Soo here's how my coming out has been so far, I've posted a few threads so some of you might remember: - Came out to 9 very close friends in April at university....went amazingly well, have a lot of support from them. This part went so well that I never thought anything could go wrong. - I'm of south asian origin (India), an only child & my parents have pretty orthodox Hindu views. My parents are also both doctors, they are the type of doctors that imo are the arrogant type "what I say is right because I'm a doctor, so deal with it"...that's their attitude. We've lived in the UK for all my life but my parents recently permanently shifted back to India, I continue to stay in the UK though because I'm at university here and have no intention of leaving the country. - So Came out to mum at the end of April. Very bad reaction. She's convinced I can change, says its unnatural, when I get a boyfriend I won't be allowed home etc. Further more she went into depression, even said suicidal things sometimes to me which basically was "I have no grand children to look forward to or any weddings. You're our only son, it's your responsibility to get married or your mum will die". - Came to India for the summer in June. Mum outed me to grandma then which was a terrible decision as she's from a generation that doesn't even know what homosexuality means. Her reaction was pretty much the same as mums but calmer in how she handled it...honestly I felt a bit proud about how grandma handled it...it could've gone so much worse with her but it just went bad. But now mums blaming Grandmas health on me saying she's become depressed since she's found out. - Over the summer despite my best efforts to educate mum I've failed. She doesn't want to listen to anything, or read anything online. All she knows is "It's unnatural" & she just says that she's had to treat patients in hospitals because they were gay, the reason being some condition related to the anus/rectum that they had (and she goes on listing many diseases that can happen due to anal sex). So now we come to dad. Mum told dad last night and the reactions been really bad once again. My dad hasn't even spoken to me since, he's just used mum to tell me what he wants to tell me. He might speak to me today but I dunno, we never speak much anyway in general, our relationship is pretty much non-existent. Dad told mum I'll definitely get HIV & once again named diseases that he's seen in the hospital etc. Dad apparently has "gay friends" who changed & the ones who didn't got HIV and lived a terrible lifestyle. He said I'll have to get back together with my ex girlfriend (who I broke up with over 2 years ago now). He thinks if I get a girlfriend she'll "change" me. If I don't do any of this then they will still support my accommodation fees for university & will make sure I can finish my degree but after that I'm "on my own". Mum also told dad I keep quoting pages from the American Psychology Association & other medical associations and dad basically said back to her, "That's all Bullsh*t, let him dare to quote such things to me!". How can one reason against such misguided hate? My dad also says that if I don't agree to get a girlfriend and "select" this lifestyle then he will tell all our relatives etc. Now I honestly don't care about that for myself...but I do care about it for my mum, it would break her if everyone found out as people won't be kind. And try as I might I'll feel a bit guilty for that...even though I know I'm not at fault I will feel guilty, I know that. Now I don't want to lie to them so I will tell them I'm not going get a girlfriend or do anything like that. Truth be told I'm very scared of my dad & have been since a young age. He's been a strict father, shouts a lot etc. I'm afraid of even coming face to face with him today for the first time since he's found out. And I'm afraid of what his reaction will be to me saying "NO, I'm not gonna live life by your rules"...because I know for sure mum & him think I'll give in. I have a month more till I go back to UK & then hopefully never come back to India for longer than 2 weeks at a time. Either way all of this is starting to affect my day to day functioning now. I feel like being lazy, not doing much, not reading etc. At times I feel lots of guilt as my mum keeps saying I'm not fulfilling my responsibility. Then at other times I feel anger, hate. I just hope these feelings all calm down soon. I'm just sick of being blamed for everyone's ill health & for the whole family crumbling because of me. So now the big dilemma for me is whether I should lie & make sure the next month goes fine Or should I tell the truth and say no to them. This could potentially make the following month hell.
I'm sorry to hear about your situation, that is a really tough one. That's good they'll support you until you get your degree, that is basically all you need anyway. You don't have a responsibility to give your parents grandchildren. Maybe in time they'll come to understand things better, but in all honesty they don't really sound like they are healthy people to have in your life. I know they are your parents and everything, but still. You only have one life and you have to live it for yourself and be happy. Sometimes that includes giving up loved ones that won't accept you for who you are and cannot change. As for your dilemma, I would just tell the truth. At this point, what do you really have to lose? Unfortunately, they both seem pretty against you as it is and it's much harder to keep up with a lie and will eventually take a toll on you as well.
You have two major advantages in your situation: 1. You have no intention of going back to India, so the situation there is really irrelevant. Your parents can deal with it or not, as they choose - they're adults just like you and can choose to react in an adult way or to seek to blackmail you with threats of suicide and family dishonour. You have grown up as a British Indian and you have certain expectations as a result of that. Your expectations are not secondary to their expectations as Indians who grew up in a different time and setting. 2. You know the facts about how you conduct your life and not the theory they've based their prejudices on. Yes of course there are some gay men who run the risk of HIV, but the disease has spread more rapidly through the heterosexual community in some countries, so their argument would seem to suggest you shouldn't risk having sex with girls either. If you know that you don't live that kind of life, then they are ignorant of the facts, and possibly don't want to hear the truth anyway. You have been honest and there's nothing more you can do. Your duty is to yourself and not as a producer of grandchildren. Can I say that I admire your courage in what you have done. I worked in the Southall area and had many friends and students from an Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi background and I KNOW how much pressure you will have felt to conform.
Seems like you need a hug (*hug*). I'm sorry to see that coming out to your family isnt going very well. I'd imagine that they also took it harder because you are an only child/son. I would of probably had a similar situation with my fathers side of the family, but I've never had a relationship with him nor his family anyway. All I can say is that you have to know that there is nothing wrong with you and it is their problem. Sure it isnt fun not having a real relationship with you relatives, but it is alot worse to live in constant conflict. They cant blame all ill-fate as a result of you, nor can you allow youself to fall apart because of them. Its never easy to be stronger than our struggles, but the faster we are able to pick ourselfs of the ground and be confident in ourselfs the better it will be. You have to stand your ground and not allow them to change you. You dont not owe them that.
Live you life the way you want to live it! If you don't you will have major regrets! I have known a couple of guys who were married to women 2 kids house you name it and still gay! they messed around on there wives on the side for years... why did they do it...pressure from family!
(*hug*) what you did was very brave.(&&&) if it's a month before leaving for the UK, i'd say go for it. i know a month is a long time, but if less communication between you & your parents eases, if not pauses any tensions, then maybe it might help pass the time until then. if you go back to India if you have to, you could choose to not see them again until you go back to the UK. you know your parents better than any of us, but from what i gather, i know the type. but bobbgooduk sounds like he's got it covered.
That is really terrible, I hope that you will be able to move past your family's unfounded prejudices and attempted manipulation. Good luck!
Thanks for the kind words guys @Lance Yeah I don't see what I have to lose by telling the truth. I'm just afraid of his reaction to it. I've been afraid of my dad since a young age really & it's just stayed. Whenever he says something I subconsciously just go along with it & say yes as I'm too afraid to get into any sort of conflict. Hope I can stand up to this though. So far my mums the only channel of communication. @Bobbgooduk Yeah the pressure to conform is immense. Mum just spoke to me again and she is close to forcing me at this point but I keep saying now of course. Right now I'm just telling her that I wanna focus on studies & getting somewhere in life career wise so don't distract me. @gen Thanks for the hug . I'm trying very hard to not let myself fall apart, I fear I have partially fallen apart here. But when I go back to UK, being with supporting loving friends again will solve everything hopefully. @steelcityguy Wow that sounds awful. All that cheating and so on . It's stuff like that which I fear if I "live a lie".
Close to forcing you to do what? Could you not come back to the UK early - fake a resit or something?
She is forcing me to make a promise that I'll try to be more "fond" of girls as I'll slowly get attracted to them then. I don't understand why she thinks so, and its not like I hate girls, most of my friends are girls and I love them..but yeah as friends...nothing more. I don't want to make a fake promise to her & give her false hope. And she's forcing me to commit to never having relations with any man. I just can't make such a false promise to her I told her that. But she's nagging me all the time about it now. I can't as our results are out & they know I've passed, they've seen the results e-mail and stuff. I'd love to go back to UK right away, but they won't let me and unfortunately I don't have a good enough reason to. I'll have to somehow just get through this month. Thankfully I'm going on to my grandmas town for a week later this month so that will cut one week out in the middle.
My dad would flip if i told him. Mom? I'm not sure. I'll say something "gay" and she'll always bring up her gay friends saying "ew! You sound like him". I can only pray for you and myself I hope everything goes well for us both. In time i'm sure they'll come to terms with it all. I also come from a family that "looks down" on the gay community. I wish it was easier : /
I too have felt the pressure to conform--although perhaps not as strongly--from my parents and their large group of Chinese-American friends. I would say that you should pursue your own happiness. Be successful in your own right, and achieve something that your parents would be proud of (or should be), but don't do it out of duty to them or to family in India--do it because you want to, because it makes you happy. Create a family of your own in the UK, and live a fulfilling life. You have done more than you needed to to educate your parents and give them the space they need to come to terms with your orientation, but it looks like they are so far refusing to accept you as you are despite your earnest efforts. You need not go any further, because it'd likely be a waste of energy, so you should focus your energy on making your own life in the UK. If they eventually come through and accept you, embrace it. Otherwise, you have no obligation to sacrifice your happiness for your family's, and they have to at least acknowledge that they can't change you and make their own decisions about how to deal with it.
I'm sorry to hear about how your parents reacted. When I came out to my parents in high school they both took it pretty badly too and it wasn't pretty at all. I think part of the reason my parents took it so hard was because I'm the only daughter in the family, with me having a few brothers and no sisters. Hopefully things start to get better for you!
Hey there! I know exactly what you mean. My dad used to beat me with his belt like a whip and said "if you stop crying, I will stop." ...it literally destroyed my trust in anyone, esp adults. Everytime I tried to talk to an adult, like a teacher, for anything, I would always start crying and I had no reasonable explanation. I got over it after a few years, but theres always this little thing that makes me not want to say much, if at all. Later in my life, I figured out my dad was the reason. There came a point where I said that when I grow up, I will be anything BUT my parents. Now, I never listen to them.... generally, this has helped me be more successful. At this point, I can out force my dad too, so he really doesn't have anything over me. My parents and siblings have ideas and morals that are so different from mine - in my opinion, theirs are ignorant and closed-minded. I've always been the sore thumb sticking out of even my extended family. It doesn't help that all the guys in my generation are so much younger than me and all the girls are so much older... i'm stuck in the middle of two like phases of the family. Anyways, I came to deal with it. I always believe that I was born to break the closed-minded traditions of my family and generally of our race. Same thing, I know exactly what you mean. They want you to be smart, best in class, get a great job, be a social butterfly,wtc... be basically an impossible human being. I always get, why don't you wear those things that those other boys always wear , why are you going to college in NY, everyone else went to a UC or Cal State, and the one I hate the most is why do you take so many hard classes - and they still expect that easier classes is supposed to get me into a good college >.> I don't listen to her. Their own thoughts contradict themselves. I always get ask my parents, why can't you... and point out their "flaws." It usually gets them to shut up. Its tough to be in a situation like that. Its a day by day thing - everyday, you have to struggle to keep yourself from breaking. Hold onto the hope you have in UK - thats how I've dealt with situations like yours - obviously, they weren't as severe. Dear, stay strong. You have been extremely brave thus far and I know you can make it through
So my mum told me this morning that my dad expects answers from me later day. Last night he basically came & told me you're too young to be gay. Apparently I need to analyse my childhood, look at whats natural...same stuff basically. He also said if I don't change my mum will eat his head for the rest of his life & he can't deal with people that "nag". @ashkii Thanks for the prayers @Mej7 Yeah I'm going try hard to stand up to him & tell him I'm not going to change. But when I face him any courage I sum up disappears. @Chouchou ..yeah that's what my aim is going to be. Making them proud of me in other ways, but more than anything making myself proud of me too. This age shouldn't be spent worrying about parents acceptance & so on. I'm gonna try to make that clear to them. @Marie2008 Thanks . Hope your parents have come more to terms with it now! @SunSparks Yeah that's exactly why I'm so afraid of him too. Getting beaten in childhood. It was horrifying & like for you it led to many trust issues for me. Thankfully in that time my mum was really my saviour....really she pretty much emotionally brought me up. And no matter how much I know it's not my fault I feel bad for making her sad as she's been a wonderful mum up until this point. haha exactly...the impossible human being. I don't see how its fair to have such expectations of someone. They pretty much didn't like me playing the piano instead of the guitar either...and this just broke my enthusiasm for the piano eventually too, so I gave it up (which was such a weak willed decision in retrospect). Like you said their idea of what they want us to be is full of contradictions. Whatever happened to be who you want to be, it's you life? Thanks for the support, I'm gonna try not to break!
Hey! I'm really sorry about your situation. I'm Indian too and can relate to most of the things you said. If you want to talk or be friends, please let me know by replying here or sending me a message. Would love to talk to someone with the same cultural background and circumstances.
Just a reminder: This poster hasn't been on EC since October -- this thread is from August 2012 -- and so probably isn't going to see any of the recent messages posted.
