so much introspection and learning so much about myself and about our relationship, I wanted to let you know that if you would like to try therapy in an attempt to work through our issues, Im willing.

Also, thanks again for the suggestions.. I feel like I am making great progress with the letters and with myself... With each revision the anxiety level goes down... not a ton, but some...

This may seem weird, but I am a little nervous about having my dad read the letter to my mom... The way I see it, I will definitely be telling my dad all the same info eventually, but IDK if I want to RIGHT after coming out... With my mom I am because it is in a letter (easier to write it than say it) and I think it is the only way to get her to come around.... But with my dad I figure I will give him time to get comfortable, and then he will ask questions or whatever... Basically what I am saying is, does it make sense to wait on showing my dad the mom letter until the next day or two so I dont overwhelm him? The letter to my mom has a lot more information... Just as an example, the line about meeting M and then playing doctor and realizing I liked boys too.... That is pretty personal and informative... I only mentioned it to my mom because (I believe) that was where my distancing actually began... otherwise I wouldnt mention it to mom for sure.


I hate how I feel embarrassed about my boy crushes and such, and almost proud of my girl ones... I even removed the boy examples from my dads letter... wtf is wrong with me?

Anyways, thanks to all who are commenting, showing support, offering suggestions, and just generally showing me some love

I really appreciate it.

 

Re: Rough Draft of the last letter, mom... Almost ready for National Coming Out day..

Awww... you called me a kid... made me feel younger

Thanks for the advice, it actually helped with more than just the letter, it tweaked my outlook a bit, for the positive..

Im glad this is almost finished, now I get to spend the next 3 weeks 2 days working on my nerves... It makes me wonder if it would be better to have more time, or less lol....

Anyone else have any suggestions? especially if you notice any typos.... I dont see any, but when you read something you wrote, it tend to be harder to see