Hi all, Sorry if this is long.... I'm now 31 years old and I've known that I'm gay (or at least bisexual) for at least 6-7 years, maybe even longer. Funny enough I've never really had a problem accepting that myself - I was a bit confused at the beginning but I never really had a major problem with me being gay. The big problem is my family - which I'm not really out to. My parents have always even extremely homophobic and insist that the only valuable people in society are those that marry and have children. At 31 they obviously know that something is not quite "normal". About 6 years ago my mother asked me whether I was gay and I replied that I was unsure - which was still (semi)-true at that time. That sufficed to make any discussion of my personal life - however unrelated to relationships - a taboo subject from that point onward. When ever I start to talk about anything remotely related to my friends (and I'm not talking about boyfriends here) my family immediately changes the subject. For quite a while they were constantly pushing me to date women and setting me up on "blind" dates whenever I went home for any family occasion. Around a year ago that stopped but my initial relief was soon surpassed by my shock as they started to refer to direct almost any conversation with my to fay related topic letting no opportunity pass to express disgust about the "gay agenda" and homosexual people in general. It seems to be getting worse as they have started to refer to gay people in terms they would have never use in any other context - using phrases that I really can't repeat here. At this point in time I am really fed up with constant barrage of insults. As I see it I have three choices : 1) Continue with this "don't ask, don't tell" scheme where they pretend I'm straight and try and fix me up with women while I politely decline and don't talk about my personal life. 2) Openly confirm their worst fears that I'm gay which will almost certainly lead to them turning shunning me as "one of those disgusting perverts" 3) Quietly sever almost all ties with my family, i.e no longer go home for the holidays, stop calling on birthdays etc. I really don't know what to do at this point. There really doesn't seem to be a good option.... Any ideas - a miracle fix perhaps ?
Well it seems that you do need to come out to your parents but you also need to educate them. I would purchase them the book "Now that you Know". You can also download PFLAG materials here: http://community.pflag.org/Page.aspx?pid=594 Our Daughters and Sons is excellent. Also if your parents are coming from a religious perspective, the Faith in Our Families one is good also. I wouldn't automatically assume they are going to shun you. So I think the 3rd option would not be giving them a fair chance for acceptance. Remember almost all parents go through a period of grief before they find acceptance. You just have to work through it and hopefully all of you are going to come out better in the end.
I say option 2 is your best bet at this point. As it is you are slowly distancing yourself from them anyway, it sounds like it is becoming harder and harder to deal with them and keep them in your life. If you tell them you are gay (A) it will continue the way it is now and may shut them out of your life completely which is sorta of the direction it is headed anyway (I doubt they will shut you out completely but then again I don't know your family) or (B) it could bring them a lot closer, maybe not right away, but if they know for sure you are gay then they will have to decide for themselves if they truly love you for who you are then they will make it work and if not maybe its best if they aren't apart of your life (I know that may sound harsh but I think its true). The worse that can happen with this is again you/they shut you out completely which seems like you are already somewhat prepared for as you stated in option 3. Anway hope this helps somewhat and good luck! we are here for you no matter what!
I am convinced that you and I share the same parents... Are we brothers? :eek: I am quite literally going over the same options as you as I weigh coming out to my parents, who are uncannily like yours. In fact I just had this same debate with my sister yesterday (she's the only one in my family I'm out too). She says your option 1 is the best choice given that my parents are unlikely to ever change their beliefs, while I'm seriously looking at your option 3. In fact, this is more or less the path that I've been on over the past few months, and my parents are starting to wonder why I'm avoiding them (unfortunately it doesn't make the phone ring any less...). My bad news to you is that there probably are no other good options. But a combination of some heartfelt advice from the excellent people here at EC along with some agonizing self-evaluation in the past month is slowly starting to convince me otherwise - that the best option for me (and by corollary for you, since we're apparently brothers) is actually #2. I'll tell you why. At the end of the day, I have to do what's right for me. And it's becoming more and more obvious that if I just run away from the problem (options 1 and 3), I am not being true to myself - I'm perpetuating the lie not just to them but to myself as well. The message I'm sending myself is that I'm ashamed of who I am. Coming out to them may not go well (and probably won't go well given the attitudes they've expressed), but I'm not coming out to them to seek their acceptance; I'm coming out to them to make it clear to myself that I'm not ashamed of who I am. I'm doing it for me, not for them. Take what you will from what I have to offer, but that would be my advice. (Seriously, I think that God himself must have sent you to me, because the parallels are uncanny...)
Hi there, and welcome to EC! If you're going to find support on this topic anywhere, you're going to find it here. I'm glad you found us. I'd agree with Becky. Go with option 2. What do you have to lose? The outcomes of options 2 and 3 MIGHT be the same, but at least with option 2 there is a possibility of you maintaining and improving your relationship with your parents. With option 3 you pretty much guarantee that you'll lose touch with them. Going with option 3 means that you may even be reinforcing their negative impressions of gay people. Assuming they already know you're gay, you'd come across as an inconsiderate 'disgusting pervert'. Which of course isn't the case. And they need to understand that. They need to understand that just because we are (for some reason) attracted to the same sex, it doesn't mean that we aren't just the same as they are in all other respects. Good luck with this. I'm sure it isn't easy. But hang out here. You'll find that we're a great bunch of people, and if you're like me, you'll find that you're quite proud to associate with others from the LGBT community.
I think that's the greatest piece of advice Option 2 will only work if you are not ashamed of being gay, of being who you are. Because coming from that position of strength allows you to best deal with the negative reactions that you know are coming. Do you think you are at that stage?
Thank you all for your kind replies. Sorry I couldn't get to post an update earlier, but I had to think things through. Well - I took your advice and called my parents. My mother picked up the phone. After some small talk, I purposefully directed the conversation towards myself and my relationship life. I told her that I was more interested in guys to the point where I don't date girls at all. I braced myself and - nothing happened. Nothing at all. She just said "okay" and changed the subject. In hindsight I can think of a millions things I should have said right there and then - but I wasn't really prepared to receive no reaction at all, so I said nothing further at the time. Next day my father called and out of the blue he told me a bizarre story of a guy he once knew, who was apparently gay, was "vile" and "disgusting" and ended up incredibly unhappy and lonely. I was just too disturbed by the story to reply, so I pretty much ended the conversation, uttered a few words about being busy and hung up. They've called me twice since and even the slightest hint that I want to discuss this again leads to radical changes of subject on their part - which makes for some very strange conversations in and of itself. So - on the upside I guess I didn't get any outright rejection and they still speak to me. On the downside I don't really know if I'm any better off than I was two weeks ago. They still won't talk about this and at this point I have no idea how the change that.
This doesn't surprise me at all. I think it's easy for an objective outsider to see why things would go this way - your parents end up being conflicted between their engrained homophobic thoughts and stereotypes and their deep love for their child who they raised from birth. They are being torn apart by this conflict, and what you're seeing is them oscillating between two mutually exclusive positions. I think this leads them to those infamous stages of grief. After the initial shock has now worn off they are left with something between anger and denial. They're mad because this wasn't supposed to happen to you (or to them, as they'll likely see it) and they're still hoping that you have just made a bad judgment call, or you're in a funk right now and you'll get over this. This is one of those times when it's good to remind yourself that, as you said, "I've known that I'm gay (or at least bisexual) for at least 6-7 years" and "I never really had a major problem with me being gay" while (although they may have suspected it) this is the first time they've had to come to terms with this truth about you. They are on an irreversible path to acceptance, and that's not an easy road for them to take. I think patience on your part will go a long way - you've had years to come to this point, and it will take them time too, a whole lot more than 2 weeks. It's especially hard when when they're going to have to force themselves to abandon some of their long-held beliefs about gays, but all humans are capable of change and they will be too, eventually. I would keep clear of the topic of your sexuality for some time now as their "wounds" heal. You may want to talk about it and forge that new relationship with them, but what they need most right now is time to digest this. Keep being the person they've always known, which will show them that homosexuality is not the monster they thought it is. And be resolute; if they ever try and "change" you or question whether this is real, be firm but polite in your response. Show them that this is the real you and that isn't going to change. If nothing else, time alone will convince them that this is who you are and all the wishing in the world on their part isn't going to change that. And it's interesting that as I read your comments from back early in February, and my comments I offered at the time, and go from there to where I am now, I am of the conclusion that (1) you did the right thing, and (2) this is most likely how it's going to go with my parents as well. In hindsight it's obvious that this was going to be the most likely outcome in the short term. By the way, I am extremely proud of you for doing this! I know (intimately) just how tough of a decision this was for you, and despite how nebulous things might look right now, they will get better. The toughest part is behind you now!
James and Moonshine, Since you're both sensing the same sort of thing from your parents, I think that perhaps what I'm going to say will apply to both of you. Moonshine, I think your parents already knew, and that's why you started getting all of the direct flack and difficulty. The immediate changing of the subject by your mother is simply avoidance, which is another form of denial. Your father's reaction is more consistent with anger. Both are part of the stages of loss on the path to acceptance (denial-anger-bargaining-grief-acceptance.) I strongly suspect, both for James and for Moonshine, that your parents WILL eventually come around and be fine with it. For a large number of people, homophobia (really, any phobia) is fear rooted in ignorance. Your parents likely don't know any gay people (that they know are gay) that they consider to be normal, healthy, well adjusted people, and the stereotypes they've seen (helped out by the most outlandish images news cameras can find at Pride parades) don't exactly fuel a sense of normalcy, decorum, and other attributes that parents generally want for their children. I can say with nearly complete certainty that, after a period of anger, bargaining, and various drama, grief, etc, that your parents (both James and Moonshine) will come around. It might be 3 months or 6 months or a year, but I'm near certain it will happen. In nearly all cases, people are unwilling to make any sort of change until the pain of staying where you are is worse than the pain and fear of change. In this case, your parents will eventually realize that being hostile and homophobic will merely push you away from your parents, and, with very, very few exceptions, parents, no matter what, don't want to lose their children. So once they realize that efforts to get you to change are absolutely futile, and no amount of stories, begging, threats, or whatever will alter the outcome, then they will choose to accept, and most likely, even to embrace, who you are. You just have to give it time, and if you can find it within yourself to continue to love and accept and appreciate them even when they aren't doing the same in return, it will speed up the process.
You know where you stand now. You've refused to let them play the denial game anymore, and told them the truth. And now, you're still their son, but they ain't gonna deal with the "gay" part of you. It's up to you how to react to this. Feel free to simply not discuss your interpersonal relationships with them. And if you find that too limiting - that you can't discuss who you're dating with them - then simply minimize contact for awhile. Yes, it'd be great if they were totally accepting. But your happiness and success don't hinge on their acceptance. Keep living, keep dating, keep getting laid, and keep living a great life. Lex
Yes, you'll have to cut your parents some slack. Give them time to digest this. I came out to my parents a year and a half ago, and they seemed cool with it. But then nothing was mentioned again for almost 3 months. I finally had to bring it up again, and let them know that I had a boyfriend. My dad was relieved, because he was assuming that being gay meant I was going to bath houses. I've never been to a bath house! So as Chip said - a lot of what our parents know if based on what they've heard from other people, based on stereotypes, and based on the 'over the top' reporting of the pride parades. And even though you'd like to think that they know their own children fairly well, they can still slip into believing that we are doing all the things that they thought gay people do - which isn't necessarily the case. My parents have met my boyfriend and like him very much. They ask how he is, how his kids are, etc. We've had them for dinner, and they've had us to the cottage for weekends. It's all cool. So hang in there and keep being the great son that they've always known. They'll come to realize that nothing has changed.
all i can say is your parents behavior by constantly telling stories of how disgusting gay people are is very disturbing...you need to step up your energy level everytime they go on the offense you cannot back down, stand idly by, or be silent like you have described being even if you feel unprepared..by energy i dont mean start yelling...but rebutel (spelling)... YOU NEED TO TALK! YOU HAVE A VOICE!! STAND UP FOR YOURSELF! ..if you dont stand up one of these days...they are just going to continue on with their charade of the defilement of the gay community...maybe you should tell them a few made up stories about some disgusting heterosexual couples.. just so they hear how disturbing they sound when they tell you these stories... i am sorry for my tone...but you need to act...and stop backing down to their bad treatment and views.. (denial-anger-bargaining-grief-acceptance.) -i thought these were the stages in Kuhbler Rosses Death and Dying acceptance process...
