Ok well if you have ever paid attention to my posts about my family and who knows about me and doesn't then you know that my entire dads side doesn't know that I'm gay. This is because I refuse to tell my grandma so I of course haven't told any other family member on that side because my grandma would find out. Nobody on my dads side lives anywhere around me they all live at least 1000 miles away so I have always said that unless I'm in a long term relationship then they don't need to know but I'm thinking about changing my mind I get so tired of them asking if I have a boyfriend and I say no and then they start lecturing me about getting a boyfriend. I hate not being honest with them they may live a long way away but I just feel like I'm closing off more of my life from them then I already do because of the distance between us. Actually the first person I want to come out to is my grandma and just let the gossip spread to the other family members. This is a very hard decision because my grandma is highly religious and southern baptist, living in Kentucky so that is just a bad reaction waiting to happen. She has a huge problem with gay people. I don't know what to do because I'm getting that itch to tell her, the I can't sleep properly because I'm dying to tell the rest of the family and finally be honest feeling. I thought it would be great to finally be out to everybody in my life for oct. 11th. What do you think should I just come out to her and the rest of them or should I keep my mouth shut?:help:
Wow, that's a difficult one to answer! I can see your dilemma. There are two points here : 1 - you feel that you need to honest with your entire family and stop living a lie (to those who don't know). Since you already know that once you are in a long term relationship they will have to know telling them then or now makes little difference except that it will make your life easier and you will feel happier about yourself if you tell them now, especially if this is stopping you from sleeping. You will make yourself ill if you continue like this :icon_sad: 2 - you are worried about your grandmother's reaction. This is very understandable that you don't want to upset an elderly relative who obviously has a lot of influence within the family. Not knowing your grandma it is difficult to say but surely it is better, at the limit, to upset one family member (or possibly several) than lie to the entire side of your dad's family. What does your dad think about this? Does he have any helpful insights about his mum? At the end of the day, this is your life. You must live it as you see fit. You cannot bend the truth about yourself to fit the image of one person within your family. You have to live your life for yourself as best you can, trying to take into consideration the feelings and reactions of others and causing as little pain as possible however, this consideration shouldn't go so far that you are forced into a lie which is making you ill and will, one day, be bought out into the open anyway. My advice, although I have no right to give it, would be to take that final step, tell your grandma then step back and wait for the reactions. It is not because your grandma has problems with gays that the whole side of your dad's family is bigotted. You are making yourself unhappy and ill untill you have resolved this problem it will only get worse. There are some things we just can't hide from, you can try for a while if you like but it will just keep coming back to haunt you. It is easy for me to say that coz it's not me that's got to do the telling but that's how I see it from my point of view. Hope this helps a bit (*hug*)
Not sure what to recommend... Why tell your grandma if you know she's not going to accept it? Is that better than being distant from them and dealing with the questions about boyfriends? I'm not sure. And why tell the least tolerant person? Tell the most tolerant people (likely your cousins in your own generation) and let it filter up instead. The message is likely to be much more positive than the one that would filter down from grandma! Just my 2 cents worth! (I'm not sure I'll tell my grandma. Maybe I'm not giving her enough credit... but she'll be 90 next month and I'm not sure she needs to know. I don't think it would make our relationship better - although I doubt it would make it worse either.)
i think it all depends on how much you want to have an "honest feeling". do the other people on ur dad's side of ur family mind? if u don't kno maybe you can try to find out. the more people that support you will make it easier if you decide to tell your grandma.
