Can't get over having no contact with mum

I don’t know how long I’ve spent trying to write this down and I’m still not sure I’m completely happy so if it doesn’t make sense then I apologise in advance.

My mother had always been pressuring me to get a girlfriend, as I got older she got more persistent and we ended up having a few shouting matches on the subject, the last of which ended with me yelling at her that I was gay. She took the news badly and basically said I was making it up. I was in shock having been unprepared to come out to her at that moment, so I backed away and tried to keep quiet for the next few days to see what happened later. But my sister had the opposite idea and the next day confronted mum about how she’d treated me. Mum called me every name she could think of and my dad had to restrain her or I think she would have tried to attack me. She accused my sister of making me gay because we shared a bed when we were younger, she accused my dad of making me gay because he wasn’t masculine enough as an example for me and of course it was my fault too because I wanted to humiliate her and was choosing not to overcome my feelings because I had “always been difficult.” None of this is true of course, my dad came to me later that day to make it clear that mum did not speak for him and I could see how hard it was for him to have that conversation, if not having a masculine father was the only way one could be gay then I definitely would have been straight.

I don’t want to write a novel so I’ll skip over a few years and say that I haven’t seen her now in over 4 years and sometimes I’m okay but other times I just can’t deal with it. I have everything else that I wanted in life, I have a wonderful boyfriend who I’m going to ask to marry me as soon as it’s legal, I have a job I enjoy and a great group of friends, yet there’s this hole that can never be filled. My other sister is getting married next year and I know that I might just ruin the wedding for her if mum can’t keep herself from having a go at me. Still don’t know what I’m going to do about that one because she is adamant that we shouldn’t stay away on account of what mum might do.

I know there’s nothing I can do but I still can’t move on. Out of all the LGBT friends we have, not one of them has become estranged from a parent as a result of coming out and although my boyfriend tries to understand he knows that he can’t really feel what this is like. It hurts him too, I think, because he wants to solve the issue and stop me from getting so down about it but he can’t. It’s not like there are any magic words to convince mum that I’m not some abhorrent freak, but any words of advice would be gratefully received.

 

I probably left out some quite crucial information, so much for trying not to write a novel. My parents are actually divorced now, they announced they were going to split up a few days after I came out which caused my older sister and brother to blame me even though dad said that the decision to split was made years ago and they had agreed to stay together until me and my sister were 18. Dad only has contact with her if it's to do with their grandchildren and all he'll say is that she has "serious problems" so I don't think much has changed with her. I also know that on twitter she lists herself as being a mum to three children, well last time I counted there were four of us.

I think the worst thing is that this is nothing to do with religion, she has always been so strong in her atheism. I could understand it if she truly believed that the bible said she needed to cut me off, but there is no such reason behind what she did. I guess I need to know why she said all those things but I don't know if I can deal with her rejecting me for a second time.

 

Went offline for the weekend but I thought it was only right that I thank you guys for your input, I was in a difficult place on Friday – a friend had sent me a link to that letter from a man disowning his son and it triggered everything again and I had no outlet for all that it threw up. Over the weekend I talked it over with my boyfriend and I think we’ve decided on how to approach this now, I need to make contact with her somehow because if the first time I have contact with her again is at the wedding then I’ll have no idea how she will react. We think the best idea is to write to her, but I’m going to take my time with composing it because we have nearly a year until the wedding. I said that I wasn’t even sure whether to go to the wedding or not and he said that I’d regret not going (very true) and that whatever happened we’d get through it together. That moment reminded me of the day that everything blew up at home after I came out and I ran away to my aunt’s house to get away from everything. She hugged me and held me there as I cried and said that even though I didn’t feel it that everything would be okay, that I could still be successful at university, in my career and when the time was right that I’d meet a boy to share my life with if that was what I wanted. Despite feeling complete hopelessness I believed what she said wholeheartedly, just like I believe what my boyfriend said even though I didn’t previously share that optimism. That might sound a bit mad but it meant something to me.

I also called my sister (the one getting married), she has the most contact with mum out of all of my siblings. I already knew that any attempts to talk about me were shut down so they didn’t bother any more, but she’s said that she’ll try and see if her views have changed any or if she can encourage them to. Going to try and think a bit more positively now and my boyfriend is going to stop apologising for having a loving mother and try and help me whenever I need it (he found the perfect way to do this, start a sentence with ‘when we get married’ ).

Thanks for letting me get this out, hoping that my next contribution is a bit less depressing!