Another 'coming out to dad' thread.

I know there are many of these threads already, so I'm not expecting anything new advice-wise. I really just need to offload my concerns with the comforting thought that someone else may be reading and empathizing.

I seem to have got myself into a difficult situation on my 'journey' to revealing my sexuality to others. My situation seems unique in that I'm entirely comfortable with telling anyone that I'm gay with the exception of my father. I told a few friends over a year ago, then eventually moved onto telling my mother. A year later and the prospect of denying my sexuality to anyone seems ridiculous - I've reached the stage where I can comfortably tell anyone that I'm gay. I'm completely open to the prospect of a relationship and went to a gay bar recently with far less anxiety than I would have faced before. If I'm entirely honest, a part of me feels as if the process is complete!

At the same time, there is an entirely separate side to me that manifests itself whenever I'm around my father. It's peculiar, because whenever he's out of the room (parents are still together) I'm entirely free to be myself, and yet whenever he's around I seem to regress to the repressed closet case that I was two years ago. Time after time I have built myself up to what feels like breaking point in anticipation of coming out, then sat in a room with him when he's alone, only to cave in at the last minute. It's so easy to visualize telling him, yet when I'm actually there, next to him, I feel as if nothing has changed.

The reasons behind it are not particularly unique. I've always been far closer to my mother than my father; we rarely discuss anything involving our own emotions, in fact we rarely discuss anything that doesn't concern the mundane. I feel as if my role as his son is not to be myself, but to (brace yourselves for a cliché) make him proud. I'm on a gap year at the moment after managing to get the grades to study at Oxford or UCL next year, and I'm hoping to study Medicine at post-graduate level, yet he seems almost entirely uninterested. I feel as if I'm slowing down more and more, as if dragging around his expectations for eighteen years (and those of others, to a lesser extent) has finally caught up with me and left me exhausted. The question is, when I feel so burnt out now, how do I muster the energy and courage to push through this brick wall and tell him?

Apologies if this post seems convoluted and meandering, I've tried to express this as articulately as I can but as you all probably know emotions don't often come out (pardon the pun) in an organized fashion!