Hi I'm 32 years old out gay man. I've been out since I was 16 to my whole family and was blessed to have a wonderful experience with them. I haven't thought about comeing out issues since then, I thought all that was behind me forever. Here is my problem. My lover who is in his 40's is not out, and has only been dateing men since his divorce a few years ago. I am understanding of this as we live in the country and many gay men here are scared and I have never pushed him to come out and I never will. Our relationship has progressed to the point that we want to be together, living together as married men. He has three teen age children and he says he wants to come out to them so we can live together. Since we started talking about this, he has sunken into a desperate deppression. He doesn't care what anyone else thinks but he is terrified of his kids reaction. I've watched him go from the happiest man on earth to the sadddest thing I've ever seen. He doesn't know what to do or how to start and neither do I. He has reminded me of feelings of terror that I had forgotten I ever felt. My heart is breaking for him. at this point he is paralysed with fear. For the most part I just listen to him and don't offer much advice because I don't want to push him into comeing out and then haveing to deal with some kind of family disaster. I'm starting to feel like maybe I should back away and let him sort it out, but I don't want to do that at all. I love the man. But his deppression is going deeper and deeper everyday and I'm honestly afraid for him. When I came out I had the bravado of a teen ager and I can't imagin what its like for him going through this in his 40's. I'm afraid he is going to hurt himself. What do I do? What can I possibly say to him to ease his mind without influenceing his decesion? Do I encourage him to come out? If he decides to do it I will support him, if not I will support him too and we will have to continue to put our life together on hold. I honestly can't beleive I forgot how much pain is associated with the comeing out process. I can't beleive I forgot. any advice, any at all will be appreciated. Here or email me directly. Thank you so much in advance
Welcome to EC! I think your initial reelings are correct. This is a path (as painful as it might be) that he kind of has to take alone. You can comfort, you can encourage, and you can even advise a bit if he asks, but it'll have to be a decision and a move that he makes himself. You might let him know that more and more teens don't see any issue with homosexuality, and their generation is far more accepting than ours was/is. It's presumably different when it's your father, but I still anticipate it not being anywhere near as bad as he fears. There may be shock, and a period of adjustment, but much of the time, coming out ends up being like pulling a splinter - the fear of doing it far outweighs the actual deed. We say homophobia is ignorance-based, and I think that bears looking into more. We've all seen (or heard of) homophobic kids who "get it from their parents". And I've seen plenty of kids with homophobic parents who "educated themselves" out of that belief. One thing I can't recall seeing is accepting parents with homophobic kids. Mainly because that would involve "uneducating" oneself. I'm not saying it never happens, but it's far less likely to occur. So what about your guy? What kind of attitude did he project towards gays to his kids? And what about their mother? If neither of them were homophobic much, it's doubtful the kids will be. Just a thought. Lex
